What it's going to take for green cars to catch on
23/05/2008 - 7:30 PM
There's a lot of buzz going on right now with cars and alternative fuel or electricity. Major car manufacturers are giving in and making cars (or promises of them) that use electric motors or experimental fuels to get us from point A to point B. They've gone from being made for environmentalists and people with dreadlocks and Birkenstocks to being for the sensible family that wants to do their part for the environment. And that might be just the problem.
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Easter Egg Hunt
12/05/2008 - 7:36 PM
Yes, I know, I've been gone a while. The lame excuse is that I have a job. The lamer excuse is that I bought a Wii and Mario Kart. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about this site, I get an average of five emails a day from my comment filter telling me that xrhgbklafd has soma online pharmacy. But I digress. I'm here to once and for all make a bold claim, one that might be a little unpopular. If you're an opinionated gamer, you're going to hate me. If you're not, you're going to hate this article. I can't lose!
So, what is it that has my hackles up?
I hate unlockable content in videogames.
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Why don't computers work?
1/03/2008 - 9:52 PM
The computer is a strange thing. Beyond the myriad of things it does to make our lives easier, there is something that truly baffles me: the ability to spontaneously stop working. I, and others like me, have been tearing their hair out for years when their perfectly good computer has suddenly, and for no reason, decided to "glitch", which is a cute word designed to disguise the fact that the computer did something WRONG.
I know, this has been said a thousand times before, but this is Saturated Market, and we thrive on adding to the din of voices.
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Faceless
27/02/2008 - 6:59 PM
I'm committing what some people may call blasphemy: I'm leaving Facebook.
No, it's not a grand protest against the privacy intrusion, or being driven away by applications. It's just outlived all usefulness for me.
I know this baffles some people, and has even driven a few of my colleagues to speak out and ask me not to leave. So I figure this is as good a way as any to explain myself.
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Shiftless
25/02/2008 - 6:47 PM
There are few people who, in my mind, are more self-delusional and pitiable than people who shift their automatic transmissions. Those poor souls who put their automatic shifter over to the side, and insist on pushing it up and down towards those + and - symbols that are supposed to represent up and down gears. And it's a growing group! Plenty of people who dropped an extra $1000 per car to avoid learning how to drive with an extra pedal are trying to pretend they're street racers who know just how to get the most out of their car. It's so prolific, Mazda, among other car companies, is using this behaviour in their advertisements (and not just in SUVs where you have little choice...watch the latest Mazda 3 commercial, you'll see what I mean).
Now before I really begin proper, let me qualify something: there is NOTHING wrong with driving automatic. Automatic transmissions were invented for a reason. Actually, several reasons, two of which are traffic jams and hills with intersections on them. My issue is with people who get an automatic transmission, and then try to behave as though they didn't.
It's a way of lying to yourself, but it's also not as effective as you might think, because these pretenders have forgotten the meaning of the entire premise: it's automatic. Not semi-automatic, not kinda-automatic, not automatic-most-of-the-time-except-when-I-don't-feel-like-it. Automatic.
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Choose your own Ad-venture
9/02/2008 - 5:03 PM
When I did seminars on planning websites for entrepreneurs, one of the most common questions I would get was whether there were less expensive or free options for web hosting. My answer would be that there is no shortage of free hosting out there, but that it comes with limitations, and that it does have to be paid for by something: advertising. When you use a free website host, they will pay for their service by putting ads on your site that they have selected. This is less of a problem for personal sites, which are more often the clients of these companies. However, there remain drawbacks, chief amongst them is the lack of control.
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Underlying causes
21/01/2008 - 6:40 PM
One of the things I find truly fascinating is the concept of social dynamics. Partly because they're so tricky. It puts an extreme emphasis on context, rather than the general. There are so many seemingly insignificant factors and effects that can change how people interact, get along, and relate. And the truly interesting thing: even if you try, there are some things that you can never truly understand because of your situation. You can be aware, you can be knowledgeable, but you never really understand. This refers to things like inequality. If you are privileged, you don't know what it's like to be limited. You can study and research and empathize all you want, but in the end, only those who live it know what it's like.
It's like the expression about walking a mile in someone's shoes. Sure, that's all well and good, but it's just a mile. You can take those shoes off. And they're probably a different size than you wear anyway.
This doesn't just refer to the privileged vs. the limited. It even relates simply to common groups of people. I often see people try to generalize behaviour to a large section of the population, when it might be that they can only really generalize to the specific group of the few involved. I saw an example where people were arguing about a case where a woman cut off contact between her boyfriend and his friends because she was offended at the way they spoke to him during a poker game. Instantly there were people saying "she doesn't understand because that's how guys talk to each other!" shortly followed by "they probably went too far and they're too macho to admit it", "I'm a guy and I don't treat my friends like that", "I'm a woman and I act like that, it's not just a guy thing", and so on and so forth. My point is, there's no way ANY of these people can really say for sure. We aren't part of the group, so we don't know what normal behaviour is for them. Also, we weren't there, so we don't know what was said to cross the line or not. We love to people watch, and we love to people judge. But we are often far too removed from context to really do it well.
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Solid investment advice
7/01/2008 - 8:36 PM
Okay, so, I'm going to talk about guitars.
I like guitars. Like, kind of a lot.
I have three. And I'm seriously working on getting another. But more on that in a minute.
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Shifting focus...again
7/01/2008 - 8:34 PM
I give up. I'm not a business expert, I'm not a music critic. I'm just some dude with a webpage. I think my reasons for wanting to do this were all wrong. So I'm going back to the basic reason: I like to write. So that's what I'm going to do. Write. Write about whatever I feel like, and that's how it's going to be. And that's how I like it.
Until next time,
JW
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A return of sorts
4/01/2008 - 9:27 PM
I'm back, in a way. Sorry for the long absence, I've been in a state of transition. Not that anyone's reading, mind you.
Since my start at "The Corporation" (which shall remain unnamed), I've been quite pre-occupied. Also, I've found my time monopolized by holidays and a little electronic product called The Orange Box (I'll leave that up to you to find out what it is).
As far as how I've been (and how are you?), I'm well. My job satisfaction is at an all time high, the holidays were very good to me, I'm looking to relaunch my comic, and I won a contest I had no idea I had entered. Well, I did knowingly post, but I had no idea I would be entered into a contest. Glad to know my writing and ready wit are good for something.
On the rough side, I'm very disappointed in myself for not keeping this site going, completely failing in my attempts to keep a music blog, and I may need to re-evaluate what I'm doing here and why.
In any case, 2008 looks to be exciting, and hope that is the case for you and yours.
Until next time,
JW
