Shigeru Miyamoto is pretty much where I would like to be, when I'm 55.

Bogey on your six

My usual and apparently only source offers a pretty interesting look at targeted online advertising. The internet, of course, is not as free as it looks, and the question is how much data collection is too much. (One answer: Facebook's Beacon.) At least we've already blocked most of the ads.

It's like they read my mind

I am excited to see that scientists are FINALLY using their powers for evil and not good.

"The Annoy-a-tron generates a short (but very annoying, hence the name) beep every few minutes. Your unsuspecting target will have a hard time 'timing' the location of the sound because the beeps will vary in intervals ranging from 2 to 8 minutes. The 2kHz sound is generically annoying enough, but if you really really want to aggravate somebody, select the 12 kHz sound. Assuming you have done your part in selecting a suitable hiding location for the Annoy-a-tron, it will do its part to drive your co-workers slowly mad with its short and seemingly random beeps."

I know what I'm bringing to the next dinner party in Pasadena!

This merges two of my nerdy interests into one. Now I can play video games and write electronic music at the same time. See Mom, video games aren't a total waste of time.

One day when I have the cash on-hand...

I have to agree with the WSJ on this one: article. Sony is due for a comeback (and may I remind the court that I was particularly prescient on when to buy Nintendo and Apple stock?).

While I'm prognosticating, let me predict how the Democratic primaries will play out over the next few months. Superdelegates will continue to announce support for Obama to where he'll gain a significant lead in that category (sparking news stories about the matter), because the superdelegates will hope to help pull public opinion more towards him in hopes of victories for him in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Maybe even Mr. Gore will endorse. I think this will happen because the superdelegates will see it as a good way to avoid a potentially disastrous floor fight at the convention in August - voice support for the frontrunner in hopes that they can sway the public to make a more definite decision. Especially since public announcing support doesn't mean they have to vote that way at the convention.

I also predict self-driving cars will be nearly as big as the internet, and will really arrive somewhere between 2020 and 2025.

Two nice hacks

New school -- Wii remote head tracking:

Old school -- Guitar Hero on the Commodore 64 (skip to the end for nostalgic Zelda music):

Turn to the internet

I do think we are seeing the downfall of the operating system as we know it.

Its replacement? The internet, of course, with Google Docs being the obvious example of the kinds of applications which begin to make more sense online. Suddenly, any computer with a web browser offers the same access to and experience with my data, regardless of operating system. And it falls neatly in line with the fact that over the next ten years I will go through many iterations of hardware, and multiple operating systems, but my gmail account will most likely remain a constant. Generally, I want as much of my data (at least non-sensitive data) as possible tied to the most durable thing.

Once we reach the point where we can stream full-resolution video, nearly any application could theoretically be handled over the net. I wish I could find the article I was reading about taking video games in that direction. Video games, because of their high demands on processing, memory, graphics, and interaction, are easily the most rigorous standard for this model of computing. And they have a lot to gain from it. Taking user-purchased game consoles or pc hardware upgrades out of the equation would revolutionize that industry. The entry price would be much much lower, theoretically attracting a much larger audience. (With ad-based revenue, there may simply be no entry price.) And the experience could be much better, with hardware maintained and upgraded by the game publisher far outstripping the capabilities of mass-produced machines. Again, all you would need to access it is some sort of web browser. Most likely, this would come in the form of a box by your tv with controllers attached to it. The main problem here is that pesky speed of light, which absolutely limits the kind of response time you can get between your input and the result on the screen, based on distance to the server. But for games that do not require twitch reactions (alas, my favorite kind), it is in many ways an ideal platform.

So in this new world the operating system hopefully changes significantly, because it's got a lot less work to do. It's definitely well on its way. The purest example of this idea to date is gOS, which integrates Google's web applications into a stripped-down Linux build. A version of it is included with the $400 Cloudbook being sold at Walmart. It's got a long way to go, mainly because web-based applications have a long way to go. But I love the approach, which is to start with the bare minimum, and add things only as you need them.

It will be important for all of these web applications to automatically back up my data to my own hard drive or server, so I always have my own copy. In fact, I can think of a lot of great things about having one storage device in my house with which all of my devices interact via the internet or a local network. My camera, for instance, should be sending my pictures back to my computer (or to my online image editor, which then backs them up to my computer) as soon as it can find an internet connection, so I never run out of space on the card.