A Gadget, A Class, A ThoughtWhat an incredible time to be alive.
That’s what Eli Hodapp from TouchArcade concluded with in his post about this the coming OnLive app for the iPad. He’s completely right. I have one portable device that works as my laptop, ereader, mp3 and video player, and now a full-fledged console that will (probably) be completely wireless (bluetooth for the controller and AirPlay-Apple TV to connect to the TV).
While I was catching up on some news and blogs today I found myself thinking about middle school, high school, and even early in college. I would come home after school each day, eat, jump on my computer or video game console of choice, play games until dinner, eat, and continue to play games until I fell asleep.
Now I come home from class, eat, grab my iPad, read and watch various news, blogs, and podcasts for hours, eat, read a little more, and fall asleep. When did my definition of “fun” or “downtime” shift from playing hours of video games to consuming (and occasionally creating) hours of media? I used to get excited about the newest video games and beating my friends at them. Now I’m excited about the future of technology and how it applies to education and the future of the media. Sure, I still occasionally play video games but it’s no longer the highlight of my days. Now, I’m excited about information and learning.
It’s strange when your life makes such a huge gradual shift over such a large period of time.
Apparently, I’m four years out of the loop on this one. They implemented this congestion tax in Stockholm back in 2007. This is such an awesome idea. They’re reducing traffic and helping the environment at the same time. Apparently, it was proposed for New York City as well but never passed.
I just woke up from a dream that most would consider a nightmare but I’m kind of just writing off as an interesting experience. In the dream, I was either haunted by a ghost or was having hallucinations of someone (I was never able to determine the “truth”). Unlike movies like A Beautiful Mind or Sixth Sense, I was aware that the person was either a ghost or hallucination from the start. But that actually complicated the situation. Since the dream felt particularly real, I felt incredibly frustrated with the fact that I could do nothing about what was happening. The ghost or hallucination seemed to have no specific purpose in bothering me and, though it replied, I could get no answer as to how I could get it to leave me alone.
What I found the most interesting was, while I still felt logical and sane, I could feel my virtual “sanity” slipping from me due to the frustration I felt and not the actual experience. While I still felt sane, I knew my behavior wasn’t and because of that I started to actually feel crazy. What’s also interesting is that if others around me were also seeing personal ghosts and hallucinations, I wouldn’t have the feeling of either frustration or insanity. So are people only “insane” because they have a different experience in the world than the majority does? I really see no difference between reality and perceived reality. Just something to think about…
In 1984 I stood behind a guy at the local computer shop and watched him work with a program called MacPaint. I got it, both the concept and the computer. It was a zillion dollars and not a great productivity tool. I bought the dream.
I would love to have that last sentence on a t-shirt.
