Mattfirestone's Weblog

Traditional Media Had a Good Run

mattfirestone — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:43:04 +0000

Some of my colleges and I took some time of work to listen to the 44th American President, Barack Obama’s inauguration speech. But we did not use Radio, we did not use TV, we used a live stream of the speech over the internet… and in fact, we could have watched it live VIA internet through a CNN/Facebook (yes Facebook) stream. As I was listening to Mr. Obama talk I realized, all Media (T.V., Newspaper, Radio and others) are becoming less and less important as the internet grows.
And as I thought about it for a second, I realized that almost anything on TV, in the newspapers and said on the Radio can be found on the Internet.
I thought about me and my friends hanging out drinking beer in my den downstairs at home. We almost never watch TV. If we want to watch a movie, we go to watch-movies.net. If we want to watch Entourage we go to alluc.org. The only time we watch TV if for LIVE events, and now important live events are streamed through the internet. Did you know that any NHL game played can be viewed live through NHL.com. Anything aired on the Comedy Network can be seen for free on their website. In fact, ABC has put episodes of lost up on their website for a nominal fee. Everything is on the internet.
As we see more and more what the internet can do, traditional media begins to fade.
Here is an example:
Where do you go to get your news?
It used to be that when you wanted news, you picked up a newspaper. But wait, a Newspaper can only print once a day, and the news changes so fast that by the time you print the paper it is out of date.
So TV then? The problem with TV is you are getting one point of view from one person. You rarely get the whole story. You get limited information.
So what about Radio? Same problem as TV, one person, one point of view, hard to verify accuracy.
What about the Internet?
With Google News, you can get up to the minute articles. In fact, not more than 10 minutes after Mr. Obama made his speech, Google had a review, and within 1 hour, there were reviews from all over the world, people in France, Germany, Korea, China, and in fact all over the world wrote reviews. What a great way to see how the world took the news.
On the Internet you can connect in real time with your friend in Australia, and find out what is new in his world.
On the Internet, you can find more information then you will ever need. More and more books are being digitized and put on the Internet. Google even has a program where you can see a true copy of the book, all the pages in the right order with the same numbering.
If you are bored at work, you can go on the internet and find a game, an article, a movie, a song etc. to entertain you.
To find a phone number, a address, a picture you use the internet.
As the world becomes smaller, up to date information is more and more important. As computers get better and better, faster and faster, smarter and smarter and as the internet grows and becomes more complex, it will surely integrate all forms of media in a way that is far beyond what TV, Radio or newspapers can do.

A State Secret!

mattfirestone — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:23:13 +0000

A Russian state secret! Can you guess what it is?

1) Costs less than $.50

2) Was a Soviet state secret during the race to the moon.

3) Stumped NASA which had tried to manufacture a competitive product for use in space.

4) Has no moving parts (which is the definition of the perfect machine).

5) When broken into many pieces, still works.

6) When frozen, still works.

7) When upside down, still works.

8 ) In 0 Gravity, still works.

9) In Apollo 13, when their on-board computer was inoperable, was used to manually calculate re-entry angle and the time for the re-entry burn.

10 ) Has the ability to record, erase and re-record information.

11) Works underwater.

12) Can be buried, dug up, and still works.

13) When stored in a dry place has a useful life measured in geological time.

14) Doesn’t go stale.

15) Doesn’t expire.

16) Brings joy to children.

It’s:

A Pencil.

During the race to the moon between the United States and Russia, NASA spent a couple of million dollars trying to develop a pen that would write in space to no avail. When they asked the Soviets, they simply said that they had something that worked, cost less than a Ruble and was a state secret. The NASA folks couldn’t figure it out. Later, the Americans finally guessed what the state secret was… a pencil. Later, the pencil was used during the infamous Apollo 13 mission, when they had to power down all systems to preserve battery life and Jim Lovell had to manually calculate re-entry burn time and angle of entry for the crippled spacecraft. The pencil probably saved three lives.

Sens: Life Time .500

mattfirestone — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:23:50 +0000

I have been a fan of the Ottawa Senators since the team played its first game in the new era (when I was two). I don’t really remember much about those first years except that Spartacat was a lot bigger then than he is now.

As a fan, I have wondered for some time now when or if the Sens have ever hit .500 lifetime. I searched around and got all the stats for the modern day Sens and have posted them below. Check it out:

Season breakdown:

Season GP W L T OTL Pts GF GA Possible Pts

1992-93 84 10 70 4 N/A 24 202 395 168

1993-94 84 14 61 9 N/A 37 201 397 168

1994-95 48 9 34 5 N/A 23 117 174 96

1995-96 82 18 59 5 N/A 41 191 291 164

1996-97 82 31 36 15 N/A 77 226 234 164

1997-98 82 34 33 15 N/A 83 193 200 164

1998-99 82 44 23 15 N/A 103 239 239 164

1999-00 82 41 28 11 2 95 210 210 164

2000-01 82 48 21 9 4 109 274 205 164

2001-02 82 39 27 9 7 94 243 208 164

2002-03 82 52 21 8 1 113 263 182 164

2003-04 82 43 23 10 6 102 262 189 164

2004-05 Season cancelled due to 2004-05 NHL Lockout

2005-06 82 52 21 — 9 113 314 211 164

2006-07 82 48 25 — 9 105 288 222 164

2007-08 71 39 25 — 7 85 227 210 142

Totals 1189 522 507 115 45 1204 3450 3567 2378

Calculations for .500 by games:

Wins + Losses = Games above/below .500

522-507= 15 Games above .500

Calculations for .500 by points:

Possible Points/2 = Points for 500

2378/2=1189

Total Points= 1204

Total Points – Possible Points = Points above/below .500

1204-1189 = 15 points above .500

With these calculations, points above .500 should always = games above .500.