A Tree Falling in the Forest

Maybe cliche' by now, but still creepy . . .   Quote from 1984 About Telescreens "The telescreen recieved and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever the wanted to. You had to live- did live, from habit that became instinct- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. -1984, Book 1, Chapter One, George Orwell Quote from Katherine Boehret Allthingsd review about Xbox One with Kinect: A Skyp

Both of my regular blog readers keep asking why I do not write more.  It is easy enough to tell my mom to stop nagging, but I still answer to the other one - even though his English is not so good.  That dear reader, is customer service - something GameStop sadly lacks.   I realize the global nature of the statement and should explain it is not entirely true.  I never met anyone at the top of the company who is not gracious, a pleasure to deal with and painfully conscious of the customer relationship.  Unfortunately, those are not the people we deal with when we buy a game.  The stores are run by managers drawn from the mold of The Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons and choose to operate on an entirely different level.  Sure, they serve a customer, just not  the ones who want to buy a game. It is very hard to find stores carrying a wide selection of games any more.  This creates a wonderful opportunity for a store brand itself as a game focused operation and encourage people

I saw a good friend of mine who is very smart and I respect very much - he still finds the time to talk with me though.   He told me he likes my blog, but asked a question he said he hoped would not offend me. "Do you write your blog for yourself on in the hopes of gaining an audience?  Because if you write them for an audience, you really should have a point."   I may be paraphrasing a bit, but it came out like that in my mind.  It was kind of a funny question because I never really thought about writing for anyone else.  My blog is completely self indulgent and admittedly, often only finds entertainment or genius at the point of creation.   The blog is actually a permanent record of the thoughts I find fascinating, and often the expression is only intelligible to me. Along the same lines, when Ken Rutkowski asked me to speak to his METal Internationa l group, I was honored, and excited by the opportunity to entertain - myself.   Because the only thing I like mo

Last week I read an article  about the US Department of Agriculture's decision to parachute poison mice into treetops to kill tree snakes in Guam.  The tree snakes killed all of the birds on the island and the USDA is concerned the snakes may be able to migrate to Hawaii.   This reminiscent of all of the times a species was introduced to wipe out another, and it went terribly wrong.  The article moved through a series of curiously inappropriate connections in my mind and got me thinking about digital object sales. I cannot tell you why, but I a promise you it is much more of a curse than a blessing.   Our perception of digital objects and willingness to pay for them is evolving much more quickly than our understanding of the impact of the market and I am afraid they will get a foothold in our world before we know how to control them.   Oh yeah, don't worry about the poison, it is Tylenol which is just as useful for killing black tree snakes as it is for killing a headache.

S SH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . h ! ! ! "All ye, The People of the United States: his Excellency, the PRESIDENT!" This greeting may be heard all over the country, in the not-far-distant future, and not on a phonograph either, if Mr. Paul Calhoun's dream comes true. His idea is to link up all the larger cities and towns by radio with the powerful transcontinental government wireless station at Arlington, near Washington, so that when the President makes a speech before Congress or even his inaugural address, all the people can hear it, instead of a select few gathered within ordinary hearing distance of the speaker as has been the case in the past. UPDATE 03/01/13 Two very important updates this week and I am too lazy to integrate them and rewrite.  I don't think anyone wants to see a redline version of my blog either. First, it appears Google may be thinking the same way as I am.   Some coders found what looks some code to be used for a youtube