Category: life

Topics concerning that thing known as ‘real life’ and not virtual worlds.

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40 years inside a cubicle

BoingBoing notes that forty years ago, the cubicle was first inflicted on the office workers of the world.

But Propst’s forward-thinking motives were misinterpreted by some companies, which simply crammed more workers into smaller spaces and took advantage of the system’s huge potential for savings and tax breaks… *

At first the news made me slightly queasy at the thought of generations of drones being stuffed into tiny boxes for their entire office careers. But what would modern offices be like without walls? Without even that much privacy, we’d still have the sweatshop-like typing pool arrangement, where the supervisor watches all the screens for signs of slacking (or blogging).

So really, I’m glad I have my cubicle walls. I only wish they were a little more stylish. And had a door.

Link: Metropolis Feature: The Man Behind the Cubicle

Link via BoingBoing: Happy 40th Birthday, cubicle!

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Surreal match-up of the year

Washingtonpost.com reports that Quentin Tarantino, director of several ultra-violent action movies, will appear in a Muppet-filled Disney remake of “The Wizard of Oz”. Have the producers at Disney been hitting the bong a little too hard? This has got to be the most surreal match-up ever conceived.

I can’t wait for the scene where a jumpsuit-clad Miss Piggy disembowels the flying monkeys, while Kermit grabs a straight razor and goes medieval on the wicked witch.

Link: Washingtonpost.com: Reservior Frogs: Kermit and Tarantino Join Forces

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Wi-Fi hotspot map of Vancouver

I’m becoming more interested in these elusive wireless “hotspots” where you can surf the web wirelessly. It sounds like an intriguing idea, but just how many hotspots are there in my neighbourhood?

I found one site (jiwire.com) that not only lists them, but allows me to search for hotspots near my current location and show them on a map. How cool is that? Here’s an example of the results you get, displayed in a MapQuest map:

By the looks of it, a lot of really nice hangouts in Vancouver still don’t have wireless. Also, there are at least a couple of hotspots that I know of that aren’t on that map.

Does anyone know of a more complete, searchable hotspot map for Vancouver?

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Prognostic

At BoingBoing today, they note that a Hong Kong company has created a virtual girlfriend for your cellphone. It struck me, as I read this, how similar it is to an idea that appears in Adrian Bedford‘s novel Orbital Burn.

Unlike the sophisticated AI described by Adrian, the cell-phone AI is mostly designed to part lonely geeks from their money:

If players neglect her, she will refuse to speak.

The company says the amount of money players will have to spend has yet to be determined.

But unlike other computer games, it seems that cash, not skill, will enable players to climb the different levels in the game. *

Link: BoingBoing: Virtual Cellular Girlfriend

Link: BBC Hong Kong: HK firm develops cyber girlfriend

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Wishing for wi-fi

As I passed a little café today, I noticed that they had an 802.11 wireless hotspot. Inside, a woman with a sleek little notebook computer happily surfed the web with a tall, foamy beverage on the side. And I thought to myself, I want to try that.

Sure, my Dell laptop is a little too chunky to be fashionable, and doesn’t sport the cool glowing-apple logo on the lid, but I could relax in a pleasant atmosphere and… do whatever it is that I usally do at home in a more comfortable chair. I guess I’d read the news sites or something. E-mail? I could log onto my favourite multiplayer game, I suppose, although it would be dead slow.

Even though I occasionally see the bohemian-geek in the corner of Lugz or The Grind or Starbucks or Blenz, typing out their manifesto-poem/one-act socio-eco-political play, I couldn’t possibly focus on writing with so many distractions.

It might be more relaxing to sit with a newspaper instead of a keyboard and screen. And at home, instead of a hard chair. Ah, screw it. I’m not going wireless.