So Mozilla Labs recently announced Ubiquity. The wow factor of this Firefox add-on is off the charts. It's very hard to describe exactly what it is but the closest thing that I've seen so far is "a command-line interface for web 2.0 mash-ups", if that makes any sense... It would be best if you simply go to the link above and watch the video created by the man who is taking ownership for Ubiquity, as he does a very nice job demonstrating the different things that can be done with it. Keep in mind that it is still in alpha stage (that's pre-beta), so there are many issues to hammer out and lots of things that are left to incorporate, but the concept is awesome. My favorites after the jump...
So far I love the in-page editing features, such as calculate and translate. I also love the fact that any changes you make persist over reloads and can even be directly sent through an email. I also love the mapping capability. I think that the map-these command is very awesome I just wish it would work in more places than craigslist. Being able to add events to your calendar on the fly is very exciting also (I just wish it worked!!), as well as being able to delete an element from a page. There's plenty more that I have yet to play with and I cannot wait to see what the next iteration of Ubiquity brings!
August 27, 2008
August 26, 2008
Today my Seester provided me with a link to an article, which asks "Are you on the right career path?". Okay, so it may be on the Oprah website and it may be slightly more geared towards women, but so what? It's still got some great inspirational ideas within. My favorite quote after the jump.
"drop the perceptual lens that says, 'Impressing others will make me happy.' A joyful life isn't about others; it's about the brightness that is associated with being alive"
How true. This is something that I am certainly doing on a day-to-day basis, and I know that I've seen others doing as well. We try to impress everybody else in our lives but at the end of the day, the only person that really matters (ourselves) is left feeling unfulfilled. So I guess it validates living life to the fullest and taking advantage of every opportunity. To party!
"drop the perceptual lens that says, 'Impressing others will make me happy.' A joyful life isn't about others; it's about the brightness that is associated with being alive"
How true. This is something that I am certainly doing on a day-to-day basis, and I know that I've seen others doing as well. We try to impress everybody else in our lives but at the end of the day, the only person that really matters (ourselves) is left feeling unfulfilled. So I guess it validates living life to the fullest and taking advantage of every opportunity. To party!
August 19, 2008
Randy Pausch - Last Lecture
Wow. You want to watch something that might change the way you live your life? Hit the jump...
Wow.
Wow.
Yay for Android and Strong Winds!!
Yay for Android! Let's hope T-Mobile's claim that they'll release an Android-powered phone (the HTC Dream) before Xmas this year are true. The FCC already cleared the hardware, so let's just hope that the new Andriod SDK will allow those courageous folks to finish their product on-time. Perhaps I'll switch back to T-Mobile after all? Hit the jump for a funny video showcasing a real idiot.
*~*
Apparently some local news cameras were set up capturing some video of Tropical Storm Fay; however they captured something else that nobody was expecting:
Why anyone would try to go wind surfing during a tropical storm is beyond me. Pretty Extreme I guess... Pretty extreme way to end up in the hospital like this guy. He not only was slammed into the sand repeatedly and dragged through a parking lot, but he ended up face first in the side of a building. He's in critical condition ATM. Could he potentially have won a Darwin Award? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
*~*
Apparently some local news cameras were set up capturing some video of Tropical Storm Fay; however they captured something else that nobody was expecting:
Wow, what an idiot, no?
Why anyone would try to go wind surfing during a tropical storm is beyond me. Pretty Extreme I guess... Pretty extreme way to end up in the hospital like this guy. He not only was slammed into the sand repeatedly and dragged through a parking lot, but he ended up face first in the side of a building. He's in critical condition ATM. Could he potentially have won a Darwin Award? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
August 7, 2008
Darwinism and the Flood
*~*
Something else that I read about yesterday was an article written by David Quammen, [Contagious cancer: The evolution of a killer via Harper's Magazine], which really got me thinking. It brought up some dormant thoughts that I used to toss around about Darwinism and the effect that our civilization has had on this process. Evolution is a funny thing; what I find particularly ponder-worthy revolves around the two basic elements necessary for the process that Darwin laid out: genetic diversity among the individuals of a population and competition among those individuals for limited resources. With these elements present, the door is left open for natural selection, which says that the "more fit" individuals of the species will thrive, and reproduce. I have always stood by the fact that we, as humans, have stunted the process of evolution among our species while the rest of the world continues to evolve and grow. How? Allow me to explain...
There is indeed genetic diversity among humans, and there are definitely limited resources; however we have eliminated the need to compete for these resources. We as a society strive towards actually replenishing our resources, which is not in and of itself the reason that the unrelenting, cold hand of natural selection has loosened its grip on our species. Combined with the idea of helping those in need, those too sick to carry on, or those that cannot support themselves eliminates the cruel course of evolution. Do not get me wrong, I wholly support helping the human race and giving every individual the right to a long and happy life. I am not saying that helping those in need is wrong or advocating against it; I am simply saying that in doing so we have stopped the process of natural selection, thereby stunting our species' evolution.
I was further spurred by [this blurb via H.B.O] that somehow takes the idea of a contagious cancer from the Quammen article and relates it to the Flood Infection in Halo (I told you that I am a sucker for anything related to Halo, no matter how remote).
And I completely see the connection. If you read into the article you'll learn how the Tasmanian Devil has developed a cancer that is contagious due to the tumors' "crumbling like feta cheese", and falling into open wounds of other devils during their apparently frequent "face biting" habits. This description reminds me of the carrier form of the Flood (pictured at right). Perhaps after a few more iterations of this form of cancer, when you knock these waddling, infected Tasmanian Devils over the tumors growing all over their faces will explode into a cloud of spores, which will undoubtedly try to find their way into your body via an open wound. Or perhaps the spores will also have evolved to no longer need an open pathway into your system, but will instead develop tiny tentacles 
and the ability to penetrate your skin and inject it's mutated and offensive DNA into your own, not unlike the Flood's infection form (pictured left). Hmm. Let's hope that the army's exoskeletons become more enclosed and more like the Spartan's Mjolnir armor (with replenishing energy shield and all).
So we are not genetically evolving, but we are indeed mentally evolving. The advancements that science has made recently in the robotic world are stunning. The exoskeletons and bionic limbs that have been developed are amazing, especially when used for those that have lost the use of their legs, or even their arms. We have progressed A.I. and Voice recognition technologies by leaps and bounds. Our robots are now capable of doing almost anything imaginable, from swimming underwater like a snake, to climbing walls, to almost perfect bipedal movements, to carrying heavy loads and resisting all attempts to fall over. While the video of ASIMO running is unintentionally hilarious, that last one needs special attention; here's Lockheed's Mule robot in case you've never seen it... although a bit of advice I would suggest turning your speakers off because it makes a horrible whirring/buzzing noise that will surely be the sound heard as these robots rise up and take over the world:
Now, all that's left to do is create a bipedal robot that has the same "can't knock me over" attitude as the Mule, and the ability to swim underwater like the snake, then make sure to program it so that it knows how to destroy these infection forms so that none may escape. Perhaps then we'll have a chance once we undoubtedly, as a society, allow this infectious cancer to evolve. Of course there's always the backup plan of seven Halo constructs and a few shield worlds here and there...
Something else that I read about yesterday was an article written by David Quammen, [Contagious cancer: The evolution of a killer via Harper's Magazine], which really got me thinking. It brought up some dormant thoughts that I used to toss around about Darwinism and the effect that our civilization has had on this process. Evolution is a funny thing; what I find particularly ponder-worthy revolves around the two basic elements necessary for the process that Darwin laid out: genetic diversity among the individuals of a population and competition among those individuals for limited resources. With these elements present, the door is left open for natural selection, which says that the "more fit" individuals of the species will thrive, and reproduce. I have always stood by the fact that we, as humans, have stunted the process of evolution among our species while the rest of the world continues to evolve and grow. How? Allow me to explain...
There is indeed genetic diversity among humans, and there are definitely limited resources; however we have eliminated the need to compete for these resources. We as a society strive towards actually replenishing our resources, which is not in and of itself the reason that the unrelenting, cold hand of natural selection has loosened its grip on our species. Combined with the idea of helping those in need, those too sick to carry on, or those that cannot support themselves eliminates the cruel course of evolution. Do not get me wrong, I wholly support helping the human race and giving every individual the right to a long and happy life. I am not saying that helping those in need is wrong or advocating against it; I am simply saying that in doing so we have stopped the process of natural selection, thereby stunting our species' evolution.
I was further spurred by [this blurb via H.B.O] that somehow takes the idea of a contagious cancer from the Quammen article and relates it to the Flood Infection in Halo (I told you that I am a sucker for anything related to Halo, no matter how remote).
And I completely see the connection. If you read into the article you'll learn how the Tasmanian Devil has developed a cancer that is contagious due to the tumors' "crumbling like feta cheese", and falling into open wounds of other devils during their apparently frequent "face biting" habits. This description reminds me of the carrier form of the Flood (pictured at right). Perhaps after a few more iterations of this form of cancer, when you knock these waddling, infected Tasmanian Devils over the tumors growing all over their faces will explode into a cloud of spores, which will undoubtedly try to find their way into your body via an open wound. Or perhaps the spores will also have evolved to no longer need an open pathway into your system, but will instead develop tiny tentacles 
and the ability to penetrate your skin and inject it's mutated and offensive DNA into your own, not unlike the Flood's infection form (pictured left). Hmm. Let's hope that the army's exoskeletons become more enclosed and more like the Spartan's Mjolnir armor (with replenishing energy shield and all).So we are not genetically evolving, but we are indeed mentally evolving. The advancements that science has made recently in the robotic world are stunning. The exoskeletons and bionic limbs that have been developed are amazing, especially when used for those that have lost the use of their legs, or even their arms. We have progressed A.I. and Voice recognition technologies by leaps and bounds. Our robots are now capable of doing almost anything imaginable, from swimming underwater like a snake, to climbing walls, to almost perfect bipedal movements, to carrying heavy loads and resisting all attempts to fall over. While the video of ASIMO running is unintentionally hilarious, that last one needs special attention; here's Lockheed's Mule robot in case you've never seen it... although a bit of advice I would suggest turning your speakers off because it makes a horrible whirring/buzzing noise that will surely be the sound heard as these robots rise up and take over the world:
Now, all that's left to do is create a bipedal robot that has the same "can't knock me over" attitude as the Mule, and the ability to swim underwater like the snake, then make sure to program it so that it knows how to destroy these infection forms so that none may escape. Perhaps then we'll have a chance once we undoubtedly, as a society, allow this infectious cancer to evolve. Of course there's always the backup plan of seven Halo constructs and a few shield worlds here and there...
Thoughts on marriage and time travel.
Wedding Update:
After much proliferation, Allie and I have confirmed and booked our date and location for the Reception! So the official date is September 5, 2009. The location is Stephany's Catering in Erie, PA:
Next is the [sarcasm]simple[/sarcasm] matter of figuring out where the ceremony should be. Hopefully, with Allie heading to Erie this process will actually be easier. Granted, I'm sure Nancy (my soon-to-be Mother-in-law) would have been a tremendous help in finding a suitable location; however, when their powers combine... Sorry, I didn't mean for that to turn into a Captain Planet reference, it just kind of happened. Anyway, here's a preview of the 'Save the Date' magnets that we'll be sending out to our loved ones soon:
*~*
For those of you who know who John Titor is; it would seem that perhaps he was correct(is? will be??? How do you refer to a time traveler?). For those of you who don't who I'm talking about: I would suggest reading about him. What you'll find is a rather chilling mystery that could very well be unraveled sometime soon.
The reason why I bring this up is because yesterday, I read about the theory that the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) will in fact create a singularity, and in doing so allow the alteration of time prior to its activation, thereby never actually allowing it to be activated [Time to go Backwards via G4]. Of course there are also theories proposed by Russian Mathematicians that say that the opening of this Singularity will simply allow time travelers from the future to come back to our time. Perhaps this is the event that John spoke of when he mentioned 'a singularity event around 2007' that allowed for the development of time travel. He also confirmed that the multiple worlds theory was in fact the correct theory in relation to quantum physics, which would explain why the ambiguity of 'around 2007' was not correct. He did at least get the CERN part of the prediction right (or at least we'll find out once and if this thing ever gets activated). "Wait a second", you may be saying, "if this thing never gets activated, then he would be wrong! Because time travel would never be created since no singularity ever spawned!". Well yes, not in our world/universe/dimension/whatever you want to call it. Let me explain:
When thinking about the accuracy of his theory we must consider the effect that the multiple worlds (MW) theory has. I usually like to think of the idea of MW as a tree structure. Allow me to elucidate: let us take a point of reference for this discussion, which we will define as t0 (that's "tee-zero"), and will place this event at the base, or trunk, of the tree. Given t0, you have a considerably infinite number of possibilities for events that could happen to progress to the next point of time, which we will call t1. Since t1 can be any number of possible events, we will populate these events on our tree as the leaves (or children) of the base (parent) node, and refer to this point of time as t1 regardless of which possibility occurs. Now each of these leaves becomes its own base event, which in turn would each have its own infinite number of possibilities (infinity squared) labeled as t2. This pattern would continue ad nauseum. Starting from t0 and selecting one node at t1, then selecting a child of t1 at t2, and so on and so forth would give us a path from t0 to t(N - 1) (the last selected event), which we could consider a time-line, or essentially a "world", of which there are multiple worlds (infinite ^ (N - 1) to be "exact"). This is where the name Multiple Worlds" comes in, as for any given event there are multiple worlds where this event either did or did not happen, which is basically the idea of parallel dimensions, just less science-fiction and more quantum physics (ie, less Bizarro Superman, and more Schroedinger's Cat).
Now if we consider the activation of the LHC at CERN to be our t0, then let us entertain the thought of a singularity being created at t1. At some point in the future after the process is replicated and controllable to the point where time travel is possible, coupled with a dilemma that is directly related to the possibility of time travel getting into the wrong hands (Terminator-style). This point of time we will let be t(N-1). So the progression from t0 to t(N-1) is one possible world. A inhabitant of this world decides that the creation of time travel should be thwarted, so he utilizes time travel to follow the timeline backwards to some event t(0-M), where there is enough time prior to t0 to prevent the activation (or at least delay it, which has been the case multiple times) of the LHC. Suddenly we, the observers of our current world have a "path" altering event, which guides us down an alternate path than the one that the time traveler came from, which was supposed to be our path had he/she/it not changed it.
Perhaps this is exactly what happened with the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), which was the last particle accelerator of this scope, and was cancelled before completing. Only time will tell, as the activation of the LHC is scheduled for sometime tomorrow!!! Oh wait. It got pushed back till next month... Hmm. Looks like another win for the time-altering citizens of the future.
After much proliferation, Allie and I have confirmed and booked our date and location for the Reception! So the official date is September 5, 2009. The location is Stephany's Catering in Erie, PA:
Next is the [sarcasm]simple[/sarcasm] matter of figuring out where the ceremony should be. Hopefully, with Allie heading to Erie this process will actually be easier. Granted, I'm sure Nancy (my soon-to-be Mother-in-law) would have been a tremendous help in finding a suitable location; however, when their powers combine... Sorry, I didn't mean for that to turn into a Captain Planet reference, it just kind of happened. Anyway, here's a preview of the 'Save the Date' magnets that we'll be sending out to our loved ones soon:
*~*
For those of you who know who John Titor is; it would seem that perhaps he was correct(is? will be??? How do you refer to a time traveler?). For those of you who don't who I'm talking about: I would suggest reading about him. What you'll find is a rather chilling mystery that could very well be unraveled sometime soon.
The reason why I bring this up is because yesterday, I read about the theory that the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) will in fact create a singularity, and in doing so allow the alteration of time prior to its activation, thereby never actually allowing it to be activated [Time to go Backwards via G4]. Of course there are also theories proposed by Russian Mathematicians that say that the opening of this Singularity will simply allow time travelers from the future to come back to our time. Perhaps this is the event that John spoke of when he mentioned 'a singularity event around 2007' that allowed for the development of time travel. He also confirmed that the multiple worlds theory was in fact the correct theory in relation to quantum physics, which would explain why the ambiguity of 'around 2007' was not correct. He did at least get the CERN part of the prediction right (or at least we'll find out once and if this thing ever gets activated). "Wait a second", you may be saying, "if this thing never gets activated, then he would be wrong! Because time travel would never be created since no singularity ever spawned!". Well yes, not in our world/universe/dimension/whatever you want to call it. Let me explain:
When thinking about the accuracy of his theory we must consider the effect that the multiple worlds (MW) theory has. I usually like to think of the idea of MW as a tree structure. Allow me to elucidate: let us take a point of reference for this discussion, which we will define as t0 (that's "tee-zero"), and will place this event at the base, or trunk, of the tree. Given t0, you have a considerably infinite number of possibilities for events that could happen to progress to the next point of time, which we will call t1. Since t1 can be any number of possible events, we will populate these events on our tree as the leaves (or children) of the base (parent) node, and refer to this point of time as t1 regardless of which possibility occurs. Now each of these leaves becomes its own base event, which in turn would each have its own infinite number of possibilities (infinity squared) labeled as t2. This pattern would continue ad nauseum. Starting from t0 and selecting one node at t1, then selecting a child of t1 at t2, and so on and so forth would give us a path from t0 to t(N - 1) (the last selected event), which we could consider a time-line, or essentially a "world", of which there are multiple worlds (infinite ^ (N - 1) to be "exact"). This is where the name Multiple Worlds" comes in, as for any given event there are multiple worlds where this event either did or did not happen, which is basically the idea of parallel dimensions, just less science-fiction and more quantum physics (ie, less Bizarro Superman, and more Schroedinger's Cat).
Now if we consider the activation of the LHC at CERN to be our t0, then let us entertain the thought of a singularity being created at t1. At some point in the future after the process is replicated and controllable to the point where time travel is possible, coupled with a dilemma that is directly related to the possibility of time travel getting into the wrong hands (Terminator-style). This point of time we will let be t(N-1). So the progression from t0 to t(N-1) is one possible world. A inhabitant of this world decides that the creation of time travel should be thwarted, so he utilizes time travel to follow the timeline backwards to some event t(0-M), where there is enough time prior to t0 to prevent the activation (or at least delay it, which has been the case multiple times) of the LHC. Suddenly we, the observers of our current world have a "path" altering event, which guides us down an alternate path than the one that the time traveler came from, which was supposed to be our path had he/she/it not changed it.
Perhaps this is exactly what happened with the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), which was the last particle accelerator of this scope, and was cancelled before completing. Only time will tell, as the activation of the LHC is scheduled for sometime tomorrow!!! Oh wait. It got pushed back till next month... Hmm. Looks like another win for the time-altering citizens of the future.
August 2, 2008
Wii blogging
So I had the urge to see if I could blog from my Wii's Opera browser. I was fooling around to see what google sites would render properly, as well as figure out which ones would retain their functionality. GMail works exactly as it should; however surprisingly GReader looks abysmal and functions even worse... I'd expect more from the guys at Google. Okay, point-and-click typing is killing me: peace.
August 1, 2008
The people you make friends with are so much more important than your job or the things you buy
Stumbled across this great article from ZenHabits.net about "20 Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out Life". This rings a bell with me since I AM just starting out life! There are some fantastic points within, and it is a really good read.
[ 20 Things I Wish I Had Known... ]
P.S. I found this link via del.ico.us, which BTW just redesigned their site and are now at a new location [read: Normal]: delicious.com . Head on over and find something awesome.
[ 20 Things I Wish I Had Known... ]
P.S. I found this link via del.ico.us, which BTW just redesigned their site and are now at a new location [read: Normal]: delicious.com . Head on over and find something awesome.
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