blinkit

Mac vs. PC rap

Today's bLINKit: Yes, this is a rap video about Macs vs. PCs:

SL update: Europe invades

SL Neighbourhood Update: The hood has changed yet again. The extensive townhouse development west of me vanished overnight, to be replaced with smaller homes and empty lots for sale. There's also, for the first time in eons, a retail development nearby, and it's a half respectable looking mall with an interior courtyard open to the sky (I can literally leap out the front door of my skyhome and land in the middle of it). Meantime, the two big condo towers that sat empty forever to the southwest of me also vanished, seemingly overnight, and have been replaced by a much smaller single building, which is also empty. And that seems to be the cycle of many SL economic hopes and dreams: people enter the world, get excited, buy land, develop it with a retail or housing project, and then stand back as it utterly fails. It's like watching successive government make work projects going on all around me. Meanwhile, the fellow that built his neopagan reserve, which now includes my old lot, seems to have finished his project, but I never see anybody there.

The bigget macro story of past months seems to be a large increase in the number of European residents. In the old days, SL was populated largely by Americans, Brits and Canadians, with some Australians. Now there are Germans, Italians, French and, for some reason, tons of Dutch. (Few Asians though, which is odd considering how wired places like Hong Kong are, or that Korea is the most online culture in the world. Perhaps it's the dominance of English in SL, or the absence of bubble tea houses.) And what do the continental Euorpeans bring? Dance parties. They like to rave. They've also altered the most popular sites ranked according to traffic. When I started SL more than a year ago, the top sites were casinos and a strip club called Barbies. And some more educational things. Now the top sites in the world are Ibezia-like dance and party islands and resorts. Ah Europe: great art, architecture and lots of flashing lights.

Regular reader Karen sent a link to a PC Magazine article about how online activities like SL are virtual flashes in a digital pan and doomed to disappear. I can't say the article is wrong, but if SL disappears, it's because it will be replaced with something that's better. Perhaps something that doesn't crash every 30 minutes. And maybe less like Ibezia.

Today's bLINKit: Is Google the new Big Brother? Opinions differ, especially those coming from Google lawyers.

The future of cellphones

Today's bLINKit: I'm happy that my cellphone makes telephone calls. That's all I want it to do. But according to CNET, it's going to be harder to find a phone that only makes calls. Cells a decade from now will be little pockets of computing multimedia function. My prediction: cellphone plans from the major providers will continue to be as confusing, deliberately so, as they are now.

Just added: Google search

WMD: Look on the right hand column and you'll see I've added Google Search to the blog's functions. You can search either the web or the pages of this blog. More grist for the evil empire's mill. That said, for those who want to turn off Google ads, add more security to their use of Google tools like Gmail, use Customize Google, an excellent addon for Firefox, which is also excellent.

Alternate endings for the Sopranos

Today's bLINKit: The finale of The Sopranos has been both praised and criticized for its, as the critics call it, ambiguous conclusion. I write about this in my latest column and come up with a few suggestions for endings, based on the finales of other classic TV shows:

I've been imagining how The Sopranos would end if it copied the finales of other classic TV shows. There's the The Mary Tyler Moore Show ending, in which Tony and his family are sitting in the restaurant when all of a sudden, Little Carmine rushes in, pulls out a pink slip and fires Tony, his family, and his other "family" from the show. The rest of the cast enters the restaurant to cry and console one another. They have a group hug and exit the set singing "It's A Long Way To Tipperary" as a relatively happy but conflicted Tony laughs and then beats up the waiter and the short order cook.

I'm hitting myself about the column today, however, since I forgot all about the Newhart ending.

Recommended listen: Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson discuss security using wi-fi with your laptop at public Internet hotspots. You're far less secure than you think.