Goodbye Chicago + 2 thoughts

First off, just wanted to give a quick shout to all my friends and family that have made this past year in Chicago a memorable one. I'm sad to be leaving, but excited to be pursuing new opportunities. Chicago and its people will always have a special place in my heart (and I really mean that, not trying to be sappy).

Anyway, I'm pretty bored here at the airport, so I've decided to put together a quick blog post about two random thoughts that came to my head while roaming the airport.

1. McDonald's doesn't serve gravy: I was feeling a bit hungry at the airport, and since I had a long flight ahead of me, I decided to grab Mickey d's. Now you're probably thinking. Eric, you're leaving Chicago, home of the stuffed crust pizzas and hot dogs, why not get something memorable as your last meal? Well honestly, I'm all pizza and hotdogged out, and there's just something about McDonald's and airports that always get me.

Anyhoo, so I go up and look at the menu and see these new chicken selects. I originally wanted chicken nuggets, but the chicken tenders sounded too interesting to pass up. I went up and placed my order. "Three piece chicken select meal." "What drink?" "Um.. root beer" "What sauce?" "Gravy". As soon as I said gravy, the cashier gave me the most confused look as if I'd just asked for peanut butter or some strange concotion of animal blood for sauce. "Uhh, Mcdonald's doesn't serve gravy!"

Now, before you start lambasting me and telling me that obviously McDonald's doesn't have gravy, let me make it clear. I know McDonald's doesn't have gravy, but the picture in the chicke selects clearly shows gravy. Upon pointing out this fact, the cashier turned her head, looked at the menu behind her, looks baffled (because obviously it's gravy) and proceeds to tell me it's ranch. Uh, no. You guys are tryin to copy Chik Fil A by creating a premium chicken brand, and clearly you guys have put a picture of gravy next to your chicken tenders. I've attached a picture of the box (which also shows gravy) just to prove my point (not sure how attaching pictures on this app works, so hopefully it worked).

End rant.

2. Southwest seating is awkward. If you've ever ridden Southwest, you know that there are no seats. Instead, you get a number which tells you which order you get to board the plane at which time you can also select your seat. It's a good system and works pretty well. Here's the problem though, when you get to the end, you're left with the center seats, and as you awkwardly amble through the narrow pathways, you start thinking about how to strategically find a middle seat that has ample space. All the while, the people in their seats are trying their hardest to avoid eye contact and look as big and space consuming as possible. Here's a tip though if you're ever stuck in this situation. Take the seat closest to the front. You're not going to find a better seat in the back, and at least you'll be able to get off soonr when you land. I think Southwest needs their flight attendants to just start assigning seats at the end, or people (namely me) will walk all the way to the back of the place in hopes that there is a better seat, and then try to crowd their way back when they realize there is no room in the back.

In other news, if you haven't heard yet, Amy Winehouse passed today. Also, tragically, a massacre occured in Oslo which killed 92 people. Although expected to be an attack by a group of Middle Eastern extremists, it soon came to light that the suspect was a local who had yet to be determined reasons. It's a terrifying and sullen reminder that danger can come from anywhere. Remember to stay safe. It's a wild world we live in.

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HP7 Part deux, initial reaction

Just went to watch HP7 part two. I was still jet lagged, so I kept dozing off. I passed out for 4 to 5 seconds at a time. Every time I passed out at least 30 pages of the book went by in the movie. As a result, I missed a lot. Regardless, here are my initial reactions.

1. You really need to read the book to fully enjoy this movie. As with most books (or comic books) that become movie, you can't always get the full effect or inside jokes if you haven't read the source material.

2. Was Harry's mother a red head in the book as well? I see some Oedpidus complex thing going on in the movie; just was wondering if it was reflected in the book as well.

3. Is Snape Harry's dad? Or is this one of those unanswered questions that have 10,000+ posts in a thread on a HP fan site?

4. That last scene in the movie with them looking old was super lame. White hair + beard + bags under eyes does not equal age. You just threw hundreds of millions of dollars in special effects to create an incredible movie. Why not spend a few more $$ to create legit looking older characters? Did they get to the end and realized they blew all their money on the first 2 hours of the movie and couldn't properly finish the end?

:end rant:

Anyway, overall it was a fun entertaining movie that properly caps off an incredibl franchise (although I still maintain that the three main characters are terrible actors/actress. I think I'm going to try and read the books now.

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Patent Trolls... Scary

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Warning: The opinion expressed in this blogpost are often haphazardly researched on a bus while on a mobile phone. Feel free to call me out on any misinformation, or to express your own views.

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http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/01/microsoft-turns-to-crowdsourcing-service-to-swat-away-patent-tro/?m=false

And you thought trolling was only for internet message boards. "Patent trolling" has become more and more common over the years as juries award large settlements to groups who hoarde portfolios of patents and sue companies in hopes of settlement. There are entire companies whose sole source of revenue is to buy up patents then sue companies for "infringing" on those patents (ex. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11860819/ns/business-us_business/t/patent-trolling-firms-sue-their-way-profits/)

Basically, patent trolling works this way. Companies build massive portfolios of patents on the most random and basic things. Then, they get a team of researchers to find successful products that inadvertently use their patent and sue the bejeezus out of them. Settlements can often reach millions of dollars. Recently Google bid $900 million for Nortel's patent portfolio just to protect themselves from this type of litigation.

Now I'm all up for patenting ideas and products, after all patent laws help innovation blossom, but patent trolling borders on the absurd. By the letter of the law, patent trolling is not illegal, yet common sense tells us something else. Why are companies allowed to eat into the profits of others who actually created something new and contributed to our society? The biggest problem here, however, is that patent litigation, once used to protect innovation, now instead stifles it. Who would want to create a product only to see half of their revenue go to dealing with a lawsuit?

The system is obviously broken, and I'm glad to see some reform coming about. There have been new laws discussed to cut down on those taking advantage of the system, but it just disgusts me to see that some people are so greedy that they would sacrifice technological advancement and innovaton for their own profits.

Anyway, here's my simple solution to all of this: make everything open source. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, and very much like Communism, pure open source can most likely only be achieved in theory. So until the world is perfect, watch your backs... the trolls might me coming.

In totally unrelated news, that new movie The Troll Hunter looks pretty cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nnoGTQRodk

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Morning Commute: Facebook Spm

Is it just me, or has the whole Facebook community forgotten all its rules about phishing, spamming, and scamming? Recently, I've noticed an exponential amount of my friends posting ridiculous pieces of spam over everyones wall. Dear friends, word of advice, don't click anything on Facebook that looks like spam, offers you to let you see who sees your profile, or reveals sexy outlandish videos.

Two questions:

1. Are people getting these viruses through Facebook, or is there an external source (malicious links, downloads) that is affecting user accounts.
2. What is Facebook doing to stop this? There seems to be an obvious security flaw in Facebook that exploits user accounts. How much of our other data is exposed by this spam? Given many of us put our entire lives on Facebook, it's a bit unsettling to see these security flaws being exploited.

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Fire Ants are Kind of Awesome

I HATE fire ants. I despise these 6 legged pests that invade your home and sting unrelentlessly at you until they die. Growing up in Texas, I had to deal with these menaces all the time. I remember tortuous invasions where I would jump at every touch, fearing one of these creepers had crawled on my hand and was poised ready to sting me. If you've never had to deal with fire ants, consider yourself lucky. The sting is painful and itchy, but the worst part is these things won't die! Seriously, you can step on these things or try to drown them, but they'll keep coming back. No joke, I distinctly remember a childhood memory where I saw a fire ant in my bathroom sink. Instinctively, I flushed it down the sink only to have the damned thing crawl back from out of the sink drain and back into the basin.

Recently, though, I've garnered a new found respect for fire ants. Why? Because fire ants are kind of awesome. These ants are mother natures ultimate survivors. I guarantee you if there was a nuclear holocaust, the only thing left surviving would be roaches and fire ants. And the ants would take over the cockroaches soon after and create the ultimate ant society....well maybe not. The following video is actually what got me thinking about fire ants. These things formed a freaking boat that can't be pushed under water! How's that for teamwork?

WARNING: if you hate bugs don't watch this video.

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Augmented Reality

First post!

Ok, so I'm not really blogging on a bus, but this is definitely one of the things that I've been meaning to blog/write about.

So first off, what is augmented reality? With help from our good friends at Google and Wikipedia, we can easily find the answer.

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or an indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input, such as sound or graphics. It is related to a more general concept calledmediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality)

Basically, augmented reality let's you see things that aren't there. Awesome. Using the camera on your phone and sometimes your GPS location, mobile phones are currently the most accessible form of augmented reality. Take for example Google Sky Map. For anyone interested in the stars or astronomy, this app will blow your mind. You take your mobile phone camera, point it at the night sky, and this app will tell you exactly where planets, stars, constellations, planetary bodies, comets, asteroids, galaxies, are located. Once again... awesome.

The fun doesn't stop there, though. An app called Layar (http://www.layar.com/) gives you the chance to try out different layers of AR (hence layAR, haha). My favorite and most commonly used layer is the Yelp layer. Point your phone in a general direction, and you'll be able to see what yelp-reviewed places are out there. Other cool layers integrate your location into a game. The game Conquar allows you to capture territories and fight with nearby armies. I personally haven't yet tried out this app, but it sounds like an interesting concept.

So, the future is here. Our lives will be so much easier and awesome with AR! Right? Hm, probably not. Here are the problems I see facing AR so far. First off, the most convenient form of AR is on mobile phones, and so you'll be limited by mobile phone hardware. At minimum AR requires an active internet connection and a camera. If you want to take full advantage of most of the AR applications, you'll also need GPS and a pretty decent CPU on your phone. Now if you have all those, all you have to worry about is having a phone that gets a decent and accurate GPS signal (I have the Epic 4G and its GPS is definitely lacking) and having a phone with decent enough battery that allows you to run a camera, GPS, and memory intensive program without destroying your battery life.

Secondly, the uses of AR are pretty limited. Right now most AR apps allow you to search for things, pretty cool in concept, but I'd rather just Yelp off my phone instead of pointing my camera phone to see where stuff is. Other uses include making yourself look fat (yay?). I definitely see a lot of marketing potential with the use of AR. For example, Engadget posted an article about a Panasonic AR application that allows you to visualize how your new TV will look (http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/29/panasonic-viera-ar-setup-simulator-app-augments-the-reality-of-y/). Again pretty cool, but nothing life changing. Which brings me to my final problem with AR...

No one uses it. AR would be awesome if a lot of people actually utilized it. Games like Conquar would be much more entertaining, and businesses would be able to add some flair to their marketing campaigns (imagine a scavenger hunt for prizes using AR to find objects). Of course, like all technology, AR will most likely take a while to adopt. Hardware and software limitations will likely be the biggest hindrances for AR, and the lack of current practical uses will most likely deter people from starting to use it all.

On a more optimistic note, however, I think AR has a lot of potential. With the rate of technology improvement, perhaps by the end of 2011 AR will be as common as yelping or emailing on your phone. Who knows? Regardless, it's a very interesting concept and fun to play around with if you have some spare time.

Anyway, the above is just my two cents. I haven't really done a TON of research into AR, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Comments, queries, questions, insults about my stupidity? All welcome in comments.

My favorite video of the day:

Zbo dagger over Tim Duncan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDHjhwUV2kQ

Yeah, I know it's old news, but wow, this is a whole new Zach Randolph we're talkin' about. He's no longer the toxic asset that no team wanted.