A recent study (Via CNN) found that 61% internet users have rathed the internet as more imprtant that TV and just as important as books and newspapers. Wait do people still read newspapers? I guess....

I know when I moved to SF, I was working to get my DSL running the same day I got my phone service. I think Cable TV came almost a year later. I know that the AOL/Time warner thing has gotten a lot of bad press , and Time Warner goofed because, as we all know AOL is evil(from BobbySays.org), but the premise beihind the merger is still, I think, wise. Books, TV, Movies, all entertainment - I think - will eventually find it's way into the home via the internet.

We're not there yet - I mean, even with DSL it would take an hour or so to download a full movie from Blockbuster, though you could stream it almost instantly (The problem with streaming, currently, is you'll get jumps and skips - which isn't accapetable if you're paying 4 bucks a pop to watch).

Anyway, I agree with the study. You can take my AT&T Cable away, you can have my BlackAdder compete DVD set - but I can't live without my DSL.

In a 'geek' related story, Kasperov lost game 2 against 'little blue'. Here's an audio story about that.

There are a few 'bad words so old ears only!

I'm off to surf!

**************************** Okay, I fixed the music link. I did this entry at work where I have a spiffy new computer, but unfortunately, Evil Microsoft has WM Player default to a 'ID Protect ripped music' thingy. I turned it off (and I actually installed Music Match which I prefer anyway), but anything I ripped during that stage is 'protected'. Sorry if you clicked the music link and freaked out.

Note: This is political in Nature. Feel free to skip down to my Ski trip or School House Rock below.

Clinton was a lying scumbag who lacked leadership, being driven purely by poll numbers while having sex with Interns. He lacked any sort of moral fiber and, because they choose him as their leader, the Democratic party also lacks any sort of moral fiber.

Or so we're told.

Bush won, apparently, because he is a "compassionate" conservative who wasn't ruled by polls and had good moral fiber.

Or so we're told. Some interesting things have been happening in the land of BUSH, however.

Race Relations:

After distancing themselves from Trent Lott and stumbling over themselves to let minorities in the US know that Bush is on their side, Bush had his people file briefs opposing 'quotas' in admissions policies for the University of Michigan. (From CNN). Now, I don't know what SCOTUS will do with the case, but this is another great example of Bush shaking hands with his right and clubbing with his left (Or, maybe more appropriately clubbing with the right).

Now, I'm actually an opponent to the concept of raced based quotas. It is racial discrimination - by definition. Ideally, we wouldn't need it. However, having blind trust that our current society will treat everyone fairly is laughable. I wish we were in a place where people were based purely on their potential. We aren't. And if you remove the quota system (which basically suggests that your racial population should roughly mirror that of the population as a whole), it still won't be fair. Especially in a country where simply having a white sounding name is a benefit (read about this study here).

There's actually a small little aside by Michael Kinsley who suggests that Bush benefited from a form of affirmative action. (Story.

Compassion

Bush is compassionate, though. He is. That's why he appointed a rabid anti-gay fundamentalist to his AIDS taskforce (I'll skip the story of how he's having governmental agencies remove any items he disagrees with, for now). This is a guy who routinely referred to gay people as living a 'death' style (as MSNBC. He's decided to refuse the post (Thanks, again CNN. That doesn't make the fact that Bush chose him any less vile (Yes, AFTER it was learned he was refusing the post, Ari stepped in with he 'His views don't blahblahblahblah...so get off our backs line).

Straight Forward

Well, okay so he's not compassionate, nor conservative, and he's anti-minority. That's okay, because he has the moral strength to do what he thinks is right, and doesn't care about polls. He would never, say, have his staff tape over 'Made in China' labels on boxes which were part of his "Strengthening America's Economy" pitch. No wait, he did. This is so manipulative, it's almost funny. Apparently finding items actually Made in the USA was too troublesome - they had to just cover over the China labels. China. Cnn. Read.

So I'm working to better grasp Flash's Action Scripting and I have plans to completely Flash-ize my site. The Flash MX (And Flash Player 6), I think, represents a really cool direction in web development.

Flash has long been considered more of a 'flashy' web tool than a development tool, but MX takes Flash towards a powerful front-end tool which, in conjunction with perl or Cold Fusion or other back-end language, allows for very powerful, yet also graceful, websites.

The challenge in programming with Flash is that in addition to the 'programming', flash executes codes on a frame-based method, which twists your mind a little bit (or at least my mind). Code won't execute until the 'play head' moves to the frame that has the code attached (this part makes sense).

The other challenge is that code is often executed before 'stage updates' so if you write a code to move an element on the stage, you can't just tell it to move. You need to code it in a way, which incorporates stage updates. This is a little more complicated than you think.

My long terms goals, in addition to converting my whole website to flash is to also convert my blogger to flash. I would need to use perl as both a tranlslater for the MySql server as well as an html sifter, becuase flash only understands basic formatting html tags. The other puzzler is that Flash won't register with search engines - so I may need to make html 'info' pages, which will allow my pages to be read by Yahoo and other engines.

Most likely I'll get bored and play Mafia instead.

In my quest to make sure I keep America's economy sound, I have given into my nostalgic nature and purchased the 30th Anniversary School House Rock dvd.

It's all here. America Rock. Multiplication Rock. Grammer Rock. Even a few never before seen ones.

Anyway...I'm off to recapture my childhood.

I'm just a bill....

Maybe I am getting older. My back hurts - though it's slowly getting better. Before you feel too bad for me, I suppose I should mention that it hurts because I spent the weekend learning to SnoBoard at Lake Tahoe (and a little bit of gambling in Reno NV).

Mike, I and a bunch O Folks rented a car and drove up on Friday to Heavenly Ski Resort - which has a fantastic view. You're basically skiing (or in this case Boarding) on top of a mountain, which is itself on top of a mountain. Here's a peek....

SnoBoarding is a lot of fun, but MUCH harder than skiing. You also tend to fall backwards a lot - which is why my back (and shoulders) hurt.

We stayed in Reno (which is about 1 hr drive from Heavenly) at the Sands Regency - which was a little cheap - but didn't cost much.

The word of the day, however was Buffet.

"Everyday is a new Buffet, I get a little bit fatter!"*

The food was great. The last day we paid 9.99 for a champagne brunch - then rolled ourselves into the car and drove. The added weight probably didn't help my back.

* Sung to the tune of Everyday is a Winding Road by Sheryl Crow.

I've been visiting the roaring 20s a lot lately which has left me yearning for those days when I could slip on my fedora hat, grab the ol' Model T, and slip out to a jazz club.

Well, okay. I never really did any of those things - but between Seeing Chicago, the Movie/Musical and playing Mafia - I'm all about the 20s.

Chicago

Okay. Who knew Richard Gere could sing AND tap-dance? This all star cast does a fantastic job of singing and dancing and brining Chicago to life. I didn't feel like I was watching a movie, I really felt like I was watching a Musical. Even Queen Latifah was great! I highly recommend going to see it. Best 10 bucks you'll ever spend! (Visit the website here.)

Mafia

Okay, I bought this game a while ago and dropped it about a week after I bought it out of frustration. The first few missions were cool, but then there was this 'racing game' mission that was impossible. After a couple of months of not playing, I found a cheat to pass it and I'm glad I didn't give up on it. This game is akin to RPing your favorite Mafia movie. From 'The Godfather' to 'Goodfellas' (There's actually a Joe Pesci clone character), this game does a wonderful job of setting the 20s (and 30s) scene, as well as really giving you the sense of playing a Mobster. Everything from liquor runs to assassinations to surviving hits put out on you, this game gives a great realism to it all. The plot is solid and the visuals are stunning. My only complaint is that, sometimes, you drive from point to point in the city for no other reason than for the programmers to show off. It's a minor annoyance though, and doesn't really take anything away from the game. Check it out here.

I have to put this up. I have Hitman 2, which is a Mature FPS game where you play a hitman. So the object of the game is to off people, but in the words of Arnold "...they were all bad".

Anyway - as you might imagine it's a little hard to mass market a video game who's plot involves killing people in a sensitive way. So EIDOS, the game maker, pretty much said 'Screw trying to sanitize it'. Most of the trailers are pretty mature but I stumbled upon one which is too funny not to share. Dark funny, but funny anyway. Be forewarned there's a little bit of male and female nudity. See it here.