Agassi does Meth... Phelps takes a Hit from a Bong... Who Cares?!?!

        So, everyone should remember the article and the picture of Michael Phelps taking a hit from a bong.  Michael Phelps managed to get caught doing this right after he won a record-breaking number of gold medals in his pursuit of athletic perfection.  There were a lot of teammates that were able to help him achieve this goal, but for all intents and purposes, it was his own determination and will power that got the job done.  The man for a total of four years did nothing but stick to the strictest of diet plans, workout twice a day 6 days a week and once on the seventh, and refrain from all drugs and alcohol.  Keep in mind he was doing all of this while in college, or what is supposed to be the largest time period of most people's avid drinking and fun-time events.  Great job.

        Andre Agassi, though not as intense a short-time period work effort, has performed just as diligently in his athletic field.  He has won title after title, and has actually managed to be one of the longest running tennis champions of all time, competing with tennis icons half his age.  His prolonged competitions finally culminated in a major championship match against the great one-hand back-hander, Roger Federer.  He did lose that match, but getting there was a feat in itself.  Now he is admitting that back in 1997, he failed a drug test because he snorted a single line with a person of bad influence of his life.  That person was also fired from his staff soon thereafter.

          The point of relaying both of those stories is to say: Who Cares?!  How this relates to emerging technology is that recently better drug testing paradigms have been released.  What will be caught now?  Will a teenage gymnast lose her medal because she rubs lotion on her skin before competition?  Will there ever be a method for controlling what substances are considered enabling and which ones are not?  It seems to me like the drugs that everyone is making a big deal over are ones that are not enabling, but comically inhibiting (especially meth).  Let me hear about drug testing before Mr Universe or a non-Olympic weightlifting/bodybuilding competition.  I am sure that that drug test would be a true test of its accuracy and scope.

Question of Effect of Internet on Kuwaiti Culture

         I just have a simple question over the 'limited' effect that the introduction of the Internet had on the women of Kuwait.  The article stated that women were mingling, choosing new members of the opposite sex to find of interest, and even selecting spouses over the internet.  This does not seem like the most novel concept to anyone in this country, but I am sure that in Kuwait, this is incredibly original.

         My question is not over the boldness or the nuance of the Internet's social abilities.  I think that the article only mentioned once briefly that before private, casual social infrastructures like the Internet came along, women of Kuwait picked men to marry based on their mothers' suggestions or the men were just picked for them.  Was there some piece of technology that came to light, before the Internet, that allowed the two opposite sexes to interact on a higher level than public stigma allows.  If the Internet is the first piece of technology that allowed for this type of interaction, then I believe that the author has much underestimated the affect of the Internet on the women of Kuwait.

Dr. Geddes passes away

         I know that this COM 435 blogging effort is meant to highlight emerging technologies, but there was a significant loss to the world of science on Sunday, especially for students of Purdue.  Dr. Leslie Geddes died on Sunday at the age of 88.  For those of you unfamiliar with his contributions, Dr. Geddes developed the world's first implantable defibrillators, which opened the door to vital technologies like pacemakers and heart monitoring devices.  He was also an invaluable contributor to other areas of medical treatment, including blood flow monitors for children and other bio-electric medical therapies.
         I am a Biomedical Engineering student, so I actually was lucky enough to take one of his classes, Medical Device Accidents.  It was a fun course, but judging from the amount of class time that was professed by the TA versus the amount Dr. Geddes was able to work through, he was growing older.  It still didn't stop him from performing his signature unbelievable act every weekday: coming into work at 5:00 AM.  He would do this just so he could be more prepared than anyone else for the day.  He truly was a man apart from the rest.
        In fact, even when he was moved to full time care facility during the last few months of his life, he still requested that his graduate students that worked for him come in and update him on their work.  He would still offer them suggestions and places to look in the case that they were stuck for any reason.  He refused to quit contributing to the grand body of medical knowledge throughout his entire life.  By this fact, I believe that Dr. Geddes went out with his boots on.  If I could choose a way to fight through to the end of my life, I can think of no better manner than that of Dr. Leslie Geddes.  Here's to you Dr. Geddes.

The Exponent needs to hire a better Editor

        There is what is supposed to be a professional newspaper that finds its way to my doorway every morning.  The delivery service is free, the crosswords and Crypto-Quips are fun, and even one of the comic strips is humorous consistently.  Other than that, there is no reason to look at the rest of the paper.
        The pictures on the front page are so poorly placed and so incredibly 'blaaaah' that every day the paper looks just like the previous day's paper.  Most of the main page pictures are poor pixel quality like the editor tried to expand a small picture after copying and pasting off of the internet.  The only good pictures are the ones in the sports pages, and even those pictures are under par for the professional photographers that line up to snap shots during the home football games.  Still the front page, at the very least, should be somewhat of a priority.  It is also not just the front page picture that makes The Exponent a disappointment; the front page headlines always have a tendency to be very confusing, misleading, and all around unimpressive.  That is just the criticism of the front page.
        The rest of the paper isn't any wonderful cup of tea either.  The paper is littered with poorly planned and obnoxiously large advertisements (sometimes whole pages with nothing else) for things that positively no one could care about.  The Exponent seems to think that people care about random interviews of unimportant people on campus, and what they think on very important topics.  The sports reports are mostly redundant and reduced to quoting from sporting icon's twitter accounts, as if that is real news reporting.  The opinion articles have a tendency to be neutral, and those that write slightly radical in this section typically do not appear as writers in the paper again.  As a college newspaper, it should attempt to be 'on the edge' and provide spicy journalism (Sex Position of the Day was a good example of something to look forward to in the paper).  Some of the best articles in the paper are just copies of interesting reports from other, better, newspapers.  But, with the use improper grammar and spelling errors, the editing staff at the wonderful Exponent can manage to screw up not only their own articles, but also those articles that are just copies from outside sources.  This was printed in the newspaper today: "The football coach at the University of Connecticut said Tuesday he's heard nthng toinictemebes f hi tamwee nvlvd n fgh befoe player Jasper Howard was killed over the weekend."  If the people at the Exponent are honestly too lazy and apathetic to their own work, then they should just hire a person to read the finished newspaper before they print thousands of copies.  That way things like this don't happen and the Purdue population receives a semi-decent newspaper.

New Mac Magic Mouse: Not quite far enough

       So, this week, Mac released the brand new Magic Mouse.  This product is a streamlined replacement to the Apple Mouse and the Mighty Mouse that come standard with Mac products.  It features the same multi-touch, point-and-click, and scrolling abilities that the iPhone and the iTouch sport.  The only difference seems to be that there is a laser tracking engine on the bottom of this device that allows it to function as a normal mouse.  Also there is no screen of any function on the top of this smooth surfaced development, so there is no way to interact with the mouse alone.  In order for the mouse to be of any use, the user has to also be the owner of an iMac, a MacBook, or another Mac computing system.
       Don't get me wrong, the mouse will make computing more convenient, especially with the elimination of annoying wires using its wireless bluetooth connection.  I just don't believe that Mac has yet gone far enough.  If the Magic Mouse has the ability to function as a mouse with the touch abilities of the iPhone and the iTouch, and the iPhone and the iTouch have functional abilities of interaction without the abilities of a wireless mouse, then why isn't there a fusion between the two?  I know that this might seem crazy, but it also seems like this is just the natural flow the Mac technology.  Feel free to comment as to whether or not you think that this might be a pliable next step or on the viability of this as a future endeavor for the Macintosh company.

A Change of Heart

       I thought that the most positive note to start a blog off with would be an opinion article on the guest speaker from Friday the 2nd of October.  This rather young, accomplished man is an Intel Insider, a co-founder of thirty plus technology exhibits, creator of the blog page SomewhatFrank, and a distinguished employee of the AOL corporation.  I am sure that there are several other additions to this resume, but these were the simple stand-outs that we heard about during class.  This man, of course, is Frank Gruber.
        I have to admit, that during the first 15 minutes of his speech I could not help myself from thinking, "man, what a nerd".  The man spent all of his free time off from work on blogging and writing up tech reports or market comparisons for all of his "followers" to read.  After all of this was over, he would take pictures of his breakfast to send to his relatives and other breakfast fanatics in order to update their knowledge of his morning eating items.  And then we found out about his love for the Twitter technology, which is just beyond my scope of tolerance.  Honestly, I think that he was trying to build himself as a huge dork that was following his passion, but everyone eventually learned of the incurring benefits.
        Think of the just the connections that Frank was able to obtain over internet interaction.  He was close personal friends with several major company heads of zappos, Wine TV, and several other utilizers of the internet as a social technology.  Not only that, but when he went in for his job interview with AOL, the interviewers were using a chart that he himself had created for a report on the future of the market.  Guess what?  The interviewers were showing it to him as their perception of where their technology should be heading.  I don't know if it was awkward when they found out the Frank was the original creator of that graph or not, but one thing is for sure: the interview just became a job orientation meeting.  There honestly would have been no need for a resume; his work ethic and devotion to technology speaks for itself.
        Well, I just have to say that I am sold.  I am going to start finding something on the World Wide Web that motivates me enough to write about it, read about it, or maybe advance it.  There were so many people and stories that he brought up that chronicled a rise from little-known to stardom using only motivation and enthusiasm.  The advantages that Frank has today because of his devoted work are extensive and they certainly invoke my envy.
         This brings me to the most important point of Frank's speech.  There was a time in the class where he used a student's love for crocheting  as a platform to kick off an internet crocheting sensation.  He spoke of making connections, establishing relationships, and building up a report with the public in the pursuit of  becoming some social internet expert on crocheting.  Yet this example was not meant to apply only to crocheting.  After speaking with him after the class was over, it became very clear that he was perfectly serious about his confidence in inevitable rise to success in just a short amount of time.  In fact, he said he would not be surprised if the time period was anywhere between three to six months.  I intend to test this belief, whether within this current six month period, or in one soon to come.  Either way, it is a guaranteed certificate of confidence that I want to accept.