Monday, January 05, 2009
Ann Arbor man competes in World Series of Beer Pong
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
2008 wrap up
I love New Year's Eve.
It's always interesting to look back on a completed year and think about where you were the last New Year's Eve/Day. What has changed, what has stayed the same ... what people are in your life now that weren't then, and vice versa.
A lot of people take the opportunity to start anew with the year change. Sometimes to the extreme.
For me, 2008 was an okay year. I'm not sad that it's ending, and I'm looking forward to what 2009 will bring. Great things I hope. I know that I will be moving, but as of this writing I don't know where I'll be moving to. I wonder where I'll be this time next year...still in Brooklyn? Back in Michigan? Maybe some place new.
Anybody wiping the slate clean this new year's?
Happy New Year everyone!
It's always interesting to look back on a completed year and think about where you were the last New Year's Eve/Day. What has changed, what has stayed the same ... what people are in your life now that weren't then, and vice versa.
A lot of people take the opportunity to start anew with the year change. Sometimes to the extreme.
For me, 2008 was an okay year. I'm not sad that it's ending, and I'm looking forward to what 2009 will bring. Great things I hope. I know that I will be moving, but as of this writing I don't know where I'll be moving to. I wonder where I'll be this time next year...still in Brooklyn? Back in Michigan? Maybe some place new.
Anybody wiping the slate clean this new year's?
Happy New Year everyone!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
AT&T Overload?
All day today I've not been able to get a signal from At&t. Neither have three other people I know who use At&t. I'm guessing a gajillion people are opening and activating their sparkly new iPhones they got for Xmas and just overloading the system....
Or is there something more serious going on?
Or is there something more serious going on?
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Linux on the Desktop
It's that time of year when I get sick of Windows and decide to run some alternative OS on my main desktop PC in my home office.
My hardware:
Intel Core2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz
4GB RAM
I was running a 64 bit edition of XP for the last 11 months or so. It's always annoyed me, but I was productive enough, so I dealt with it.
Lately I've been paying some attention to the OSX86 Project and decided to give that a try.
The install process went well, but upon my first boot attempt, I got the dreaded "waiting for root device" error. I gave up promptly and decided to give Ubuntu a try.
Ubuntu recently released version 8.10. I tried Kubuntu 8.10 (which comes with KDE 4.1.2) for a day, but I realized that I'm a Gnome man after all - straight Ubuntu it is!
Anyway, my main reason for writing this post is because I want to praise the makers of a handy program, UNetbootin. During my adventures over the long weekend, I must have burnt 10 different LiveCD's, and reformatted/installed a new OS at least 3 or 4 times. Somewhere in there, my cd/dvd drive completely died. This happened while my workstation was in a non-bootable state - nothing to boot back into. Nowhere to call home! In a whirlwind of panic and slight drunkenness, I found this program which saved the day by allowing me to install Ubuntu 8.10 from my USB thumb drive.
Never burn a CD again to install or try out Linux. Save your burner, stop wasting plastic CD-R trees! Use UNetbootin!
It was remarkably easy to use. Just pointed it to the .iso for the ubuntu install disc which I had already downloaded, plugged a USB thumb drive in, and it did the rest.
As a bonus, the Ubuntu install went remarkably fast from the thumb drive. Way faster than installing from from a CD/DVD.
We'll see how long I stick with Linux this time :) In the past I've never made it more than a few months. But I have high hopes for this time around - Ubuntu has lived up to "it just works" motto so far with only a minor exception here and there for the more off-the-beaten-path things I'm trying to do.
My hardware:
Intel Core2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz
4GB RAM
I was running a 64 bit edition of XP for the last 11 months or so. It's always annoyed me, but I was productive enough, so I dealt with it.
Lately I've been paying some attention to the OSX86 Project and decided to give that a try.
The install process went well, but upon my first boot attempt, I got the dreaded "waiting for root device" error. I gave up promptly and decided to give Ubuntu a try.
Ubuntu recently released version 8.10. I tried Kubuntu 8.10 (which comes with KDE 4.1.2) for a day, but I realized that I'm a Gnome man after all - straight Ubuntu it is!
Anyway, my main reason for writing this post is because I want to praise the makers of a handy program, UNetbootin. During my adventures over the long weekend, I must have burnt 10 different LiveCD's, and reformatted/installed a new OS at least 3 or 4 times. Somewhere in there, my cd/dvd drive completely died. This happened while my workstation was in a non-bootable state - nothing to boot back into. Nowhere to call home! In a whirlwind of panic and slight drunkenness, I found this program which saved the day by allowing me to install Ubuntu 8.10 from my USB thumb drive.
Never burn a CD again to install or try out Linux. Save your burner, stop wasting plastic CD-R trees! Use UNetbootin!
It was remarkably easy to use. Just pointed it to the .iso for the ubuntu install disc which I had already downloaded, plugged a USB thumb drive in, and it did the rest.
As a bonus, the Ubuntu install went remarkably fast from the thumb drive. Way faster than installing from from a CD/DVD.
We'll see how long I stick with Linux this time :) In the past I've never made it more than a few months. But I have high hopes for this time around - Ubuntu has lived up to "it just works" motto so far with only a minor exception here and there for the more off-the-beaten-path things I'm trying to do.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Net Neutrality; Grim Future for the Internet
Several ISPs have leaked that they are planning on moving to tiered internet plans, essentially like Cable Television
My friend Ryan writes about it here
And Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, writes it about it here
And here's a video by some internet activists who describe in more detail what's happening:
http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality2
I think it's fairly evident that the main purpose of this change is to control what information makes its way to the public. Traditional media outlets have always been annoyed that any guy with a blog can report on what's happening in the world. A free Internet is bad for them. The goal would seem to be a regression toward a more centralized and filtered source of news and other information. Something that can easily be policed by those with their own agendas.
My friend Ryan writes about it here
And Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, writes it about it here
And here's a video by some internet activists who describe in more detail what's happening:
http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality2
I think it's fairly evident that the main purpose of this change is to control what information makes its way to the public. Traditional media outlets have always been annoyed that any guy with a blog can report on what's happening in the world. A free Internet is bad for them. The goal would seem to be a regression toward a more centralized and filtered source of news and other information. Something that can easily be policed by those with their own agendas.
Monday, March 24, 2008
My horoscope was actually relevant?
Often times when I'm doing my daily sudoku puzzle, on the same page are other useless things like daily horoscopes and comics. Now, I don't want those authors to feel I'm ignoring them, so sometimes I have a look-see. Well today my horoscope was spookily pertinent given the recent developments in my social life. God ... I hope I don't become one of those people that lives and dies by their daily horoscope.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Google Maps meets Grand Theft Auto
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