Silly Bandz… the new craze?

Soo, another year has passed, and another form of wrist-wear is upon us. This time in the mere form of a rubber band that has been colored and shaped into various things from mystical creatures to letters of the alphabet.

The official name of this new sensation is Silly Bandz. They are quite simply a genius product all-around. If I ever seen the person who made these in person, I would shake his hand. Granted he used the same idea of Lance Armstrong’s famous cancer bands that everyone wore, this new inventor simply made them smaller, more flexible, and conform to a shape when outside pressure is being distributed to it.

Silly Bandz are liked by most people, and extremely hated by others. If you ask a ‘hater’ about what they think of them, they will typically give you a response along the lines of “It’s a stupid idea and I don’t know why anyone buys them. It’s so simple, one yahoo decided to sell wristbands in the form of shapes and boom, now he’s a millionaire, anyone could have done that.”

And the reason you’ll get this response is jealously in my opinion, they are mad that it’s such a simple, yet brilliant idea, and millions of dollars was right under their nose.

Regardless what people may think about the situation, Silly Bandz are a great idea and innovation, but someone else somewhere in the world will probably make something newer and better, more high-class, even, and then the fad will fluctuate…

http://www.sillybandz.com/

COD MW2 Stimulus Package – Why Not Us?

I’d like to start this post off by stating that I am a huge fan of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and all of it’s systems, mechanics, and “SPLOZIONZ”. Also, don’t get me wrong, Infinity Ward is a great company, but I do not believe they favor all of the platform sales of CODMW2.

Which includes console systems in one category: Wii, Playstation 3, (PS3) and Xbox 360. The other category is PC, of which they still had a large number of copies of the game sell, however do not treat with the same respect and care of console systems.

The best way to approach this topic is by saying that, in my opinion, Infinity Ward implemented a layout that worked “most” of the time, called peer to peer hosting. It’s where one person from any one game will be chosen to support the connection of the match to all the other players in the same game. This person is chosen based on the speed of their internet and their location in correlation with everyone else on the map.

This system works great from console systems (Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360). Simply because the console systems have a set internet speed, so the only thing that matters is where the person that is chosen to be the host is located. However, with PC’s, virtually every other person has a different internet speed, anywhere from 500Kb/s to 20Mb/s. So even though this one person may be in the best location for the rest of the match to receive peer to peer hosting, their internet may not be up to par, and what happens is quite frustrating. It causes all the players in the match with the exception of the host to start lagging (when you do something and the effect is delayed for a period of time) and thus creates prohibited game play and inaccurate results.

So basically, every 5th game or so has problems with extreme lag on the PC because of internet speed differentiations. The solution to this problem would be for Infinity Ward to create dedicated servers – servers that are dedicated to supporting players with a fast internet connection so no one has any problems. However this would cost them too much money so that won’t happen in the near future.

Recently there was a “stimulus package” that was introduced to CODMW2. This package can be thought of as essentially an expansion pack, as it included new maps for play. The catch is that it costs $15 to purchase them whether you play on console or PC, which is fine, I can understand where Infinity Ward wants to make their profit. However, instead of making it fair for everyone, these maps were released on console systems more than 1 month earlier than for PC.

Although complaints will be made, the “cheap route” so-to-speak will always be taken, because money makes the world go round, right?

…I’ll be waiting for improvements.

Uniforms in School, Promoting Equality or Diluting Personality?

In today’s society we have these relatively new things called uniforms. One of the many meanings of “uniform” as found on dictionary.com, is as follows:

Uniform – an identifying outfit or style of dress worn by the members of a given profession, organization, or rank.

In many jobs and professions, there are dress code requirements, but most people wouldn’t consider a dress code a uniform policy, they would just describe it as bits and pieces or small rules and regulations. But when there are many of those rules put together, they would rethink their ideas. Things such as: you must wear a belt, your pants must not be above fingertip length, your shirt must have a collar, your collar may NOT be popped, you may not have exposed jewlery, you cant have “distracting” haircuts or otherwise non-regular hair colors, etc.

The list goes on and on. But the truth is, that uniforms actually HELP schools and professions signicantly when looking beyond the obvious fact of  ”Oh, I can’t do what I want, they’re RESTRICTING me from my individuality.”

To be honest, that’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard, and it’s the only one a non-pro-uniformist (is that a word) can tell you. They literally have NO other argument. They refuse to look beyond and realize that uniforms keep the peace, promote equality, and make a happier environment for all.  Uniforms prevent children from being made fun of, considered “poor” or “rich”, and it overall just removes some stress for everyone. With the exception of administrators at given workplace. They may tell you they feel like they have to be “fashion police” because they are constantly correcting those who aren’t willing to follow along with everyone else. And, in most cases given employee or student will be removed from that occupation or school, because they can’t seem to follow the simple instructions of wearing X clothes. If they aren’t willing to do that, then obviously they aren’t giving it their best effort, simple as that.

“You are suppressing my individuality, man. I want to be able to pop my collar and dye my hair pink because it makes me DIFFERENT, and it gives me attention, how can you like this dull, tasteless society with all these drones of people who look the same?”

Well, I like what is effective and efficient, what else can I say.

Brief 30 second Animoto video showing various school uniforms from other places around the world. —–> http://animoto.com/play/P17Sq8uAiTNLEzP4oc8XRA

iTunes Mosaic!

iTunes Mosaic

A Sample...

1. Eye of the Beholder / Metallica 6:302. The Shortest Straw / Metallica 6:34

3. One / Metallica 7:25

4. The Dirt Whispered / Rise Against 3:10

5. Savior / Rise Against 4:02

6. Re-Education (Through Labor) / Rise Against 3:43

7. Cowboys From Hell / Pantera 4:07

8. The Air That I Breathe / All That Remains 3:35

9. Distortion Sleep / Soilwork 3:46

10.Overload / Soilwork 3:44

11.Kissing the Shadows / Children Of Bodom 4:39

12.Hate Crew Deathroll / Children Of Bodom 3:37

13.Hold Your Colour / Pendulum 5:23

14.Disturbed – The Night / Disturbed 4:46

15.Inside The Fire / Disturbed 3:52

16.Indestructible / Disturbed 4:36

17.Whiplash / Metallica 4:07

18.Jump In The Fire / Metallica 4:42

19.Motorbreath / Metallica 3:08

20.The Four Horseman / Metallica 7:10

21.Jack Of Diamonds / Sonic Syndicate 3:36

22.Battery / Metallica 5:10

23.Mindtricks / Disarmonia Mundi 3:53

24.Process Of Annihilation / Disarmonia Mundi 3:45

25.Last Breed / Disarmonia Mundi 3:37

26.Aftermath / Sonic Syndicate 4:11

27.Callous / Sonic Syndicate 3:53

and 12 more…

 

Wordle

 Wordle Post…