Technology

I’m puzzled. I don’t know what to make of this article on ipodlounge.com. They have a review for a non apple music player (oddity), they actually recommend it over the shuffle (second oddity), and the actual product itself has me confused. I’ll stop being vague at this point and elaborate.

The product they review is called the cube. Not THAT creative of a name when you find out that it’s a flash based mp3 player 512 or 1 gig, that is shaped like a cube or dice and is the size of quarter on each side. That’s right. It’s tiny. The first thought I had was that this was a joke, along the same lines as the iflea steak posted about a little while back. Then I determined, nope I think this is for real. It gets even funnier when you picture someone actually having a set of headphones plugged into this thing the size of a good sized dice hanging from their neck. It’s a funny image that brings up a good point.

When is technology TOO small? Would I want a camera the size of a postage stamp? How about a cell phone as big as a grain of rice? An mp3 player the size of a quarter? One of the most obvious concerns is interface. But even if I can fully interface with a cell phone the size of a grain of rice, would I want it??? I have a hard enough time finding my cell phone some days as it is. I don’t want to worry about stepping on it because it is slipped under the rug and I couldn’t tell. I don’t want to put my cup down on my digital camera because I couldn’t see it.

For years and years, as long as I’ve been alive the technology race has included two principal factors: 1) Make it Faster and 2) Make it Smaller. Computers have shrunk from the size of a large room, down to a small room, onto desks, into briefcase size packages, onto our laps, and now into our hands. All the while their speeds have increased at a rate that made their shrinking look like it was happening on the same time table as tectonic drift. It really is astounding. But I think we are finally reaching the limit of how small these things can get. I have no doubt that in 5 years the most advanced desk-top computer today could be built, for enough money, to fit in a pda. Maybe that’s stretching it, but I’m not sure.

I don’t really know how to end this post because I’m not sure what the point should be. To a certain extent it all seems like an exercise in futility any way since it’s mostly about making things so people will buy them and keep the economy going. Ah capitalism. But at the same time, many of these miniaturizations have lead to better life saving products. All I know is that the idea of a giant library of records or 8 tracks being able to hang from someone’s neck in a package that could EASILY get lost in a gumball machine just seems almost silly.

changes

I thought due to recent events, that even if I didn’t have time to do a super elaborate entry I should add something. The “recent” event I’m speaking of is my mentor Sara leaving the company I work for. This is relatively significant since 1) She was the last person to be here from when I was hired (Jason moved to London and Dominic opened a restaurant with his wife) and 2) Being the most senior person she was the one who had been managing all of our projects. The end result of all this is that our office has been rather chaotic over the last week and a half. Things are slowly starting to straighten back out but if we don’t get a permanent replacement I’m not really certain what is going to happen.

Word to your Mother.

Specter Getz

If you don't like it, tough. I wrote it at Luna cafe at like 11pm over the best plate of portabella mushrooms and ravioli I have ever had. The sauce alone likely took 2 years off my life, but added in quality what it had to have taken in quantity.

For so long my times of contemplation always had a specter drifting about, sometimes fading in and out, others crystal clear. This specter was birthed by having come across a quote from jazz musician Stan Getz, “My Life is Music…at the cost of everything else.”

So I went on agonizing, “Is my life Christ at the cost of ANYTHING else?” And this one specter haunted me for years always challenging me to identify one thing I had really given up for Christ; it told me I had to flee everything and everyone but Christ to be as devoted as it had been to its master. And as I failed to give up everything I began to fret.

As I sit pondering this conflict again I am brought to look at this question in a new way. I imagine Specter Getz once again walking up to challenge me just as he has successfully done dozens of times before.

I can see the complacent look on his aged face. He wears his devotion to his craft on his lips as the Pharisees wore their devotion around their necks. And so he stops in front of me, not really bothering to look at me, more looking through me, as though he’s already working out the next dissonant progression of notes he’s going to puff out, and he says, “My Life is music at the cost of everything else. Is your Life Christ at the cost of everything else?”

In my mind Getz hesitates for a moment, as if out of courtesy, then starts to walk back into the shadows. Like a nervous school boy, excited to try his hand at answering the teacher yet afraid he is wrong, I finally get out my response, “My Life is Christ to the salvation of everything else.”

In a voice that betrays years of sitting in smoky bars and lounges until too early in the morning he simply says, “Yeah?”

Then in as much an effort to explain myself to him as to work it out for myself I continue, “You always tell me that music cost you everything else and at first I thought Christ was suppose to cost me everything as well, because he says he does. But I never saw how it was different until now.”

“The things I lose to Christ I lose in the same way as trading a painting of a field for a chance to lie in it, to stare up at the clouds and feel the same wind on my skin that is making the clouds above sail slowly by. The things I give up were never really mine, never even real, just phantoms of what they could be, only a hint. But by giving them to Him they are infused with new power, with new significance, true beauty, deeper magic.”

“The master you serve called you to forsake all else, and now your life is occupied by something that can never fulfill you. My Master calls me to forsake all else so that it may be put in its proper place, transformed, and work to bring Him glory and me joy.”

“Yours is about how much you have lost, mine is about how much I give and what I do with what I get in return,” I finish. Stan doesn’t say anything as he starts walking away for what I can only assume is the last time. I want to call after him and ask if this is what he had been waiting for me to say. “Have you been trying to teach me this, or are you just bored with our little game?” “Were you truly trying to torment me, or was this all a big game?”

I don’t bother to say any of these things, and somehow they don’t seem all that important. Not in light of my new thought to ponder.

Brief Poll

Wow, it's been 9 days since I last posted. Terrible, just terrible. I'll have some fun stuff up here soon, but until then a brief poll...

Should I get a scooter? Why?

Thanks to the Anonymous Dominoes Guy

So Abigail and I were on our way to this site visit to measure the privacy in a board-room, when we realized we were lost; we'd taken a wrong turn when we got off the metro. So Abigail starts walking around trying to orient herself, and at the same time trying to talk to our contact at this company for directions. I on the other hand, start looking around like a lost little preschooler. I know, pathetic. Whatever. It was her contact and I don't know the Alexandria area at all. Plus I was lugging a bunch of equipment around.

Cut to about 10 minutes later.

I see a dominoes delivery car pull up to a stop sign so I wave at him and run over to the car. I'm thinking delivery guy, these people are like a rolling road atlas, right? The guy rolls down the window and I ask him, "Hey, do you know which way to Prince Street?" He responds with some vague hand waving in mostly english words, and I realize this is doing me no good. I smile and thank him for taking the time to give me directions. Turning around quite dejectedly and realizing we are still lost, I begin to walk back to the equipment.

The delivery guy starts to turn the corner (towards us) when he pulls over again and says, "Prince street?" Abigail hears him and tells him the actual address. The delivery guy then says something that I didn't expect, "I'm headed that way, why don't you just jump in. I'll drive you." I was a little hesitant at first, until I realized. Wait a minute, this guy has pizza. He isn't going to take the time to drive us out into the middle of nowhere, take our stuff, dump us off and drive away. He has a delivery time to make! We're safe.

So five minutes later he is dropping us off right at the front door of the office we needed to go to, and I'm taking the pizza bag off my lap and climbing out of the car. It was the most random and crazy work story yet. Wierd, wierd times.