Alright enough blogs already...

I used to have a blog called My Mind's Eye and now that at the current moment Instagram (ig) is the hot property it's time to bring it back. A ready place to take snapshots from my mobile phone.

It's was something I had done there even with my old Razr phone. Now we're in the era of the smartphone with my current iPhone 4S. And I can share not only some shots that were posted to ig but shots I've taken without touching them up via ig.

So now, I've created a new version of My Mind's Eye with a beta designation. The landscape has changed with cameraphones as opposed to the point and shoot camera I used to have. Still why not have more venues to share the shots I have taken so far.

And if you think I've had enough of these blogs then who's to say I won't decide to stop posting to that blog at some point in the future. It can happen. lol

Adventures in getting connected online...

I like to state that I've been fooling around with the internet for many years in the pre-Facebook - Twitter - Instagram - Myspace years. The internet of the late 1990s was so low-tech I often wondered if my teenaged-self head would explode with what the internet offers day.

Most people years ago connected via dial-up and only recently did my home get connected with DSL broadband. Dial-up was cheap broadband wasn't and thankfully DSL prices went down - even if introductory - to the point where I felt comfortable going for it.

All the same that doesn't mean things don't happen to the point where you'd have to call for help. I'm learning that even DSL is headed towards being obsolete. Since my DSL service is through AT&T now I'm learning about U-verse which is supposed to be fast internet as opposed to DSL although Uverse is DSL of some sort.

Anyway it's a bit of a hassle to even get tech support via AT&T because if you have a problem with service as I have then they might decide well that's an opportunity to upgrade. The only thing is all you want is the possibility of a restoration of service. In that instance even getting a new modem seems out of the question as I had been told.

So regardless after seeing how difficult it can be to get through the AT&T sales pitch and finally get some internet service restored and was told finally that we should just get another DSL modem for now. It took time to get service back and while I'm confident in my ability to do things on my own I was forced to call AT&T to get my new modem up and running.

I'm really glad I did and after almost three days offline I'm back on the web. All I needed was to use the correct password to get back to where I wanted to be. That means more activity on the PC and away from my various mobile devices.

You should see this when you get a chance...

[VIDEO] Dear White People (DWP)


If I didn't know better it was a comedy to me. It's been described as more a dramatic satire than anything else. It's very easy to compare this movie to Spike Lee's School Daze (SD).

Fact is it's an inverted version of Lee's classic. DWP is set at a fictitious Ivy League university and we see how the Black students in this movie cope with life at this predominantly white institution.

SD is basically about life at a fictitious historically black college. In fact that film had been shot at the various universities of the Atlanta University Center (AUC). Although those schools took umbrage at Lee's production and ultimately ordered them away from the respective campuses of the AUC.

Regardless, this film takes a look at the racial things college students engage themselves in. In the news we've seen stories of how white students may try to mock Blacks. We see it nakedly in this movie as if the point was they want to be like "us". Certainly Blacks are a lot more than the stereotypes we run into on the news.

Of course there are plenty of other issues in the movie than the simple conflicts between Blacks & whites and how they interact in an academic environment. We see some internal and interpersonal conflict. For example, a mixed race woman has to come to terms with her white father. A Black male who's had issues with other Blacks because of his sexual orientation. An aspiring Black politician who is still under the thumb of his father who had recently been appointed to a major position at this Ivy League University.

There's a lot of drama and funny moments in this movie to hold your attention. You should give it a chance before it eventually leaves your local cinemas.

What should I do with my other Instagram account?

Since late July I had been utilizing a 2nd profile - attached to The Sixth Ward - on the social networking site Instagram. Basically it's used for snapshots taken around the neighborhood and sharing ("regram") posts from other ig users. If used for the sharing of information as has been done with The Sixth Ward's ig it's very nifty.

One of the recent posts that have been somewhat newsworthy was the snapshot (seen above and embed below) I had taken of a local hotdog stand - Jim's Original. The stand is located near the 95th terminal of the CTA Red Line and is slated to close as a result of a project to significantly expand the CTA terminal. It had been the closest and easiest place for me to get a Maxwell Street polish sausage.

All the same I've been wondering what is the most effective way to use this social networking program. It probably can't be used the same way I have been able to use The Sixth Ward's Twitter and Facebook pages.

What I can count on is that it has attracted followers from a number of areas. For example both the Twitter & fb pages have attracted some major companies for example Mariano's as many people on Chicago's south side want to attract the newest grocer to this at part of the city.

My ig page has gotten followed by AMC Theatres which I threw a shout-out for that. In addition to that I have followers who include politicians on the local and state level in addition to aspiring activists and of course aspiring businessmen. Even better my ig page is being followed by the Maroon Tiger ig which is the student newspaper of my alma mater Morehouse College.

So the next question. What is the best way to truly utlize this account? Could this be one way to market the south side to any future investors especially any major companies to come to this part of town? Can it be utilized to share important information?

This Jim's Original hot dog stand is closing permanently Nov. 10 due to the 95th cta project. Here's hoping they'll find another nearby location in the future.

A photo posted by The Sixth Ward (@thesixthward) on Nov 11, 2014 at 12:21pm PST

Gizmodo: What Do You Miss Most About the Early Days of the Internet?

I'm not sure there's a whole lot I miss about Web 1.0. Things were simple in those days and perhaps I might miss that. I just don't miss dial-up and perhaps some of the low-tech nature of the internet back in the mid-1990s.

I'm just as appreciative of all the tools that exist today. Some of these tools existed such as this Blogger platform. If only I knew about that back then.

So now we know to put astronauts into suspended animation?

I became a fan of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was still in high school. One plot point there was that the supercomputer of the spaceship on a mission to Jupiter went crazy - it was supposed to be an artificially intelligent machine - and made an effort to kill all the astronauts.

Two of the astronauts were piloting the ship and three other astronauts was in suspended animation. So this computer was successful in killing one of the non-suspended astronauts and killed the suspended astronauts. The surviving astronaut shut the computer down and continued to Jupiter.

I thought about that film when I saw this article. Placing astronauts in suspended animation was science fiction in 1968 when the film was released and it was science fiction back in the 1990s. While there were actually scientists studying this scenario it looks like we've started to figure out how this could be done.

The body would have to be cooled and has been used as part of medical treatment. In fact I wonder if this is akin to placing someone in a medically induced come. I wish I could answer this but you're not reading the blog of a trained medical doctor.

All the same, at one point in my life I always wanted to be an astronaut. It was excited to go on a modern day "Star Trek" even if the voyage was only to orbit on the shuttle or staying in the solar system going to the moon or to Mars. This article does discuss how we can send people to Mars and suspended animation is one way to do it without having to spend money on lots of food or anything else.

So, it seems again the future is here. Hopefully we're developing much more advanced and faster propulsion to send spacecraft to their destination and back to the earth. Which means hopefully there would be no need for suspended animation.

Football

It's been years since I actually followed the football season. Football is without a doubt one of America's most popular sports fans follow not only the NFL but also the colleges as well. Perhaps on a smaller level we may have fans of high school football as well.

Unfortunately for me, I do not consider myself a football fan. Primarily my allegiance is with the Chicago Bears but often they seem to have the tendency to disappoint and over the years that's what they have done. It's hard for me to follow the football season when the Bears aren't playing at the best level possible.

I really don't remember the season where they one the Super Bowl and there are fans who continue to talk about that team as if they won more than one Super Bowl. The last season they made it to the Super Bowl was 2007 and at that it was a surprise as I really didn't follow the Bears' season that year. It was great to know that we got that close.

Another thing about football is that I've decided that it's way too hard to follow. I need to figure out what a pocket is in football is that a defensive or offensive term. The only context I'm familiar with it is in terms of the offense especially with the quarterback. Where did that come from has that term always been in the glossary?

In any case, I've often found America's original popular sport Baseball an easier sport to follow. The rules aren't that difficult or complication and over the years (especially without watching on TV) I've found that you can call how the play would end. In fact, when I went to that Sox game this summer I called a lot of the plays during the course of the game and didn't need the play-by-play.

This season is the first season I really follow what's been going on. If the Bears aren't on, I'll just follow another game. Alas I still don't follow all the transactions like I used to and that as always will prove to be very interesting no matter the sport.

So far the Bears looked good although they're 2 & 2 perhaps when they face the Carolina Panther we'll see more of what they're capable of.