Sunday, February 28, 2010

Overdownloading

While downloading has infiltrated our lives to the point where it's practically second nature, the ubiquity and ease of access has subtly changed our consumer mentality.  I'm not talking about the ethics of piracy, but the way piracy has affected our ability to decide what we want to consume.

Choosing entertainment used to be a very deliberate process.  Take for example buying CDs.  Back in the day, people probably bought one CD or less a week.  You heard the one hit song on the radio, you saw the music video, and there's an off chance you read a written review on it.  If your friends had it too, then the purchase might've been a safe one.  Even if all the tracks on the CD weren't particularly good, chances were you probably listened to all of them a few times cause you already made the commitment through the purchase.  And in this process, the bond between you and the artist became stronger.  Through thick and thin, the experience was complete.

Nowadays, when people hear a song they like, they generally grab the entire album or even the discography.  Their ability to consume and absorb material is completely disproportionate to the speed at which they're downloading.  This results in a fast food, scatter shot approach to finding what appeals to us.  While some may argue that sampling everything buffet style certainly sounds better than a limited menu, the price we pay is that we often consume without tasting.  We're under constant pressure to try the newest and latest, it's easy to sometimes fall victim to our love/hate instincts.  If a song doesn't hook us or have meaningful lyrics within the first or second listen, then it's just "okay."  Snap judgments are made so we can move on and find what we really want.

Lately, I've been limiting the number of impulse buys/downloads, especially when I still have unfinished material.  I try to slow down and research the background and it's allowed me to appreciate each line, color, and design more.  I'm not sure if this way is better, but with the amount of data threatening to overflow unchecked, I need to portion myself even if it means I won't have it all.

Friday, February 19, 2010

My life & the Imbalisk


Karune: Are there any other units or anything that the public hasn’t already seen as far as with Starcraft 2?
Dustin Browder: That they haven’t seen yet? Well I think we’ve been talking about the giant voltron unit made of all of the vehicles; and units of the entire Terran race. Is that right Sammy?
Sam Didier: Yeah see that’s more of a designer thing. Personally, guys on the forums, I don’t think that would work so you know if something like that gets in where every single unit on the Terran side turns into a giant robot, that’s probably not anything to do with my decision. It’s probably Dustin’s.
Dustin Browder: What about the flying two headed ultralisk that breaths fire? I thought we were going to do that one as well.
Sam Didier: Yeah I think that one could work
Dustin Browder: That’s probably what’s coming up next: the flying two headed ultralisk that breathes fire will be on the website next.
Sam Didier: You’ll be seeing those in single player only probably.
That Chumbawamba song comes to mind: "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down (Pissing the night away, Pissing the night away)"

Friday, February 12, 2010

Chinese Christmas

So Chinese New Year officially starts tomorrow night and it's gonna be a ghost town for a couple of days.  Everybody stocks up on groceries and basically goes into Chinese Christmas mode.  You'll see a lot of people wearing sweats, trying to forage for food.  Families will gather around, eat ridiculous amounts of fatty food, and gamble their savings away.  Children receive red envelope and are suckered into gambling with their elders (who then completes the full circle and takes the red envelope back.  Evil bastards.)


Speaking of which, I've been debating about this one.  How do I raise my kids in terms of holidays?  Is there Christmas?  AND Chinese New Year?  Do they receive awesome gifts AND a fat red envelope?  I'm not particularly religious, so Christmas might simply be a pseudo commercial holiday with Santa Clause conveniently thrown in.  And then there's the concept of the red envelope money.  On the one hand, I'm all for giving the kids money and then letting them figure out how they should handle their own finances.  On the other, I'm pretty sure the adage that says "the only way to teach your kids about money is by not having any" holds true too.  I don't think I ever saved a penny from my red envelopes.  Nor did I really save the money to buy anything meaningful.


Holidays have always been magical, so I definitely want to include that as part of their childhood.  I hope I figure this one out before my kids are spoiled rotten.


In the meantime, I'm thinking about buying these all star game sneakers to, um, celebrate the holidays.


EAST:                                                

























WEST:



Oh yeah, forgot about this video clip I wanted to share.  I think this fight has one of my gym's coach fighting another gym down south.  The jaw dropper comes at 1:23.




Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Be like water, my friend. Watahhh!!!

Masochistically, I enjoy lining up for concerts, new releases, and limited edition items.  More often than not, the initial drive to line up is simply sparked by an impulse to capture the moment.  Concerts are magical.  New releases offer a breath of fresh air.  And limited edition, well, let's just say if I only have limited personal space, I would prefer the items that I own had significant intrinsic "values" for ownership. 


So I guess it's no surprise that I lined up overnight for the Kobe V Bruce Lee edition sneakers.  With only 120 pairs available in Taiwan, the forums were ablaze with updates on where to line up for the best possible chance of getting the size you want (Taiwanese people have smaller feet, size 9 and 10 are the most sought after.)  And with crazy demand comes the dilemma of how to fairly distribute the product.  Do they all go to the people who can line up overnight?  Or the people with the fattest wallets?  The official release has to try to appear fair though, lest the media goes nuts with the negativity coverage.  So out comes the lottery system!  If a store is set to receive 20 pairs, then they will let 40 people line up.  Out of the 40, everyone has a 50/50 chance of getting one.  And if you don't get one, line up at the next store!  


Oh it's brutal all right.  Some guy waited in three lines before finally getting one.  But is it any wonder when you design a shoe drawing inspirations from this:




And this?



No, this was simply something that you endure a night's worth of mosquito biting, rain dripping, and random sneakerhead bantering for. 




Watahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!



Also, I've been listening to The XX for the last three days.  Great for some quiet listening (like half dazed line ups.)  The ending of their song Basic Space has me hooked so badly.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Shoryuken: it ain't no cakewalk

After about 10 sessions of shadowboxing with jabs, rights, and hooks, the path to the shoryuken has just begun. The 起手式 (starting pose) is tiring like a *beep beep*.  You do a "dash left" where you dodge and crouch to your left hand side to get your punch ready.  Then you release, but it's a controlled release starting with your left leg, waist, shoulder (only a bit), and then your fist.

Damn near sprained my wrist/hand today.  I foresee a lot more shadowboxing.

It's weird that I'm either a middle or a supper middle weight.  I guess I'm still housing a lot of excess chub.

So Nature News released some findings by Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman on the merits of running barefoot.  I think they might have made the article pay-to-read, but the professor's website still has some youtube links up.  It's a fascinating read for me because I'm severely flatfooted (I say severe because I literally leave a flat footprint with no arch on the wet cement test.)  And for me, shock absorbing shoes are absolutely critical.  If it weren't for awesome Asics/Mizuno shoes, I probably would have quit running a long time ago.  It's really frustrating when you have to stop mid-exercise just because your feet is hurting while the rest of your body is fine.
Back to running barefoot.  In Lieberman's research, he proposes that heel strike running may cause a lot more stress to your feet and knees.  This is because when your heel strikes the ground first, your leg is essentially in a straight line.  The impact goes straight to our feet and knees and the force is about 2-3 times our weight.  And why do the majority of us run with the heel strike stance?  Because of the design of our running shoes.  Almost all of the shoe designs are centered around heel striking first and then rolling the force evenly to the forefoot.  When you look at people who run barefoot, they're almost always forefoot strikers.  Lieberman says that this is due to natural evolution and it's what our feet is intended to do.  In his video, it even shows that impact drops greatly when you compare the two stances.
While this almost has me ready to go out and run like a wild man, they do warn about the differences between running barefoot in the savanna (like our ancestors) versus running on paved road and cement.  The ground has gotten a lot harder and less absorbent.  Maybe we do need the cushioning of the shoes to simulate soft earth.  Also, Lieberman doesn't really tie issues of being flatfooted and pronation into his findings.  I think I'll write him and ask whether he's got anything for me.
But all in all, if you're fancying running like a Na'vi, you might actually have an advantage.