Dena isn’t easily wowed by technology. In university, she put up quite the fight against trivial computer use concepts like copy ‘n’ paste. She’d rather re-type something and it infuriated me to no end (she has sinced grown to love the benefits that the clipboard can provide). Nowadays, if I show her something that I coded, she usually replies with “cool” in a half-interested sort of way. Showing her the source code that it took to create that something is usually met with even less excitement. Then along comes Google with their mapping toys. The other day, I demonstrated Google Earth to her. She was intrigued when I showed her a 3D rendered demonstration of our daily morning commute. I narrated the entire thing as our virtual car turned off of Homer Watson Boulevard and onto the ramp to east-bound 401, which I believe added value to the experience 😛
As a quick aside, OpenGL rendering mode on Google Earth is mint. DirectX…not so good. On my GeForce FX 5700LE at home with v7.1.8.9 of the nVIDIA‘s reference drivers, all is well in either mode. On the GeForce FX Go5200 on my work notebook with v6.7.4.2 of Dell‘s OEM drivers, DirectX rendering was awful and barely usable but OpenGL rendering was fine. Hmmm. This may confirm my theory that 3D acceleration on notebooks still sucks and the only mobile chipset that has impressed me thus far is the Quadro FX Go. Ok, aside over.
Today, Dena wanted to recall the address of a place that she lived in when she attended Bay de Noc in Escanaba, Michigan before she transfered to Lake State. She couldn’t remember the street name but she did remember that there was a Kentuky Fried Chicken nearby. Using Google Maps and doing a search for KFCs in Escanaba, I pointed her towards a street map and she found what she was looking for. This time she said “cool” quite enthusiastically. Actually, there were probably more o’s in “cool” this time around. If I had to venture a guess as to how many o’s there really were, I’d say probably 10^100 or so. Conveniently enough, 10^100 is also known as a googol 😉
