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Going Dark…

September 27, 2010 – 8:55 pm

I’ve been blogging since before the term weblog had been coined. I’ve seen the birth, and the demise, of social networking.

Oh wait, the demise part hasn’t happened yet… right?

For those of you who don’t know me (why the @(*$*@ are you reading my blog?), you might not know that I’ve grown a strong distaste for social networking as of late. I deleted my Facebook page a long time ago. I absolutely refused to ever get a MySpace page. I don’t follow anyone on twitter, nor do I tweet.

I judge a person’s worth on a scale that’s a direct inverse of the number of Facebook friends they have. Seriously, the only people I’ve ever met that have ridiculous amounts of social networking “friends” are always the ones that are completely clueless as to how much people hate them.

I don’t want to learn something about you through a Facebook update. Nor do I want people learning stuff about me through someone else’s “at a glance” updates page. No I didn’t read your blog, and no I’m not going to. If you’d like to talk to me, go old school: write me an email, or a letter, or pick up the telegraph machine and dial my number. Or, go new school and VOIP / webcam me. I’ll be doing the same.

Of course, the hypocrisy of writing this in blog form is not lost on me. I guess I just felt like I owed it to myself and the rest of the internet to make this post.

Communication technology is supposed to bring us closer together. Despite what certain controlling bodies may want, it’s meant to enable us, the commoners, to have a voice. It’s meant to redistribute the true power that comes along with knowledge to the people.

Social networking doesn’t bring us closer together, it keeps us from really communicating. It’s the new opiate for the masses. Because mind-numbing passive entertainment is no longer enough. We need to be watching television and checking status updates on our smart phones simultaneously.

Does anyone out there really feel more connected or enabled now?

Yeah? Let me guess, you have 600 Facebook friends don’t you?

I’m not saying that I think these new communication technologies we’ve built are worthless. I think using twitter to help fight fires is both innovative, and completely stupid — but hey, if it works, why not? Looking to make new business or research connections? Yeah that makes sense. Obsessively pouring the details of your mundane bullshit life into a server on the internet so your equally as boring and mundane friends, and their friends, can know about the minutia of your life? Lame.

It’s truly odd to me. I spent my youth practically growing up inside a computer. I had a computer life, and a real life… not because I didn’t want the worlds to collide, but because they couldn’t. No one else I knew was jacked in. And I loved it… I loved spending hours hanging out with “friends” on IRC, and causing mischief. It was an exciting time of discovery… I remember the first MP3 player (the 16-bit reference player from the Fraunhofer Society), the first JPEGs, dear god the first animated GIFs. It was a playground filled with cool people, doing interesting things.

Now it’s a bunch of douchey idiots using the technology that we once used to exchange information and “subvert the global suppression!” (AKA HACK THE PLANET!) (we were young okay), to talk about what they did last night, and what cute things their cats do. Let’s not forget the old jaded people who do nothing but rant (ahem).

Don’t get me wrong, I still love the internet. It’s grown into something I never would have imagined. It really is what I had hoped it would become, more so. It really can connect us all — hell I frequently use it to talk to a close friend who lives in Ireland. Pen and paper has nothing on Skype! It really does keep power in the hands of the people. Sort of. If you want to know the truth you can actually find it. Of course, the surface is still nothing but brainwashing and media hype. We can’t win them all I guess.

Anyway, as I was saying… it’s truly a weird thing for me. To think about turning off my internet presence. It’s something I’ve been doing for over half my life. I’m not a researcher, but I still consider myself a computer scientist at heart. Part of me just feels weird about what seems like going backward. I feel a bit like a religious zealot or some other crazy person… like I should be shunned or locked up or something.

But, nevertheless, here I am. Going Dark.

I encourage everyone to do the same: disconnect from social media, and connect to people… real people.

Do something real… go outside. Talk to someone. Pick up the phone. Hug someone. Make love to your spouse. Go to a bar. Walk the dog. Pet your cat. Do anything… anything but waste your time on Facebook. Hell, even watch TV… at least with TV there’s no pretending that you’re not alone.

Good-bye no one. Hello life.

p.s. Look for my new project: goingdark.org, coming soon! A site where people who don’t like social networking can go to meet other people who don’t like social networking. :P.

By Tim.|Posted in Advected River Textures, Blog, Gizmod, News, Programming, Projects, Rants|

Sweet, sweet, creamy, goodness…

July 3, 2010 – 9:44 pm

A couple weeks ago I departed on a journey… an entirely new phase of life one might say. It started with a growing distaste for modern food manufacturing techniques and an expensive premium ice cream habit, and culminated in the arrival of a Cuisinart ICE-50BCC Ice Cream Maker. I did a lot of research before purchasing it, and despite being considered a “budget” ice cream maker, it gets great ratings from ice cream people (a group which is, perhaps, even more zealous than coffee people, or Apple people).

So here’s my quick review: it’s about as quiet as a baby seal being clubbed to death. No joke, it makes a loud screaming noise when the churning gets tough. Eerie. It takes up a lot of counter space, and it’s not the most aesthetically pleasing device, nor is it the most well made. The freezing unit looks pretty solid, but the motor arm, and mixing paddle are made from plastic. That said the only other device I’d consider purchasing, the Lello Musso Lussino Ice Cream Maker 4080, costs significantly more than the Cuisinart. When this one burns out I’ll probably replace it with the Lello though.

Having said all that, I would, without hesitation, recommend the 50BCC to anyone. There’s a markedly clear division in my life: there’s my life as it was prior to owning an ice cream maker, and there’s my life as it is now. It’s hard to describe what it’s like, but the best I can come up with is this: it’s like having a garden, only instead of the garden being made of dirt it’s a metal cube, and instead of growing plants, the end result is a sweet, creamy, cold, nectar of the gods, set to the tune of whatever your brain and tastebuds can come up with. Honestly now I look at every ingredient and wonder about its suitability for inclusion into an ice cream. Pickles: considered it, rejected it. Cayenne pepper: considered it, have a plan for it. Peas: considered it, unsure about it.

And similar to having a garden, with each mouthful of god nectar you can smile in the smug satisfaction of being able to stick some xantham gum up the ass of some douchebag corporate foodie in one of the many tiny pointless towns called Exploitedville, USA. Go ahead, club a baby seal. Not only will you not hear it because your 50BCC will be screaming like a banshee, but you’ll have plenty of good food karma to spare. I wonder: baby seal ice cream? Wrong, just wrong.

Have you ever taken a close look at what happens when grocery store ice cream melts? Have you ever wondered why ice cream from the store is kind of “fluffy?” Let me assure you that the weird liquid separation you see when it melts, and the fluffy texture are in no way natural. Modern ice cream barely qualifies as ice cream at all. In fact, most commercial ice creams are solidified through the use of various viscous compounds. The most common is Xantham gum, which if produced in North America, is almost certainly derived from corn. Even “all natural” ice creams will often include guar gum, or “natural tara gum”. Yes tara gum is made from a plant, but no it’s not natural. It’s also used for killing insects and in creating leather for furniture. So when buying ice cream it’s your choice: corn or insect free leather. Mmmm… tasty couch!

The only exception I’ve been able to find is good ‘ol Häagen-Dazs. The downfall to the Dazs, as I can attest to, is it comes in small packages and is quite expensive. Not only that but the flavor selection is a bit limited.

And, now that I have an ice cream maker, I can say that Dazs isn’t even that good. Even some of my “failed” creations are leaps and bounds ahead of Dasz in terms of both texture, and flavor. Did you know that real French Vanilla ice cream is made with custard? I do now, because I’ve made it, and although it’s quite a bit different than the so called “French Vanilla” you can buy in the store, it’s also much, much, better. Seriously they put some egg ingredients in there, along with some yellow colouring, and call it French Vanilla.

I should also give a warning: I used to pretend this blog was mostly devoted to technology and computer science related topics, but likely for the next while it will be devoted mostly to ice cream recipes :).

On that note I’ll end with a killer recipe I came up with today. I previously made a Peanut Butter and Banana ice cream, but today I made two batches, one of peanut butter, and another of banana. They both turned out awesome, but the PB was the star for me. Of course they compliment each other well. But anyway, here’s the Peanut Butter:

Ingredients:

1/4 to 1/2 cup Peanut Butter to taste (choose your favorite kind, I used a creamy variety because I like creamy ice cream)
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup table cream
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup organic granulated sugar

Directions:

Put the sugar, peanut butter, and milk in a sauce pan and slowly heat the mixture until the peanut butter is dissolved. Transfer it to a mixing bowl and whisk it until the sugar is dissolved (if it isn’t already), put it in the freezer and wait for it to be cold again. Mix in the creams, and you’re good to go!

The hardest part is getting the PB ratio correct. The taste changes a bit during the freezing process, it gets a little less potent, so keep that in mind. I started with ~1/4 cup but when I added in the creams I realized it wasn’t going to have the punch I wanted, so I added in another few spoon fulls. I was too lazy to reheat the mixture, so the newly added PB gave the ice cream some interesting flaky bits which I actually kind of like. I might make it like that on purpose again next time.

By Tim.|Posted in Blog, Rants|

Lost Fallout

May 29, 2010 – 4:00 pm

I wasn’t the biggest Lost fan around, nor did I really believe that Abrams had a detailed plan figured out for the storyline, but I was hopeful that the entire plot at least wasn’t going to be some sick, twisted, joke on the unsuspecting masses. Of course, this post is a little bit late to be merely another complaint thread about how much the finale sucked as there are plenty of those floating around. Nevertheless, I can’t help but stating, for the record, that there’s really only two explanations for Lost that I can conceive of: 1) Abrams really thought they could tie all the pieces and plot arcs together in the end (?!), or 2) his goal was merely to make money over the short term by creating a plot so interesting that he knew it wouldn’t be possible to be explained in the end.

Since I know for a fact that Abrams is not stupid that rules out #1 which, sadly, leaves us to contemplate the notion that the entire six seasons of Lost really was nothing more than a joke on millions of people. It makes a great deal of sense, and it was an interesting ride, but it was clearly falling apart at the seams by the end: the numbers that dominated the first two seasons were explained by the single sentence “Jacob liked numbers?” Really? The whole time travel and moving island plot arcs were completely inconsequential and meaningless. Again… really? The statues? Dharma Initiative experiments… all pointless.

And, the best, the whole point and cause of everything: the light inside the island. It’s a transparent plot device that was whipped up and inserted in the final portion of the final season which was meant to explain the unexplainable. But, it’s a complete fallacy, you can’t explain unexplained phenomena with something else that never gets explained.

It would be easy to continue ad nauseam, but since I promised this wouldn’t be just another complaint thread, I’ll stop there. My point is, Lost was a joke. A cruel, but very profitable joke, on those of us who thought perhaps there really was a plan, and kept watching in anticipation of learning how all the puzzle pieces fit together.

It’s been about a week now since I watched the final episode, and it’s had some time to sink in. At first I was just like “well… that sucked.” But, the more I thought about it the more I realized that I actually consider Lost a fairly big injustice. Most will shrug it off, but it’s becoming a trend. I never thought the Battlestar ending could be usurped as far as disappointing show enders go, but sure enough, Lost did it.

So here’s my question to J.J. Abrams: why should I invest hours watching any more of your shows? Sometimes I’m able to avoid certain products simply out of some moral or ethical principle, but in this case it’s much easier. I’ve actually been soured against network television. I used to enjoy watching Fringe (another Abrams show), and now there’s no way I can stomache it. It’s as if Lost was the entertainment equivalent of food poisoning for me.

Fortunately not all television shows have gone the way of Lost. Legend of the Seeker is probably my favorite currently airing TV show right now. Yeah it seems a bit lame on the surface… it’s kind of cheezy, but the storyline is excellent. It’s based on a series of novels by Terry Goodkind, so unless they are completely inept, I can’t see how they could screw it up.

That said, I’m definitely going to be a much more cautious about investing that much time in a TV show again. Even without commercials, all six seasons of lost amounts to 84 hours of time. When these types of shows pop up again I think I’m going to wait on the sidelines until the show is done and then watch it via whatever media delivery / storage mechanism is popular at the time.

Perhaps I’ll go back to reading books for a while. They’re not guaranteed to be any better, but at least they don’t cram ads down my throat, nor do they typically make me want to burn them after I’ve finished reading them.

By Tim.|Posted in Blog, Rants|

KDE 4.2: The Answer?

January 31, 2009 – 6:39 pm

I’ve used my share of window managers and desktop environments over the years; I think the progression went something like this: DOS (single window?) -> DESQview -> Windows 3.1 through WinNT -> WindowMaker -> Enlightenment -> IceWM -> Fluxbox -> E17 -> XFce -> KDE 3.x -> KDE 3.x with Compiz-Fusion -> Gnome + Compiz, and now back to KDE 4.2. From time to time I have also been known to use WinXP, Vista, and OS X. Basically, I’ve tried enough of them to know what I like and do not like.

Up until the 4.0 release I had become an avid KDE user. Like most people, however, I was pretty dismayed at their choice to tag a feature incomplete, and horribly buggy release as 4.0. Yes they did come out and say it wasn’t ready for mass consumption yet, but they pretty much blew it by tagging it as 4.0, when really it was an early, early beta, or perhaps an alpha release — I won’t go on about since it’s already been discussed to death. KDE 3.5 held up fairly well for a while, but eventually Gnome surpassed it in terms of features, stability, and it remained lightweight yet had nice integration with Compiz, meaning I could still appease my inherent fascination with shiny things. So, I begrudgingly left KDE behind.

And now, KDE 4.2 is here, which is being touted as “The Answer” to all the critics. So is it?

First let me say that it really is a great release. It’s what a 4.0 beta should have been. It’s [mostly] stable, and [mostly] feature complete in comparison to 3.5. The new API changes are awesome — it’s an absolute joy to develop for. It’s got a solid foundation, and what they’ve built from it really is a technical achievement — they should be proud of their efforts. All the KDE4 applications have a consistent UI feel, and they all work in exactly the way you’d expect with regards to things like some of the more advanced drag ‘n drop features that OS X has supported for years (and that Microsoft still hasn’t caught on to).

My favorite thing: its window management is absolutely top notch. I thought nothing could beat Compiz, but the new KWin is pretty much perfect. It strikes a great balance between configurability and simplicity. The average user will never know 90% of the things it can do, but for those picky people among us it offers things like: an excellent focus-follows-mouse implementation, the ability to be able to easily set individual windows as on-top or below-others, and the ability to disable or enable window decorations on case by case basis, and that’s just for starters. KWin does everything I want, and more, yet it doesn’t suffer from the insane configuration and menu nightmare that is the Compiz configuration tool.

All that being said, my answer to the question is still a definitive “no”. KDE 4.2 is not The Answer. I am back in Gnome right now due to bugs. I really like konsole but the toggle that disables the menubar does not work, nor does the toggle that disables blinking text. There’s still no native network manager for those with wireless connections. The list of, admittedly minor, complaints goes on at length, and while none of them are a really big deal on their own, as a whole they leave me with a bad aftertaste in mouth… a taste that is reminiscent of an x.0 beta release, and not a .2 release.

However, this release does at least give me hope. I have faith in the KDE developers, and believe that their cause is a good one and a worthy one. They’re creating an excellent new foundation for what should become a consistent and unified interface experience — something Linux has sorely been lacking since the great KDE and Gnome divide began.

By Tim.|Posted in Blog, Rants|