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1. They are always rude and angry.
2. They don’t listen to your instructions because they think that they know more than you and insists that it’s not their fault.
3. They are not willing to learn. They believe it is their right to ask you to do it for them every single time, because they have already paid for the service.
4. They take advantage of your easy-going nature and ask for extraordinary favours.
5. They confuse the issue and have contacted the wrong people, eg. calling the shop that sold them the computer about a faulty software that they’ve downloaded, and insist that you help them anyway.
6. They lie about the problem causing you to go on wild goose chases that lead nowhere.
7. And then they get impatient when you can’t solve their problem.
8. When you tell them that it may take up to a day, they email you every hour on the hour to see if maybe somehow the Gods have smiled on them, and all kinds of rules and logic do not apply to them, and their issue has been miraculously fixed.
9. They change their mind after the item/order has been delivered. Their complaints always start with, “If I had known it was going to be like this …”
10. And after all of the above, they still complain about the price.

Those who do IT support will recognise the above instantly, though some types are applicable to all kinds of business. Have you guys got similar to share? Or as a customer calling up for support, have you been through your own tech support hell?

This clip (2:42) of the mind-bending video game “Portal” shows it as a very cool re-imagining of M. C. Escher’s famous picture, “Relativity“.

In the game, you carry a device that can create tunnels on walls and floors through which objects and your game character can travel through. These portals do not obey the laws of gravity and physics, nor spatial-temporal reasoning.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Here’s M. C. Escher’s picture.

Now imagine playing in that alternate reality as a video game. Awesome.

Live Longer

In the news today was the story of how scientists have discovered a way to manipulate skin cells into behaving like embryonic stem cells. Which means they have the ability to turn into any kind of human tissue with the obvious potential of being used in the future to cure diseases and to replace faulty organs. It can also aid in medical research.

If the recipe for stem cell-like behavior can be perfected, individualized pluripotent cells could be created to reflect a particular disease condition — for example, allowing researchers to test potential treatments for Parkinson’s disease on living human neurons created in a culture dish.

Skin cells made to mimic stem cells - Cloning and stem cells- msnbc.com

This advance in medical research will in turn lead to more advances in medicine. Having better medicine technology may reduce ethical dilemmas such as whether to euthanise a terminally ill or severely handicapped loved one, but new ones are introduced.

How will we behave if we know we can live longer? Will we become less motivated and less concerned about personal achievements? How will we behave if we know we can repair any part of our bodies? Will we become more selfish and reckless in our actions and behaviour?

Will we deny this technology to persons we deem to be criminal and deviant, thus breeding them out eventually? Who gets to say who’s criminal and deviant?

Looking even further ahead, being able to recreate copies of our cells would mean that we can clone ourselves too. If we can afford it, should we be allowed to make copies of ourselves and live perpetually?

Will our societies become rigid in structure with stringent rules and laws governing genetics and our identities like that shown in the movie “Gattaca“? Or will it be a genetic madhouse as depicted in the videogame “BioShock“?

A “gene bank” in the video game Bioshock

Bringing this discussion closer to the present, the immediate effect of us living longer and healthier is the planet’s population growing at an ever greater exponential rate. Which leads nicely to the next section.

Killing the Planet

Just a few days ago, after a UN climate conference in Valencia, Spain, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had said that governments must do more to fight global warming.

Ban said that he had just been on a trip to see ice shelves breaking up in Antarctica and the melting Torres del Paine glaciers in Chile. He also visited the Amazon rainforest, which he said was being “suffocated” by global warming.

“I come to you humbled after seeing some of the most precious treasures of our planet - treasures that are being threatened by humanity’s own hand,” he said.

“These scenes are as frightening as a science fiction movie,” Ban said. “But they are even more terrifying, because they are real.”

Global warming action urgent: UN chief - Environment - smh.com.au

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change presented a report which says,

Human activity is “very likely” to be the cause of rising temperatures and that deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, are needed to avert ever more heatwaves, melting glaciers, extinctions and rising sea levels.

UN climate talks agree on blueprint for action - Environment - smh.com.au

Even if you think global warming is over-hyped, an ever increasing population creates more energy needs which will pollute the environment further. Plus it puts greater strains on the resources of our planet. Ever dwindling resources will lead to more people fighting over them. In a very simple nutshell, all human fighting and wars is essentially a fight to control resources: oil, land, minerals, food and water.

Global warming will lead to greater human conflict, so it’ll be hellish one way or another.

What am I trying to say?

Knowing the environmental impact the human race has on the planet mutes my enthusiasm for any kind of medical advances which will prolong our lives and makes us healthier. It also makes me ambivalent about having kids, and sometimes it makes me callous about people dying of hunger, in a war, a natural disaster or during an outbreak of a virulent disease.

With the possible exception of natural disasters (and maybe not if sea levels continue to rise), all of those things listed above can be directly or indirectly traced back to a problem with overpopulation.

But every species has the instinctive urge to procreate and perpetuate the species. The question for us is: will the human race be smart enough to rein back those urges to give the planet a chance to recuperate and heal itself?

The hero of our story goes by the name of Patrick Moberg who works for Vimeo, the video-hosting site. On the 4th of November, he saw a pretty girl whilst riding the subways of NYC but never approached her. Having missed the opportunity to talk to her, he proceeded to do something about it. That something involved registering the domain name “NYGirlOfMyDreams.com” and posting up a “seeking Susan” ad:

In his words:

You: Fancy braided hair, flower in the back left, rosy cheeks, scribbling in a journal, blue gym shorts, blue tights.
Me: Not insane, skinny, tall.

Gothamist: The L(ove) Train

His site URL got passed around the net-savvy and media-connected populace of New York City. Two days later someone who works with the mystery woman recognised the description. Turns out she’s an Australian girl who works as an intern at BlackBook magazine. And she’s currently an extra on the set of the “Sex and the City” movie.

Gothamist: Moberg’s Mystery Woman: Revealed!
BlackBook: Patrick Moberg’s Crush is BlackBook’s Camille Hayton!

They’ve now been put in touch with each other. Whether or not it would work out is unknown.

A lot of commentators on the posts asked why didn’t he just talked to her on the train? As he explains in this video below (3:00), he was working up the courage when the train stopped and she got off. In the midst of the rush of people coming in and out of the train, he lost sight of her.

I can definitely understand how nerve wrecking cold-approaching a stranger would be. Plus he also noted, she might not have been in a receptive mood and might have thought that he was a creep. And he was probably too nervous to come off coherent and not-insane.

Patrick discusses the girl of his dreams from Jakob Lodwick on Vimeo.

Gothamist: Video of the Day: The Subway Cyrano Speaks Up

How would this have worked out without websites, email, online video …?

One thing that strikes me about this story is that he would have never met his dream girl had it not been for the power of modern media and social networking. He had used his position and connections at Vimeo to great advantage.

Imagine the alternative of printing out posters and sticking it around the neighbourhood like you would do for a lost pet. How many posters and how much effort would that have taken?!

Also, being able to see him on video probably helped her decide that he was worthy for a meet-up. In hindsight, his elaborate way of getting her attention might work out better than had he made a bad first impression on the train.

And I understand why he didn’t talk to her on the train. Not only because of the reasons which he had mentioned in his video, but also because I’ve been there myself many times. But I’ve as yet, not did what he did and put up a website to search for that lost connection.

p.s. Some of the comments on Gothamist mention the possibility that this is all a media prank, or stunt marketing for Vimeo, BlackBook and maybe even for the “Sex and the City” movie. The cynical side of me thinks that is a distinct possibility. But it’s a great story nonetheless. If this storyline hasn’t been done in a movie yet, I’m betting that we might just see it happen.

Remember “You’ve Got Mail“?

If you are a video-gamer, even just an occasional one you might have heard that Halo 3 was being released today. It is the most hyped video-game to be released this year on the Xbox 360, having pre-sold a million copies. Because I never owned the original Xbox I never played Halo or Halo 2, so I didn’t get sucked into the hype that is Halo 3. Though I did read that when Halo 2 was released, it “set a record in 2004 for first-day sales of any entertainment product, generating more than $125 million in the United States in its first 24 hours.”

“Gamers, on Your Marks: Halo 3 Arrives” - New York Times

To put it very simply, it’s a first-person shooter and the story is about humans fighting aliens. But when Bill Gates goes to a local games store in Seattle for the midnight launch, you know that it is more than just a video-game to Microsoft. Hence all the hype.

Microsoft launches ‘Halo 3’ - Games - MSNBC.com

As far as electronic goods go, the hype surrounding Halo 3 may even surpassed that surrounding the iPhone when it was launched because it’s a global phenomenon rather that isolated to the US like the iPhone was. Check out these scenes in NY and in New Zealand, where owing to its time-zone is the very first country in the world to get Halo 3.

Images from these Kotaku posts:
Kotaku - NYC Halo 3 Launch
Kotaku - NZ Halo Fever

While I may not have got sucked in by the hype, I love the artistry that go into a good product trailer. And the ones for Halo 3 are quite well-done. The first is from late last year, and the second just a few weeks ago. I especially like the second one - it’s CG made to look like an elaborately detailed diorama, with beautifully hand-painted miniatures.

“Assassin’s Creed”, being produced by Ubisoft Montreal is another game I’m anxiously waiting for to get for my Xbox 360. You play Altair, “(الطائر, Arabic, “The Flyer”), a member of the Hashshashin sect (the original “assassins”), whose objective is to slay the nine historical figures who are propagating the Crusades”.

Assassin’s Creed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The backstory is a real interesting one. The Hashshashin sect existed for real in the Middle Ages and terrorised both Crusade figures and “Muslim rulers whom they saw as impious usurpers”. The word “assassin” is derived from the sect. The Wikipedia entry is a fantastic read.

The trailer above is another “killer app” one like the “Gears of War” ad - it really makes you want to buy the game. The song playing in it is “Lonely Soul” by UNKLE.

Check out the official site for another great trailer. It’s tentatively scheduled to be released in November this year. AWESOME!

Incidentally, the producer for the game Jade Raymond is hot.

“Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” is going to be another game to get for my Xbox 360 when it comes out. Yeah I know, more guns and violence, war, death and mayhem … but damn if it doesn’t look good. Is it wrong to enjoy violent entertainment when there are real wars and real people dying everyday? Hmm, deep thoughts which I shall ponder further some other time.

All I know now is that I want this videogame. Along with Stranglehold which is coming out around the same time. Check out the official site with just a picture of a dove and spots of blood - it’s such a John Woo cliche and I love it!

Another game that caught my eye is “Heavenly Sword”. Hot warrior babe, martial arts, fantasy swordplay, and British accents? How did they know that one of my fantasies are hot pan-Asian women with posh British accents? How how how?!

But the game’s only for the PS3! Boo. Oh well, on with the show!