#812
10:16 pm, Monday, May 21st, 2007My internet access has been restored! Which means I’m using my desktop again. And that’s a good thing because I have like a dozen Opera tabs that I forgot to check whilst limited to my laptop. One of these was my Google Analytics page, which showed a huge surge in traffic on Friday — about three times the normal daily pageviews. Why? I think the Top 5 Keywords report for that day explains it…
Three of those actually retain their Top 5 status when I expand the range to cover the entire month-to-date.
Here are a couple food pics I was too lazy to upload to the notebook during my net-famine — my “fancy” mac & cheese and Brett’s fried rice:
I got a couple new adds on Facebook — Paige and Amy. It’s so much better than MySpace — the pages aren’t uglified with loud music and backgrounds that make text nigh invisible. Seems like the users are more mature too. People don’t fill their profiles with kiddy “personality test results” and other web chaff no one cares about. I wish I could convince Charlie and some of the other Fed Way ppl to make the switch.
Boy, I missed a bunch of good TotD’s while I was offline. I guess I could’ve saved the page to the laptop, but oh well. Looks like we’re almost out again.
TotD:
What fictional setting would you like to live in?
This one’s easy: Transhuman Space. First thing I’d do is get uploaded and sell my body off as a bioshell. ‘Course, I guess I could also do that in the world of Greg Egan’s Diaspora. (Is there a name for that setting? The one with the Ndoli device, polises, and infomorphs? He seems to use it a lot in various time periods.) I think a lot of scifi nerds would initially go with Star Trek since it seems the most utopian, but what society in that setting would anyone want to join? The Federation is depressingly communist. Klingons would just beat you up and call you an honorless ptak. Ferenginar is possibility, now that Zek’s new “liberal” reforms (like allowing females to own property) have been enacted, but I suspect they’d be too xenophobic to accept human emigration. Life with the Vulcans would be beyond boring. Ditto for the Bajorans (unless you really enjoy farm labor and living under a planet-wide theocracy).
Okay, gotta find a decent laptop for my mom. I think the HP Pavilion dv6000t might be a good fit for her. Too bad everything comes with Vista these days.
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:20 am
Damn! Creedthoughts, Schrutebucks, and Stanley nickels. None of those terms appeared on my blog! :P
By the way, if you’re looking for decent, you should really consider a Dell Inspiron through their Small Business division. Small Business offers much better support than Home/Home Office and the option of getting a laptop with XP instead of Vista. I can’t get myself to recommending an HP/Compaq for any reason, unless the deal absolutely can’t be beat (it’s probably due to the bad experiences I’ve had with HP/Compaq in the past).
Good to hear your internet connection is back up!
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:33 am
lol, Schrutebucks are where it’s at!
I like Dell; I have an Inspiron 9100 myself. But I’ve had fewer problems with HPs and their touchpads are far superior. I’m frequently torn though since the Dell coupon codes are (usually) so awesome.
I’d read about Dell bringing back the XP option, but I didn’t think it’d gone into effect yet.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Yeah, the UFP /is/ communist, but advanced technology has allowed them to overcome the shortcomings of communism. Noone /has/ to work, and everyone gets everything they need anyway. You can argue that the UFP isn’t realistic, but it’d certainly be a comfrotable lifestyle, more so than any other setting with which I have that kind of intimate familiarity.
Of course, I don’t know much about Transhuman Space, either.
At some points in spacetime, Asimov’s Robots/Foundation universe (I don’t know if this setting as a proper name) can be pretty comfy, too. Imagine living on a plantation where all the work was done by uncomplaining robots.
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I think life as a Federation citizen would be pretty boring — your only entertainment would be classic literature, news, and the two hours per month that you’re allowed access to the state-run holosuites. No internet, no television. (Not as we know them, anyway.) You’d be comfortable, but I think most people (with even modest ambitions) wouldn’t be satisfied.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:54 am
I would go with Star Wars, pre-Phantom Menace. That way you could be a Jedi when they were respected, without worrying about Darth Vader or hordes of cannon fodder stormtroopers. An outer rim frontier planet like Tattooine would be a good place to hang out; no one would be overly concerned about the occasional lightsaber decapitation.