Rants at a picnic…

The Good Stuff — Episode 1: Take THAT, plastic bags! « The Story of Stuff Project.

When I was little, we always had huge stacks of paper grocery bags around the house. They never got thrown away. I never even thought of it. When you took your groceries out, they just about folded themselves back up. All you had to do was put them in the stack. We used them for everything. You could ripen bananas in them. You could store potatoes in them. But they weren’t just limited to food! We covered all of our school books with brown paper from cut up grocery bags. The uses were limitless, and there were always bags at home when you wanted one. (more…)

This is Magibon. She stares at you with her great big eyes. Sometimes she says “I’m Magibon” in Japanese. Sometimes she says “byebye” at the end. Usually she doesn’t. She just stares at you. That’s her thing. And it’s not just the one video. She has bunches of videos of her staring at you with those HUGE eyes. And this ‘talent’ of hers made made her a star. That’s right!
Millions of people watched her watching them on youtube and now she get interviewed on radio programs and Japanese magazines. In fact, all of Japan seems smitten with her. She’s not Japanese. She doesn’t speak Japanese. She barely speaks at all, but her youtube fame has now landed her voice acting jobs! Tell me how that works?
I have nothing against the kid. I hope she doesn’t read this and think I dislike her in any way. I can’t possibly do that since I don’t know her at all. I’d actually like to meet her. She isn’t the same person as she seems to be in her videos. All I’m really talking about here is fame.
Fame is so random. People like to believe they can be a great actor or singer or whatever, and get ‘discovered’ and move to Nashville or Hollywood and then you’re in. But look at how it really happens. How many of those famous people were already from Hollywood? MOST of them! It’s not about who is the best. It’s about who was around the studio when the casting call went out.
I’ve heard people complain about the winners of shows, such as American Idol, like those aren’t ‘real’ stars. Just some TV fluff that would have never been know if this reality show hadn’t come by with these nationwide auditions. It’s just contestants on a game show. WRONG! Do you have any idea how many auditions you have to go through to get to the top of those programs? Sure, they let some of the horrible stuff through for entertainment value, but the real winners WORKED to get where they are. And they had the talent in the first place. Those nation wide talent searches comb through a much greater section of the population, so I think they stand a much better chance of finding talent than just to rely on whomever just happened to be already living in Hollywood.

I guess the point I’m making is that talent and fame are not related in any way.

That’s British Sign Language. Some people don’t realize that there are sign languages all over the world just like spoken languages. Signing is something I’ve always wanted to learn, but never had the opportunity. Now two of my siblings are fluent in ASL. I can’t say I’m not jealous, but I am certainly proud of them.

Study: Multitasking hinders youth social skills – CNN.com.

Sounds like someone is afraid of change. One doesn’t get to pretend to understand developing situations this way. How can anyone know how this gadget generation is really going to turn out? Maybe the ‘social problems’ the article speaks of are just the way humans are going to behave in the future. (See plot of ‘I Am Legend’)

When we got cars, trains, and planes, we became super mobile. Sure, we used to do a whole lot more walking than we do. That was natural, and this isn’t. But we’re not going to give up our cars. We have them, so we’ll use them. Well we didn’t have gadgets, but the kids do. We turned out this way, and they might not. They have the gadgets, so let them keep them for the same reason we want to keep our cars.

I’m not saying gadgets aren’t screwing them up! All I’m saying is that we can’t tell at this point. This has never happened before. It’s a change. Maybe bad, maybe good. We have to wait and find out. We can only observe. Don’t jump to conclusions.

Just a 10 cent pack of ramen garnished with spinach, a boiled egg, sliced pork ribs, and green onions. We over cooked the noodles just a bit, but this was a success. Try it at home! There’s no end to what you can put in. I was inspired by the ramen episode of Cooking With Dog.

Being bored is always one’s own fault. It means you are not being creative enough.

Basically, she gets told she needs this tiny computer (It’s a pacemaker!) installed in her body, and she immediately wants to know what its running! And why not? How can you trust the creator of the software to create a perfect device? Is it reliable? Is it stable? Are there security issues? None of these questions can be answered without access to the source code. Well done, Karen Sandler! You’ve asked the right questions.

Running time: 42 minutes, 45 seconds

Cyborg lawyer demands software source – Software – News – ZDNet Australia.