5 Articles from January 2007 | Ben Babcock’s Blog

Pause. Rewind. Fast Forward. Play.

Sunday, January 28, 2007 12:25 AM -05:00

A lot has happened since I last blogged, stuff about which I could have blogged but didn't, simply because I've been lazy. :D I shall try to skim over it now just to refresh my mind.

First semester is over. That means I have one more semester of high school left. The true significance of this did not strike me until last Wednesday, which was our last day of regular classes before exams. Drama was my last period class, and I realised that it would be the last time I would ever be in that classroom as a drama student. I'm going to miss drama :'( because some of my fondest high school memories come from that class.

Speaking of drama, though, the play that my class produced, Man of the House, was a smashing success. The plot concerns a burglar who breaks into a couple's house while they are away on vacation. As the play progresses, however, the burglar has a hard time robbing the house, simply because numerous wacky personalities show up at the door. I contributed to props and set design, mainly, so I got to sit back stage during the performance and watch (and solve…

Global Warming: The buzzword of the 2000s

Tuesday, January 9, 2007 12:06 AM -05:00

Perfectly valid scientific theories have the unfortunate tendency to become conflated and overladen with inaccurate information after becoming generally accepted public fact.

Let me start off, however, with a few disclaimers. I do believe that the "global warming phenomenon" exists to a quantifiable degree, that the Earth's temperature is slowly rising, that humans are contributing to it (although not necessarily as much as some claim, but probably more than most would like to admit) with our dependency on fossil fuels, and that it does pose a threat to the future of our species.

Up here in Canada we're experiencing an unusually mild winter. As a result, the term "global warming" has become one of the decade's top buzzwords: words that people use even though they don't actually apply. It's liked "Web 2.0". It's a term that at one time had a valid definition, but the public has seized upon it, gutted it mercilessly, and taken it so far out of context that it no longer means anything at all. The same is happening to global warming. Once a fine scientific theory, people are blowing it out of proportion.

"Oh my God, he's gone conservative!" you start screaming at me. "How…

Start the revolution

Saturday, January 6, 2007 1:43 AM -05:00

As you previously heard, I fell in love with Dance Dance Revolution the first time that I played it, on New Year's Eve. Since then I have been plotting to acquire my own game. I don't have a PlayStation 2, however (or any sort of gaming console with DDR on it), and buying one just to play DDR would not have been ideal.

Enter StepMania! StepMania is a free and open-source rhythm game that is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. :w00t: Essentially it emulates DDR. Not only that, but it works with dance pads. With StepMania, I was one step closer to my own DDR setup.

I needed a dance pad. Either I would have to find a dance pad that connected with USB, or I'd need to get a dance pad and some sort of adapter. Today I went shopping with Laura (who has blogged about that adventure in detail) for a dance pad and (if we needed it) an adapter. I found an Intec dance pad for PS2 at EB Games for only $15, so I snagged that, and I got a $17 PS2 to USB adapter from the Source. ^_^

Got home, ate…

The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything

Friday, January 5, 2007 12:55 AM -05:00

Millions of years ago, a race of hyper-intelligent, pan-dimensional beings who manifest in our dimension as white mice built the second-greatest computer ever to exist. It was called Deep Thought, and it was given the task of calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Deep Thought, after 7.5 million years of computation, discovered that it was, in fact, 42. The problem, however, was that no one really knew what the Question was, so the answer was out of context.

Of course if you've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy you already know this. If you haven't, then you are a worthless strag and should read it, because it's a pretty good book. ;)

Lately I have been meditating upon the meaning of life and why we're here. If you think about it, our mundane life is pretty much meaningless. Why do we go to school? To get educated so we can get a good job. Why do we get a job? So that we can make money. Why do we make money? So that we can spend money on things we need to survive. Why do we survive? Well, because it's what…

Happy New Year (from United Airlines)

Monday, January 1, 2007 1:33 AM -05:00

The clock hit midnight and we watched Dick Clark (who is still alive, yes) kiss someone on national television. In order to get this "pretty picture" out of our mind, we (my friends Laura and Rhiannon--we were playing DDR and watching movies) came up with the insane idea of phoning our former English teacher, Ms. Sukalo, who currently resides in the Big Apple.

So Laura dug out a phone card and we attempted to reach her several times. For the first few attempts, no luck. Busy line, "circuits were busy", blah, blah. Apparently everyone drinks and dials on New Year's Eve. Go figure. Finally, at about the third try, we get through! Success--or was it?

"United Airlines." o_O United Airlines? United Airlines? So I thought I had dialled a wrong number, and hang up, too chicken to say anything. Of course Laura pointed out that they had probably just said that as a New Year's (drunken) prank. We tried it again--line was busy. At this point, we wanted to check that we had the number right. We went on an epic quest, first confirming the area code, then confirming it was not the number of United Airlines. Boy were…