cyberbarf9.11

cyberculture, commentary, cartoons, essays

EXAMINE THE NET WAY OF LIFE

JULY, 2010

IN THIS ISSUE:

NEW cyberbarf KOMIX

iPADDED CELLS

TECH BEACHES

STILL LOST

iTOONS

COMPRESSION

WHETHER REPORT

BARFERATURE

THE STEAM PUNK SPECIAL EDITION featured new Music from Chicago Ski & the (audio) Real News:

Steampunk

(mp3/4:14 length)

cyberbarf

iPADDED CELLS PRODUCTIVITY

The Apple iPad has hit the foreign shores with more consumer lines than the United States launch. People are still trying to find out what the device can actually do to improve their daily lives. One thing we know it can do in version 1.0 is print documents from its desktop to a printer. It has a bare bones word processing function so it cannot be a substitute for a work place laptop or a road connection to a hotel business hub.

But that crazy internet is full of creative people. If there is a problem, some one will come up with a solution. Solution is a loosely defined term. But for the iPad printing problem, some found this solution:

cyberbarf

TECH BEACHES SUMMERTIME

Summer. Time to recharge the interpersonal solar batteries that were drained in the long winter.

For some in the gulf coast, a weekend at the beach could be like sitting in front of a oil refinery animal rendering factory because of the BP oil spill. For others, turtling into the warm sand is pure relaxation. Remember a few common sense tips: cell phones and iPods the size of cigarette packs are easily lost in the sand or beach towels. Electronic devices do not do well in either water or sand.

The standard back pack for the summer trail would include cell phone, GPS for mapping the road, iPod for music in the radio wasteland between metropolitan centers, digital camera and/or camcorder to save those special vacation moments or YouTube silliness, several battery charges for each piece of equipment, a tazer if you are visiting relatives on the bad side of town, or pepper spray for the muggers on the sidewalks to the wild animals on the national park hiking trails.

Specialized electronics come into play at your location. At the baseball game, MLB has in-game stats and replays from your smartphone. On the golf course, there are numerous electronic score cards, instant handicapping, lesson video to stop the sudden slice, and GPs ball range finder software. Historic places have wi-fi self-guided tours.

cyberbarf

COMMENCEMENT ODD LECTURE

In May, President Obama raised some eyebrows with a strange lecture at a college commencement. He railed against technology companies for apparently stunting the intellectual development of students. The president, a noted Crackberry addict, dissing the only American industry, high technology, that is growing profits in a deep recession made many people cringe. The president made his remarks in full teleprompter technology mode to a group of graduates whose prospects of finding gainful employment this summer is 90 percent negative.

Students will find themselves starting their careers at an extreme disadvantage. Most have no real work experience. Most will be competiting with thousands of laid off workers with degrees and detailed work-life experience. Recently, the NYC school system advertised for 135 entry level positions. It received almost 9,000 applications, most overqualified including many with doctorate degrees. With national unemployment at 10 percent plus, rust belt unemployment at 20 percent, and national underemployment more than 25 percent, people are getting desperate to find any kind of job.

So for the president to criticize technology and somehow making students less prepared for real life is a myopic view of the situation. The US has lost millions of manufacturing jobs to overseas nations. Those quality jobs are never going to return home. The US has become a service economy, where technology is the only productivity tool which has some room to grow. But more of that capital is being outsourced, too.

Obama was a class room lecturer. His academic background is telling students what he wanted to hear. His criticism is probably double hearsay from his academic inclined advisors who believe that in some respects, technology has made students lazier (not reading textbooks but cutting and pasting papers for plagiarism 101). But most schools are filter blocking sites and running sophisticated grammar syntax programs to find out whether students are creating their own work or lifting it from web pages. The growth of social networking and text messages has been shown to lower the English comprehension and writing skills in high schools. The president is of the mindset that college degrees are the sole means of moving up in the world.

Which is not true. Some of the great enterprising companies were founded by education drop outs, including Bill Gates of Microsoft. There are hundreds to thousands of men and women in dorm rooms trying to become the next Michael Dell of computer sales. They are finding out that writing “apps” for the Apple or Android stores is more profitable than trying to find an entry level job in food service or retail.

cyberbarf

STILL LOST REVIEW

The barf staff has occasionally threw their two cents worth into trying to figure out what LOST was all about. After six years, the debate and confusion continues to grate on some hard care fans while others liked the feel good ending for the main characters.

The biggest criticisms for the ABC series finale is that it fell on the spiritual-fantasy explanation (of half the Season 6 story line) and left the mysteries on the island without a true science or sci-fi explanation.

There are three camps: one, claiming that the characters died in the plane crash and the island was purgatory, and the sideways world was the waiting room for heaven/the afterlife. Two, claiming that the main characters survived the plane crash so the island was real people dealing with their real issues, and the sideways world was purgatory. Three, a group claiming that all the flashes were parallel or multiuniverses.

The largest disappointment was the lack of details in the story mythology. If the show creators had a plan from the beginning of the show, viewers felt left in the dark what the true vision of the show was; many are not buying the excuse it was just a character driven show. Answer the basic question: what was the island?!

Another vocal minority was steamed that the show threw many new mysteries at them without a hint of explanation. More questions when they were promised answers is a bad con, double switch. In the conclusion of the island arc, the viewers found themselves in a new locale, inside the light cave chamber, which was a man made structure. The light and darkness apparatus was never explained; the whole story construction seemed to built on a house of magic cards. For a show that referenced literary and science sources for six years, a Seinfeld gloss toward nothingness as the general answer to all questions was hard to swallow.

The finale did not live up the hype of the network producers or the expectations of the fan base. Those who were caught up in the soap opera characterizations felt that the church reunion was a good “character ending.” Others who wanted answers thought that same scene was constructed so poorly that the characters turned into cardboard cut-outs of themselves. The spectrum was filled with those who liked the ending, to those who really hated it. The average viewer was probably in the middle: disappointment.

cyberbarf

iTOONS