Research the Real

The internet, in all its glory, cannot create human souls. So all that "research" that people have done on their genealogical line to Adam have a lot of made up shells. Vital records and parish records rarely go past 1500 A.D. and those that do go this far back are frustrating to find, and in Latin. "We went through royalty!" It is surprising that so may of noble blood are among us today, and how did they get permission to research important political and historical figures? Besides, heirs to the throne have often had many different rises to power and power struggles, hardly a good way to legitimize a claim. Following the names of such a record though time shows only a father connected to a son, and a generic date. The sons eventually became their own grandfather and so cycles appear. Research should be spent within the first half of this millennium, where the information is more complete and possible to obtain. Chase the real people, not the shells of speculation.

Immersion

Awesome right? Looks like a fun way to exercise without leaving the living room.

Any gamer worth their system should know that the Oculus Rift has been making headlines. This Kickstarter posterboy has the goal to immerse a player in any compatible game they are playing. Now that people have had their hands on development kits, inventors created other was to be immersed in a game such as the Omni pictured. A first person shooter not your style? How about a space dogfight reminiscent of Star Wars? This runaway success is still in development, but I am excited to see what people come up with next, with some reservations.

Over-reliance on Technology

Technology would be fired if it was a person. I have never seen someone or something which had a certain job to do, fail so often and still be relied on for every presentation and meeting. As an AV guy working at the Missionary Training Center, I help set up and run many power-point presentations, Microphones, and meetings. Every week we have some problem with a power-point freezing, some kind of microphone ringing, or a random glitch in a system which frustrates us and the presenter. Does any of these things stop people from using technology again? Nope. The blame falls to us, and the technology gets the benefit of the doubt. Why rely on technology when it fails us so much? Because it is the norm and we are compelled to follow the norm.

The Wrong Time to Switch

I just moved into a new house and now have to pay for all my services like gas, garbage and internet. After living a month without internet at home, and realizing that Google Fiber won’t be coming to my home anytime soon, I decided it was time to change and ordered internet last weekend. Unfortunately, I learned today that Net Neutrality, the idea that the internet service providers (ISPs) can’t limit the internet in anyway, is dead. Some arefurious about it, explaining that ISPs can limit content and charge fees for content. Others are for it as any kind of regulation by the government is in some way regulation and would limit the internet services more than if Net Neutrality stayed in effect. I oppose the idea of ISPs controlling what we have access to. What if Comcast (the service I just chose) had a huge argument with Google? It’s possible that Comcast would limit my access to all of Google services such as Gmail, YouTube, this blog or even the Google search engine.