a letter to my constituents

Funny how in my last post I mentioned Live search. A month and a half or so has passed since then and Live is done, stick a fork in it. 

Now, if you go to www.live.com you get bounced to Bing. WTF is Bing? It's Microsoft's latest attempt at contesting Google's dominance of web search. I've used Bing a couple times. I can't say anything bad about it, but I also can't say that there's anything special about it that gives me reason to use it over Google. Millions of people are in the habit of googling. How will Microsoft convince them to stop googling and start binging (not to be confused with bingeing).  Maybe some of them wonder if you can google on Bing. Is Bing a better googler than Google? Will Bing become a verb? How will Bing conquer the internet?

As I type this, I'm watching the national soccer teams of Spain and the USA in the first period (or half or however soccer's split up) of their match in the FIFA Confederations Cup, somewhere in South Africa. Neither team has scored yet, at 11:45 into the match. I'm not a big soccer fan but I like watching it sometimes. I'd rather watch soccer than hockey, that's for sure. It's hard not to be drawn into the crowd's enthusiasm for the game. Soccer fans are maniacs, and I mean that as a compliment. I love the intensity. It reminds me a lot of college football.

The last 3 days I had jury duty. I was grumpy at first that I'd be taking a pay cut for a couple days (I don't get paid if I'm at jury duty) but I soon got over it and started to enjoy my civic duty. I figure it'll be one of the few times in my life where I'm directly involved in a government function. Or maybe it's blown my mind and I'll go on a quest to be the next John Adams.

I will say this, I feel a little more patriotic than I did before serving in that jury. It also gave me a little more faith in my fellow Americans. And I'd say I feel a little more compassionate towards human beings in general. I'm a better person for having served in that jury. I'm glad the founders of our country laid out such an excellent system. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think it's pretty bad-ass. My fellow jurors and I were the center of the universe there for a few. Everything hinged on what we decided. I had moments with dim recollections of Kafka and Dostoevsky. Sometimes I thought I might go insane with boredom and break out of the courthouse screaming with several sheriff's deputies sprinting after me. But mostly it was an awesome experience that improved me as a man and as a person. I'm glad I didn't labor over ways out. I'm sure I could've imagined up something to get out of jury duty, but why? WTF is wrong with people that they want to get out of it? Those people should be sent to countries that don't have trial by jury.

Storms moved through the Pensacola area yesterday. They were a welcome relief from over a week's worth of heat indexes over a hundred a couple record-setting days...

USA SCORES!!!!!!!!!!! (around 26 minutes in)

...there's nothing like waiting tables outside in over a hundred degree temps and worrying that the sweat which has built up all over your face just in the brief time since you wiped it off before walking to the table will drip off your nose and disgust the guests. That sucks. Mostly I don't mind the heat (sometimes it annoys me) but I did welcome yesterday's rain. It'd been too long and we needed a break from the heat. I'm pretty sure most of the plants liked it, too...well, except for one of my fellow juror's tomatoes. He said he was going to be having a bunch of fried green tomatoes because the rainstorms damaged a bunch of his plants. Oops. Collateral damage.

Cheers,

mitchell

survival of the luckiest

This is why you don't play around outside, especially with wind-driven devices, during tropical storms.  The story linked below is a story of stupidity and courage.  I wonder if the wind-thrashed man will end up making a bunch of money from it.

Wind Blows Kite Surfer Into Bldg.  

Robot Apocalypse

Engadget recently brought to mine eyes the following disturbing/inspiring video of remote control robot laser battle madness:

What are those robots?  At least some of them are Kondo KHR Series robots.  You can have one for the low, low price of $1445 plus shipping from Sozbots.  It's cool that we have such toys but it's disturbing because that video is a glimpse of the future of warfare.

If you're not concerned, you need to see this video from the future:

In The Know: Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?

Don't panic.

the sound of the celestial realm

Early this morning, the Colorado Rockies defeated the San Diego Padres 2 to 1 after 22 innings of play. 22 INNINGS!!! It took them over 6 hours to finish the game.

Wait a minute.

So is it a big deal because the game ran so late, 1:21 AM? Or is it a big deal because they played for over 6 hours? Both?

I'm on my feet and moving around for more than 6 hours on a regular basis. And I've been on my feet and moving around for longer than that and past 4 AM a whole bunch of times. Aren't these guys professional athletes? I guess most of them couldn't hang in the bar and restaurant industry.

Yeah, the story's good in the confines of Major League Baseball news but it's not much in the way of human performance. There is some excellent stuff here, though:

"This was a good game to get outside yourself," Hurdle said. "About the 16th inning, I said, 'Hey boys, no matter what's in front of us, there's a world of people out there who've got harder rows to hoe than we do. No matter what happens the rest of the night, have some fun with this thing.' "

Now that's something I can respect. Even if it's just a game it's still a real battle that you really want to win. Go through some tough times with a bunch of other people and you'll be bonded to them. That's something that interests me. The men on those baseball teams went through something intense and real that night, and probably some unreal stuff, too. Imagine slugging it out under all those lights in front of all those people. I bet all those guys slept well after that.

Maybe the game was a testament to man's ability to stave off boredom.

Anahata (Sanskrit: अनाहत, Anāhata) is the fourth primary chakra according to the Hindu Yogic and Tantric (Shakta) traditions.
In Sanskrit the word anahata - means unhurt, un-struck and unbeaten. Anahata Nad refers to the Vedic concept of unstruck sound, the sound of the celestial realm. [Anahata]

Curt Schilling Pitches Perfect MMORPG

With Major League Baseball in spring training and pre-season, media of all kinds are rife with baseball news. Here's some from beyond the base path.

VentureBeat has a couple great articles today about Curt Schilling's video game company, 38 Studios, and its upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game, codenamed Copernicus.

From baseball to an online fantasy gaming world: Q&A with Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling of 38 Studios

Cryptic words about Curt Schilling’s Copernicus

I'm not a videogamer, but I'm excited by the idea of a game based on visuals by Todd McFarlane and storytelling by R.A. Salvatore. Lead by the drive and focus of one of the best pitchers of all time, a CEO plucked from Electronic Arts, and two of today's great creative minds, tales of the development of 38 Studios' Copernicus will be a part of tech/videogame blogosphere for years to come.