Is it just me, or are the new Apple commercials actually making the PC look _far_ more appealing than the Mac? And not just to an old PC user...but to a brand-new customer?
Basically, their adds are portraying the Mac as a fun, flashy, shiny toy with lots of cool things for the kids...and the PC as a machine that can actually do all of those things too, but would _rather_ balance your checkbook and be businesslike. This is pretty much how these commercials have always gone...but the latest cycle of them have the 'Mac' coming across as even more toylike and smarmy, and the PC as quite sympathetic, hardworking, and striving to be the best for all possible users.
It's quite strange. I always thought the first round of commercials were insulting, but these are just..pathetic.
Giant Robots virtually never are influenced to buy something from a commercial...but are quite often influenced what NOT to buy. East Side Mario's, I'm looking at you...
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Monday, December 11, 2006
Gaming
PVP vs. PVE. One of the great controversies in gaming right now, thanks to MMORPGs, but it's been there, on the fringes, ever since networkable gaming became something seriously possible a decade ago. Most 'real' gamers seem to lean towards PVP...but there's still a healthy support for PVE, as the popularity of such servers on WoW show. But I've been wondering about the type of person that picks one over the other.
Just a hunch, and I doubt that a statistically realistic survey would ever be made on the subject, but I'm thinking that ones real-life job or occupation has a real impact on it. My reasoning goes something like this: PVPers are likely to be found in jobs that have rather little personal interaction, or, if they do meet with people on a regular basis, it's in a non-competitive basis (they don't need to get ahead of anyone they actually meet with). IT types, for example. These people enjoy the competitive aspect of PVP because they don't have competition with people in real life. They tend to feel more secure in their jobs and positions. Their work may be perfectly intellectually stimulating and enjoyable...but there's that element of hostile personal interaction that's lacking. That's what PVP supplies.
People in more competitive or political jobs (like yours truly, for instance) likely tend towards PVE. This is probably both because of a surefiet of competition in their daily working lives, but also as a means of establishing 100% control over at least a small part of it. Certainly I have no problems admitting that's part of it. When I play a game these days, I don't necessarily WANT challange or competitive stimulation. What I want is either a creative urge (single-player Railroads, or SimCity, or something similar) or an affirming urge (stomping the everlasting shit out of AI). It's less about expanding skills than exercising existing ones in a safe and controlled environment.
Is this just a way to justify being an Internet wuss with a tiny e-peener? Yeah, pretty much. But at least I put some thought into it.
Giant Robots have MASSIVE e-peeners, made of Special Metal Z.
Just a hunch, and I doubt that a statistically realistic survey would ever be made on the subject, but I'm thinking that ones real-life job or occupation has a real impact on it. My reasoning goes something like this: PVPers are likely to be found in jobs that have rather little personal interaction, or, if they do meet with people on a regular basis, it's in a non-competitive basis (they don't need to get ahead of anyone they actually meet with). IT types, for example. These people enjoy the competitive aspect of PVP because they don't have competition with people in real life. They tend to feel more secure in their jobs and positions. Their work may be perfectly intellectually stimulating and enjoyable...but there's that element of hostile personal interaction that's lacking. That's what PVP supplies.
People in more competitive or political jobs (like yours truly, for instance) likely tend towards PVE. This is probably both because of a surefiet of competition in their daily working lives, but also as a means of establishing 100% control over at least a small part of it. Certainly I have no problems admitting that's part of it. When I play a game these days, I don't necessarily WANT challange or competitive stimulation. What I want is either a creative urge (single-player Railroads, or SimCity, or something similar) or an affirming urge (stomping the everlasting shit out of AI). It's less about expanding skills than exercising existing ones in a safe and controlled environment.
Is this just a way to justify being an Internet wuss with a tiny e-peener? Yeah, pretty much. But at least I put some thought into it.
Giant Robots have MASSIVE e-peeners, made of Special Metal Z.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Relying on the Internet
...is not always a really good thing to do.
For instance, if you wish to know the absolute, up-to-the-second, very latest news concerning the battle between the Wii and the PS3, then the Internet is good. If you with to have the precise details of the precise amount of corruption found within the Bush or Blair administrations at any given date, the Internet is useful. If you need obscure sports scores from the Italian Serie C2, the Internet is for you.
But if you want to know who happens to be the premier of the Canadian province that you happen to live in...well then, the Internet might NOT be for you.
I'm not saying it's not out there...cause it certainly is, and is probably easier to find than Serie C2 scores (Sorrento beat Val di Sangro 4-0, if you were interested). But the Internet tends to divide itself into two categories: information you're interested in (in my case, obscure sporting leagues), and information EVERYONE IN THE WORLD is interesed in (Bush's IQ). When you surf, these two categories are going to be what pops up most of the time. Things that might be important to you, but which you're not particularly interested in, aren't likely to force their way into your conciousness.
Sometimes though, it might be better if it did. This might be the area where newspapers will continue to hold their edge. No matter what your interest, when you pick up a physical piece of paper and turn it in your hands, you can't help but read all of the headlines, even if they don't interest you. And in the rare cases where the information isn't directly in the headline, you're still fairly likely to go, 'oh yeah, shit, maybe I should look up who the leader of my province is'. That's a strength. But I still probably won't ever be picking up one unless it happens to be on a MacDonald's table.
Giant Robots have nothing much to say, but say it anyways.
For instance, if you wish to know the absolute, up-to-the-second, very latest news concerning the battle between the Wii and the PS3, then the Internet is good. If you with to have the precise details of the precise amount of corruption found within the Bush or Blair administrations at any given date, the Internet is useful. If you need obscure sports scores from the Italian Serie C2, the Internet is for you.
But if you want to know who happens to be the premier of the Canadian province that you happen to live in...well then, the Internet might NOT be for you.
I'm not saying it's not out there...cause it certainly is, and is probably easier to find than Serie C2 scores (Sorrento beat Val di Sangro 4-0, if you were interested). But the Internet tends to divide itself into two categories: information you're interested in (in my case, obscure sporting leagues), and information EVERYONE IN THE WORLD is interesed in (Bush's IQ). When you surf, these two categories are going to be what pops up most of the time. Things that might be important to you, but which you're not particularly interested in, aren't likely to force their way into your conciousness.
Sometimes though, it might be better if it did. This might be the area where newspapers will continue to hold their edge. No matter what your interest, when you pick up a physical piece of paper and turn it in your hands, you can't help but read all of the headlines, even if they don't interest you. And in the rare cases where the information isn't directly in the headline, you're still fairly likely to go, 'oh yeah, shit, maybe I should look up who the leader of my province is'. That's a strength. But I still probably won't ever be picking up one unless it happens to be on a MacDonald's table.
Giant Robots have nothing much to say, but say it anyways.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
A Change of Perspective
Talking with some more experienced co-workers today, one of them an occupational therapist, and the conversation mainly was centered around immigrant and refugee children, the lives they may have led before coming to Canada, or the lives their parents may have lead. One of the older workers commened that her son's biggest problem was a 'broken iPod', and how Kids These Days don't really know what hardship is.
But part of our jobs is to help ensure that a broken iPod is the biggest tragedy that our immigrant children ever have to deal with. I can sure see where the argument about our generation and generations after being 'soft', but I think I'd really, really rather my kids be soft, rather than 14 years old and unable to read or write at a 1st grade level cause they grew up in a refugee camp.
Giant Robots think that a newly arrived immigrant to Canada would think 'counter-culture' anti-materialists were stone-cold crazy.
But part of our jobs is to help ensure that a broken iPod is the biggest tragedy that our immigrant children ever have to deal with. I can sure see where the argument about our generation and generations after being 'soft', but I think I'd really, really rather my kids be soft, rather than 14 years old and unable to read or write at a 1st grade level cause they grew up in a refugee camp.
Giant Robots think that a newly arrived immigrant to Canada would think 'counter-culture' anti-materialists were stone-cold crazy.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Lest we Forget...
Yes, it's another sentimental Rememberance Day post.
It's always been a very special day to me. My father was military, my grandfather was military, even I was military for a little while, back in the day. It's always been a very important day in our household, and to me it's always been the 2nd most important holiday of the year.
But for whatever reason, because it's falling on a Saturday this year, the EPSB has decided (unlike most other school boards in the province) not to give a day in lieu on Monday. Which means that, unlike most of you, I'll be back into work at 8 AM, teaching your kids just like any other day.
And yes, I grumped a bit about it. So did a lot of my fellow teachers. Cause it does suck a little bit. But then, just like in some cliched movie, something different happened, and I stopped complaining.
In my class are a significant number of children who are from countries at war. Most of them have no personal memories of the conflicts, but they've relatives that they'll never meet, relatives who never made it out of their countries, who died in the war. Some of them DO remember. They're young and innocent, they don't really understand, nor were they old enough to really remember the siblings they lost. But hearing a young girl tell you matter-of-factly about her little sister who died with a bullet in her heart...it brings it back to reality.
Be thankful. Remember those who weren't so lucky as us. I don't ever want to hear a story like that again.
It's always been a very special day to me. My father was military, my grandfather was military, even I was military for a little while, back in the day. It's always been a very important day in our household, and to me it's always been the 2nd most important holiday of the year.
But for whatever reason, because it's falling on a Saturday this year, the EPSB has decided (unlike most other school boards in the province) not to give a day in lieu on Monday. Which means that, unlike most of you, I'll be back into work at 8 AM, teaching your kids just like any other day.
And yes, I grumped a bit about it. So did a lot of my fellow teachers. Cause it does suck a little bit. But then, just like in some cliched movie, something different happened, and I stopped complaining.
In my class are a significant number of children who are from countries at war. Most of them have no personal memories of the conflicts, but they've relatives that they'll never meet, relatives who never made it out of their countries, who died in the war. Some of them DO remember. They're young and innocent, they don't really understand, nor were they old enough to really remember the siblings they lost. But hearing a young girl tell you matter-of-factly about her little sister who died with a bullet in her heart...it brings it back to reality.
Be thankful. Remember those who weren't so lucky as us. I don't ever want to hear a story like that again.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
The state of education
You wanna know why your kids can't read? Cause their teachers don't have fucking TIME to teach them to.
Consider this classroom: 26 kids, grade 3. Big class, sure, but manageable. I've had bigger, I've had older, I've had more active. But let's look deeper, shall we?
1 of those kids is Opportunity...meaning they have an IQ of less than 70. No outside placement for that poor kid, they just have to struggle along in the main schedule. And no, we don't get money for an aide either.
1 kid who might be in a similar place...but they've never had testing, so we don't know. No extra money there either, BTW.
1 kid who we just DON'T KNOW what's going on there, cause noone in three years seems to have done any sort of testing. This despite the fact that they don't speak, hardly interact, and wear a diaper because they can't control/haven't learned how to use the toilet for bowel movements.
11 kids (not including any of the above) who are ESL of wildly varying degrees...anywhere from very minimally (speak native language with parents/guardians, but English everywhere else) to VERY second (or third or fourth or fifth) language.
Reading levels in the class vary anywhere between kindergarden and high Grade 3. Yet all of them are expected to be reading the same things. Ha!
And _then_ you start thinking about things like ADHD, FASD, or any of the other alphabet soup ideas. And that's not even considering the students who can't see the fucking whiteboard cause they've never had their eyes tested.
And then the myriad 'other' duties a teacher has somehow acquired in the course of time. Probably a good 30% of the teachers day is NOT direct or indirect instruction. And that's a day that starts at 7:30 and ends at 4:30 on a good day. (the kids are there for 2 hours less than that, minus another hour and a half for lunch and recess).
So why can't your kid read? Cause there aren't enough minutes in the day to deal with all the other shit you drop of at school along with them.
Giant Robots love kids, but hate the system.
Consider this classroom: 26 kids, grade 3. Big class, sure, but manageable. I've had bigger, I've had older, I've had more active. But let's look deeper, shall we?
1 of those kids is Opportunity...meaning they have an IQ of less than 70. No outside placement for that poor kid, they just have to struggle along in the main schedule. And no, we don't get money for an aide either.
1 kid who might be in a similar place...but they've never had testing, so we don't know. No extra money there either, BTW.
1 kid who we just DON'T KNOW what's going on there, cause noone in three years seems to have done any sort of testing. This despite the fact that they don't speak, hardly interact, and wear a diaper because they can't control/haven't learned how to use the toilet for bowel movements.
11 kids (not including any of the above) who are ESL of wildly varying degrees...anywhere from very minimally (speak native language with parents/guardians, but English everywhere else) to VERY second (or third or fourth or fifth) language.
Reading levels in the class vary anywhere between kindergarden and high Grade 3. Yet all of them are expected to be reading the same things. Ha!
And _then_ you start thinking about things like ADHD, FASD, or any of the other alphabet soup ideas. And that's not even considering the students who can't see the fucking whiteboard cause they've never had their eyes tested.
And then the myriad 'other' duties a teacher has somehow acquired in the course of time. Probably a good 30% of the teachers day is NOT direct or indirect instruction. And that's a day that starts at 7:30 and ends at 4:30 on a good day. (the kids are there for 2 hours less than that, minus another hour and a half for lunch and recess).
So why can't your kid read? Cause there aren't enough minutes in the day to deal with all the other shit you drop of at school along with them.
Giant Robots love kids, but hate the system.
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