Thursday, May 23, 2002

See what you've done to me. Cool article about different theories on time, courtesy of Wired. When I was training for the 2000 Twin Cities Marathon, it dawned on me that I'd be doing the bulk of my training at the same time that, ten years earlier, I'd been alternately receiving and recovering from chemotherapy. Even though I'm pretty sure time is a one-way, linear road, I got to thinking about what if it wasn't. What if the strength and endurance I was building up during the summer of 2000 was somehow helping give back the strength and endurance I was losing in 1990? What if, indeed? 7:21:35 PM

From the New York Times: Army Recruiting Through Video Games. The PC software consists of two separate titles, ``Soldiers,'' a role-playing character-builder akin to the popular ``real life'' simulator ``The Sims,'' and ``Operations,'' a first-person shooter game that takes the player on missions to attack enemies. They were introduced Wednesday. 7:17:22 PM

All Your Eyes Are Belong To Us Saw this below the fold as I browsed through the New York Times this morning while waiting for the barista at Starbucks to screw up my order for the second consecutive day. Noticed a reference in John Robb's weblog shortly after I fired up my PC. Now it's been slashdotted. Just love to see people scramble when a wrench gets thrown into the works. And this quote, from some director for some advertising firm: There is an important distinction, Mr. Sternberg said, between "zipping and zapping": "When people switch channels, they are going from something to something else. There are losses for one channel, but gains for another. With fast-forwarding there are only losses." Right. Personally, when I switch channels, I'm not looking for a better commercial, I'm looking to avoid them altogether. Explain, please, the difference? How does the other channel gain from me bailing out on them as soon as a commercial shows up? Might as well not allow my to buy DVDs -- which is pretty much all we watch anymore -- because there's no way to recoup the losses of multiple viewings. I'd be surprised if some executive somewhere hasn't already drafted a memo that the purchase price of a DVD implies a single view, much like a ticket at a movie theatre only lets you see the movie once. Profit margins per DVD drop drastically upon repeated viewings. Perhaps they should embed a chip that disables the DVD after a single viewing, only allowing me to watch it again if I pony up some more cash. 3:36:27 PM