Tech tramples

It has been a while since PCs have outnumbered the old Mainframes, and showed that technology becomes more useful when it gets personal.

Every day when I go check around the news on tech, a new model of portable all-in-one gadget is released, and continue to astonish people all around. And it says all-in-one, but not for long...

I see these advances in technology with two prisms: one points in the direction that we are coming through a technological revolution, linking all things together, and helping us get more productive and free of time-space constraints.

The other point of view is a pessimistic consumer view, as we can't keep the pace of the technology advance, by acquiring the newest gadget available. We all know that TI companies have been suffering and struggling hard to survive, due to the 2008 stock crisis, but the incessant waves of releases are bringing us to the edge of consumption. By this I mean that a cell phone life span is reaching ridiculous 2 months, maybe even less, which is nothing compared to the resilience of its design. What are going to do with so many high-tech-garbage?

That's why I posted "Tech tramples", and leave one question: can we keep up?

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Creatures in other worlds: a matter of life or consciousness?

Some people say that there's no life outside of Earth.
But they often forget which are the definitions of life form. I have different definitions in my head of what life form should mean: something that uses energy to evolve, that has means to reproduce itself, and finally die, is already considered a life form to me.
Yes, you may think now of a robot, but they don't "die". They may be shut down and repowered, but that wouldn't be dying to me. Death is the ultimate destruction: you can't recover anthing from it.
If you stick to this definition, "living things" wouldn't necessarily feed or put any kind of garbage out: they could even have a limited life. Moths only feed as catterpillars, but once they reach their final winged form, no more feeding is possible, as they don't have any kind of mouth.
Maybe the most interesting characteristic I added was the reproductive effect. You don't see robots naturally reproducing themselves, they would only do so if ordered. On the other hand, any kind of bacteria has this ability.
Going further, no breathing is necessary either, so organic matter can't be considered a hindrance. You could see life forms made of metal, liquids and so on, and even with some kind of consciousness. That's a dangerous word.
Most of the discussion about extra-terrastrial life is related to this: the ability to recognise yourself as something, or even think about your relation to your environment. And there lies most of our fears: would you be an aggressive creature or a pacific one? I think that is a consequence of two major factors: your own will and your neighborhood. If you are kind in nature, the environment should be tremendously hard to turn you into something furious. The same think can work in the opposite path, although violence is a prevailing tendency, unfortunately.
So, I wouldn't be surprised if we found a new species much like the metallic Cybertronians from the Transformers series, or creatures made of something totally different, as in Evolution, with aliens made out of nitrogen matter.

That's just another cent in the huge vault of speculation around alien life. Contribute too ;)

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The same story again

I like going to the movies everytime some visual impacting work is released. Next ones I guess will be Terminator 4 and Transformers 2. But I keep asking myself: will it be the same thing all over again?

The cool good guy, that faces difficult decisions, the sexy and not helpful girl, the funny useless best friend, the villain that fails by stepping on his own shoelashes...

I guess we have plenty of character stereotypes to describe, as well as stories and backgrounds, and it starts to repeat itself over the time. Their new escape is using old characters from books or movie remakes, and (for my pleasure) comic characters. I guess Hollywood writers are running out of fuel, and so they turn to the old and well known heroes of our childhood, almost making it an obligation to check the result of their work. I just wonder what will happen when all the "main" heroes are used, and titles like Watchmen have all been visited... eventually they will turn to the books...

But new best-selling books are all about magical or evil creatures seen as tormented souls in search of redemption. They come in all flavours, but new vampires were upgraded: they can even walk in the sun! To be creative is one thing, destroying mythology is another.

Where are the new Agatha Christie's, Arthur C. Clark's, and so on? Don't tell me that all stories have been written, as someone, in the last century boldly sated that "Everything that could be invented had been already", and so came cell phones, LCD displays, the Internet, and so on. "Only when we are in the brink of extinction we have the will to change." (The only thing the remained from "The day that earth stopped")

Come think with me ;)

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Time Travelling

I sometimes see myself travelling through time, changing some events that changed my life and history around the world, but then comes the question: would I still be me?
Some of the scars acquired through the years represent what we really are and how we defined our morale, knowledge and so on. How would changing those milestones would affect us?
Movies often take a peek at this theme, and TV series, as Heroes, also take their chance.
We have many examples of different behaviour of the characters as they are faced with the break of time-space continuum: some keep the memories of their original timeline, others are completely changed, as mind-erased copies of themselves; and yet others can keep a full record of all the new timelines created as they jump in the decades of their lives (eg. Butterfly Effect).
What is the right behaviour or the answer for questions around time-travelling, I still don't know; for those Terminator acquaintances around, maybe you know the answer.

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And so we begin...

This is the 1st of many posts I wish to share with you out there. I hope that this blog become useful to you somehow and I expect to bring you some news from time to time.
This blog is intended to give some hints and tricks in many of my areas of interest, but may change its course as I change my mind, which happens quite often.
Fine quick off, right?
Cya.

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