Technology has always baffled people. For example, when glass was first invented, it would be easy to imagine people disbelieving it and thinking it some kind of magical feat, even though it was as real as you or I. And technology never stops moving and evolving, so who knows where we will be in ten years time or even fifty?

The following post is about just that: how we are now living in a ’future'that once seemed unfathomable.

http://www.eniginmarketing.com/2010/05/13/this-is-the-no-longer-the-future/#more-2022

As the post points out, the incredible progressions technology has made has had an enormous impact on businesses of every size, making commerce flow with greater efficiency and opening up a whole new realm of possibilities that could never have been predicted by the most knowledgeable of industry experts. Information, such as hr advice, can now be sent instantly to anywhere in the world…something which at one time would have been a prediction to keep under your hat unless you wanted to get burned at the stake.

And who knows where we will be in just a few years time? In 100 years so much has been accomplished and so much has become commonplace. Will a replacement for oil be found? Or perhaps films that have influenced the 00s will prove beneficial and we will employ technology just as advanced as portrayed in the hit Inception? One thing is for sure, at this rate businesses, both online and off, will be able to offer even more services to customers, regardless of their geographical location and needs.

How do we know when fact is fact and fiction is fiction? We don’t. A tramp recently pointed this out to me. Our discourse (after he’d stopped muttering about trailer insurance ) went like this:

Me: “Excuse me, but would you please put that away? This is a public place.”

Tramp pauses: “Sorry. That was indeed disgraceful behaviour, I do apologize.”

Me, shrugging: “Ok, well, have a good one.”

Tramp calls back: “Wait, how do you know you just saw what you just saw?”

Me, bewildered: “Um–because I did?”

Tramp, putting one hand up: “Aha! But how do you?”

Me, more frightened than bewildered: “Um–just because?”

Tramp, thrilled with himself: “Exactly! Just because! Quite brilliant an answer!”

Me, leaving.

Tramp catches my arm: “Wait, allow me to elaborate.”

Me, looking down with disgust. My arm is wet: “Hand off first, ugh.”

Tramp removes hand: “Ok, so here it is: when they said the world was round, who really knew it? I mean nobody knew for sure did they? And you can’t say it doesn’t sound suspicious. You can’t run around the world fast enough to see if it is actually round, so people just took the so called experts’ word for it. Right? So what you’re seeing and thinking and hearing–who knows if it’s really real or not?”

Me, deep in thought: “I suppose so. Never really given it much thought. But thanks.”

Tramp: “Don’t mention it. Ok, I have to leave now, got somewhere to be.”

With that the tramp left.

If I said to you “scientists can now interpret thoughts from a coma patient’s mind and work out what they are actually thinking” I am guessing you would laugh and say “Yeah, right!” (Then you would probably, secretly think: blimey, I hope nobody can read mine or I’ll be right in the ess haych eye tee…)

Only it’s true, worryingly, not even a coma patient is safe. Want to know something else which is amazing? OK, not nearly as amazing as the aforementioned statement, but amazing nonetheless: energy saving devices are now so good that they can give you a real-time reading of how much energy is being used. And not just a basic reading either. I’m talking all sorts – solar, wind, turbine power and more. Why is this such a big deal, you ask? Well, it’s a big deal because it enables businesses to cut down their energy usage massively. Energy is no longer wasted, and because of it money is saved on a somewhat grand scale.

See the link if you don’t believe the hype.

OK, so it’s a little optimistic to assume that this will solve the world’s energy problems overnight. Clearly it won’t. But it’s a very big step in the right direction. The hope is that in years to come this kind of technology will be available to every household and every person on the planet will be able to monitor themselves. Which is great. Far as I can see it’s the only way to go.

Every now and again I think back to the days before–Back when a breast uplift

was thought of in the same way as time travel. Back when Hollyoaks was good. Yes, that’s Hollyoaks the TV show I’m talking about. It may take some doing, but if you go far enough back in time I think you’ll find that it was once a decent show–I used to love watching it. Over time it had taken the place of Neighbours and that was something I had never thought would happen!

And then, about five years ago I think (or maybe more recently), something awful happened: the style changed overnight, the camera went crazy, and the people behind the cameras decided to start zooming in on every single thing they saw. I’m deadly serious. For about six months the camera men zoomed in on cigarette butts, and bits of litter, and anything but the characters. That’s not true. Sometimes they did zoom in on the characters–But the problem was that when they did that you couldn’t tell if they were zooming in on litter or a human face. They got that close!

Now, as any moderate fan will tell you, after some time the zooming began to dissipate. It didn’t disappear completely, but it was clear that someone had finally noticed that it was an utterly futile thing and that it ruined the show completely. But it’s still not back to how it used to be, sadly. No. I think it may be terminal. We may never get the old good Hollyoaks back–

Maps and I just don’t get along. I won’t make up excuses, it really is all my fault and that’s all there is to it, basically. Or more precisely its my parents fault, as they are the ones charged with creating me. During the infant stages of growth, you see, my brain apparently fell asleep while being told about how to navigate map-type things. I back this up with a quote from my mum: “You always did seem to be in the wrong place during the pregnancy. The doctor said that you were the most lost baby he had ever seen!”

Thanks mum!

So imagine my joy when I came across the following link–A link leading to a website with its very own site map! Not just any web-site, but the online home of energy-saving dudes and dudets Enigin. Check it out here: at this article!

Thank goodness for Enigin, for they have restored my faith in maps, and that’s not something I ever thought I’d find myself saying.

The problem with many websites, you see (and I have this on good account from people who are tremendous at reading maps), is that they are just so confusing: they simply don’t make the users life easy. To find the contact button you have to go through a complex maze of buttons, and to find out a price you have to cross-reference this with that and then multiply it by some formula you can’t even find!

Other web-sites take notice: this is how you do it!

The internet is filled with so many wonderful things, from videos, songs, poems, blogs, forums, club med ski holiday offers, to pictures. You can literally throw an entire day away on the internet, and many times (to my own embarrassment) I have. But in my extensive internet time, one article comes to mind as a point of interest, and is something that I think about and talk about quite often. I visit cracked.com fairly frequently to get my fill on all new gadgets and gaming news. One in particular caught my eye, which was entitled “5 Creepy Ways Video Games are Trying to Get you Addicted”.

The article explains how video games, but specifically MMOs, try to get you addicted. Now, we all know that video games are addictive, especially MMO’s (think World of Warcraft). There are now clinics open to help with this newly defined addiction. But not many of us realised that the video game designers actually attempt to make the game addictive, even if it means sacrificing entertainment.

The article pointed out that Blizzard Entertainment (makers of WoW) has hired psychiatrists who specialise in human behaviour, to help design their games. The psychiatrists have tried to make games addictive by using the Skinner Box as a basis. The Skinner Box, designed by BF Skinner, was a behaviour test for rats, in which the rat has a lever to pull. When the lever is pulled, a treat is given. This is the technique that many games (like games by Zynga) use to hook their players. Many times, you must do a repetitive action over and over in order to receive a reward (aka a pellet). Sometimes, these actions are incredibly boring and tedious, yet we continue to do it anyway.

This article has changed the way I play video games. Every time I play a new game, this article jumps to mind. But will this new found knowledge deter me from playing games? Definitely not!

I am a goth girl. And now I suspect you have a very clear image of me, even though you’ve never met me, just from those five words: you probably think I am 1) obsessed with the dark, 2) obsessed with dark clothing, 3) moody when faced with the prospect of leaving the house during the day-time. Now, while all of these things are completely true, there’s more to me and my daylight hating friends than that! What like? Well, I’m saving up for breast enhancement surgery, for example, to make me even more ineffable. Not only that but I own a pink burn bag, regularly buy (non-black), am well versed in corporate soft skills training, partake in facial skin care parties, and write a blog (for work). My point? There is more to every goth than first meets the eye. You just have to look below the surface. You may even like it!

I suppose the old saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” is the problem with the publics perception of Goths, as with everything. Because you do, don’t you? You don’t walk in to a book shop and ask the assistant at the counter ‘excuse me but I’m looking for a book with a terrible cover, because those are clearly the best books’, do you? No. So please, when you see a downtrodden, suicidal-looking goth walking down the street, stop and start up a conversation. You’d be surprised what you might find out.

I am so glad to be a girl!

We ladies get such a wonderful choice when it comes to Gothic clothing. There are so many different styles to choose from and they are made of such lovely fabrics.

The term ‘Goth’ is nowhere near as restrictive as a lot of people think. With Gothic clothes there are so many sub-categories. The designs vary from slutty tight dresses (which my boyfriend is quite fond of…) to Victorian-inspired garments. There are Pre-Raphaelite flowing gowns, tailed jackets and neon hair extensions.

The Goth area of (I really don’t want to use this word…) ‘fashion’ (ugh!) is so incredibly imaginative. A girl can dress in the most outrageous clothes or something very plain and still fit in with the image. She can mix and match many different styles and it will all look cool or sexy. And what other sub-culture has such a wonderful diversity to it all?

When I went out to a party last night, I wore an antique wedding dress, a black leather jacket and Victorian styled boots. I got the idea after seeing how beautiful Julee Cruise looked in an episode of ‘Twin Peaks’. My friends loved the outfit so much that two of them have gone into town today to hunt for old wedding dresses! It seems I’ve started a new sub-sub-style…

I do feel a bit sorry for the Goth guys though. They really don’t get such a good choice of clothes as we do. I’m sure that lots of men would wear more unusual garments if only they could find somewhere to buy them.

Being a Goth doesn’t mean you spend your whole life sitting in a black bedroom feeling sorry for yourself. We do have interesting things in our lives, just like everyone else.

Personally, I love to go out to parties, but probably not the kind most girls my age would enjoy. For a start, the music isn’t all rave, rap or chart stuff; surprisingly enough it is more Gothic or heavy metal orientated! And then there are the sorts of people you get there. Not everyone I hang out with is a Goth. I have plenty of friends who don’t dress anything like me. Although, I would say that most of the people I spend time with are a little bit different in the way they look. I also go to a lot of gigs with my friends. There are always plenty of new bands to check out and you sometimes come across something really special.

You get some really hot guys at a lot of the parties and concerts. Again, I don’t mean the type that most young girls are into. Where I go there are no Peter Andre or Brad Pitt lookalikes! The kinds of men who interest me are the ones that have more about them than looks alone. Most of the guys I’ve dated are musicians, artists or writers. Goths are usually very creative people and they are really interesting to talk to most of the time. Put it this way, I’ve never got stuck with anyone totally boring up to now…

Right before I log off, I need to relish in a new purchase. I have just bought the greatest newton running shoes that I have ever owned. LA Marathon, here come! And that may surprise you too, Goths actually have interests that don’t involve sitting in the dark and being depressed. But in case you were wondering, yes they are black.