The following are some videos that I have always enjoyed. There are some interesting animations, silliness and thought provoking content in this batch of videos. I have posted them here for your benefit and as a reference for myself. I try to do my best to stay away from being redundant and posting the latest greatest Internet sensations, so I hope you enjoy these. Of course, I had to watch them all again when I found them, so if you have seen any of these enjoy them a second time. If I ever sent you something of interest, remind me so I can post it here.

This animation was inspiring to me, I couldn’t get it out of my head and I wanted to try to figure out how to do it. Eventually, I made the “Clash of Ideologies: War on _____” which you can find on the video page here at sikkdays. For more information on this piece, try here.

Youtube:

I saw More online back in 2000. This animation, by Mark Osbourne, was nominated for an academy award in 1998. His website is here.

Youtube:

Honestly, I don’t remember how I got exposed to these little wonders, but I just sat there and I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. This video is a compilation of Rube Goldberg Machines that apparently play in the beginning and end of a Japanese kids show called PythagoraSwitch. I guess that is why I find them so entertaining, they appeal to my mental level. If you don’t find the video amazing, you’ll love the music.

Dailymotion:

If you really did find these entertaining, there is another batch here. An added bonus, there’s a strange little dance in the middle of this video. Sorry, the network that owns the show pulled the original video I saw (minus the dance) on Youtube.

Why is it when Jon Stewart points these issues out(see video below), it’s funny and perhaps shocking? Yet, when Michael Moore does it, people say he is bending the truth or he’s not being objective. Guess what? In either case the facts presented aren’t funny.

When are we going to learn? In the sixties the hippy mantra was “make love, not war.” They were all on drugs, though. We shouldn’t validate drugged-out, stoner ideas like, “make love, not war.” Oh wait, with all of our antidepressants we are no better than they were. Instead of feeling happy, however, we are all docile zombies just trying to make it to the end of the day. We are an apathetic blob that barely notices what happens in our own world and when Jon Stewart points out what is happening we have a good chuckle and turn the TV off and go to bed. After we take our pills, that is.

America to the Rescue!!!

I had mixed feelings as I was switching between a Mac and a PC to test the website. Macs are incredibly user-friendly and very smooth as you maneuver through the operating system. Of course, I am not saying that the Mac is perfect because I have crashed a number of applications. The Windows PC can be more complex, as far as finding that option or preferences setting that you are looking for, and it can be disagreeable when it comes to certain functions and applications.
However, the complexity of the PC is the part that I really like. I like having the options right in front of me. Many of the Mac programs have this “point & click” mentality about them. The Mac applications have an ease of use reputation because they don’t provide the options to adjust things and when they do, they are buried.
Take burning a disc for example; with the Mac I tend to use Roxio Toast for all my DVDs and CDs. I select audio, video or data and then I drag my files into toast. That is about it. There’s a smallish arrow in the corner that says “options,” or something like that. When you open it up, there’s a few things that you have control over like disc-at-once. The last time I made a disc on a PC I used Nero. If you are using the advanced mode in Nero, you have a mess of options, like what type of data, audio, DVD you are making. There are all sorts of formats like UDF, bootable, Joliet which each have their own options to try to wrap your head around. I guess that is why they call it advanced. Toast supplies some of those disc types too, but there doesn’t seem to be as much in the way of options for these formats.
“Hey, what do you care? You can’t even understand half of these options.” True, in this instance it doesn’t affect me too much. However, the ability to choose between a basic and advanced mode is quite appealing. After all, there is a large spectrum of users out there. Most of us fall in the middle, we take just a sip from the cup of knowledge and we get dangerous. Power users want the options, and well, my grandparents who got a computer because they can’t “afford to send letters anymore with the price of stamps,” want to point and click. I miss the day of the “wizard” alternative. Many PC apps had a wizard that would walk you through a process. Need to import your address book from Yahoo to Outlook? Start the import wizard. In fact every application installer, PC or Mac, gives you the option of a wizard or advanced installation. So, why doesn’t the program you are installing have the same technology inside of it?
Recently when I was putting the videos on the web I was frustrated by the lack of options that I had. I was reading some information on how to optimize my videos so that you could click the playhead and drag it to fast forward or rewind. The options the author spoke of were not available to me. Instead of the settings, the Mac questioned me (similar to a wizard but misguided) about the use of my videos; are they going to be online, will they be on a Flash video server or will they be downloaded? I don’t own a Flash video server, and it isn’t saying if you choose Flash video server then the video will be formatted with setting X, if you choose downloaded, setting Y. It might as well be asking me how the weather is. I wouldn’t consider myself a power user, but how can I accomplish my task if the tools aren’t there? Then, there are the times when I have no clue as to how to proceed and what the setting will actually do. I fumble through it until I get it work.
All I am asking for is the choice, developers, programmers, interface designers. The power users have their Linux so if they want the hamster dance to pop up every time you type the word “gubernatorial,” they can do it themselves. Windows developers are constantly trying to design apps to be more user-friendly like the Mac which means giving up some control. I like the controls, when I need them, so give me a wizard/advanced option Mac/Windows programmers. Please?

Maybe I should buy this slick machine. It could be my apartment slash transportation.  I could load it up with equipment and have a “Mobile Studio!!”  Yeah, that would be Pimp, as they say.

I have been pretty busy this week with work and haven’t had a chance to add many posts, but that is a good thing because I got bills to pay. I also had a chance to help out at GVSU, I recorded some faculty member snippets and I should be done editing them tomorrow. The snippets will be featured on a section of the GVSU web page when I finish them.

As for the site, I have been correcting bits here and there when issues arise, but for the most part it seems to be going rather smoothly. Recently, I changed the font on the homepage, fixed a reload issue with the links section and made some modifications to the forum and the blog. I added the ability to post youtube videos in the forum. There is a button next to the “URL” button in the forum to add the youtube videos and when you click it the small help section displays the instructions. It isn’t hard, from the youtube site you copy the URL above the “Embed” and paste it where the instructions tell you. The modification to the forum did not go as smoothly as it should have, and I feared that once again I was going to crash it. It is working and I tested it by posting a video, but I have an uneasy feeling still. Obviously, I don’t want to lose anything that I have spent all this time building, or lose content added by visitors! I have backups, but I don’t want it to get that far.

Here in the blog, I have added tags. The categories to the right are useful, however, I am so in love with del.icio.us that tags seem much more efficient. I just started adding tags to the posts here in the blog, so I will have to play with it some more and test it. For the most part, it seems to be working and I hope it will be useful as the site grows.

Have a good weekend, peeps!

Okay, when you were a child it was fun to come up with “funny/creative” acronyms. I mean even to this day, I know I can’t call anyone a pig because they will simply snap, “I am a Pretty Intelligent Guy(Girl).” We are older now and we just don’t have time for that sort of silliness. Thank goodness for the Internet. A quick search of “acronym” will give you all sorts of help. Of course, if you are looking for something insulting you have to go to the Bile Machine at http://www.umop.com/acronym/acronym.php.

For example, “Sikkday” apparently stands for Stupid, Inanimate Killjoy, Kowtowing with Denial and Alcoholic Yearning. And GVSU is not Grand Valley State University, but Gibbering Vampire, Saint of Under-achievement.

Who would you listen to, the Enterprise(TNG) computer or HAL 9000? I find it curious that most of the modern personifications of computers, whether in movies & TV or in the real world, have female voices. I would guess that the creators believe that a female voice is soothing, pleasant to listen to and, therefore more acceptable. Most of our inanimate objects don’t talk to us, in the real world so it would be rather alarming if the vending machine at work said, “Why don’t you try a rice cake, instead?”
Now, if it were a male voice in the vending machine denying you your Twix bar, would you get angry? What about a sexy female voice?

Obviously, your own gender plays a role too, so lets make this a bit more complex. I recently saw the movie Sunshine which led me to this comparison. In the film, two men are outside the space ship, which is near the sun, doing maintenance on the “sun reflecting” shield. The pilot has maneuvered the ship so that the part of the shield they are working on is not currently reflecting the sun’s rays. Then, the on-board computer takes over the controls of the ship and begins to turn them toward the sun, citing, “The mission is in danger.” The crew begins to have the classic argument presented in many Star Trek movies, logic versus emotion, the needs of the one(few) versus the needs of the many. Do they override the computer to save two guys? Do they continue on their mission to save the world and billions of lives? Of course, in this scenario the computer has a female voice. This got me thinking about how our world is still a very sexist one.
Men still make more money than women in identical positions and hold higher positions more often. Women are constantly falling victim to the (advertisers)society’s idea of what beautiful is, surgically altering their appearances to be more appealing. So, would you be less inclined to follow the directions of a female voice than a male voice?

There is a belief out there that men are logical and women are emotional. Obviously, the computer in Sunshine is a machine and its decisions are based on logic so the voice has nothing to do with what is inside. HAL 9000 for example, had the cool, crisp logic male voice and turned into a basket-case. “He” developed some human characteristics and, well, went a bit over the edge in the movie, 2001.
My question of whether you would trust a male voice or a female voice isn’t really that valid now that I have put all this thought into it. I would guess that no matter what our own gender is, our egos would always convince us that we are smarter than machines. Thus, the voice of the machine probably doesn’t matter too much. However, I bet there will be tons of money funneled into research of this kind when they begin to mass market the first talking ladle. I can’t wait to come home to my bachelor pad and have my house yell at me to take out the trash. I will be in the lap of luxury with all my talking gadgets.