The number of Americans killed in Iraq in 2004 now exceeds the number killed in 2003. What is most disturbing and distressing is how much expert post-war planning was willfully ignored. This is why we need a regime change here at home: our intelligence is faulty, our war planners are faulty (good at invasions, perhaps, but it's easy to pick of an enemy that's been starved of resources for a decade), our reasons for invasion are faulty, our standing in the world is faulty. Stop these asshats in Washington before it's your friend or kid that is sacrificed next in the name of all things faulty.
I surprised myself this weekend by purchasing ESPN NFL 2K5 for my PS2, along with a Tokyo street racing game (I just love cities at night, even virtual ones). Not having a local NFL team, and never really caring to follow college sports, I know absolute dick about football. Yet, here I am, whiling away insomniac nights with a killer running game and a mediocre passing game and ever increasing defense.
A nice feature of ESPN NFL 2K5 is that it is a brand new top shelf game with a bargain shelf price. It looks like Sega will continue this pricing structure with ESPN NBA 2K5, which comes out soon. Ahhh, basketball!
Never in my life have I gotten into sport games (aside from Snowboarding ones, to satiate a pounding desire for snow when late spring hits). It's fascinating to watch how tastes change over time.
As a friend of labor, descended from a family of teachers, millwrights, and mine workers, it's no wonder that I feel so very very very sick today.
I did not catch the Olympic basketball game between USA and Puerto Rico, but I am happy with the results: Puerto Rico won, 92-73. I have absolutely no national allegiance to Puerto Rico. What I'm celebrating is the triumph of Utah Jazz point guard Carlos Arroyo. Arroyo did an admirable job taking over the position vacated by the retired John Stockton, a player who epitomized hard work and hard play over glitz and glamor. There were many games last year where Arroyo took over, with a great amount of cool, in a crutch. Even Allen Iverson admits it:
“International basketball is so different from the NBA,” Jose Ortiz said. “They probably didn’t know because of how young they are. I saw them a little panicked, but they were down 20 points, what can you do?”
Whistles and jeers greeted the Americans as they emerged from the locker room after halftime, but the crowd gave them some support when they tried to get back in the game in the third quarter. But each time the Americans tried to make a run, Puerto Rico had an answer.
“They play the game the way it’s supposed to be played,” Iverson said. “It’s not about athletics. That’s the game the way Karl Malone and John Stockton play it. It’s good for kids to see how the game is supposed to be played.”
After watching Detroit last year, and after watching the Jazz do a decent run last year (especially when another hard working player, Matt Harpring, was able to play), I'm hoping that we see more hard work and great teams appreciated again in the NBA. The mediocre play of the flashy superstar teams (Lakers, 76ers) over the last couple of years hopefully show that the age of the glitz is over.
While I was looking around for more information on Prada's iPod case, I came across a weblog entry titled Prada Epicenter Revisited. A few years ago, Prada set a plan in motion that involved building assorted epicenter stores in major cities around the world. They have since scaled back their plans, including pulling out of their expensive lease on space near San Francisco's Union Square. But at least one was finished in the United States: the Rem Koolhaas designed New York epicenter in SoHo (in space previously occupied by the Guggenheim SoHo, one of the first places I visited on my first trip to NYC many years ago).
Besides its architecture, art, and clothes, the New York store was to boast incredible new technology never put to such use in the retail space. RFID tags combined with a large database system were to tell you about your product when brought into the dressing room, as well as suggesting other accessories. Wireless technologies, staff PDA's, and more were to create an information rich shopping experience.
Unfortunately, that concept has not born itself out. The staff PDA's go unused, incorrect or looping video is shown, etc. All the wonderful automation (which was also supposed to tie in with a web site that never materialized) is already fading away, a scant couple of years after the store's launch.
It all sounds like a good idea, one that we've heard so much before. Gene at fredshouse sums it up like this (emphasis added):The potential uses and benefits of ubicomp often seem "obvious"; most of us in the field have spun variations of the same futuristic scenarios, to the point where it seems like a familiar and tired genre of joke. "You walk into the [conference room, living room, museum gallery, hospital ward], the contextual intention system recognizes you by your [beacon, tag, badge, face, gait], and the [lights, music, temperature, privacy settings, security permissions] adjust smoothly to your preferences. Your new location is announced to the [room, building, global buddy list service, homeland security department], and your [videoconference, favorite tv show, appointment calendar, breakfast order] is automatically started." And so on. Of course, what real people need/want in any given situation is FAR from obvious.Not that it's a bad target to move towards, but it is an issue that requires more time, power, and continued investment than I think most current implementations have applied so far. I never realized until now the complexity of just the context situation. Yeah, it might be nice for my smart house to pour me a bottle of Scotch and turn on the lights and stereo when I come home - but not when I have to run back inside the house when I realize I left my lighter inside. What a waste of Scotch that would be. And, being a restless person prone to pacing around, having lights and stereos and who-knows-what starting up as I wander aimlessly around the house would only be more annoying. Now, if the computer were to recognize my agitation and start talking to me in a soothing voice while it was really plotting my death by locking me outside the pod bay doors - it would at least be entertaining.
Anyways, with Prada reevaluating their epicenter strategy, it's doubtful that any significant time and money will be invested into the technological side of the New York store any time soon. The only other epicenter to be completed, to my knowledge at this time, is in Tokyo. It does not sound like the same amount of technological wonders are in this store, beyond its architectural beauty.