When Generations Collide

While surfing around blogs back in September, I came across this interesting post by FongPC titled Are you Generation X or Y? That was an interesting post as it shows the change in mentality of folks of different ages. For those who care to know, I'm firmly planted in the Generation X category. Kinda the sandwiched-in-the-middle generation, if you asked me!

Anyway, I started looking around for more information about that and came across this piece of work by Lynne Lancaster and David Stillman, authors of the book When Generations Collide (hence the title of my post today!)

Basically what was interesting for me was how this study changes the way I look at things. It used to be that we think people think a certain way because of their age. And when we too reach that certain age, we'll too would think like that as well. Well, the study says we won't. How we think is not just dependent on our age but on what we experience in our lives.



Gen-Xers ('65 - '80) went through events like the fall of the Berlin wall (and subsequent thawing of the cold war); Contra war and Iran vs Iraq; the dot-com boom; AIDS; MTV; Reagan, Gates and Madonna -- and in a way, these events and people shape our generation.

Gen-Xers were the 'me' generation who learned to rely on ourselves. We were the original latch-key kids who grew up being independent, resourceful but at the same time skeptical and even aggressive.

In contrast, the Gen-Y ('81 - '95) youngsters grew up with 9-11 and two Gulf wars; the dot-com bust (dot bomb); cellphone, IM and all things digital; Clinton, Osama and Buffy.

Gen-Y have started entering the workforce, and if you ask the older guys, they get uneasy around Gen-Y 'kids'. The study tells us why we feel like that. Gen-Y are smart, very tech-savvy; multi-tasking and multi-networking (i.e connecting with people). They thrive on learning and excitement and is not afraid of authority (Don't command me, collaborate instead!).

Most of all, Gen-Y is the instant-everything generation. They demand instant feedback, expect instant results, have no problem seeing themselves as tomorrow's leaders. Nothing is fast enough for these folks, yet, value work-life balance.

Granted, these studies have a decidedly US slant to it, but you have to admit that wherever you may be, you should be able to identify with those traits associated with 'your' generation.

Chances are most of you reading this right now are either an X, or Y. Perhaps some Zs too? And hello there if you're a Baby Boomer, glad to see you here!

Interested to learn more? Check out a good presentation and even download it here.

What if.....??

A couple of days back I decided to just kick back a bit, switch off the brains and let the TV do some of the thinking for me. On the Discovery channel was a special about alien life. There are loads of such documentaries that try to give both sides of the story.

The believers will tell of their experiences -- seeing this, hearing that, getting abducted and poked around a bit.

Then there'll be the cynics and people who profess to be men and women of science. And these guys just can't wait to pooh-pooh all this claims as wild hallucinations of nutjobs.

"Forget your leader, take me to Krispy Kreme!"

I'm sitting there listening to each side's accounts...

"They had almond shaped, dark eyes..."
"The guy probably had too much to drink!"

"The saucer flew at such incredible speeds"
"Um.. it was a weather balloon, yeah, or an unmanned vehicle..."

"Thousands of reports came in, all claiming to see the same phenomenon!"
"Its not unusual to have cases of mass hysteria..."

"Those beings are evil, and they are systematically abducting humans for experiments"
"Ah, people will say anything just to go on TV!"

Must not have been too bright, since he got caught!

And so the argument continues. Some of these are supposed to be famous scientists.
So who would you believe, some small town person who may have had too much moonshine or sun or both?

Or a distinguished professor who has chewed through a million dry facts and figures?

I've always wondered what would happen to these very public debates, if one day, the real truth really came about? What would the many vocal skeptics say if really, some green-grey skinned visitor came down one day ... took a look, decided we weren't worth their time and left.... right in plain sight of a hundred TV cameras?

I for one would love to see that day.
And for the record, I do believe there is sentient life out there! Its inconceivable for me that of the bazillions stars in this infinite universe, we are unique.

Remember, just barely a couple of centuries ago, the brightest scientific minds of that time though the earth was flat... um, no, round but in the center of the universe, not that... but the sun rotated around the earth... strike that... the moon is made of cheese....

Flat Earth - circa. 1225 AD

Well, perhaps not that last one. But you've seen scientific and religious dogma being proven wrong with every leap of new discovery and knowledge. Makes you wonder what other 'facts' that we hold as irrefutably true today would turn out to be yet another of our misunderstanding of nature?

I leave you with these famous words, spoken eloquently by many of the world's brightest minds. Its not about aliens or anything funky... but you'll be surprised how people felt about things which we take for granted today.....

• "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

• "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

• "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

• "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

• "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

• "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

• "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" -- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

• "You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training." -- Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus.

• "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Drillers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist in his project to drill for oil in 1859.

• "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

• "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

• "Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

• "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

• "No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris." -- Orville Wright.

• "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- T.Watson, chairman of the board, IBM, 1943

• "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechnics, 1949

• "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olsoon, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1972

Robot Trivia #2 - The answers and results

I just realized that I had forgotten to give a closing date for this round of Robot Trivia. (grin!) But I had been looking at the comments and it is quite clear that anybody who has anything to say has either said it or, well, won't ever!

So here are the answers to the trivia....

#13 -- Asimo, by Honda. This is the most articulate robot I've seen to date. He made a brief appearance about 2 years ago here at Midvalley Mega Mall. Did a simple dance and a bunch of other movements which other robots would have trouble managing. If any company has a chance at making real, useful and practical domestic robots, I'd put my money on Honda!




#14 -- Pris from Blade Runner. According to the movie, this is a 'military/pleasure' model. Hmm, dominatrix, anyone??!!



#15 -- QRIO by Sony. Pronounced 'Qu-rio' and short for "Quest for cuRIOsity". Too bad you won't see future models of him anymore as Sony has pulled the plug on his development. Bye bye QRIO, we'll miss ya!



#16 - C-3P0 and R2-D2 from the Star Wars saga. Did you know these 2 guys were inspired, in part by an Akira Kurosawa film titled Kakushi-toride no san-akunin (1958) (The Hidden Fortress)?



#17 - Sonny from iRobot. The first time I saw this movie, I was quite convincend this was the badguy.... at least for the 1st half of the movie! :)



#18 - Twiki, carrying on his chest Dr. Theopolis, Both from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.



#19 - Voltron: Defender of the Universe. Fans watch out, there's a Hollywood movie on this robot in the making!



#20 - Lance Bishop 341-B from Aliens. Prefers to call himself an 'artificial life form'. Was the executive officer on board the Colonial Marine vessel Sulaco.



#21 - EVA-01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Piloted by 14-year-old protagonist, Shinji Ikari. Wikipedia states this is "commonly regarded as one of the greatest anime of all time."



#22 - Sorry, that other guy from Lost in Space had already made his debut in Trivia #1. This bulbous fella is Robby, originally from the movie Forbidden Planet. And check this out, this 7-foot-two robot has actually made appearances in more than two dozen movies and TV shows!



#23 - RX-78-2 from the highly successful Gundam franchise. He was piloted by Ray Amuro, which, like the heroes in many robot stories, is a guy who 'happened to be there' at that time.




#24 - VF-1 Variable Fighter from the Macross universe. Piloted by Skull Squadron leader, Roy Fokker.

So here comes the part where I announce who's the super-geek for this round... and the winner is... a sort-of tie between STING (or Mr. Gundam) and Robotboy!! Both of them gave a bunch of really good answers, as you've seen yourselves, and deserves to win!

Thanks to all for participating... and to show of you who are non-fans of robots, thank you for your patience...

Next post... dangers lurking in your plastic bottles... learn to tell which are safe, which are not!

More robots (Part 2)

Hello there folks, the fun robot trivia is back!!

Hopefully this lineup is more fun for you ... lets see how many you can get right this time.... and then we can find out who's the ultimate robot geek! OK, OK, if you're not too proud of that title... then we'll just keep it low key, how about that? :)


HERE WE GO AGAIN....

#13 -- Its the first ever robot capable of running too!




#14 -- Way cool when she dipped her hand into the boiling water.....



#15 -- Harro! Too bad they've discontinued its development



#16 - No list is complete without these two blokes!!



#17 - Complete with extra dense alloy and independent processor



#18 - Bidibidibidibidi (anybody ever figured out what he is saying??)



#19 - "And I'll form the head!"



#20 - "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid"



#21 - If he fights Angels, does that make him the Devil?



#22 - You have to be really, um, grown up, to know this one!



#23 - The original model -- nothing fancy, but it works!




#24 - Wait till you see me fly! Hint - I talked about it in Part 1

So there you have it.... 2 dozen fine specimens of Robots!! Its quite a shame only 3 amongst the 24 are real. So start posting your comments, and see if you can name these remaining 12!

I'm quite sure I must have missed out some other note-worthy mechs. Oh ya, like the Mechwarriors or the kid from AI. Do let me know too, if there are others which you feel strongly about that was not included in this lineup.

More robots (Part 1)

Tell you one specific thing about technology that I love -- robots! I have always been fascinated with them -- both real and fictional -- ever since I was a kid.

Yeah, grew up reading Mazinga-Z comic (rocket boosted fists, wow!), and later on, watching videos of Macross/Mospaeda (light years ahead of the Transformer franchise). Do you remember watching on RTM2 the Malay language dubbed Macross? "Bersedia untuk bertukar.... aaar, berdebar betul!! Eh, itu dia, Min Mei!"

I especially love robots with lasers and rockets shooting out of every nook and cranny (think: a fully decked-out battloid, or 'The Sumo'). There's something about opening up a full magazine and letting loose a couple dozen guided missles on some distant enemy. That spells.... G.E.E.K!


At the other extreme end, I also love the more whimsical robots like Doraemon (of course, back then he was just called by his Chinese translated name, 小叮当). He's a mechanical cat who's terrified of mice, sent back from the future to help his owner's loser of a great-great-great-great granddad. He pulls out all manner of inventions from his hyper-dimensional pouch (八宝袋) and almost always manages to save the boy's sorry behind.



Watching Wall-E brought back lots of fond memories of the robots of yesteryears and not too long ago... So I thought it would be fun to dedicate today's post to some of the robots of popular culture. Tell you what, lets have a simple contest, and see who is the first to name all the robots and where they are from.

Post your answers in the comment area... and I'll announce the WINNER in my next post!! The winner goes home with the bragging rights that he/she can out-geek people on robot trivia :)

So, its trivia time.... PART 1. Lets see how many you can get right... Post your answers in the comment section. I'll not publish your answers until this is over... then we'll see who knows their robots more! :)

HERE GOES.....

To get the ball rolling... here's ole Arnie....

#0 - Cyberdyne Systems Series 800/850 model 101 from the Terminator movies

#1 - Oh boy, you should know him right?




#2 - don't get lost looking for him




#3 - Mr hypnotic eyes himself




#4 - Here's looking at you, evil twin!




#5 - Who's that?




#6 - Lay down your weapons... or else!




#7 - Groovy, baby!




#8 - Seriously, you don't want to make him angry!




#9 - Need input....




#10 - Oh what's the point of this trivia!?




#11 - Talk to the fists




#12 - I liked it better as a big gun

Remember.... put in the name of the robot (character) and what movie/series or company is he/she/it from!

So post your answers.... and there'll be PART 2 coming up soon as well.

Totally awesome

Its fun to occasionally talk about something that has nothing to do with technology.

Take this video for example. I started noticing it appear on the Discovery channels a some time back. And I absolutely love it to bits!!

Its got a great catchy tune, simple but lovely lyrics, and boy, what a concept and message.

World, I love you -- you're totally awesome!!




Thank you Discovery and all you wonderful hosts of Discovery shows, who participated in this 'music video' :)

Fittingly, this video was also played right before the screening of Wall-e. If you've seen this sweet and touching movie, you can see the video placement was just apt.

I found in YouTube yet another rendition by Mike Rowe and other DC hosts ... just as wonderful! :)




OK, OK, so its Discovery Channel's 2008 advertisement. Even so, its one advertisement I'd gladly have it sitting in my mind, going Boom De Ya Dah!!!