Ramblings of Noah Arney

Note:  I found this in my drafts section from the middle of last year and thought I’d put it up here.  It’s a bit different from my normal style.

Yes, nukes will be used again.

Why?  Well we could infer from various prophesies, both Christian and otherwise, but that isn’t realy what this blog is about, and besides, I see it happening for a much more pragmatic reason.

August 9, 1945 was the last time a nuclear weapon was used in war.  Over sixty years have passed, and within about forty years every single person who was alive at the time will be dead.  We won’t have any first hand accounts.  We have very few left already.  We likely won’t even have any seccondary accounts.  All we’ll have is what’s in the history books.

We like to say that we will never again do something.  We will never again use nuclear weapons.  We will never have another Vietnam.  We will never violate such and such rule/sanction.  But we do them.  The US is currently in a war which bears more than a passing similarity to Vietnam.  And no rule or sanction is sacred when it comes to progress, threats, or convinience.  And these examples are taken from a country that is more or less thinking about the future when using it’s military (less, recently).  What about countries, organizations, and states that don’t care about things like the geneva convention?

The use of nuclear weapons is enevitable.  Humans want to use the tools they have at their disposal.  It’s why nuclear weapons were used in the first place.  Eventualy someone will use them. My hope is that it will be several hundred years before they are used again.  There are currently eight or nine nulcear armed countries (Isreal’s status is unknown).  Eventualy someone will make a mistake.  A nuclear weapon will be used by one of the 9 countries, or be stolen or purchased from one.  And it will be used.  Why?  Because humans can’t help but use a tool they have been given.

There are currently some very cool technologies out there.

When I was young we had a computer without a hard drive.  You put the OS disk in one drive (the big floppy disks) and the program disk in the other drive.  The only way you had a colour screen was if it was green and black, or orange and black, instead of white and black.  Colour monitors were cool.  CD-Roms were even cooler.  And I remember when we bought a second hard drive and it pushed us up to over 100 mb.  And of course the move to four mb of ram from our previous two.

We got a modem and that was cool.  I could play on the local BBS’s.  Then came the Internet.  I got my first e-mail address back when Hotmail was not owned by Microsoft.  I learned about HTML and made some crappy web pages.  Then I learned more and made better ones.  Then I learned about CSS and XHTML and made even better ones.  And finally I learned about WordPress and for the first time ever I started using an editor other than Notepad.

I now sit here in my room, writing on my laptop.  My laptop which is more advanced than I could ever imagine when I was young.

But what is coming is the stuff of science fiction.  Everyone’s heard of the Microsoft Surface by now if you haven’t click HERE.  It will likely have very little use beyond casinos, but that’s not the important point.  The important part is what they’re promising:

1. a multi-touch screen that’s bigger than a handheld
2. another commercial use for multi-touch technology
3. fast and easy wireless connectivity

But there’s other up and coming technology that’s going to be important.  Projected multi-touch is going to be very cool, along with the new multi-projectors.  Imagine sitting down to a desk, and having a screen projected both onto the wall in front of you, and also onto the desk in front of you.  You reach up and move things around the “screen” by touching it on your desk with your hand and dragging.  Whatever you do on the “screen” on the desk happens on the “screen” on the wall.  You open up a word processor and a keyboard appears on your desk but not on the wall.

In Japan laptop sales are being impacted by cellphones.  Cellphones can be used as a web browser, for e-mail, for word processing, music, and who knows what’s next.  There’s a new product nearly on the market, the cellphone projector.  There are already ones with very few colours designed to be part of the cellphone, but there are also full colour projectors that are external, but are the same size as a phone.  Perhaps in a few years having movies on a cell phone won’t seem like a useless undertaking.

Now imagine the multi-touch multi-projector I discussed earlier mixed with the cellphone projectors.  Imagine taking out your cellphone, putting it on the desk and having your computer appear.

The future is coming, and it looks cool.

At UBC there is a change that occurs when one walks inside.  While one is outside they are connected to the world.  There is nature and beauty surrounding them.  Then you step inside and it all changes.  Narrow hallways are common.  The temperature is obviously controlled.  The walls are stark white, as is the ceiling.  The carpet or lino of the floor is a sharp contrast to the bright colours outside.

There are windows, but they tend to be small and barred, as though the room is afraid of being too influenced by the outside world.

At UCFV one could walk in and out of buildings without loosing the warmness of natural light.  Without loosing the warmth of colour.  The walls are not white.  The carpets and lino is not designed to be as far from nature as possible.  There is a connection.

 We seem to be only one step ahead of SFU here.  At least the outside is pretty, even if the inside is awful.

Some changes you’ve likely noticed if you read this blog.  First, the blog is now my homepage.  Second some of the older entries have this weird “A” Character at random places in them.  That’s because when I reloaded my blogs in here that happened to some of them.  I went back through to the beginning of my Spain trip to fix some of them, but I didn’t go all the way to the beginning.  I have though saved all of the comments.  You’ll have to re-do any bookmarks though.

 Enjoy.

I’m currently in the process of revamping my whole site.  Please be patient while this happens.

As some may have noticed, I’ve been reading books which I’ve read before.  Yep.  Most of the books in my “just read” list are ones that I’ve read before.  Why?  Well I decided that I’d read the same books with new eyes.  And it’s great.  I’m picking up things I completely missed.  It’s given me a greater appreciation for many authors.  It has also let me know which aren’t as good as I remember.

 Why am I saying this?  Well, I’d like to challenge everyone to pick up a book you remember liking in high school.  I promise you you’ll learn something new.

Now I’m going to sleep.

 -Noah

I found this very funny, as I just finished a class on grammar (not that I put it in to practice much).  It’s from here.  Enjoy.

Texan: Where are you from?
Harvard grad: I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with prepositions.
Texan: Okay, where are you from, jackass?

Hello World.

 Yes, I’ve moved slightly beyond the Myspace Blog.  I’ve brought with me some of the postings from there. I’ll add more as time goes on.

Enjoy.

Hey all.  go here and sign this petition.  It’s for the iPhone, people who want them to allow third party software on the phone.  That would be awesome.

Better post later.

Enjoy

Had an interesting discussion the other day at school.  We were talking about someones iPod Nano, which is awesome, and we got onto the topic of the iPhone.

I want one.  I really really want one.  It won’t be available in Canada for at least two years, but I want one.  I sounded like such a fan-boy when I was talking about it.  But they’re cool.  Commercially viable multi-touch screens, a smart-phone without the crappy mini keyboard, an iPod that I can claim is almost practical, it’s just sweet.

Of course it was at this point that someone brought up the term iSellout to describe myself and one of the other people (Megan, if you wanted a name).  Megan replied that she wouldn’t mind walking down the street with her iPhone and her Starbucks while wearing a (insert trendyish designer that I can’t remember here) scarf.

Have I become an iSellout?  I don’t know.  I had Starbucks the other day.  I tend to wear either a plain solid colour t-shirt or a black button up shirt (coloured if it’s an important day), I carry a cell phone on my hip, a laptop in my bag, and sometimes a PDA in my pocket.  Though I prefer local coffee shops, I don’t actually plan my clothing in an attempt to look casual-business (business-casual is now the new business attire, so people have to be a bit more casual and a bit less business hence casual-business), and I don’t own an mp3 player let alone an iPod.

But if I had the chance to, I would buy an iPhone in a second.  Starbucks jokes be damned.

For 30sec of apple based humor go here.  It’s a one page spoof of apple. 

Was just thinking, they have so many moods to choose from, but I keep thinking of weird and totally not PC ones to add.  Hmmm… maybe I’ll save those for another day.

Enjoy.  Now go to sleep.