aggarrett's blog

Time to wrap it up already?  My wife, Beth,  was in Wal-Mart the other day and, while in line, the lady in front of her was complaining that the doctor couldn’t tell her why she was having headaches or backaches or some other malady. I can’t quite recall because this is second hand info anyway and I was probably half involved with something else when Beth was relaying the story to me but anyway the lady was hurting.  Beth then explained as best she could, which is pretty good because she is educated having just received her Bachelors from UT this week, that her husband believes that in 20- 30 years there will be tiny robots living inside a person and that these robots will be able to relay important physical data to outside the body.  Bluetoothed, if you will, right into the doctor’s waiting laptop.  You would think that at least with this kind of raw technical data laid out on the table the woman would feel some sort of relief that if not now it will one day be better.  She didn’t.  Beth said the lady rolled her eyes.  Can you belieeeve that?  Rolled her eyes.  Well believe it lady.

This semester has been great and looking back over my classmates blog’s I can tell I am not the only one who believes so.  Everyone has come out of this class with useful knowledge and because most of us are planning careers in IT we should.

I bought Randy Pausch’s book The Last Lecture after watching the video a couple of times and after the two weeks we spent working on the Alice project which was ,in my opinion, the most enjoyable lab assignment of the semester.  As usual, there is a lot more to the book.  I would advise picking it up.  Give it as a gift and, even if you’ve never read it, the person you are giving it to, IF THEY READ IT, will think you put great thought into their gift…  I wrote this last sentence and almost erased it.  At first thought it was too dark considering the circumstances of the subject.  But after watching the lecture and reading the book I think that the statement is right and Mr. Pausch would not mind.

I paid $150 for my atari (used) 2600 at around the age of 6 with the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) coming soon after.  Don’t tell me what a man knows, tell me how many times he beat Super Mario Bros. consecutively.

Now the worlds  loom around you like cinematic cut scenes from a hollywood movie and the motion picture industry is taking a backseat to the  video world.  Heck, I don’t like half the endings that Iwatch in new movies nowadays, most are too predictable or just uninteresting.

Video games give people a chance to change this.  A good voice-over coupled with smooth animations, throw in Hollywood quality scripts and I’m usually   hooked.  Even though the A.I. is usually insanely predictable it is irrelevant because online multiplayer is where its at.  I’ve been into Xbox live Call Of Duty matches that had my heart pounding because of the great job the graphics do to put me there in the action.  I enjoy these first person shooters most of all because of the fast pace and high level of player control.

I don’t play the online games because they require more time than I have to put in and I usually find myself bored trying to develop my character.  My experience is limited in these types.

Artificial worlds will continue to develop and of course who knows…. maybe we’re in one now.