I can't believe it... South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were right ten years ago.
Scientists have been successful in creating the six-assed monkey.
Actually, more accurately, they have managed to splice the DNA of a Pig and an Elephant... "Didn't you ever hear that song by Loverboy?"
Actually, more precisely, scientists have managed to create a human-animal hybrid embryo -- which isn't too far off the mark of Parker's and Stone's predictions from South Park's first season.
You can read all about that story here.
I think I can handle the above news, but I'm running for the hills if I ever discover a 50-foot satellite dish sticking out of my ass.
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Friday, June 03, 2005
The Smaller Picture
I think I need a digital camera. I am dying to spend some money, and a digital camera (with full mpeg support) is just what I'd like. It would be ideal, as I could post all kinds of photographs of my surroundings, the bars I've gigged at, even pictures of the passed-out lushes that just blew their welfare check on cheap draft. This blog would be much more colorful, and I imagine that I'd have a lot more to talk about.
I couldn't be more wrong. I forgot where I placed my own camera. It has undeveloped pictures from a year ago. I never take photos -- there is nothing that I seem to find that's worthy of a picture. I don't have an artists' eye for beauty. Everything I see are long strings of equations, derivations, functions, raster or vector data sets. It's all about the numbers, baby.
My expensive investment on a digital camera would sit idly on my desk, slowly depreciating in value. Then I'd get all pissed off at myself, wondering why I spent all that money on a camera that will be virtually worthless in a few years' time.
The advancement of technology will ensure that I will die a poor man.
I couldn't be more wrong. I forgot where I placed my own camera. It has undeveloped pictures from a year ago. I never take photos -- there is nothing that I seem to find that's worthy of a picture. I don't have an artists' eye for beauty. Everything I see are long strings of equations, derivations, functions, raster or vector data sets. It's all about the numbers, baby.
My expensive investment on a digital camera would sit idly on my desk, slowly depreciating in value. Then I'd get all pissed off at myself, wondering why I spent all that money on a camera that will be virtually worthless in a few years' time.
The advancement of technology will ensure that I will die a poor man.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Age Abhors Technology
For reasons that should be obvious, I do not like discussing the trivialities of my day job on this blog. This is largely a safety precaution, as I would really hate to find out that one day, my boss discovers my blog, and then reads all the juicy details. This can and has happened to many of us blogging folk, and has cost more than a few of them their jobs. But I really would like to tell you what happened at the office today. Hopefully I can keep the details vague enough that the powers that be never discover who I am, or the fact that I'm talking about them.
My boss is one of the most technologically inept people I have ever met. He has little idea how computers work, though I think that he is forced to use them as a communication tool with his clients. When he is on the computer, it takes him an incredibly long time to accomplish any task, usually because he takes the longest computational path. For example, we are still on dial-up technology at the office, and he thinks the only way to disconnect the computer from the web is choosing "Shut Down" from the Start Menu. It is of my opinion that he should stick to machines like the pulley, the incline plane or the lever; he would get more work done that way.
Sadly, he has little concept of the importance of keeping one's software up-to-date. The security updates are never installed on the computer, and I have to fight with him every year to renew his Norton Antivirus subscription. He will use electronic equipment until it is far beyond obsolete; my computer at the office is running Windows 98. He has a little electronic address book that has a whopping 256k of memory. I was surprised to discover that you could plug this electronic organizer into a computer in order to back up the files. I learned this the hard way a few months back, as he accidentally wiped clean the contents of the organizer when he attempted to change the batteries. The interface to plug the organizer into the computer was so old, I had to plug it into the old COM ports. When I loaded the backup utility onto the computer, it looked like the interface was built for Windows 3.1. The backup took a ridiculous amount of time to transfer 256k, like five minutes.
In short, my office more resembles an electronics museum rather than an office.
Until today, as my boss came to me with a brand new PDA in his hands -- I don't even think he knows what a PDA is, but he bought one. I think he probably saw one of his business partners using one, and he decided that it might make his life easier. So he approached me this morning and told me that he tried for four hours this weekend to transfer some files from the computer to the PDA. Here we go again, was what I was thinking while he told me this. I asked him to provide me with the installation CD (he does not understand that computers need translation programs [i.e. drivers] so computers and peripherals can understand each other), and I proceeded to install the PDA software onto a computer that was (at the very least) six years older than his PDA.
He wants to use the PDA as a tool in the field to enter data into a word processor or spreadsheet, which may cut my workload down, but then he would not have to carry forms into the field. I don't even think he knows or cares about the other capabilities of a PDA - an address book, a calculator, an email client, plus its wireless capabilities. At the moment I thought that he would still expect to use his 256k address book relic with its monochrome LCD display. After I successfully transferred some Excel documents to the PDA I realized that there were formatting issues that I will have to deal with once I obtain the data from the PDA. It is not going to cut down on my data entry time -- and I don't think it's going to make his life any easier, as he claimed this morning.
I should not hesitate to mention, I have never used a PDA in my life. I have wanted one on and off for a number of years now, but I have come to the conclusion that I would never use one enough to justify buying one. Nonetheless, this was an opportunity for me to play with a new toy. I hit the first hurdle early on. The installation CD had a "Wizard" program that was supposed to automatically transfer the user's contacts information directly from Micro$oft Outlook. I was not the least bit surprised when M$ Outlook kept crashing while the wizard was trying to transfer the data to the PDA. It never worked for me once.
So I spent most of my workday playing with this new PDA, Uploading Micro$oft Word and Excel documents, seeing if they will work properly and do what he expects them to do. One thing I learned very quickly is that the PDA isn't very good at recognizing handwriting. In fact, it's more like the user has to learn how to write all over again in order for the PDA to recognize what it is exactly you are trying to write. I quickly learned to use the on-screen keyboard to enter text, which I found was quicker than handwriting in the first place. All the while, I was thinking that my boss was going to have a conniption trying to learn how to operate this new gadget.
I eventually decided that I should put his contacts and email addresses into his PDA, that he might finally throw that relic of an address book into the trash. Even though I managed to successfully export his address books into a format that was readable by the PDA, there were many formatting issues that would require me to edit nearly every contact in the list. At current count, I am only about halfway through his address list. For some reason, I think he is going to have a fit once he sees that I have cleaned up his Address Book. "I can't find anything anymore!" he will exclaim.
The bottom line is that I wasted the entire workday playing with his new gadget. I fully expect tomorrow that I am going to have to teach him how to use it tomorrow.
I sincerely hope all of you are praying for me.
My boss is one of the most technologically inept people I have ever met. He has little idea how computers work, though I think that he is forced to use them as a communication tool with his clients. When he is on the computer, it takes him an incredibly long time to accomplish any task, usually because he takes the longest computational path. For example, we are still on dial-up technology at the office, and he thinks the only way to disconnect the computer from the web is choosing "Shut Down" from the Start Menu. It is of my opinion that he should stick to machines like the pulley, the incline plane or the lever; he would get more work done that way.
Sadly, he has little concept of the importance of keeping one's software up-to-date. The security updates are never installed on the computer, and I have to fight with him every year to renew his Norton Antivirus subscription. He will use electronic equipment until it is far beyond obsolete; my computer at the office is running Windows 98. He has a little electronic address book that has a whopping 256k of memory. I was surprised to discover that you could plug this electronic organizer into a computer in order to back up the files. I learned this the hard way a few months back, as he accidentally wiped clean the contents of the organizer when he attempted to change the batteries. The interface to plug the organizer into the computer was so old, I had to plug it into the old COM ports. When I loaded the backup utility onto the computer, it looked like the interface was built for Windows 3.1. The backup took a ridiculous amount of time to transfer 256k, like five minutes.
In short, my office more resembles an electronics museum rather than an office.
Until today, as my boss came to me with a brand new PDA in his hands -- I don't even think he knows what a PDA is, but he bought one. I think he probably saw one of his business partners using one, and he decided that it might make his life easier. So he approached me this morning and told me that he tried for four hours this weekend to transfer some files from the computer to the PDA. Here we go again, was what I was thinking while he told me this. I asked him to provide me with the installation CD (he does not understand that computers need translation programs [i.e. drivers] so computers and peripherals can understand each other), and I proceeded to install the PDA software onto a computer that was (at the very least) six years older than his PDA.
He wants to use the PDA as a tool in the field to enter data into a word processor or spreadsheet, which may cut my workload down, but then he would not have to carry forms into the field. I don't even think he knows or cares about the other capabilities of a PDA - an address book, a calculator, an email client, plus its wireless capabilities. At the moment I thought that he would still expect to use his 256k address book relic with its monochrome LCD display. After I successfully transferred some Excel documents to the PDA I realized that there were formatting issues that I will have to deal with once I obtain the data from the PDA. It is not going to cut down on my data entry time -- and I don't think it's going to make his life any easier, as he claimed this morning.
I should not hesitate to mention, I have never used a PDA in my life. I have wanted one on and off for a number of years now, but I have come to the conclusion that I would never use one enough to justify buying one. Nonetheless, this was an opportunity for me to play with a new toy. I hit the first hurdle early on. The installation CD had a "Wizard" program that was supposed to automatically transfer the user's contacts information directly from Micro$oft Outlook. I was not the least bit surprised when M$ Outlook kept crashing while the wizard was trying to transfer the data to the PDA. It never worked for me once.
So I spent most of my workday playing with this new PDA, Uploading Micro$oft Word and Excel documents, seeing if they will work properly and do what he expects them to do. One thing I learned very quickly is that the PDA isn't very good at recognizing handwriting. In fact, it's more like the user has to learn how to write all over again in order for the PDA to recognize what it is exactly you are trying to write. I quickly learned to use the on-screen keyboard to enter text, which I found was quicker than handwriting in the first place. All the while, I was thinking that my boss was going to have a conniption trying to learn how to operate this new gadget.
I eventually decided that I should put his contacts and email addresses into his PDA, that he might finally throw that relic of an address book into the trash. Even though I managed to successfully export his address books into a format that was readable by the PDA, there were many formatting issues that would require me to edit nearly every contact in the list. At current count, I am only about halfway through his address list. For some reason, I think he is going to have a fit once he sees that I have cleaned up his Address Book. "I can't find anything anymore!" he will exclaim.
The bottom line is that I wasted the entire workday playing with his new gadget. I fully expect tomorrow that I am going to have to teach him how to use it tomorrow.
I sincerely hope all of you are praying for me.
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