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Sometimes it just doesn’t seem real.

Aren’t those just numbers on a board, or ticks on a stopwatch?

Just what are we getting from all this?

Sure, we aren’t exactly solving the problems of the world out there, but sometimes challenges and competitions just need to exist for their own sake.

We need to be reminded.

It’s easy to keep things the way they are, to go through the motions. We have to remember what it feels like to not be satisfied with our lot in life. The joy of victory and the pain of defeat remind us of what it’s like to risk it all for a dream.

So Thanks goes to you, Team Canada, and all Olympic Athletes. Thanks for teaching us all to dare to be great.

The computer industry implants in the minds of many the legend of the lone programmer, sequestered in a parents basement coding the next paradigm shift of technology. The myth is not that far from the truth, since many of the big names in software, Microsoft, Apple, and Google, were all created by hobbyists charting unknown territory in code.

I’m sure that everyone working in computers today, everyone, has some crazy project roiling in the back of their heads. But the majority of us don’t even start, let alone finish these projects out of fear that we aren’t qualified to do this, that we should let someone with “expertise” eventually make that app we want.  What we fail to realize is that the “experts” rarely know more than we do what unwritten programs look like. The only reason they are experts is that they’ve made their fear work for them. The frustration and uneasiness that comes from a new language and technology drives them forward instead of holding them back.

So if you’ve got an app or a script or whatever on the back burner, get it up on the monitor right now. Find that spot where you left off and feel that mixture of rage, terror, and embarrassment that made you shelve it. That feeling isn’t telling you that there is something wrong, it is telling you that you are working on something challenging and worthy of your skills. That feeling, right there, is the frontier of software development.

My friend Jen over at Interface Media sent me this Economist article about a book called The Pinch: How Baby Boomers took their children’s future-and why they should give it back. Apparently, the number disparity between the baby boom and subsequent generations is more serious than I thought, at least in Britain. The entire population under 40 owns 15% of all real estate and financial assets in their country. At the same time, 20% of everyone in their 50’s owns a second home.

I don’t know if Canada is in the same situation, but these stats are something to think about. I don’t think this situation is entirely anyone’s fault. The Boomers acquired their wealth through years of accelerated technological advancement and industrial production. Now that technology has advanced and so much has been produced, the same sources of wealth that produced all that prosperity can’t be relied upon any more. The factories are either closed or moved to China. Mining and oil production is peaking all over the world. The rules have changed, but that’s okay. Your food budget (potentially) is a tenth of what it was a generation ago. There’s more public transit than there used to be. And computing power? A single paycheck from McDonald’s can put you in touch with the world. We might not make as much as our parents, but if we can make use of what we have available, it might not matter.

Is it just me, or do open source software packages have this tendency to overload features until their control panels look like the dashboard of a 747? Granted, there are some open source products out there that are truly great. Simple to use, easy to customize and a cinch to navigate. But if you’re looking at what looks like a casualty of the feature creep wars, chances are it’s an open source product. Most of the setup involves turning off all the various features you are never going to use. It feels like the product of the same insecurity that informs Microsoft’s attempts to catch up to Mac OS. Someone ought to tell the developers of Blender or Zen-cart that people aren’t turning close-source products because they have more features. You don’t need to find a new user interface paradigm to wrest control of the market from Microsoft and Apple. All you really need is to stay open source, free to download for all.

This voice acting makes so glad I never bought a PS1. Enjoy!

Found Via Jing

Here’s some advice from Ralph Bakshi that bears repeating. There’s no question that the animation industry is in a slump along with the rest of the economy. The cartoons that get produced are often creatively diluted to the point where many animators are either contemplating suicide or grad school. This state of affairs confuses Bakshi, but not because he’s over 60. We’re all watching this video on boxes with a million times the computing power of the box that ran the Apollo missions. For someone like Bakshi, this box does the work of an editing department, a coloring department, and a whole host of other tasks that would take hundreds of man-hours 20 years ago. We are completely unaware of the technological power we take for granted on a daily basis. We can use it if we only give ourselves permission.

Found via BoingBoing

When I went to my first anime convention in 2001, I was expecting to see maybe a few card tables of merchandise, perhaps a video room, nothing fancy. What I found was a phenomenon in mid-explosion. There was an entire ballroom dedicated to the dealers room, a music video contest, and a cosplay contest with a fervor a rock concert. Today Sakuracon can pack the Seattle convention Center with over 15,000 attendees. Even though the anime industry is in a slump, the convention continued to grow all over the world. It’s hard to believe they all started out as a twinkle in the eyes of scattered pockets of fans.

The images you see in this post are by lionboogy, a celebrated con photographer and Transformers cosplayer. When he posted these pictures on IRC in 1994, his friend balked at the idea that anime conventions could ever get this big. At the time they would have been right. What changed over the past 15 years to bring us what are essentially mobile theme parks dedicated to anime?

The answer is the personal computer. Anime fans, being interested in futuristic stuff, were quick to use their gadgets to plan their activities. When the Internet came to prominence, and from all over the state or province could find out where to gather. They were even distributing entire anime episodes over the net a full seven years before YouTube hit the scene.

I find it ironic when people talk about technology and the force of the isolation. I found Sakuracon over the Internet, and through it I’ve met very dear friends that I’ve had for almost a decade. Sure, you could use the Internet to sit in your basement all day and play MMOs, but if you’re willing to make full use of the technology they can make your life more real than you ever thought possible.

I caught up with the passionate Eye on CBC Newsworld the other night. The feature for the evening was “How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin”, the story of the effect of the Beatles on Cold war-era Russia. The songs were first smuggled in by recording broadcasts from Radio Luxembourg using cannibalized X-ray prints as records. The bootlegs turned out to be one of the factors in inspiring the movements that eventually toppled the iron curtain.

This got me to thinking. There is now an entire generation of a civilization that owes their political freedom to piracy. The music and movies that they copied gave them the chance to dream of the better life that they now have. The oppressed peoples of the world may continue wrest control of their own destinies this way in Iran, Burma, Zimbabwe, and even North Korea. Russia and other former communist countries still have music industries despite this prevailing attitude against copyright. It looks like the battle to label piracy as theft may already be lost.

Think back a moment. How late would you stay up on Christmas Eve? How far would that sense of excitement and expectation take you? My holiday insomnia as a kid was notorious. My ability to keep conscious would stretch itself to the limit thinking about sleigh bells and presents under the tree. Waking up was no picnic either. If I was up past five, there was no way I was able to get back to sleep. In the end, I think this is my favorite part of the Christmas season. Finally unraveling the mystery boxes piled under the tree. Seeing the reaction of people receiving the gifts you bought for them. I think there is something wonderful about focusing all this importance on a single night of the year. It reminds us of the importance of all the other nights of the year, when the future, and all the gifts it will bring are little more than 12 hours away. Merry Christmas, Everyone.

It’s funny how Christmas changes as you become an adult. After you leave home, you inevitably curb that personal freedom a bit every December to head back home for Christmas. When you start to work, you find staff Christmas parties are an integral part of any office culture. Once you find that special significant other, you find that your trips home and staff parties to attend double. All of a sudden, you are on a Christmas grand tour.

Traffic and inclement weather are only the start of your worries. You haven’t met with these people outside of work since last year’s Christmas party. If it’s your significant other’s staff party you may not have seen these people before at all. Seeing family can be even more awkward. How has everyone been this year? Will they like the gifts you brought? Will the apple pan dowdy you made pan out at dessert?

The Christmas grand tour is a whirlwind of preparation, travel, and society. You can drive yourself crazy making sure things are just so. But when you turn that doorknob, and smell a Christmas Tree or taste a Christmas dish, you know you are not in a place of scrutiny or judgment. Christmas is not a competition, but a common interest that at least once a year gathers all: friends, family, and co-workers alike.