Very cool. A STEAM survey of what CPU’s, GPU’s, and other components their customers are using to play PC games.  It’s fascinating to me, because it provides a glimpse into what the average consumer is running in their PC and gives an idea of what can be considered the “mid-range” or median hardware out there (and perhaps how long it takes PC technology to be adopted).

Steam Hardware Survey – October 2009

Finally watched it…  And now I’m slightly depressed.  It puts job seeking/selection and cover letter writing in a new light.  Because I know I’m in a position to make a difference.  Everyone in North America is.  But me, in a slightly unique way, I think.

I’m basically thinking of the general principle behind Uncle Ben’s old wisdom to Peter Parker, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  But that’s too cliché.  Take that idea, and blend it more with, “We talk of the second coming [of Jesus Christ]; most of the world has never heard of the first” (Oswald J. Smith), and you’ve got a little bit more of what I’m feeling.

I *just* remembered that, because I canceled my first flight out of Ontario, that means I’m going to be in town for Nicky’s wedding this Saturday.  Wow!

Who else from Halifax Project 2007 is going?

This blog site is called “Total Rip-Off” for a couple of reasons – one of those is that I like piggybacking off of other people’s ideas. So I’m going to paste in an excerpt from a field report from Uganda, from charity: water.

This is when I met Helen Apio. While most women hung back politely, Helen jumped toward me and screamed two inches from my face. Technically, it was singing. But the high-pitched shrieking was so loud and reverberated with such energy and emotion, I knew I had to talk with her.

She told me about the new freshwater well in her village.

“I am happy now,” Helen beamed. “I have time to eat, my children can go to school. And I can even work in my garden, take a shower and then come back for more water if I want! I am bathing so well.”

A few of the men chuckled to hear a woman talk about bathing. But all I noticed was Helen’s glowing face, the fresh flowers in her hair, and the lovely green dress she wore for special occasions. Touching her forearm, I replied, “Well, you look great.”

“Yes,” she paused. Placing both hands on my shoulders and smiling, she said, “Now, I am beautiful.”

- Will the beautiful women of the world please stand up. (Uganda, August, 2009)
http://www.charitywater.org/projects/fromthefield/uganda.php

Two things I would like to point out. The first is one of the reasons that I really like supporting developing parts of the world by helping to provide clean water sources, versus other kinds of aid. This is because it is strategic. “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and his daughters (and their children, one day) get an education.” (Another reason I like helping provide clean water is that it’s quite possibly the most cost-effective kind of aid I’ve heard of. An estimated $1 will provide a person with clean drinking water for a year. That’s a huge life change for $1)

The second thing I would like to point out is less about water aid, and more about humans – women, specifically. Now, I am by far not an expert on femininity (though I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night [ha ha, that's a TV commercial joke, sorry]), but I have listened to wise people who are women share on the subject, and one thing I’ve learned is that a woman’s perception of her pulchritide* (physical beauty) seems to be a lot more significant than guys think.

I think guys typically think of their looks as an attribute of who they are. It seems to me that girls feel that how they look defines, in part, who they are.  So, if you make a guy feel ugly, he is insulted. If you make a girl feel ugly, I think innately she feels less valuable as a person (even though that is not true).

Hmmm, so maybe that’s why my vocational search can cause me such trepidation.  As a guy, it taps into feelings of competency (or lack, thereof) and accomplishment. I think that men typically view performance or “power” (i.e. the ability to achieve desired outcomes) as giving self worth.  (I will go out on a limb and venture that that’s how women feel about beauty)

And no, I don’t think those are what ultimately makes us valuable. But I’m not one to overspiritualize and deny that those aren’t a legitimate part of what makes us special, either. And specialness and valuable-ness are related, I do believe. (I really do hate overspiritualizing)

* I learned the word “pulchritude” from a Starbucks leaflet. It was part of an Akeelah and the Bee themed promotion, I think.

Note: RC stands for “Release Candidate”

Taken from page 3 of Anandtech.com’s article, “Windows 7 Performance Guide”:

Finally, battery life, one of the sore spots with the RC, has finally gotten the kick in the pants we were expecting to see. We’ll get deeper in to this later when we look at benchmarks, but for the time being we’ll note that while the RC offered a battery life similar to Vista, the release version of Windows 7 offers battery life well ahead of Vista in all cases, and depending on the exact hardware used similar to if not better than battery life as compared to XP. It looks like Microsoft and driver authors have finally come through on significantly improving Vista’s lackluster mobile performance.

Yes, yes!  Not that I’m planning on getting a Windows 7 equipped laptop or desktop anytime soon, but one thing that irked me from benchmarks was seeing that battery life under Windows 7 looked pretty much the same as Vista.  Which, in most cases, was significantly lower than XP and Mac OS X.  And this was in the Release Candidate (RC) version of Windows 7, which was supposed to be pretty much… a “finished” version of Windows 7.  So I’m glad to see that they’ve made such a fundamental improvement since the RC.  Anyways, the above excerpt was taken out of page 3 in the 18 page article, so I’m going to have to read on to see how big of an improvement over Vista they’ve made (in terms of battery life).

UPDATE: Well, I finally got to the battery benchmarks and they referred to an older article (benchmarking the RTM or Release to Manufacturing version) that I remember reading before, which when I read it at the time, I didn’t think showed much of an improvement over Vista.  I guess things must have been really bad a couple of months before that when the RC was released.

So I’m on the phone with Westjet right now (estimated 60 minute wait time?  From Westjet?  Unheard of, eh!?  I think it’s because they just upgraded their reservation system.  Maybe)

Anyways, I do love Westjet.  I wanted to say that in case some random web surfer hopped on my blog and got the wrong impression from seeing “Westjet”, “wait times”, and “put on hold” (oh no, I’m putting those terms together even in this very sentence!).

But anyways, I just heard from the pre-recorded voice that Westjet credits are transferable to family OR friends! Oh my goodness!  What a good deal.

So, remember Canadian brothers and sisters, let’s share our Westjet credits! (maybe you’re allowed to sell them/discounted to friends, too.  They probably wouldn’t have a problem with that…)

Oh, and I’m on the phone with Westjet because I need to cancel my flight out of here tomorrow morning.  Yup, I guess I’m “stuck” in Ontario for a little while longer

Oh, and if anybody wants to put me up for a week or so (starting Monday) here in Ontario, please let me know!  I would like to know my options (preferably Toronto, but between Toronto and Hamilton would work, too.  Or, I might end up asking Waterloo friends )

I met up with a friend who goes way back with me (all the way to “high school”). I had a really good time catching up! But we were talking about what was new in our lives, and it really made me think about ambition and excellence.

Sometimes we think ambition and excellence aren’t what really matters in the end. Well I think that’s true (technically), I think that ambition and excellence are often times necessary on the path to what is truly meaningful.  What is “truly meaningful”?  I think that’s a whole other story for a whole other blog post.  But I did want to say this:

I think being the best – or performing near your best – in what you’re doing is important (aka “excelling”). Choosing the area you want to be excelling in is obviously important, too (aka “what kind of difference do you want to make?”)

But why does it even matter?  (Why does ANYTHING even matter?)  I think it’s worth pondering.

P.S. I think that if you are a Christian, you need to seriously evaluate (or re-evaluate) whether you’re content with mediocrity, or if you’re driven to demonstrate excellence. And, of course… why?

P.P.S. This reminds me of how my sister wrote a song about mediocrity, which she happened to perform once at her medical school graduation ceremony as part of her valedictory speech.  Talk about excelling.

Part 2 of the article that I talked about in a blog post a week and a half ago.

It’s a good additional thought on what it means to “Give to the one who begs from you”.

Well, actually it was StepMania modded on an Xbox.  With thick foam mats (they were surprisingly responsive and easy to play on).  With Ben Harrison, to boot.

Then I got to go to a UWO thanksgiving dinner put on by C4C for international students.  Mmmmmm.

Good times.  But I think I need some slow/personal time soon (even though I’d gotten a lot of that back in Waterloo these past couple of weeks).

Oh yeah, and I’m thankful for all of the above.  I thought I should say that, since it’s Thanksgiving and all (in a few days).