Screen Tests

My new class doesn't start until next Monday. After last week's weird and wacky weather, things really started to look up today. In retrospect, even though it's only six o'clock, I cannot believe I spent so much time in front of this screen. I suppose I have to come to terms with the fact, I'm rather addicted to computers. As I'll be turning 49 years old in July, you'd think I would know myself well by now.

I guess it really wasn't a surprise to realize I am fascinated with PCs. I first spent hard-earned cash on a Radio Shack TRS-80 in 1980. The tasks I was able to do in those days weren't very inspiring by today's standards. I recall making a simple BASIC program that simply added one plus one and showed the result on the black and white screen. Then, it would add one more and print again. I let it run overnight and I couldn't believe the device had made it into the hundreds of thousands by morning.

Technology marches on. Today, I was playing with my computer, network, and PS3. I was using TVersity to make my PS3 into a media server. I downloaded video from the Internet through a BitTorrent. Moving around 600 megabyte files is probably something I wouldn't have thought possible when my Radio Shack had 16K of RAM. The fact most of these files were destined for a 16x9 format 42" LCD television screen, would've undoubtedly sounded like science fiction too.

Here's my belated tribute to the recently deceased futurist who lived his last fifty years in Sri Lanka:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-- Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008)
Profiles of The Future, 1961

This show is not a video file. It's a live program streamed through
the net from a Sri Lankan TV network to this aparment in
New Westminster, BC.