J
John Bailo
You know what's depressing.
Ok, so now that I just bought this super high powered desktop machine and up
Suse and w2k on it, I'm scoping around for some media and games to put it
to the test.
For the past 2 years or so, I have either not had a PC or else had a
relatively low powered machine - just enough for text based computing, some
web browsing and maybe a very low bandwidth audio stream. A while back I
actually did have a more high powered machine and could do some video
streaming, but that machine broke and I just didn't feel an urgent need to
replace it. Also, since I work with computers all day as web developer, I
wasn't always wanting to do more computing in my private time.
Ok, so it's 2004. And I'm scoping for media as I said, and games and high
bandwidth stuff. So once I go past the obvious things like news broadcasts
and all, I really want to see the smaller stuff and especially advante
garde cinema and so on.
Here's the thing. Do you ever get this sense that it's like after the
tech-com bubble burst that Internet-time has sort of stopped -- or paused.
Like I'm going through some free media at movieflix.com. They have a lot
of old movies and tv shows, but then I found this area called /Festival/
with some really neat shorts and film festival movies. But, the dates on
them are all 1999. Ok, then I go to the Google directory. They have
about 40 links to streaming sites. But after weeding out the ones that I
wouldn't like, I start clicking on the cool ones and all but a few are
either 'Page not found' or even creepier, they have pages that say stuff
like:
'Hey we had some fun, but streaming costs were so high we had to close down
-- March 2002'.
'It was too much work maintaining this site, so this will be the last
installment of /xyz/ - June 2001.
And so on. Gaming too. I look at gaming and it really hasn't changed that
much in the last 2 or 3 years. I think games are really good. The top
games are really quality entertainment. I just started working my way
through GTA Vice City and I'm very impressed. But -- I sort of remember
GTA being around three or four years ago...
So, now that I'm really looking around the Internet and the Web and for
cutting edge stuff I really get this horrible sense of stasis. Of people
who once had the time and energy and money to do all kinds of interesting
things on the Web, who just left things hanging in mid air. Ideas never
realized. Projects left half finished in the studio as if the paint were
still wet, the ladders still there, and some type of *people bomb* had come
and wiped out all the creativity and talent and energy and life.
Maybe it's not that bad. But maybe it is... I guess the natural question
is to ask if it, *it* being some unknown spark or creative kick, will
ever/ come back. But how can it? How can you get all those people and
all those ideas working and flowing again?
I guess there's Linux and Open Source. There sure is a lot of /life/ here,
a lot of good mis-directed energy that wants to drive and do and take over.
But at the same time, I am sad because I feel that there are so many
entrenched and Old forces holding it back. There are so many people
fighting it and criticizing it, that rather than being this fun creative
upswell, it really feels more like a war of some sort.
I guess historically. The Internet-boom years would be like the 1920s and
30s and the Golden Age of Hollywood. With lavish parties and superstars
and so on. Right now would be like World War II. With the forces of Good
( Linux ) fighting the forces of Evil ( Microsoft ) that want to pull
everyone down for their own greedy ends. I really do feel this physical
drag and resistence to these ideas that are so good, and so obvious and so
right on so many levels, that I can only call it a form of Repression.
Well. I don't know. These are no good times. But I guess longing for the
Past is no help either.
Back to the Trenches.....
Ok, so now that I just bought this super high powered desktop machine and up
Suse and w2k on it, I'm scoping around for some media and games to put it
to the test.
For the past 2 years or so, I have either not had a PC or else had a
relatively low powered machine - just enough for text based computing, some
web browsing and maybe a very low bandwidth audio stream. A while back I
actually did have a more high powered machine and could do some video
streaming, but that machine broke and I just didn't feel an urgent need to
replace it. Also, since I work with computers all day as web developer, I
wasn't always wanting to do more computing in my private time.
Ok, so it's 2004. And I'm scoping for media as I said, and games and high
bandwidth stuff. So once I go past the obvious things like news broadcasts
and all, I really want to see the smaller stuff and especially advante
garde cinema and so on.
Here's the thing. Do you ever get this sense that it's like after the
tech-com bubble burst that Internet-time has sort of stopped -- or paused.
Like I'm going through some free media at movieflix.com. They have a lot
of old movies and tv shows, but then I found this area called /Festival/
with some really neat shorts and film festival movies. But, the dates on
them are all 1999. Ok, then I go to the Google directory. They have
about 40 links to streaming sites. But after weeding out the ones that I
wouldn't like, I start clicking on the cool ones and all but a few are
either 'Page not found' or even creepier, they have pages that say stuff
like:
'Hey we had some fun, but streaming costs were so high we had to close down
-- March 2002'.
'It was too much work maintaining this site, so this will be the last
installment of /xyz/ - June 2001.
And so on. Gaming too. I look at gaming and it really hasn't changed that
much in the last 2 or 3 years. I think games are really good. The top
games are really quality entertainment. I just started working my way
through GTA Vice City and I'm very impressed. But -- I sort of remember
GTA being around three or four years ago...
So, now that I'm really looking around the Internet and the Web and for
cutting edge stuff I really get this horrible sense of stasis. Of people
who once had the time and energy and money to do all kinds of interesting
things on the Web, who just left things hanging in mid air. Ideas never
realized. Projects left half finished in the studio as if the paint were
still wet, the ladders still there, and some type of *people bomb* had come
and wiped out all the creativity and talent and energy and life.
Maybe it's not that bad. But maybe it is... I guess the natural question
is to ask if it, *it* being some unknown spark or creative kick, will
ever/ come back. But how can it? How can you get all those people and
all those ideas working and flowing again?
I guess there's Linux and Open Source. There sure is a lot of /life/ here,
a lot of good mis-directed energy that wants to drive and do and take over.
But at the same time, I am sad because I feel that there are so many
entrenched and Old forces holding it back. There are so many people
fighting it and criticizing it, that rather than being this fun creative
upswell, it really feels more like a war of some sort.
I guess historically. The Internet-boom years would be like the 1920s and
30s and the Golden Age of Hollywood. With lavish parties and superstars
and so on. Right now would be like World War II. With the forces of Good
( Linux ) fighting the forces of Evil ( Microsoft ) that want to pull
everyone down for their own greedy ends. I really do feel this physical
drag and resistence to these ideas that are so good, and so obvious and so
right on so many levels, that I can only call it a form of Repression.
Well. I don't know. These are no good times. But I guess longing for the
Past is no help either.
Back to the Trenches.....