December 1st, 2009
Hey, they weren’t supposed to show my new iPhone on the web?
via macworld.com
Oh, don’t I wish.
Wait, no, actually I don’t. That thing is hideous. Expensive, but still hideous.
November 28th, 2009
NaNoWriMo 2009: I won!
With two days to spare, This picture gave me the good news. NaNoWriMo: It’s a rush.
November 24th, 2009
ThinkGeek :: Optimus Maximus Keyboard
via thinkgeek.com
Oh man, everyone on earth needs this keyboard. IT’S MADE OF TINY SCREENS, YOU GUYS!
November 4th, 2009
Apple and EMI To Release Limited Edition Stereo USB – The Beatles
via beatles.com
This has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Instead of selling digital media DIGITALLY, we’re going to pack it into a strange plastic thing, which will be a pain to keep in your house and sell it to you that way. Come on, Beatles people! Just sell your stuff on iTunes and Amazon like the rest of the world and stop being so, so OLD.
November 3rd, 2009
The First Server I Actually Like
via apple.com
Oh man I want one of these! If I only had an extra $1000…I would spend it on something else, like food or mortgage, obviously. But if I needed a server and had $1000 to buy it this would be it.
OSX Server is an excellent platform, once you get used to its eccentricities. I would almost start a small business just to get to use this as my office server. 
October 28th, 2009
A picture is worth a thousand words. A movie is often priceless.
A few days ago my colleague and I were having problems getting warranty service on a machine we support. The problem was that we would see the problem, document the problem, send the machine in, they would sit on it for a few days, declare it fine and send it back. This was getting stupid our client was starting to think that we didn’t know what we were doing. Finally, we struck upon a great way to visibly demonstrate the problem without going down to the repair center and hitting them until they gave us access to their workbench: we faced one of the iMacs in our office towards the problem child PC, opened Quicktime, and told it to record from the iSight camera. Then we demonstrated the problem, with commentary, and emailed the movie to the support team. And their bosses.
Yes, there are more convenient ways to do it. Yes, there are more elegant iSight recording programs out there than Quicktime. If you have any of those, feel free to use them. The point is that it’s no longer all that hard to demonstrate exactly what’s wrong with a system instead of trying to explain those “funny box things on the screen” that the techs can’t ever seem to see.
October 27th, 2009
Nix, nix, pulchra nix!
It means “Snow, snow, beautiful snow!” and my high school Latin teacher, Mrs. Mabe, would write it on the chalkboard the first time it snowed every year. And the first year students would be surprised that you could write something that was more or less correct without declining or conjugating anything, the second year students would smile a little and happily chant those four words as they walked around campus so they could sound smart1 and by third year it was a tradition, as was the story that went with it.
“My Latin teacher would write that every year, as did his,” Mrs. Mabe would tell us. “Sometimes I wonder if back in Rome, and all through the Dark Ages, teachers wrote that on the first day of snow, Which was rare in Rome…” and she would be into her teaching.
Now, thirteen years later, when I can’t even remember the difference between the ablative and the accusative, all my Latin replaced by two years speaking Tagalog, I too say “Nix, nix, pulchra nix!” the first time it snows each year, and wonder if I’m joining a long line of Latin teachers and students in welcoming the winter.
Thank you, Mrs. Mabe.
- why else would we take Latin? [↩]
October 23rd, 2009
3 Kids under the age of five. Grad School. 50 hours/week job. I’m still gonna do it.
via nanowrimo.org
50,000 words in November. I’m gonna do it, even with all the possible excuses I just listed.
What’s your excuse?
The point is to do it. Even if your novel isn’t good. Even if you never publish it, you are starting to think for yourself and use the gray stuff between your ears for something more than storing TV shows.
I did this last year, and it was hard, terrible, frustrating, stressful, and I’m so glad I did it that I can’t wait for November 1st to roll around so I can do it again. There is great joy in thinking, and creation. And there’s amazing joy when that accursed word count bar you’ve been staring at every day finally turns a beautiful shade of purple (purple is the official color of winning NaNoWriMo).
Do it. You’ll be glad you did.
October 20th, 2009
Kindle? Kindle who?
So, the nook has the touchscreen thing, read EPUB and eReader formats (both open), expandable via microSD cards, has more available titles than Kindle…and at the same price. Yeah, sorry Kindle, I found a new love.
October 20th, 2009
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the CEO of Microsoft.
via fakesteve.net
I love this picture. The article is okay, and the article to which it’s referring is…enlightening, but this picture is amazing. It’s like Smeagol one third of the way into changing into Gollum.