So, the only thing to be talked about more than Barrack Obama’s presidential victory on Tuesday November 4th, 2008 was CNN.  See, CNN, in some bizarre move to either advance news-reporting technology or to grab more ratings, debuted a new instrument in their quest for accurate journalism.

FUCKING HOLOGRAMS.

If you were watching CNN the night of the election, then you had the distinct pleasure (or horror) of watching Wolf Blitzer (who is less and less a journalist and more and more a computer-controlled muppet with a sweet name) talk to Jessica Yellin, who appeared in front of him in a blue haze.  Jessica Yellin (“Ms. Yellin, could you please keep your voice down?”) was not physically in the Atlanta studio.  She was in Illinois, encased in a green box filled with tiny cameras that allowed her image to be reproduced in three-dimensions hundreds of miles away.  This is CNN’s definition of a hologram.

Except, Yellin wasn’t in three dimensions, and CNN’s use of the term “hologram” is a load of crap.

See, holograms haven’t been invented yet, not the kind of holograms you see in Star Wars, and probably never will.  Bending light to produce glowing, floating images (without the use of projecting them onto panes of glass) is defying the laws of physics.  Light has to bounce off something in order for people to see the object it’s bouncing off from.  Light can’t just come out of thin air (at least, as far as my understanding of physics is, which to be honest, is limited, and let’s not get into subatomic discussions of quantum physics and wormholes).

Wolf Blitzer wasn’t looking at the “hologram” of Yellin in person, either.  He was looking at a monitor, because there’s no way for CNN to project that information in person.  CNN can capture Yellin in three dimensions.  That’s not new technology (movies have been doing this for years).  But reproducing images in 3D is impossible.  What we saw at home was an illusion, pure and simple.  The use of the term “hologram” by CNN is complete crap tossed out because it sounds cool and will help to drive up ratings (which it probably did, so good job there).  To be a hologram, it has to actually be 3D, in real life.  The “3D” going on here only existed on the home audience’s “2D” television sets.

So, foul ball on you, CNN.

ESPN has been playing with this lately.  They’ve been working with Electronic Arts to allow their Sportscenter anchors to interact with virtual players and demonstrate plays to the audience first hand, without having to hire their own football team.  This is an excellent use of this technology, as it allows the sports journalists to display what they’re talking about in an easier, more visual fashion.  It’s about communication, and the better a journalist can communicate an idea, the better their journalism is.

But they weren’t calling their virtual football players holograms.  And what kind of irks me about the virtual Jessica Yellin that spurred me to write this rant is the simple fact that having a virtual reporter (virtual only to the home audience) does not improve communication.  This does not help Yellin get the story she’s reporting across, it does not make it more or less accurate, and it does not help her communication with Wolf Blitzer.

It’s just weird to me that one of the most historic nights of my life was used to test out this gimmicky ratings snatcher.  Could they have done it on another night when, I don’t know, the future of America wasn’t happening?

It’s a gimmick, pure and simple, a product of modern journalism’s obsessive pursuit of one-upping the competition not in the form of better reporting, but in flashy computer-generated bullshit.  I’ve ranted about this before, and I’ll keep doing it, because CNN should be putting money into better information, better reporters, and better access around the world.  The simple fact that CNN hasn’t gotten a scoop on the location of Osama Bin Laden infuriates me when they’re spending god-knows-what on green-screen booths and fake-as-hell hologram technology.

If they had built real holograms, that’d be pretty niffty, but my point would remain the same.

Try setting up CNN’s situation room on the roof of a monster truck that’s driving through a suburban neighborhood crushing houses and firing rockets into the sky out of seven rocket launchers all named funny names like “Mr. Boom-Boom” and “Bubbles”.  And replace the news anchors with strippers.  I’d watch it in a heartbeat, and it wouldn’t make the journalist quality any better than goddamn holograms.

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I enjoy the cars Honda makes.  They’re rather inexpensive, they drive well-enough, they have great gas mileage, and I hear they can take a real beating.  Honda makes many other products as well, including generators, ATV’s (our family owned one when I was growing up that my brother has now), and even pretty handy flashlights.

Honda, however, is also interested in creating a race of robots.  Robots not unlike Terminators with the off-chance of SkyNet levels of intelligence.  And we all know what happens when you get SkyNet up in your robot brain.  You murder people.  It just happens.

Here’s evidence number one, their main robotic attraction, Asimo.

That is the stuff of nightmares, and that’s coming from a dude who loves robots.  I mean, Terminators don’t scare me as much as this thing does, mostly because Terminators are inherently frightening.

Nope.  Doesn’t scare me.  Asimo, though, does.  Because it’s trying to be cute.  It looks like it wants to be my friend, cuddle up with me next to a warm fire, offer me treats… then stab me in the heart because my existence is illogical.

I want to think of Asimo robots as cool… but I’m not really sure what they’re supposed to do.  They don’t have guns and I don’t see Honda selling them to the military.  I doubt they’re strong enough to act in the medical field aiding patients or competent enough to act as butlers.  They’re overgrown toys, for the most part.

So yeah, Honda hasn’t stopped there.  Now they’re working on… well, just look at this.

They’re made to act as support legs, helping with stress and leg cramps, or in their words:

Honda envisions the device being used by workers at auto or other factories. It showed a video of Honda employees wearing the device and bending to peer underneath vehicles on an assembly line.

Engineer Jun Ashihara also said the machine is useful for people standing in long lines and for people who run around to make deliveries.

“This should be as easy to use as a bicycle,” Ashihara said at Honda’s Tokyo headquarters. “It reduces stress, and you should feel less tired.”

Now, what’s weird is I can see something like being designed for use my patients in hospitals who are learning to walk again, or for people who’ve been injured or have a crippling disease.  Nope.  They’re made for average Joe’s like you and me who are just freakin’ lazy.

But, the purpose of this device aside, looking at it, there’s only one thing I can really think of.

That thing grabs your crotch.  Like… it’s like an arm latched to your junk.  And the arm has legs.  And it walks.

That is seriously the most uncomfortable looking thing I’ve ever seen.  But, who knows.  Maybe I’ll get used to one after the Asimos have taken over and force me to wear it at gun-point so I can become closer to the master robotic race.

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Today’s comic reflects my opinions about Apple (and my own nerdy love of science fiction… check out the hover text!). Apple seems hell-bent on riding the world of buttons and switches with their devices.  They also seem totally cool with moving technology backwards (the Apple Tablet, or as it’s called, the iPad, is basically a giant iPhone, only without any kind of 3G network, a camera, a phone, or a lot of crap).  I love Apple for their computers and their operating system (they could bribe people into putting some freaking video games out for Mac though… please).

But I’ve become more and more frustrated with where this whole iPod minimalist fetish thing is going.  No more keypads, no more power switches, now all we have is a big-ass screen.  It’s the future!  Right?

Time Tangent: The future called:

"Hey! There's a shit load of buttons here!" - The Future

I honestly LIKE buttons.  I wish to hell my iPod just had a “shuffle” or “menu” button on it so I didn’t have to scroll through a dozen different menus to get there.  Video games on the iPhone are a joke, because you cover half the screen up with your ugly fingers in order to do anything.  I think a lot of the apps for the iPhone are nifty (downright brilliant) , but sometimes I just want my phone to be… a phone. I want it to be a phone first and best before it’s anything. And AT&T… it’s far from the best of anything.

I really don’t understand how Apple press releases have become “events” now. Seriously, every time Steve Jobs farts, we get a video of him parading around on stage telling the world what it smelled like, and the internet EATS IT THE HELL UP. We EAT this man’s FARTS.

Ironic tangent: I obviously am not helping to curb this. Thank you.

This tablet thing is another in a line of disappointments from the company, not to mention another product that’s trying to appeal to the button-genocide our culture is going through. I don’t get why we have to do away with buttons. In the video game world, we have the Wii then Project Natal for XBox, and now Sony is getting into the motion control business with their new controller-

Okay, you got to be f***ing kidding me. That’s a goddamn dildo.

As neat as the Wii is, it’s a toy. My arms are no where near as responsive as my fingers and my thumbs are, and it’s not going to change. That’s why controllers had buttons and such in the first place! They work. And the less I think about Natal, the better.

So yeah. Dear Apple: Make me something with buttons again. This button holocaust must end.

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