Friday, April 20, 2007
My favorite things
Tonight, I noticed that Guinness is now a sponsor of Mythbusters. My favorite brand of beer sponsoring my favorite show. Wonderful. It feels like harmony. Mythbusters really is the best show ever on TV. Grant and Tori are on Myspace...I think they are really cool people and are positively contributing to the collective conscious.
Also of note, today, 4/20 is being celebrated nationwide. In Boulder, clouds of smoke billowed from a mass celebration of a conciousness. It's happy. It's like an alternative holiday. I hope that all of you that that imbibe have a wonderful evening.
A perfect music video for today:
It's Within You/Without You-Tomorrow Never Knows from the Beatles Love. It's a great CD, and an even better Cirque du Soleil show.
Also, I saw Planet Earth was coming to DVD
. If you haven't been watching it, this is a great opportunity to experience this amazing accomplishment. It's always so good! It's also available in both HDDVD and Blu-ray, and I'd earnestly suggest those, if they are a viable option.This is the version with British narration, but I bet that it will be enjoyable none-the-less. Sigourney Weaver does a great job on the Discovery Channel airing however, so hopefully that version will be available soon.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Fear Mongering and the Local News
The local news has got to one of the worst forms of mass-media currently in existence. They exist only to regurgitate actual news that everyone can read on the internet. However, this actual news only takes a few moments of their time slots, so they have to find news to continue to sell advertising and stay in business. So they muckrake, produce inane human interest stories, and stretch the truth to make it seem like what they do have is significantly more important than it actually is.
That's right, the local news is not a public service. It's a business. Their business is selling advertising time by using "news" as a draw. Of course news like this is biased! The producers who decide WHAT makes it on the air are looking for stories that will cause viewers to tune in. One of the strongest human emotions is fear, so the local news focuses on the negative and scares people into watching. This was referred to as "pop nihilism" somewhere-and that's a pretty accurate way to describe it. Throughout the day, the news runs short teaser ads saying things like "is the end of the world is coming? tune in at 10 to find out!". Of course the end of the world is not coming...they just want to scare you into thinking it might so they can expose you to more ads.
If the producers behind the news actually cared about people instead of themselves, they'd run more positive stories and reassure people that everything will be okay instead of terrorizing them. There are lots of positive things that happen every day....look at www.happynews.com for some great examples.
As a tame example, the local news has been predicting a bad storm here in Denver for a few days. Even through last night, kusa.com was still predicting 12-15 inches of snow by this morning. Of course in reality, there was no snow. Not a flake. Now they have a "whoops folks! the storm missed us!" story on their home page. Acting like a huge storm was coming certainly brought more viewers to both their website and their television broadcasts, increasing their exposure and making their advertising slots more valuable. I refuse to believe that in 2007, meteorological technology is not advanced enough to have foreseen this lack of storm hitting Denver. But they don't care...they certainly got a ton of viewers watching to be filled in on the details of this "massive storm".
The producers of local news shows do not care about you. They do not care if they terrorize the public. They care about themselves. I, for one, vow to not watch the news and not support the businesses of advertisers who market during the news.
I hope you join me in my crusade to end this form of broadcast terrorism.
That's right, the local news is not a public service. It's a business. Their business is selling advertising time by using "news" as a draw. Of course news like this is biased! The producers who decide WHAT makes it on the air are looking for stories that will cause viewers to tune in. One of the strongest human emotions is fear, so the local news focuses on the negative and scares people into watching. This was referred to as "pop nihilism" somewhere-and that's a pretty accurate way to describe it. Throughout the day, the news runs short teaser ads saying things like "is the end of the world is coming? tune in at 10 to find out!". Of course the end of the world is not coming...they just want to scare you into thinking it might so they can expose you to more ads.
If the producers behind the news actually cared about people instead of themselves, they'd run more positive stories and reassure people that everything will be okay instead of terrorizing them. There are lots of positive things that happen every day....look at www.happynews.com for some great examples.
As a tame example, the local news has been predicting a bad storm here in Denver for a few days. Even through last night, kusa.com was still predicting 12-15 inches of snow by this morning. Of course in reality, there was no snow. Not a flake. Now they have a "whoops folks! the storm missed us!" story on their home page. Acting like a huge storm was coming certainly brought more viewers to both their website and their television broadcasts, increasing their exposure and making their advertising slots more valuable. I refuse to believe that in 2007, meteorological technology is not advanced enough to have foreseen this lack of storm hitting Denver. But they don't care...they certainly got a ton of viewers watching to be filled in on the details of this "massive storm".
The producers of local news shows do not care about you. They do not care if they terrorize the public. They care about themselves. I, for one, vow to not watch the news and not support the businesses of advertisers who market during the news.
I hope you join me in my crusade to end this form of broadcast terrorism.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Aerogardens & You
In case you haven't seen this yet, please check out www.aerogrow.com. This is singlehandedly one of the coolest inventions ever. It's a fully automatic indoor aeroponic gardening system. It takes almost no effort to maintain. You just fill it with water, pop the seed "cartridges" in, add nutrients to the water, and plug it in. The two fluorescent grow lights automatically turn on and off every day and the unit periodically circulates nutrient-enriched water through the sponge medium that the plants grow in. It notifies you when new water or nutrients need to be added.
In Back to the Future 2, there is a scene at Marty's future house in the kitchen. They have a cool indoor-growing system in their home, and while it's form differs from it's real-life counterpart, the idea is the same. Indoor growing is VERY cool. With this, every person can have their own personal ORGANIC garden.
I bought one a few weeks ago after seeing it in a SkyMall catalog. Turns out they are made in Boulder-which makes me wonder if they were initially invented to grow something else... :) It's amazing. It works as well as they say it does and it's a very cool conversation piece. At only $150, it's a pretty good deal too and it would make a great gift.
Aerogrow offers several different seed packs for growing a variety of different types of plants. I am eager to try the chili peppers, tomatoes, and strawberries. I may need to buy a few more AeroGardens!
The AeroGarden really is a sweet product and everyone should have one in their homes. Plus, if this works for growing things other then the seed packs AeroGrow sells, I can see an entire secondary market developing for these things
This is a great product. Get one!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Planet Earth Spirtuality
So I've been watching the Planet Earth TV series, which in my opinion, is one of the most fantastic TV shows ever to air. I believe it is a landmark for modern broadcasting and is a killer reason to buy a HDTV now! It is absolutely spectacular. I love how the narration periodically mentions what a technical achievement it is, and it really is.
In watching it, it's made me realize a few things.
First of all, the variety of life on this planet is incredible. I never had any clue about how varied, abundant, brutal, and beautiful life on this planet was.
Second, everything alive depends on something else that's alive to exist as a source of energy.
Life feeds on life feeds on life. Living things all have the natural sense to "stay alive", but only humans apparently have the abilities to attempt to comprehend why.
Second, in my introspective journey of perception, I've realized that every sense in life is subjective. The world really exists only as "energy", which human sense organs have evolved to interpret. Other species have probably evolved different ways of interpreting this energy. How does a krill or a fish perceive the world? A lion? A whale? A fly? Surely some more advanced animals may have similar sense capabilities to humans, but the post-sensory processing of those capabilities is where animals greatly differ.
Living things are an organized collection of energy existing within energy that our senses have evolved to interpret as we do.
So if everything depends on everything else for energy, what depends on humans? Nothing really eats humans, except cannibals and occasional great white shark or kodiak bears. Could it be that there is something above us that we lack the ability to perceive? Is this something that humans do posess the ability to understand, given influence of chemistry?
I believe this is spirituality. It's fun to have found it.
In watching it, it's made me realize a few things.
First of all, the variety of life on this planet is incredible. I never had any clue about how varied, abundant, brutal, and beautiful life on this planet was.
Second, everything alive depends on something else that's alive to exist as a source of energy.
Life feeds on life feeds on life. Living things all have the natural sense to "stay alive", but only humans apparently have the abilities to attempt to comprehend why.
Second, in my introspective journey of perception, I've realized that every sense in life is subjective. The world really exists only as "energy", which human sense organs have evolved to interpret. Other species have probably evolved different ways of interpreting this energy. How does a krill or a fish perceive the world? A lion? A whale? A fly? Surely some more advanced animals may have similar sense capabilities to humans, but the post-sensory processing of those capabilities is where animals greatly differ.
Living things are an organized collection of energy existing within energy that our senses have evolved to interpret as we do.
So if everything depends on everything else for energy, what depends on humans? Nothing really eats humans, except cannibals and occasional great white shark or kodiak bears. Could it be that there is something above us that we lack the ability to perceive? Is this something that humans do posess the ability to understand, given influence of chemistry?
I believe this is spirituality. It's fun to have found it.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Political Telemarketing
When the Do Not Call registry was launched a few years ago, it included a few exceptions. One of these, and probably the most annoying, is that political telemarketing calls are permitted. Fortunately, politicians are only trying to get votes a few weeks a year, and only a few of them sink to the low of actually telemarketing to people.
I received one of these such calls this afternoon. The call originated from a toll-free number and was a recorded message from some slimy politician running for local office. As I didn't recognize the caller ID number, I didn't answer. But they left a message. Even more annoying is that they called my cell phone, eating up my minutes.
I propose a "telemarket and don't get voted for campaign". This is the only way politicians will cease this intrusion. They must know that if they telemarket to people, they will lose your vote to someone else in the race. As we all know, political elections are always between a douche and a turd. If the turd telemarkets, vote for the douche. And vice versa. If they both telemarket, write in the name of a celebrity or a relative.
Political campaigning may be a necessary evil, but telemarketing is just flat out evil. Americans have been sick of telemarketing for years, that's why the Do Not Call registry was created in the first place.
I received one of these such calls this afternoon. The call originated from a toll-free number and was a recorded message from some slimy politician running for local office. As I didn't recognize the caller ID number, I didn't answer. But they left a message. Even more annoying is that they called my cell phone, eating up my minutes.
I propose a "telemarket and don't get voted for campaign". This is the only way politicians will cease this intrusion. They must know that if they telemarket to people, they will lose your vote to someone else in the race. As we all know, political elections are always between a douche and a turd. If the turd telemarkets, vote for the douche. And vice versa. If they both telemarket, write in the name of a celebrity or a relative.
Political campaigning may be a necessary evil, but telemarketing is just flat out evil. Americans have been sick of telemarketing for years, that's why the Do Not Call registry was created in the first place.
Meet the Robinsons....in 3D!
Yesterday I had the privilege of seeing a fantastic new film, "Meet the Robinsons", in 3D no less! It's a computer-animated film produced by the newly-reformed Disney animation department, now headed up by Pixar luminary John Lasseter.
First, the film was excellent. Even without the 3D, it's still a great movie. Disney really paid attention to the story this time. It seemed that for a long time, Disney actually stopped caring about their audience and was just producing animated movies for the sake of hopefully stumbling upon a cash cow. Unfortunately, almost all of the Disney animated films of the past decade missed the mark and it seemed that the magic of Disney was lost...again. John Lasseter may as well be the spiritual successor to Walt Disney himself, revolutionizing the art of animation for modern audiences.
"Meet the Robinsons" is about an orphaned child genius who has been tapped by a mysterious time-traveling boy from thirty years in the future to help foil the plans of an evil time bandit with a robotic bowler hat. There are many surprises about the nature of all the characters in the film, most of which I didn't see coming.
The movie is funny, clever, and inspirational. "Keep Moving Forward" is repeated many times in the film, which was taken from a quote from Walt Disney himself. That's a good philosophy! Where were movies like this when I was a kid? This is a great movie for kids and I think that everyone who sees it will be affected by it's positive message.
Now for the 3D....this is nothing short of incredible. The process is amazing and works perfectly. Polarization is the key. Basically, the film is digitally projected at 144 frames per second, six times faster than conventional theatrical films. A special filter in front of the projector changes the polarization of the light emanating from the projector every other frame. Every second, 72 frames are polarized in one direction and the other 72 frames are polarized in another. The audience wears special plastic 3d glasses with polarization filters. Wearing the glasses, the left eye can only see images polarized one way, and the right eye can see images polarized the other. Because of persistence of vision, it looks smooth and fluid, even though the left eye/right eye perspective is cycling very rapidly. The end result is a 3D film with incredible color and incredible depth.
Last year, only about 100 theaters nationwide were equipped to exhibit polarized 3d movies. I read on wikipedia that Meet the Robinsons is showing in over 600 theaters nationwide in 3D. This technology is on fire! It's saturation increased SIX TIMES in just a few months. It really is an incredible process and I hope you get the opportunity to experience it.
Overall, Meet the Robinsons is a great film. Now that Disney has raised the bar on animation, I hope they are able to develop more quality films like it. I leave you with the Walt Disney quote from the film:
First, the film was excellent. Even without the 3D, it's still a great movie. Disney really paid attention to the story this time. It seemed that for a long time, Disney actually stopped caring about their audience and was just producing animated movies for the sake of hopefully stumbling upon a cash cow. Unfortunately, almost all of the Disney animated films of the past decade missed the mark and it seemed that the magic of Disney was lost...again. John Lasseter may as well be the spiritual successor to Walt Disney himself, revolutionizing the art of animation for modern audiences.
"Meet the Robinsons" is about an orphaned child genius who has been tapped by a mysterious time-traveling boy from thirty years in the future to help foil the plans of an evil time bandit with a robotic bowler hat. There are many surprises about the nature of all the characters in the film, most of which I didn't see coming.
The movie is funny, clever, and inspirational. "Keep Moving Forward" is repeated many times in the film, which was taken from a quote from Walt Disney himself. That's a good philosophy! Where were movies like this when I was a kid? This is a great movie for kids and I think that everyone who sees it will be affected by it's positive message.
Now for the 3D....this is nothing short of incredible. The process is amazing and works perfectly. Polarization is the key. Basically, the film is digitally projected at 144 frames per second, six times faster than conventional theatrical films. A special filter in front of the projector changes the polarization of the light emanating from the projector every other frame. Every second, 72 frames are polarized in one direction and the other 72 frames are polarized in another. The audience wears special plastic 3d glasses with polarization filters. Wearing the glasses, the left eye can only see images polarized one way, and the right eye can see images polarized the other. Because of persistence of vision, it looks smooth and fluid, even though the left eye/right eye perspective is cycling very rapidly. The end result is a 3D film with incredible color and incredible depth.
Last year, only about 100 theaters nationwide were equipped to exhibit polarized 3d movies. I read on wikipedia that Meet the Robinsons is showing in over 600 theaters nationwide in 3D. This technology is on fire! It's saturation increased SIX TIMES in just a few months. It really is an incredible process and I hope you get the opportunity to experience it.
Overall, Meet the Robinsons is a great film. Now that Disney has raised the bar on animation, I hope they are able to develop more quality films like it. I leave you with the Walt Disney quote from the film:
“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
–Walt Disney
Sunday, April 8, 2007
The First Entry in the New Blog
Writing the first entry of any blog can be an intimidating task. It's very likely that no one will read it, at least until the blog develops consistent readers.
First, a little about me: my name is Jenkins Beaming. I'm a 25 year old freelance web developer that lives in Denver, Colorado. I'm a freethinking agnostic Jew engaged to be married in just a few months. I'm pro-everything and anti-nothing. The future is bright for us and I love moving forward into it.
I've always felt a close connection with computers and technology and general. Observing the technological evolution of our species has become a favorite pastime of mine. The radical changes in modern technology, which happen almost every day, are truly amazing. Ideas, previously limited to scores of science-fiction media are becoming realized all the time, usually unnoticed or without much fanfare. My intentions are to chronicle the immediately observable evolution of humanity in this blog, both technological and otherwise, as seen through my eyes.
I hope you enjoy this meager first post. I'm going to make a wholehearted attempt to blog very regularly. So, if you do enjoy what is here, please subscribe to my RSS feed.
Thank you for checking out Jenkinsight!
First, a little about me: my name is Jenkins Beaming. I'm a 25 year old freelance web developer that lives in Denver, Colorado. I'm a freethinking agnostic Jew engaged to be married in just a few months. I'm pro-everything and anti-nothing. The future is bright for us and I love moving forward into it.
I've always felt a close connection with computers and technology and general. Observing the technological evolution of our species has become a favorite pastime of mine. The radical changes in modern technology, which happen almost every day, are truly amazing. Ideas, previously limited to scores of science-fiction media are becoming realized all the time, usually unnoticed or without much fanfare. My intentions are to chronicle the immediately observable evolution of humanity in this blog, both technological and otherwise, as seen through my eyes.
I hope you enjoy this meager first post. I'm going to make a wholehearted attempt to blog very regularly. So, if you do enjoy what is here, please subscribe to my RSS feed.
Thank you for checking out Jenkinsight!
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