Why Living In An Adequately-Sized House Was/Is Awesome

On the front page of the ‘Home’ section of Monday’s Pioneer Press was an article reporting on the growing trend of potential homeowners settling for well-planned, cozy houses instead of following the previous more-rooms-in-the-house-the-better model. Smaller floor plans and multipurpose rooms are on the rise. The main reason for this is, of course, the tanking economy - people are second-guessing whether or not they really need a bigger house in trade for a higher mortgage.

This was surprising to me, because I had never thought that the bigger the house the better. I have been in plenty of big, nice, houses, but I never thought of them as something to put yourself into massive debt over. Big houses were what rich people bought. You know, people who could afford them.

You can chalk this up to ignorance on my part, but the point still stands that I think the first thing to consider in house-buying is how much space you can afford versus how much space you really need. If you want more space than you need or can afford, rethinking that mortgage should be in order. But what do I know - I’ve never bought or sold a house. My family has never even owned a house.

To date I have lived in ten different houses, two different apartments, and one college dorm room. That’s thirteen different permanent residences in twenty-one years. Up until age twelve I had to share a room with my brother, after which I either had my own room or shared a room with a non-relative roommate. The apartments being small goes without saying, but none of houses I’ve lived in would be considered “big” by American standards, yet they each had enough space for my family of four.

I cherish these houses because each one reinforced ideas about living quarters that helped me later on in life as I ventured out on my own. Small houses have taught me lessons that big houses may not have, and the result of this is that I am more aware of how I relate to my living quarters. Allow me to share some examples of what I have learned.

Small houses taught me to share spaces. Growing up, I had to share bathrooms, bedrooms, washrooms, and playrooms. Sharing rooms taught me to clean up after myself, to finish what I started, and to resolve conflicts. I couldn’t leave stuff strewn about because other people used that room, too. If I wanted to play with something, I had to do what I wanted to do in the time allotted, and then I had to pack up and move somewhere else. This, coincidentally, also taught me to keep track of my toys.

When I visit big houses, which is not often, I usually see a huge kids playroom with toys scattered about, abandoned after some play session that happened weeks ago. I never had that luxury. I always had to clean everything up, display my LEGO creations for mere days at a time before dismantling them to build something new, and keep my toy bins nice and orderly because I couldn’t afford the floor space to leave everything scattered about.

Small houses also taught me to buy and use functional furniture. I can’t remember a single item of furniture that my parents kept for display purposes only. No china cabinets, no cubbie shelves to hold knick-knacks, no small hallway tables that supported only a lamp, no overstuffed furniture that us kids weren’t allowed to sit on, nothing like that. Everything in our house had a purpose that it dutifully served. Part of that was because of the size of the houses, yes, but part of it was also due to the constant moving. When you move every two years (on average), you really start to question the reason behind keeping useless furniture, and then you start to dump it. I took that lessraon with me.

Speaking of dumping furniture, that was another thing I learned to do - not become too attached to it. My parents did keep a lot of furniture throughout the years, but they also gave a lot away and bought a lot of recycled stuff. My brother and I both had desks that were purchased from recycle shops. Throughout my childhood furniture was stuff that came and went as easily as the clothes I grew into and out of.

Finally, living in small houses taught me to think of the neighbors. Space is a luxury in most of Japan, and neighbors were never far away. My dad stressed the importance of having good relations with the neighbors, and being in a small house limited the noise levels as well as how much buffer space we had between houses. In the suburban American sprawl, I feel that this is often lost. When mowing your yard constitutes a good 40 minutes of exercise, who has time to pack a compass and knapsack and make the trek to meet the neighbors?

So that’s what I learned from living in lots of small houses. And that is why I will most likely choose to live in a flexibly-designed and cozy house filled with second-hand, functional furniture. At the very least I’m prepared to be ahead of the curve for the next economic recession!




_DZ

The Link Between Depression, MMORPGs, and Covetousness

After reading this short post on the LATimes blog about a study showing that almost 1/3 of Everquest II gamers (MMORPG players) are depressed, I can't help but say, "duh. It took this long to get a study going?"

The last time I played a MMO seriously was in mid-high school and, while I don't know if I was depressed or not, I was definitely not all bubbly-smiley-roses-and-rainbows happy. I played my MMO (Runescape) because it was more fun than real life and I don't think other people who play MMOs have any different motives.

What are the possible motives for playing an MMO? Fun? Distraction? Companionship? Team-building? An attempt to make money? There is one thing that these things have in common - doing them online is supposed to be a better alternative than doing them in the real world.

Nobody aspires to be less online than they are in the real world - there's no point in partaking if you don't. You might as well just stay in real life if you're having a more mediocre time online.

If we aspire to be more online, then what are the goals? What is the online gamer trying to achieve? How can they get prestige, status, and "win" in their online game?

Let's look at the cycle in most, if not all, online games,

1. Kill monsters / Fulfill quest requirements
   
2. Get rewarded for: killing monsters / beating quests
   
3. Loot monsters for items and money / receive quest rewards
   
4. Sell lots of crappy items to buy expensive, better items
   
5. Use better items to: kill more powerful monsters / to do harder quests
   
6. Go to Step 2

This is an endless cycle that players refer to rather ruefully as "the grind". There are some variations to the grind, like having to take a monster down with a group of people, or having a quest that takes a week to complete, but the basics are very much the same.

So how is the success and status measured in online games? It is measured by the amount of items or money you have. He who has the most toys, wins.

If succeeding in the online realm means having the most toys, and we aspire to be more online than we are in the real world, then I can only deduce that turning to online games represents a discontent with the material possessions or status that we have in the real world. Online games are seen as a shortcut to wealth, fame and fortune. And, unlike the real world, the items and money are all that matter. You can be the most generous person online, but people will still look at your avatar and say, "Man, that guy has crappy items. He must suck at this game." Character counts for nothing in the online gaming universe. It is a facet that is hidden by the brilliant shine of digital material wealth. (This also explains the disdain that gamers have for those who spend real-world money to buy in-game items and currency.)

Does this model hold true in the real world? Do the richest "win" at life? Does money, power, fame, and status bring happiness? I think anyone who reads even a basic supermarket tabloid
can tell you that some of the wealthiest people in the world are the most screwed-up and unhappy of the lot.

So what is the secret to happiness? According to the apostle Paul and psychologist Barry Schwartz, the secret is being content with what we have. The key is not self-centeredness and making sure that our all needs are met first and foremost, but rather that those around us are living comfortably. Every psychologist will tell you that the happiest people are those with meaningful, deep, personal friendships with others. Making these kind of friendships is hard work, as any married person can attest to. In short, character counts in real life.

If character counts in real life, and we want out online lives to be better than our real lives, then why isn't altruism rewarded in online games? As it stands now, selflessness is not a desirable attribute to work towards in any online game simply because it is not rewarded. Sure, you can give away items to lower-level characters or help them beat monsters, but does it really cost you anything? No, because you weigh the risks ahead of time and are always pretty confident that you can win before you engage in any risky combat activity. Helping others doesn't cost you anything in an online universe. In Real Life is costs you time, money, work, and/or investment, but it is one of the most rewarding things in life to do.

So no wonder online roleplayers are depressed - they spend all day thinking "If only I had suchandsuch an item, then I could be really cool and people would look up to me." When success is always one item or another hundred gold pieces out of their reach, constantly failing their expectations of what will make them happy, depression is the only direction to go.





_DZ

My Love For the PowerMac G4

While I’ve mentioned my possession of PowerMac G4s in several previous posts throughout the months, I think it’s time I went into the history of them in a little bit more detail. These are machines that I have bought mainly for nostalgic purposes; machines that I idolized when they were released and wanted so badly but could never afford. After high school, however, I decided that I was a big boy and could buy them if I so chose. So I did.

My first G4, a 450MHz single core AGP machine with a DVD drive, 512MB RAM and a 40GB HD running OS 10.4 Tiger, was purchased when I was at Messiah College in February of 2007. I won it on eBay for $75+$20 shipping, which was not a bad deal by any means. It had been a design machine at a studio in New York, and had been retired and put up for sale. The auction mentioned that shipping would be slow, and indeed it was - nearly a month after I won the auction the machine showed up at my campus post office. Included was the tower, an ethernet cable and a Dell keyboard and mouse, which was more than I was expecting. My friend Isaac gave me a 15 inch Dell monitor that had been sitting in his attic, and I soon had my very own G4 up and running in my dorm room. Now, what was I going to do with it?

It wasn’t nearly as powerful as my MacBook, and it didn’t come with any software other than Microsoft Office X. I didn’t have Office at the time, so I transferred that over to my Macbook. I had bought the machine for nostalgia purposes, but now I had a machine that ran the same OS as my Macbook (10.4.9 Tiger), only slower, and had less programs. Crap. The DVD drive was very nice, since I had Japanese region DVDs that required my MacBook to switch the DVD region of its drive. Since the number of switches was limited to five, the G4's first role was as a Japanese DVD-watching machine.

But I didn’t watch Japanese DVDs that often, so I had to find another way to justify this machine that hung out under my desk. Games, I thought, I can run games on it.

So I did!



For the remainder of the college semester, my G4 ran a copy of MacMAME. MacMAME allowed me to play shmups (my first video game love), and I poured hours into playing classic games such as Progear no Arashi, DodonPachi, DonPachi, E.S.P. Rade, Guwange, Battle Garrega and Armed Police Batrider. A regular keyboard was no good for these games and I didn’t have a gamepad, so I bought a USB<=>PS2 cable and borrowed a friend’s idle DualShock to rock MacMAME. It was glorious, I assure you.

I stored the machine over the summer, as I was in Japan making money, and by the time I returned in September I was itching to actually use the G4 for classic, nostalgic purposes. A quick search on eBay and a few strategic bids netted me a copy of Mac OS 9.2 and a copy of Unreal Tournament (I see Unreal Tournament 2004 as pretty much the zenith of computer gaming, but classic UT is almost as good). Not only was I granted access to hours of fragging goodness, but being able to boot into OS 9 allowed me to download and play abandonware games for the Mac as well. These are classic games that have been abandoned by their publishers and are available for free download. The most notable of these games, of course, was SimCity 2000, Original Oregon Trail, and Civilization 2, all of which had incredibly high nostalgic value for me. I was now swimming in nostalgia goodness!

But, believe it or not, that got old. I never imagined it getting old, but it did. And soon I decided that the computer wasn’t worth the space it took up, so I decided to sell it. I bundled it with OS 9, a pair of Roland speakers, the monitor, keyboard and mouse, and the copy of Unreal Tournament and put it up on CraigsList for $150. It wasn’t exactly a flip because all of the stuff DID cost me more than that, but I certainly didn’t lose a lot of money. A guy who lived in Philadelphia came and picked it up, only to call me two days later to complain that “[he] plugged it in and it started smoking.” I expected to be out a full $150, but for some reason he never called me again. I sometimes wonder what ever happened to the machine.

Well, one G4 had come and gone, but how long would it be before I wanted another, better one?

-------


That was in the spring of 2008, after which I went for half a year without another G4. Upon moving to Minnesota, however, I decided that it would be nice to have one again, so to Craigslist I faithfully turned once again.

I sold the first G4 because I didn’t need it, so "what made me decide I needed another one?", you may ask. This time I did actually have a goal in mind. This time I wanted to use it to set up an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server. An FTP server, for those who don’t know, is a machine that hosts files online that can be accessed from anywhere that has an Internet connection. I saw my future G4 as a machine that would sit in the corner, run 24/7, serve up media files at my request and also backup any data I might want backed up.

My media is actually pretty limited - just 207 episodes of the anime BLEACH (though at 175MB an episode, that’s a lot of data) and a few seasons of House M.D. These I figured would go on a slave hard drive, while the OS and backed-up files would be stored on the primary drive.

But wait, I haven’t actually found a machine yet.


Though I decided I wanted to step up and buy a faster, better machine than the last G4 I owned, price was still a factor, and I set myself a price range of $120-$180. After a few days of browsing I happened upon a listing for a Quicksilver G4 with a 867MHz processor, 384MB RAM, 40GB HD, Zip drive(!), and running an unknown version of OS X. Apparently the lister (the same guy who had no idea how to use Pro Tools) had forgotten the admin logon password and hadn’t used the machine in ages. The machine, priced at $150, came with an Apple Pro keyboard and mouse, and the cute round Apple speakers. I looked at the listing and grinned. I could haggle that down. I called the guy up at 9:45 on a Friday night, asking if the machine was still available. It was, and he wanted it gone that night, so I hopped in my van and drove over to his house. We had a quick meeting at his apartment, he showed me the machine, and I successfully haggled the price down to $120, citing that the machine effectively had no operating system - that alone was worth the $30. The keyboard was extremely dusty, but everything looked good overall, and I drove back home eager to set up my new machine.

I got home and realized that not only did I not have a monitor, but no one in my house even had a monitor that I could borrow. After a bit of thinking, I remembered that the basement had a projector which accepted VGA input, so I hauled my new purchase down the stairs and set it up in the basement at 11 o’clock at night.

First on the agenda was obviously to get an OS loaded onto the machine. It didn’t have a DVD drive (grr!), which meant that not only could I not (illegally) load my copy of Leopard onto it, but also that I couldn’t load my copy of OS 10.4 Tiger on it either. Luckily, a Grape iMac that I had purchased a month before had come with a copy of OS 10.3 Panther, so I grabbed the discs for that and went to work.

It is worth noting that I wanted to keep things legal here. My 333MHz iMac was at the time dual-booting OS 9.2.2 and Panther, so to keep things square I deleted Panther from the iMac before installing it on the G4. The iMac ran it slowly anyway.

So now that the OS was loaded on, I needed to install a plethora of networking utilities. I set up Panther to for file-sharing and FTP hosting, (following this website) configured a DNS account using DynDNS, downloaded and installed Eavesdrop, and loaded up a VNC client. At this point I only had the one 40GB hard drive, so loading my media would have to wait.

Time to connect from my MacBook! I loaded up Cyberduck, typed in the G4’s DynDNS address, and BAM, I was FTP-ing. It was sweet. I could, like, transfer files back and forth between the G4 in the basement and my laptop in my room.

Now it was time to upgrade my system to make it a worthwhile FTP system and deal with all the technical difficulties and disappointments that went along with that!

---


So my Quicksilver G4 was humming in my basement, FTPing inside my house to my MacBook. But I couldn’t leave it set up that way - I needed to move everything into my room. That meant that before I started upgrading anything else, I needed a monitor. I thought about trying Craigslist since it is, after all, the answer to any material need, but before I could hop on there I ran across a nice 15-incher at my local Axman Surplus. The monitor, a CRT of course, was attractively priced at $1.97. They couldn’t guarantee that it worked, buy for that kind of price, I was willing to risk it.

It turned out that the monitor worked beautifully and fulfilled all of my viewing needs quite well. I then turned my attention to the RAM and hard drive upgrades. First the RAM.

The G4, as stated before, had a paltry 384MB of RAM - one slot with a 128MB stick and another with 256MB. Despite rampant claims that 16k should be enough for anybody, I ignored the advice of yesteryear and sought to procure more RAM. My first stop, oddly enough, was eBay.

I had $22 idly sitting in my PayPal account that I wanted to use, so I looked around eBay for some good RAM for about that amount. I found a listing for 1GB (2x512) of high-density RAM for $19, so I took it. It arrived, only to not work in my machine, because, unbeknownst to me, my machine needs low-density RAM (which is considerably more expensive). I flipped the useless high-density stuff on Craigslist and this time stayed there to try and find some more. I eventually, after a couple weeks, found a guy who was selling two 256MB sticks for $20, so I went for that. A quick install and my G4 was purring with 768MBs of RAM goodness, its three slots holding 256MB each.

The second hard drive posed a much bigger headache. I’ve already admitted to being kind of a sad n00bcakes when it comes to computer parts, and my choice of hard drive will demonstrate that once again. I hopped on Craigslist once more, hoping to find something around 120GB-160GB that I could partition into two parts - allowing me to keep my OS and other files on the master and organize all of the media to host on the second drive. I found a nice 160GB SATA drive for about $20, and I met the guy in a McDonalds marking lot and made the swap. I took it home only to find that my machine needs an IDE drive - a completely different type of interface. Still full of vigor, I hopped on Amazon to find a converter bridge, something that would allow a IDE machine to take a SATA drive. That part turned out to be about $15, so, ever the stickler for FREE SuperSaver Shipping, I tacked on a internal four port USB card to the order. A computer can never have too many USB ports!

Both items arrived in a timely fashion and I installed them in an afternoon. The USB card worked flawlessly. The bridge did not. I tried every combination of master/slave drive set up that I could think of, but nothing worked. I took the IDE drive out of my external back-up drive and plugged the bridge into that, and that worked, so I knew that the bridge wasn’t bad. I just couldn’t get my machine to recognize that stupid second drive!

I abandoned that SATA drive (the drive and bridge are still stuffed in a drawer, four months later) and trudged back to CL to find another drive. I found one and arranged to meet the guy at the Oakdale Best Buy parking lot on Black Friday. In hindsight, this was a terrible idea. Don’t ever do this. I ended up walking around the parking lot for an hour, only to never find the guy and return home. He emailed me later, apologizing for not showing up and claiming that it, “just wasn’t a good day.” Whatever, guy. I gave you my cell number - you could’ve called me.

I soon found another listing, and arranged to meet this guy at a local record store called the Electric Fetus, a popular offbeat Minneapolis joint. Again, I was left browsing rows and rows of CDs waiting for a guy who never showed up. I got home only to find an email from him, claiming that he never saw me. I had told him earlier to look for a guy in shades and a leather biker jacket, and I reminded him that that was what I was wearing.

“Oh,” he replied, “that tall guy? I didn’t know. I asked the guy at the counter if anyone was waiting for me, and he said ‘no’.”

Oh, of course. I’m totally going to walk up to a clerk and be all like, “Hey, if a some guy comes in asking if someone is waiting for him, send him over to me.” What am I, nuts? So that swap didn’t work out either.

Turns out the third one was the charm. I found a guy selling a 160GB IDE drive for $20, so I agreed to meet him at a gas station about 4 miles or so away from my house. It was cold, but I decided that I was tough and that I could bike there. I did, only to soon receive a call saying that he was running late. The gas station was in a part of town that, while not “bad”, was not exactly full of moms-driving-minivans (I’m sure you are all familiar with the M-D-M parts of town in your areas). So, because of this, the gas station wouldn’t let me wait inside, and I had to try and keep warm at 9:30AM in ten-degree weather and wait for twenty minutes until this guy showed up with my hard drive.

My hands froze on the ride home (I WAS wearing ski gloves, but I guess that doesn’t help against cold wind and bare metal handlebars), and I had to stop in at my work to warm them up before I could continue. Standing there holding my hands inside of a metal hotcase was one of the most painful experiences of my life, second only perhaps to having my nipple pierced when I was 15.

I eventually made it home, threw the drive into the G4, and booted it up.

Success! Not only did it work, but this guy had left 20GB of MP3 files on it. I didn’t want any of them, and I had to partition the drive anyway, so they all got deleted. The partition went smoothly, and soon I was loading all sorts of media onto the machine, fulfilling my dream that I had set out to achieve for it.

But is that it? Is that what the machine is doing now? Shockingly, no!


------

Now that my Quicksilver G4 is fully upgraded, I should be able to put it to use as an FTP server, right? Well, things weren’t that simple. It turns out that I don’t know how to assign a static IP address to the Quicksilver machine, which is kind of important if you want to FTP. My options are actually to A) open all the ports on the router to allow FTP, or B) assign a static (unchanging, as opposed to dynamic, or variable) IP address to the machine. I know how to do neither of these things. (If you know how, by all means let me know!)

So because I can’t FTP, the machine just sits there as a media storage unit. But, thankfully, I can put it to use in other ways as well.

In late November I bought a grape G3 iMac off of Craigslist for $25 that had OS 9 as well as Photoshop 5.5 and Illustrator 9. Since the G4 can run programs in the Classic environment, I copied the whole system folder and both Adobe programs over to it. It now servers as my graphics machine, and I use it to make these comics. Actually just about any image editing that I do is done on that machine. (I have since reinstalled OS 8.6 on the iMac and given it away).

I also tried using the G4 as a music jukebox, because my laptop is portable and my speakers are not. I like to listen to music as I drift off to sleep, but the G4 generated too much fan noise to be of any use while I am trying to sleep. It’s just too loud and disconcerting. Bleh!

The keyboard that came with the G4 was super dusty, so one week I decided to clean it. While all of the keys were strewn about my desk, I got the wild idea that I wanted to learn the Dvorak keyboard layout. So I re-assembled the keyboard in that layout, and now I am teaching myself Dvorak. One annoying part of this is that every time I restart the computer, the logon window still operates in QWERTY, so I have to try and picture the QWERTY setup in my head in order to input my password correctly. Consequently, I don’t restart very often.

So, dear reader, our journey has come to an end. You have followed me from basement monitor setup to Dvorak layout, and suffered with me through parts upgrades, missed appointments, incompatible hardware, and other frustrations. But now you know the whole story behind my Quicksilver G4, and why I love it so much. It’s become a permanent fixture in my room, humming away a bit too loudly, and providing my with good classic software that lets me get done what I want to do.

Hooray!



_DZ

Ubuntu 8.0 on a Macbook to replace Leopard? Not quite yet!

Last weekend I entertained the idea of switching my Macbook OS to Linux, or more specifically, to Ubuntu 8.0. Right now if course I run OS Leopard 10.5.6, which I love. So why would I want to switch? Well, there are a couple of reasons.

First, I was just curious. The last time I tried Ubuntu was back when it was version 7.0 and wouldn’t recognize my Mac’s wireless card. No wireless was kind of a deal breaker, and I wasn’t about to go rooting around to find code or drivers to make it work, so I immediately retreated to the safety of Leopard. But now version 8.0 was out, and I thought I would try it out to see what features it had to offer, and to see if the wireless issue was fixed.

Secondly, I was attracted to Ubuntu because it was free, open source software (the two are not synonymous). More importantly, it was a free, open source operating system. I use free software on my Mac whenever possible, but a free operating system would be a first. Open sourcing is an issue I care about because I feel that closed, proprietary formats and software seriously inhibit the progression of global, grassroots software technology. In order for software to be available to everyone, it needs to be as cheap as possible, and nothing is cheaper than free. In the past free software couldn’t compete with commercial products, but that has changed thanks to (a) more programmers and (b) their willingness and ability to collaborate with one another over the Internet. Free software really is the future, and as such I feel that I should adopt it as soon as possible.

So I was all ready to install Ubuntu, but then I had second thoughts. What would I lose by abandoning Leopard? Have my computing habits become so ingrained in the Mac user experience that I would find it difficult or even painful to switch? In the nine years or so that I have been using Macs, I have become somewhat of a Mac power user (also a Power Mac user!) It was time that I examined the features that I totally take for granted on my Macbook.

For starters, I would lose the total hardware/software integration. These are the little things that make the Mac user experience so enjoyable. Things like the brightness and volume adjust keys, the Safari/Dashboard integration, and Exposé. The two finger scroll, the numerous keyboard shortcuts that I have memorized, and the native iSight and iPod support. These things “just work” on a Mac.

This goes for language support as well. I have a MacBook with a Japanese keyboard, which allows me to switch from English to Japanese with the press of a single key. I also get to type @ ¥ ^ - [ ] : ; / _ without hitting the Shift key!

On the tangent of iPod support, I would also have to face losing three years worth of music statistics kept track of by my iTunes. Stats like song ratings, play counts, playlists, not to mention other perks like album art and downloaded lyrics. I would literally have to start from scratch.

Another thing I would miss is the intuitive, subtle features present in Leopard itself. While I could do without gimmicks like Stacks, other features such as Spaces, Quick Look, Spotlight, and the Dock have become mainstays of my computing experience. Would these have Linux counterparts? Linux has such counterparts for programs like Quicksilver (a third party application launcher that has revolutionized how I interact with my Mac) and Time Machine, which I feel that I could get used to quite quickly.

Of course, there are other apps that I run on my Macbook that I would likely miss as well - programs like Amadeus Pro, Garageband, Handbrake, Ghost Recon, iMovie, and GarageSale. These might have Linux alternatives, but it would take me time to learn all of them, and, frankly, right now I don’t see the point in learning a lot of new software that does the same stuff that I can already do.

And what about the migration of all my preferences? All my saved passwords, system settings, website autologins, and bookmarked links? I would have to reset all of those!

So I didn’t install Ubuntu. I figured, “Hey, I paid the money for Leopard, I might as well get all the use out of it that I can.” And this is what I plan to do. Right now I am not yet ready to make the migration to the Linux world, but I plan to eventually. And by the time I am ready, my Macbook will no doubt be falling apart and Ubuntu will have gotten even better. But know this, I will install Linux on the next computer I buy. And the next one. And the next one.


_DZ

Desktop Colors, Productivity, and Useful Information

I found this article in Wednesday’s Minneapolis Sun-Herald.

“A new study by the American Computer Learning Society, the nations leading body on researching how to optimally use the personal computer in everyday life, reports that displaying a solid color on a computer’s desktop results in increased productivity for the user. While the current trend is to post a personal photo or “wallpaper” as a background image, researcher Laura Beechersmith says that this is a less-than-ideal situation for both private users and employers alike.

Says Beechersmith, “Since nearly the inception of the computer desktop, people have liked to put a picture of their kid, pet, favorite vacation destination or whatever as the backdrop for their personal computing. What we’re finding is that not only do people who have these customized wallpapers spend less time being productive, they also spend more time on things that should matter way less than they do.”

Beechersmith notes that those who like having control over their desktops are more often to browse the Internet in search of fresh images to display, and are 20% more likely to engage in idle, non-work-related conversation with their co-workers than those who just have a single, solid color as their background. In a widespread study that concluded last month, blue was seen as the best color to set a desktop background to in order to increase productivity.

“Employers would be wise to take note that solid colors result in more productivity and to likewise develop their workplace computing guidelines accordingly,” notes Ezra Gould, one of Beechersmith’s colleagues. “This could be as easy as a bulletin on a public board or as intensive as visual checks of each workstation.”

Public reception has understandably been mixed. Says local resident and employee of Three-Angle Computing Solutions Ashley Carrey, “I think it’s a big deal that this research might have an impact on my employers decision about computing in the workplace. I mean, I have a picture of my two sons playing baseball on my desktop, reminding me each day that I work hard so that they can have a better life. If that image were gone, my motivation would go down.”

Others seem completely fine with the change. Businessman Karl Simons of Uptown commented, “This will be great for my work. I have a guy who sits next to me all day who talks non-stop about how the Saints are the greatest football team in America, and how he is such a huge fan by having twenty different Saints wallpapers running on a rotation. Forcing him to have a solid color would save me countless headaches and no doubt increase productivity in my office.”

Whether yellow or blue, the research does seem to indicate that a solid color could certainly help productivity by decreasing distractions and helping the hardworking American concentrate on business at hand. Only time will tell if employers will heed the advice and take action in their workplaces.”

Pretty convincing, no?





Now, if you had done any Googling whatsoever of anything in the article, you would know that it is not a real article. The newspaper name is fake, the quotes are fake, and the research is fake. I wrote that article in fifteen minutes. So why bother writing it?

Because I want to make a point that not everything on the Internet is believable just because it looks good. Web design has come a long way in a very short time span, and having a good website with lots of information does not necessarily mean that it’s good information. In an age where we expect everything to be linked or cited, we often take such things for granted and don’t investigate the credibility of articles we may come across. I wrote this article in fifteen minutes - imagine what it could look like if someone was really intent on fooling you and was willing to put a lot more time and effort into it!

Investigate what you read!


_DZ

Second Life: Unlimited Ability to Create The Ordinary

The other day I watched a presentation by Linden Lab CEO and Second Life creator Philip Rosedale. Second Life, for those of you who don’t know, is a virtual world in which people interact with each other on a social and economic level much like, well, Real Life. Once you register an account in Second Life (SL from now on) you can create an avatar that represents you in the virtual world and in that world you can make friends, set up a business (or two!), attend social events, and even learn at an educational institution. In his talk Rosedale explained the motivation behind SL and the ideas he has for its future.

The first question he introduced was “why build a virtual world at all?” I say ‘introduced’ and not ‘addressed’ because, try as I might, I never found him directly answering this question. He instead took a round-about approach in which he gave some history of himself - how he was a creative kid who always wanted to build things - as well as his opinion on the purpose of the Internet.

Mr. Rosedale thinks that the ultimate use of said Internet is to simulate a world in which we have the unlimited potential to create. He thinks that everyone on earth has awesome ideas but is limited when it comes to actually realizing them. Second Life, then, is supposed to be a space where we can create without boundaries. Rosedale actually likened SL to outer space. Like outer space, he said, virtual worlds fascinate people because they allow us to reinvent ourselves. They allow us to begin again. And, like outer space, virtual worlds allow us to fantasize that maybe, just maybe, if we went far enough, we would find a place that will allow us to create a whole new identity. We truly have no idea what we will find if we travel far enough.

This perplexed me, because as I watched screenshots of SL pop up on the PowerPoint behind him, I saw nothing but objects and places that could easily be produced in the real world. A slice of watermelon. A Japanese-style outdoor boardwalk. A jazz bar complete with grand piano. If SL is supposed to be this awesome place where we can create anything, why are all the objects in it so familiar? Though space in SL is purportedly boundless and its world boasts 100 terabytes of user-created content (25,000 times bigger than World of Warcraft), why is it all familiar? Sure, I might run into something weird like a player avatar who has an internal combustion engine for a head, but an artist can draw that, can’t they? You don’t need a computer to display that creativity.

Maybe creativity isn’t the point. Maybe the point of SL is to bring people from all over the world together. SL claims to have a population of about 250,000 residents, all sharing information with one another. Rosedale says that virtual worlds, and SL in particular, are the best way for us to organize, share, remember, and experience information. He used the example of a common object, a chair. The web as we know it now presents information in the form of text and links, and maybe a few pictures. SL shifts everything to images. Creativity is expressed solely in graphic form. If I show you a picture of a chair instead of just telling you about it, you’re more likely to remember that I talked about a chair. And everyone, regardless of what language they speak, understands an iconic representation of a chair.

But what does this do to abstract thought? If I casually insert a chair into a story without elaborating about it in any way, you would conjure up an image of a chair in your head. Maybe it would be an image of your favorite chair at home, or a chair at Grandma’s house that you had fond memories of as a child. Or maybe the only chair that comes to mind is The Chair from the movie Juno. Regardless, you have now, on a cognizant level, interacted with my mention of a chair in a way that is meaningful to you. My description of a chair may be utterly forgettable, but your mental image will stick with you. Your ability to think abstractly has been enhanced.

Though SL features an interactive environment with 3d graphics and personal avatars, it is not a game. There is no way to win; there is no overarching goal to achieve. The point is simply to be social and creative. Because of this, SL has its own economy. Players are able to buy land from Linden Lab, set up shop, and sell virtual goods and services to other avatars. The SL currency, Linden Dollars, or L$, is able to be exchanged for real dollars at any time.

The existence of an economy makes sense when the point of the virtual world is to create. Rosedale points out that people who create want two things - fair ownership of their work and the ability to sell it. If the whole point of a virtual world is to provide an infinite playground in which to create, it is natural that an economy is right behind. When money comes into play however, things can go awry rather quickly. Pyramid schemes surface, adult entertainment runs rampant, and people have to be more wary of one another in general. Money corrupts the innocent and pure rather quickly.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think that Rosedale created Second Life with altruistic intent. People can create, sure, but they have to pay Linden Labs for that privilege. SL is a business just like any other online business. It creates content and tries to sell it to consumers as value. The rather utopian notion that people can be anything or anybody they want is refuted by the participants themselves who merely re-create the real world in cyberspace. True freedom to create anything one might imagine is so paralyzing that people keep to what is safe. As one Second Life user I talked to puts it, “Everywhere you go in SL, it’s either Star Wars or nudity.”


_DZ

Do Computers Belong In Schools? (A debate augmented with personal history)

Lately I’ve ben forming my own view on the debate over whether computers belong in schools or not. Actually it doesn’t seem to be much of a debate; it’s more like a bunch of people champion the cause incessantly and see any soul opposed as a Luddite who wants to impede progress. Even laypeople who have no idea there was any debate will say, “Well, of course computers belong in schools” when asked. While I am not quite ready to form my own concrete opinion, the issue has gotten me thinking about the role of computers in my own education. Their role is a rather obscure one, actually. In fact, the more I think about it, the less I can remember school computers helping me learn anything significant.

The first time I used a computer for education-related purposes was for a research report on knives that I did in third or fourth grade. At the time I was attending Japanese school and simultaneously being home-schooled. The computer, my dad’s Compaq tablet PC running Windows 3.1, served only as a way to write my report down - all the research was done in encyclopedias or other books books around the house. The report turned out to be barely a page long, but the whole process was very enjoyable. My mom even took pictures of the event.

I didn’t use a computer in an actual school until sixth grade. Despite the level of technological sophistication associated with Japan, there was not a single computer in any classroom in my entire public elementary school - not even on a teacher’s desk. In sixth grade, however, I moved to the US and my private Christian school had a computer lab full of obsolete DOS computers. This was 1998, and the school had a lab full of machines that still ran Paratrooper, Wheel of Fortune and original Oregon Trail. Incidentally, playing games was the only thing I remember doing with them. That year the school decided to buy new computer equipment and organized a jog-a-thon to help raise money. I dutifully sent a letter to everyone on my Dad’s Rolodex, explaining that I needed sponsorship to help pay for new computer equipment. I had no idea what the school would do with new computers (Organize Marathon LAN parties, perhaps?), but I was definitely going to help them get some! After all, it was progress!

I started middle school at a private international K-12 school in Japan, and they were all about computers. They had a typing lab workgroup of Mac Color Classics with At-Ease, and another full lab with Power Macs, two iMacs and assorted PCs running mainly Windows 95. This was when I started using the computer for just about everything. Using computers became more of an obsessive compulsion for me than anything else. I literally got joy just from being around them. Sure, I spent a lot of free time exploring the Internet, but I typed up a lot of papers, did a lot of research, created some fancy presentations and taught myself a great deal of software. My parents had bought me a second-hand laptop that ran Windows 3.1 (in 1999), and I taught myself how to do some elementary programming in BASIC on that machine. The majority of my on-screen time, however, was spent on entertainment, whether that be playing SimCity 2000, browsing the Web for pictures of sweet sports cars, or playing Yahoo! Pool.

I took a number of computer-related courses throughout high school, among them AutoCAD, Computer Applications (basically MS Office), typing, and Yearbook. Of those classes, I have completely forgotten CAD (most of the screen time in that class was spent on Yahoo! LaunchCast and MSN Messenger) and nearly all of Microsoft Access. Almost all the stuff that was covered in Excel, Word, and Publisher I had already taught myself in middle school. Typing, a middle school class, was spent (in Mavis Beacon, of course!)playing a grocery bag game that taught me how to use a keypad, and a race car game that just reinforced the ability to type a bunch memorized phrases quickly. I learned how to win at the game; not how to type. Yearbook class was spent on Apple eMacs running Adobe Photoshop CS2, and that has proved moderately useful, even four years later.

So the computer applications courses were moderately successful at best, but what about the forays of other school subjects into the computer world? What about the English projects, the social studies collaborative efforts, and the science research? For the most part, completely forgettable. I remember one time, junior year, when a mobile laptop cart with Apple iBooks (that’s twenty-five laptops at about $1300 each) was brought in for English class. My teacher spent the whole class period teaching the students how to log in and open up Word and the Internet. That was what we did for forty-five minutes. By the time the teacher had trouble-shot everyones problems, the period was over. I had been using Macs for four years at this point, and I spent the time by helping those around me get set up. Who knows if they remembered how to do that stuff when the cart came around next month for another lesson.

The second half of my senior year revolved around completing an interdisciplinary comprehensive project about a global issue affecting our world. I chose to compile research, design a school-wide survey, write a thirty-page portfolio report, and give a twenty-minute oral presentation on the effects of violent video games on popular culture. By the end of the semester the words out of nearly every teacher’s mouth at the beginning of class was “Go to the lab and work on your Comps.” That, literally, was the plan for the day. Sit in front of a computer, do research, and write your report.

Heck, I thought, I can do that from home. That would save me transportation time and costs, lunch money, the potential distraction from peers, and the hardship of waking up at seven every morning. I could wake up at nine, take my time getting ready for “school”, plop myself down in front of the family Dell for a few hours, play some video games (Unreal Tournament 2004, ironically) if I got bored, and still accomplish more than my peers did in the same amount of time. They just seemed to always be socializing in the lab, browsing one another’s shared iTunes libraries or whatnot. School was the place where I got less work done.

So, back to the original question - do I think computers belong in schools. Well, apart from the technology courses, I don’t remember my learning being enhanced by computers per se. They made everything all professional and snazzy looking, and certainly made research easier (though I graduated high school not knowing the Dewey Decimal System) but I don’t know if I necessarily learned better. I certainly don’t think I would have learned less if computers hadn’t been around, however.

I think it is rather hard to justify pouring money into computers that will be obsolete in three to five years. Not to mention having to deal with all the headaches over access privileges, privacy controls, and software upgrades. Sure, a school should have a computer lab, but should we extend that to giving every kid a computer? Should every classroom even have a computer? Can’t that money be better spent elsewhere? Judging by my own history of computing in education, I think so. On top of that, apart from the specialized classes I took, I taught myself nearly everything I wanted to know about computing . Learning about operating systems, basic programming, installing software, using graphical user interfaces, word processing, desktop publishing; all these things I learned by myself. I didn’t need a “general computing” course or anything like that. I was naturally inquisitive. That’s what I think the major role of computers in schools should be - to let kids get acquainted with them on their own time. I spent hours upon hours, both before and after school, hanging out in a computer lab puttering around on an iMac. I didn’t need formal instruction, and I don’t think kids these days do, either.



_DZ

Regret, Insecurity, and Buying Girl Shoes

In his book The Paradox of Choice, psychologist Barry Schwartz notes how human beings hate to recognize taking personal losses. He points out that, in fact, we hate to lose so much that we often resort to irrational behavior to offset the psychological distress suffered when we experience a loss. He illustrates this point with a story about buying a nice sweater, only to discover later that it didn’t fit as well as he thought. He kept the sweater in his closet for months on end, despite his unwillingness to wear it, unable to part with it because it had been expensive. I laughed at the story. Haven’t we all had moments like that in our lives?

The most memorable example in my history was when I was in eighth grade. It was around the turn of the millennium, when every middle school boy who was “cool” owned a pair of skate shoes, regardless of whether or not he actually owned a board. At least in my view it seemed that way. I desperately wanted to be cool, and I saw skate shoes as my ticket to the good life of being invited to video game parties, being in on in-jokes, and extensive communication rights with eighth-grade girls. But first, I had to convince my mom that I actually needed the shoes.

American skate shoes -they had to be Vans, in my case- were usually imported to Japan and, as a result, were not cheap. Up until then the most my mom had ever spent on shoes for me was ¥7110, for my first pair of ASICS soccer cleats. A pair of Vans typically went for ¥9500+, so clearly I had a lot of begging and pleading to do.

After a lot of searching and plenty of skeptical looks from my mom, I succeeded in convincing her to purchase me a pair of uni-sex Vans for ¥7800. I nearly died of anticipation over the weekend because I couldn’t wait to wear my new Vans to school the next Monday.

I strolled into first period like I had just stepped out of a Rolls at the curb, cooly deposited myself into a seat in the back of the room. I sat there with a huge grin on my face, and everything was good until Andrew turned around and saw me. Andrew wore skate shoes AND actually skated, and to me was the epitome of eighth grade “cool”. He had already pretty much reached his adult size by seventh grade, excelled in sports, and had no shortage of girls who wanted to talk to him. He took one look at my Vans and snickered, “Hey, you know those are girls shoes, right?”

“No they’re not,” I retorted, “They’re both.”

He looked at me like I had just told him that Thailand was in Europe.

“No dude, they’re girls shoes. You’re wearing girl shoes.”

And then he laughed. I shrunk down in my chair, completely mortified. Regardless of whether or not they actually were “girl shoes,” the fact that who I thought was the coolest guy in my class thought that they were girl shoes meant that they were. And if I continued to wear them, everyone else would soon also know that I wore girl shoes. I was wearing girl shoes. My weekend quest to find the perfect shoes had resulted in girl shoes.

I walked around school for the rest of they day wishing that I wouldn’t walk. Wishing that I could innocently tread over a land mine that some malicious soul had placed under the hallway carpet. At least if I was in a wheelchair, I wouldn’t have to worry about people making fun of my shoes.

The school day couldn’t seem to end soon enough. As soon as the last bell rang I sprinted home -a twenty-second dash, as I lived in the school dorm at the time- to change back in to my familiar, worn Wal-Mart sneakers. The Vans were thrown on shelf and sat there for most of the year, shunned during my attempt to slowly recover from the psychological loss. After all, they were the most expensive shoes I owned! I couldn’t just get rid of them!

I finally screwed up enough courage to part with them and gave them to a girl who was a year younger than me who also lived in the dorm. To this day I haven’t bought a pair of shoes that were even close to the price of those Vans.

So what about you, dear reader? Do you have any such stories in which you held onto something expensive that you never used out of fear of the guilt that you would feel of you ever did get rid of it? Did you eventually do so? Or do you still own it? I want to hear your stories!



_DZ