The One "Thing" TO RULE THEM ALL!?!

If you don't understand the title of this blog, its a play on a hilarious flash parody on the Lord of the Rings. The reason for this blog is that I just bought two 1GB memory sticks for my PSP(Playstation Portable) for very cheap on the Office Depot website ($29.99 USD each, another thing my podcasts help with, information on discounted purchases.) Now, the PSP is the one machine that can virtually do it all. I can listen to music, watch movies, play games, listen to my podcasts, view pictures, and surf the web all in device.

Of course, the device is not perfect, I mean, it doesn't have a keyboard to help the users web surfing, but the device is compact and easy to use. Yes the iPod is better for music, and Yes you could use you're PC to surf the web, but who doesnt want a device that can do it all. Devices like these are what people crave to have, to show off, to enjoy, and have fun with. When I'm in a long car ride, or need to eccentricate my life for any reason, the Playstation Portable is the device that comes in my mind. A compact machine, that packs a little punch, it's the do it all machine, now if I could just find something that brushes my teeth for me... I just have to say, just like Sauron's ring, the PSP may be the One thing TO RULE THEM ALL!!!

Knowing your terrain... literally

Well I first heard about this from by dearly beloved TWiT podcast, and what a story it is. If you want to read about it yourself here is the link to The Register where the story was published. The story is about a few people who were exploring with the Google Earth product, and they discovered a piece of land in China that looked like a scale model of a mountainous landscape. Actually it was a scale model of an area between the Indian/Chinese border, that apparently has disputed ownership.

Here is a closer look.

Well I'm guessing the Chinese Air Force and Army would be better prepared to fight in the area, if the need arises. Well it's just surprising what technology can find these days, and I'm thinking the Indian's are surprised. But don't start a war now, because apparently the Chinese know the terrain better than you...

A Tale of Two Worlds

Well its been a long time since a written a blog, so I'm thinking of a review session... To start it off, I just finished reading Dune by Frank Herbert, and might I say an amazing book, with an awesome story. I mean I had seen the movie, but the reading the book makes u enjoy the magnificent story even more. It's so much like the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein. The two authors are so similar in their writing. They both created their own legacy, by creating distinct worlds that have traditions and cultures different than we know. Yet we can relate to the characters, the authors created, and their actions, as well their feelings. Middle-earth and Arrakis, created by Tolkein and Herbert respectively, are worlds so amazing that truly shows the brilliance and intelligence of these men. Another power these men possessed was dedication, these masters of literary work were so devoted that they even created new languages, idioms, and dialogues to fit their world, and make it seem even more real, and to some surreal.

Middle-earth, and Arrakis are amazing pieces of creation, that are different in one another, yet very similar in their projection. Middle-earth is divided into smaller nations with different people and different cultures, take Rohan for example, much different than the elves and other men. Dune is different in that sense, showing that Arrakis is composed of a similar people all around the world. The desert people, or Fremen as they are known, are the inhabitants of the world, where they are about to be taken over by Imperial forces of the universe.

These two different worlds are the same in the sense of the conflicts that occur. Both novels have two main types of conflicts, the man vs. self conflict, that builds and changes the character to face his destiny. Aragorn becoming the King of Gondor, and Paul becoming the savior of Arrakis, Muad'ib. The other conflict is that of good vs. evil at a large scale, Orcs vs. Elves and Men, and in Herbert's novel, Fremen vs. the outworlders.

So, as this post was A Tale of Two Worlds, a play on the famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities, it is sort of different than the Dickens' novel. You see in A Tale of Two Cities, it was the best of times for London, and the worst of times for Paris. But in Lord of the Rings and Dune, it was the worst of times, that was later changed to the best of times. Anyhow, I would just recommend both of the books to anyone who has the desire to read, as most of you know the books are long, but were definitely enjoyable and fun to read. Till the next one... enjoy.

Another flaw in our government??

Okay so Israel has outrageously attacked Lebanon this past week, over 2 kidnappings of Israeli soldiers. The death toll in Lebanon has now reached 230, and over 400 other innocent civilians have been wounded so far. In no way does this seem just, invading another nation over an kidnapping/attack that killed a few of your soldiers and your nation goes out and kills more innocent people (Well we've seen something similar from the U.S.'s actions already). As Mahatma Ghandi once said:

"An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind."

This is not a blog on the Middle-East conflict (that's a whole another topic, for another blog), this here is to point out the stupidity of our government. The U.S. sided with Israel's invasion of Lebanon, yet forgot to pull out the American citizens, before the air strikes began. Other nations had already evacuated their citizens out of Lebanon, including the French and the Greek. Is our government so lazy that they can only focus on one topic at a time. I mean there is an invasion of another nation, which you approved of, yet you forget to pull out your own citizens from the catastrophe. Yet to divert attention from this mistake, pulls out a magic card from its sleeves. Let's think of a controversial topic that will stir up the nations attention away from the Middle East back to America, Stem Cell Research, perfect.

Yes, our government could have been discussing stem cell research for quite some time, but the fact that this was put right into the media, right after the news of the lack of evacuation had surfaced has to be thought about. I might sound a little conspiracy theorist, but doesn't the government always try to hide their mistakes... But back to the evacuation. Our government needs planning in their actions, they have to think and prepare, before they talk. They shouldn't give a verdict without predicting the outcome, and especially when it involves your own citizens harm.

Our government is doomed

Well this is a video (well it is audio with a picture) I put together, then uploaded to youtube, of Senator Ted Stevens, when he was arguing about the net neutrality bill. If you don't know the guy, he is one of the oldest senators in office, and he is from Alaska. He also is the head of the Communications committee, yet he doesn't use e-mail (or as he says internets, you'll get after u watch this video)





Wow, if he is the head of the of the Communications committee our government is in trouble. Don't you think so?

Crying Wolf

This topic maybe somewhat controversial, but I don't believe its out there enough. This topic just fell into my hands perfectly. First off the inspiration of the post is from the news of a PSP (Playstation Portable) advertisement in the Netherlands, in which Sony (the manufacturer of the PSP) launched a new ad campaign for the white PSP that is about to be released. This somewhat stirred a racial discussion in which even the head of the southern California chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), Rick Callendar stated:

"...The minstrel show was an awful chapter in history and this ad smacks of that age and time. It is even further unacceptable that some corporations still think it is okay to use racially charged media images. The latest Sony ad conjures up bad memories of when stereotypical and offensive images of people of color were accepted means of selling a product..."

The particular ad included a contrasting picture of a caucasian women dressed in white, grabbing the face of a black women dressed in black. The ad it self does seem controversial, but Sony stated that they were just trying to make contrasting images, which I believe to be true. This is true because even though everyone jumped the gun and started pointing out this racial ad, there are opposite ads in the same campaign by Sony. One of the ads is of the black women pouncing on the white women, which is even more aggressive, than the so-called racial advertisement.

While debating to write this I was watching a few episodes of the 3rd season of Chappelle's Show, and saw a segment where the audience was asked if the skits were insulting to other races, the majority replied 'No' as their answer. They believed that the show was an easy way to talk about stereotypes and laugh it off.

Surprisingly to myself, after watching the Chappelle Show, my my mind turned to the big screen, and I saw Crash. A great movie in my honest opinion, and worthy of the Oscar it received. The movie dealt with racism, and the interaction between many different people with a variety of ethnic background(Including, caucasians, hispanics, blacks, chinese, and persian, and no that's not the same as arab). The racism and stereotypes may have been to the extreme (such as: the chinese man was smuggling in about a dozen east asian people.), but were convincing. What the movie showed was that there are no stereotypes, and there are both good and bad kind of people from all different backgrounds.

What that day taught me is that even though there are a few stereotypes, the basis of racism is often wrong, and is our short-mindedness of other people (Like I already didn't know that). What I have been trying to say and lead up to though is that stereotypes often cause unnecessary knee-jerk reactions from everyone, such as the NAACP chapter head, who without looking at the rest of the information present, started pointing fingers and crying wolf when there was no problem to begin with. I often believe that people who cry out for racism, when it actually is not present, is more harmful to society than a real racist occurrence. The world needs to calm down and be less protective, or we just might start acting out, and punishing people, before a crime occurs, and that doesn't end well if Minority Report is enough of a precedent.

Just to let it out, I can't believe that I missed a couple days without posting (readers: "Blasphemy!!!") and I'm sorry, but I did start writing this post on 7/14. But just a reminder not to cry wolf, unless it's real, because when it is there will be no one to help... Hopefully we humans can calm down, and end this hysteria.

-Tab

Ben Franklin was wrong

My whole life, I have been taught and have heard many different sayings (quotes, proverbs, axioms, maxims, adages, whatever you want to call them) for different reasons. See when your young you might not get the proverb at all. An example would be played out like this:

Kid: "Dad, why do I look like Grandpa? "
Dad: "An apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
Kid: "But Dad what does a tree have to do with Grandpa?"

You see now the child is confused, it would have been a lot easier if the father had said "because he is your family." Stuff like this always makes me ponder of why we can't talk normally, and have to use aphorisms to answer questions or give advice. Life would be so much simpler.

Another thing is that the sayings are not always right. I always hear "The early bird catches the worm." I get it, if I get up early and do it first I get the prize, but you see that it always isnt the best thing to do. What I have learned is "The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

One saying that has always disturbed me, is Benjamin Franklin's aphorism, "A penny saved is a penny earned." At first I could never understand how I could earn something, when I already had it. But now I have understood that by saving the penny you are earning something for your future. The problem is though that this saying doesn't apply to our time, because you see with todays interest rates in savings accounts. A penny saved, with the annual compound interest of 3%, is now 1.03 cents earned. So sorry Mr. Franklin you were wrong...



-edited: 07/13/06 at 4:05 pm

Cable is Overrated

It might just be that I have been deprived of Cable and Satellite that I feel this way, but TV Shows, on cable tv channels are not of quality. Since I have moved to my new home, I have not had satellite because they are a lot of tall trees in our backyard, and we can't get reception, but that is besides the point. You see that whenever there is a hype about a TV show, its either on Local TV channels or its on HBO (the only good Cable station, besides FX).

The shows on local stations are somewhat decent quality (besides FOX, remember Man vs. Beast, but they have 24 which makes up for a lot). Shows like Lost, 24, and Smallville, are decent shows that appeal to mass audiences (So does 7th heaven apparently). The only thing you hear about on cable TV is either Sopranos, or the Daily Show, isnt there anything else on those 150 channels...

Yeah every station has its flaws, like Wifeswap, and Supernanny, but the majority of primetime shows that the nation loves to watch are on Local listings. I don't know if I'm blabbering on insanely, maybe its the lack of more TV channels, but I don't see the point of getting cable, and see no point of having it anymore. There are great TV shows that are returning to this fall's lineup such as:

-Lost (ABC)
-Smallville (CW)
-Supernatural (CW)
-Veronica Mars (CW)
-Surface (NBC)
-24 (FOX)

With shows like these to keep you hooked every week, there is no point in cable (and especially no point if you don't have HBO). But maybe its just that I've been deprived for so long and that I'm out of the loop, maybe the cause of this opinion. I must say though after the loss of cable, I actually pick out special shows to watch, rather than flipping through the crap that has taken over TV.

Greatest Movie Ever???

This film is so perfectly a candidate for the best movie in the world. Sure, it's not innovative, or revolutionary, it might not even be mind-blowing to some. However after rewatching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade today, I began to ponder and realized it might just be the greatest movie ever...

The facts for a candidate for the best movie of all time, are present before the actual movie even starts. The director is Steven Spielberg, a pioneer of movie-making himself, and his good friend George Lucas, is the writer and the executive producer (he had all the money after the first Star Wars trilogy had been released.) of the film. Next is John Williams, considered the greatest movie composer to date, with the infamous Indiana Jones theme song, and the Jaws theme which won an Oscar in its own merit(Had another one under his belt for the original Star Wars theme music). I haven't even gotten to the cast yet. Harrison Ford, who could forget the name after his role as Han Solo (I'm noticing a lot of Star Wars connections Mr. Lucas). Who to be his father one would ask, well it was Mr. Bond (Mr. James Bond) himself, Sean Connery was the perfect choice.

Enough with the links, lets get to the movie itself. The action, the dialogue and the comedy makes it fantastic. The little comedy bits which sort of touch you with reality, really differentiate this film from many others. An example is when young Indy blows a whistle, and his horse runs towards him, then when Indy is about to jump on him from above the horse moves forward and Indy hits the ground. Another bit is with him and Dr. Schneider (By the way she's a female, just to let you know) in the boat chase seen, when two huge tanker ships are docking, and while Indy is fighting off a henchman in the back of the boat, it seems as though Schneider is going through the closing gap. Miscommunication (the touch of reality), occurs when Indy screams, "You are going through that, are you crazy?!?," while she hears differently and responds "Go through it? Are you crazy?" Anyways these small little bits make the movie laughable and enjoyable.

Overall, I have nothing to say except that the movie is perfect. A perfect cast, a perfect crew, and perfect story-telling and dialogue, only make it a competitor, in the greatest film category, only to the original Star Wars, by George Lucas. Where the drama, comedy, and emotions, seemed real to us in this time and place (not long ago in a galaxy far far away.... ). I just wanted to say that those who haven't seen this film are really missing out on an enjoyable experience. And just remember when someone says 11 o'clock he doesn't necessarily mean time (another joke for those who have seen the movie).

Till another day, and another blog,
-Tab

La Copa Mundial

Wow what a world cup its been. There have been great goals, a lot of cards and a few upsets along the way. Soccer ( or Football as it should be called), is by far the greatest sport in the world, there can be no argument here (I'll argue anyway).

It unifies the world and the world cup is like no other event on the planet, with over 2 million viewers around the world watching the final. The sport is great because its simple: there is one ball, and 22 players on the field. There is no wierd scoring method, unlike basketball and american football, and there are very few rules to remember and follow. The game is simple yet elegant and exciting. The fact that that there are few scoring oppurtunties, like hockey, the sport becomes very exciting. Watching players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, Kaka, and Beckham, the game shows true skill (unlike lets say Shaq, where height and body weight is all that matters). I guess I have proven the greatness of this sport enough, let's move on.

The game that most will remember is the quaterfinal game of Brazil vs. France, in which an amazing upset France won 1-0. But don't count the final game out, it will become considerably the most remembered final in the history of the World Cup. There has only been one final in the past World Cups that went to penalty kicks, Brazil vs. Italy in 1994, in which Brazil won, after Roberto Baggio missed his kick. Now this world cup will be remembered in which the match went to penalties, and Zidane missed his kick. Well that and some of the match as well after he recieved a red card an was ejected from the game.

I cannot believe this amazing player would show such unsportsmanlike behavior. I mean headbutting a guy in the chest is completely out of the order, why would you even think of doing something like this in the final of a World Cup, no one knows. For God's sake, he was the captain of his team no way in hell, he should have pulled a stunt like that. To top things off this was Zidane's last game of his International career, what a great way to remembered on your last game. I guess we all had to rethink the facts and realize that he was human after all not some higher being, none the less. it was a horrible move to make.

Well Zidane guess what now you will definately be remembered in World Cup History. "Zidane, the captain of the french team in the 2006 World Cup final, who headbutted a guy, and was ejected from the game, and lost France the cup." And by comical renderings, such as the one above...

TWIT

My family thinks I'm addicted but I just love to listen to podcasts, and TWIT is my favorite one. For those who don't know podcasts are radio shows online, thats the dumbed down definition. It reminds me of the old times (of course i was never alive in the old times) where people sat down around the radio and listened to their favorite radio shows. The great thing about radio is that it is audio, people say that human beings are visual people (not so sure how true that is... I'm pretty sure T.V. has exaggerated this perception if not created it), and I generally agree with this statement. The truth is that whenever you watch T.V. you take in all the visual effects for granted, that is why all new action movies have to have great special effects. A bad movie or T.V. show can get good reviews because of good special effects. That is why there are so many bad quality shows on T.V. To be on radio or have a podcast you have to recieve a good review and have a lot of quality for the same reason. That is why TWIT recieves more than 300,000 downloads in a few days.

TWIT stands for this Week in Tech, I don't know if I am or not, but I consider myself a techie guy, atleast I follow all the major issues relating to the tech industry. I'm also a pretty avid gamer... mostly my PS2 , but I play on the PC as well. Now all the people start thinking how geeky I am and all the people doing this podcast are ( get the picture of these nerdy high school kids sitting in the basement playing Dungeons & Dragons), but they are nothing like that. These guys are journalists in a sense, and do this program in their spare time.
These guys have wives and kids, and are not that geeky, they report technology in a funny and interesting way

There are some other podcasts I listen to as well another funny one is Buzz Out Loud, these guys are really funny sometimes, but they don't fool around, they report news in the tech industry. There are two pluses to this podacast, one is that it is their job to do the podcast so they report the news well. The second plus is the fact that these podcasts are daily as opposed to TWIT which is a weekly podcast.


Podcasts are great and fun to listen to, but they are time consuming i spend about a 2 hours everyday listening to podcasts, and that's too much time for some people. (Hint: you could take your podcasts with you on a long bus ride or car ride to work... :) ) Another reason is that they are addictive, podcasts sort of advertise other podcasts or blogs of their hosts or guests, this leads to you wanting to listen to more podcasts... which takes more time. Podcasts are like chocolate... you can have them as long as you keep their consumption under control.

Not an Alternative

Well here it is, I wanted to do a blog for a long time and summer has finally started and opened up some free time. To sum me up in one word... "nerd," but I'm not a geek. This paragraph here is to prove to you how nerdy I am, you see the difference between nerd and geek is hard to determine, because they both represent intelligent, socially handicapped individuals. But you see the difference between the two is that nerds are computer savvy as geeks are not. Getting over that part, I would also like to point out that I'm not socially handicapped just less social than most people, and no I'm not that kid that you used to ( or still do) laugh and make fun of, and make him sit all alone at lunch. Getting all that behind me lets get to a name...

Well "Shift + Tab" came about with lots of help from other people (Thanks to M and my brother). We were fooling around with names and Alt + Tab came up, but there had to be some meaning behind the name, you see people don't want to "alternate to tab"( By the way Tab is my nickname) but people want "shift to Tab," you see there is a difference. Instead of being an alternative to something you want to do, you want to shift to my blog and thats what you intended to do in the first place. (I think I might have lost some people here, I'm pretty confused myself.)

So here it is "Shift + Tab," hope you have fun reading... enjoy