Thought Clouds
The Digital Bender

During a recent development in one of the projects at work, I saw me -- as my friends did, in a different light. I was all over the place. I mean networking, applications, DB, authentication, registration, even in deep detail. And was up to it. I think this is the first time people in this work place realized my swiss-army-knifness. And it is a beautiful and welcome reminder of what I once was. For those who don't know, I no longer have a technical title. I spend my time reviewing schedules and documents. Everyone thought I was an old timer who once had great digital bending powers but no more. Even I though that a bit. But I AM BACK!

First some background. Qwaider made the following comment on a previous post ..... On a side note, have you seen the reports on games? WII beat everyone for December, followed by Xbox36 then PS2 and finally PS3! Looks like Sony might be losing this one if their 5 year old console STILL beats their flagship console December Console NPDs are as follows: Nintendo DS - 2.47 mil Wii - 1.35 mil Xbox 360 - 1.26 mil PlayStation 2 - 1.1 mil PSP - 1.06 mil PlayStation 3 - 797,600 It is quite obvious that XBOX 360 is giving the Wii a run for it's money. And that Sony is struggling with getting people to embrace their next gen PS3. And there is no reason for that to change except for one tiny thing. Hollywood seems to have dumped HD-DVD in favor of Blu-ray, and that is guaranteed to drive up demand for the Blu-ray devices. Of which, PS3 is the most famous and sought after model. People who have been waiting for the format wars to end are now likely to go the PS3 route and get a gaming consol...

I don't know the context of this clip. But it's an excellent recitation of Al Rahman. I wonder if nonmuslims feel the power and warmth I (we) feel when we listen to this?

Online community. This is the big difference between the XBOX 360 and any other gaming platform. And I am not talking about being able to play with your friends online, only. I am talking about that unique ability to turn on your XBOX 360, see who of your friends is online and what they are playing, and playing with them, or at least start voice chatting with them while you watch a movie or play another game. Some of the best times I've had in gaming is when I could hear the bellowing screams of anguish as I crush my friends in Halo 3, or the hollow accusations of the losers as I pass them by in my lesser car blasting down a stretch of road in the Nurnburgring. "YOU ARE CHEATING!!" They would say, knowing that cheating is not possible on XBOX Live. Add to that the availability of MSN Messenger support and you have a the full experience. I wish more of my friends would pick up and XBOX 360 and "Jump in".

I can now go out and buy a card that can render a human that does NOT exist. Imagine what is now available for multi-billion dollar organizations. This is called "NVIDIA's Human Head Demo"