I successfully installed WordPress onto my server, and have gotten to a good comfort zone with my setup, so its time to kill this blog. I thought that I could hold out and make to that 100th post, but I guess I'm satisfied falling 10 short.
I've been very satisfied with the experience of writing this blog, and its something that I intend to keep up as long as I can.
For the time being, my new blog is located at:
http://samuelbreed.com/percolate
This address will eventually forward to that address as well, but this iteration of my blog will always live at http://samuelbreed.blogger.com.
-Sam Breed
Read more
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Retrospecticus: 2008
Entry 3:
I started blogging because I finally had time to do it, really. I had been out of school for a little while, and felt like I needed an outlet for my creativity, and that I needed to start spending my time on the computer more effectively. Not to say precisely that blogging makes me a more efficient user, rather a more precise one.
Here's what I mean: blogging not only makes me occasionally focus my generation-Y hyperactivity and ADD into something concise and coherent. I feel that its making me a better writer most of all.
I'm currently in the process of abandoning this blog and switching to a more versatile WordPress powered blog format. Through all of this, I've re-learned my passion for web design that was pushed to the backburner when I started to get serious about film school. I feel like I've been able to transfer my sense of visual composition into an asset that will help me in career path.
In the past 80 or so posts I've become pretty happy with what I've managed to create, and am looking forward to the new year and new things to blog about. Trying to find what space I fit into is something that I'm learning more about everyday, and its been really enlightening to really start to get my feet wet with blogging. Read more
The Year I Started Blogging
I started blogging because I finally had time to do it, really. I had been out of school for a little while, and felt like I needed an outlet for my creativity, and that I needed to start spending my time on the computer more effectively. Not to say precisely that blogging makes me a more efficient user, rather a more precise one.
Here's what I mean: blogging not only makes me occasionally focus my generation-Y hyperactivity and ADD into something concise and coherent. I feel that its making me a better writer most of all.
I'm currently in the process of abandoning this blog and switching to a more versatile WordPress powered blog format. Through all of this, I've re-learned my passion for web design that was pushed to the backburner when I started to get serious about film school. I feel like I've been able to transfer my sense of visual composition into an asset that will help me in career path.
In the past 80 or so posts I've become pretty happy with what I've managed to create, and am looking forward to the new year and new things to blog about. Trying to find what space I fit into is something that I'm learning more about everyday, and its been really enlightening to really start to get my feet wet with blogging. Read more
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Retrospecticus: 2008
Entry 2:
In January of this year I started getting work as a production assistant on commercials that were being shot in the Denver area. These were fulfilling, exciting gigs that really helped to re-vitalize me out of my early-20s boredom. I started hunting out work, and specifically people to work with, and have managed to make, in my opinion, some pretty tactful career moves.
The downside to all of this though is the failed / failing economy. I don't have any intention of leaving the Denver area for a few more years, and because of that I'm prevented from really making a push to work full time in the film industry. While there are a good deal of things shot in the state every year, the uncertainty factor really kills it. Therefore, I've chosen to stick with my guns and non-career day job.
I've recently begun to get jobs as a freelance editor, which I intend to explore more in the upcoming year. I'm a bit apprehensive about 2009 because I know that investors are scared, for good reason, and aren't going to be pumping money into the small scale operations that I relied on in 2008. Read more
The Year I Started Working
On the personal front, 2008 marks for me the year that I started to get my first professional jobs in the film industry. After leaving school, I initially found it difficult to market myself in the field that I had chosen, and a bad combination of location and scarcity of work led to ennui and a day job. I still have the day job, btw.
In January of this year I started getting work as a production assistant on commercials that were being shot in the Denver area. These were fulfilling, exciting gigs that really helped to re-vitalize me out of my early-20s boredom. I started hunting out work, and specifically people to work with, and have managed to make, in my opinion, some pretty tactful career moves. The downside to all of this though is the failed / failing economy. I don't have any intention of leaving the Denver area for a few more years, and because of that I'm prevented from really making a push to work full time in the film industry. While there are a good deal of things shot in the state every year, the uncertainty factor really kills it. Therefore, I've chosen to stick with my guns and non-career day job.
I've recently begun to get jobs as a freelance editor, which I intend to explore more in the upcoming year. I'm a bit apprehensive about 2009 because I know that investors are scared, for good reason, and aren't going to be pumping money into the small scale operations that I relied on in 2008. Read more
Friday, December 19, 2008
Retrospecticus: 2008
As the calender year draws to a close, the tendency is to try and evaluate the past 12 months, quantifying them against unconscious expectations for the next dataset of dates to check off. Ok, that was a bit wordy. Pretty much, I'm trying to do some posts that will act as representations of the year for me, and since I've only been writing the blog since August, it's necessary to add some retroactive content over the upcoming days.
So here it goes:
Entry 1:
The photo above was taken the morning of June 23, shortly after I heard that George Carlin was dead. I was really upset.
George Carlin represents a lot of things for me: standing up to authority, the usefulness of wit and sillyness in combination, and the importance of freedom of speech. Carlin managed to inject politics into his comedy without being strictly a political comedian, and managed to get his points across through the use of hyperbole and exaggeration better than any spoken word performer, ever.
He's been called the "comedian's comedian." Its hard to find a successful comedy writer or standup who is unable to recite the seven deadly words or can't produce minutes-long renditions of classic Carlin bits. His style and attention to detail and brilliantly preserved in all of his comedy albums and HBO specials, each of which have at least a few moments that would overcome anyone with raucous, uncontrollable laughter.
I was introduced to Geroge Carlin at the tender age of 8 and I think my mother has regretted it ever since. I was a bit a repeater when I was a kid: my parents learned quickly that most of the crazy-sounding things coming out of my mouth were either from the Simpsons or George Carlin, and that I wasn't actually possessed. They tended to take for granted the amount of tv I watched. I had taped all of the Carlin specials on HBO when they had a marathon of them once and had nearly worn out the tapes by the time I was out of high school. I have fond memories of doing Trigonometry & Algebra 2 homework every night to a rotating selection of different HBO specials. I prefered the ones from the late 70s and early 80s because he was a bit more laid back then and the humor was at it most goofy point. For some reason it was only way I ever managed to get math homework done. I've managed to collect a fair bit of Carlin ephemera which I intend to preserve and increase.
It's really sad to see a great artist die, but I have solace in the fact that he had such a long and celebrated career, sticking to his guns and doing his own thing for its entirety. Here are some links to get you started, if you're not already in the know. Read more
So here it goes:
Entry 1:
The Death of a Hero
The photo above was taken the morning of June 23, shortly after I heard that George Carlin was dead. I was really upset.
George Carlin represents a lot of things for me: standing up to authority, the usefulness of wit and sillyness in combination, and the importance of freedom of speech. Carlin managed to inject politics into his comedy without being strictly a political comedian, and managed to get his points across through the use of hyperbole and exaggeration better than any spoken word performer, ever.
He's been called the "comedian's comedian." Its hard to find a successful comedy writer or standup who is unable to recite the seven deadly words or can't produce minutes-long renditions of classic Carlin bits. His style and attention to detail and brilliantly preserved in all of his comedy albums and HBO specials, each of which have at least a few moments that would overcome anyone with raucous, uncontrollable laughter.
I was introduced to Geroge Carlin at the tender age of 8 and I think my mother has regretted it ever since. I was a bit a repeater when I was a kid: my parents learned quickly that most of the crazy-sounding things coming out of my mouth were either from the Simpsons or George Carlin, and that I wasn't actually possessed. They tended to take for granted the amount of tv I watched. I had taped all of the Carlin specials on HBO when they had a marathon of them once and had nearly worn out the tapes by the time I was out of high school. I have fond memories of doing Trigonometry & Algebra 2 homework every night to a rotating selection of different HBO specials. I prefered the ones from the late 70s and early 80s because he was a bit more laid back then and the humor was at it most goofy point. For some reason it was only way I ever managed to get math homework done. I've managed to collect a fair bit of Carlin ephemera which I intend to preserve and increase.
It's really sad to see a great artist die, but I have solace in the fact that he had such a long and celebrated career, sticking to his guns and doing his own thing for its entirety. Here are some links to get you started, if you're not already in the know. Read more
Ahhh, the irony of it all
The other day, from gchat:
mk: your SF pics are terrificRead more
me: oh thanks
mk: what's word with you today?
me: shorter day at work, leaving in about 2 hours
whats up with you
mk: oh the usual
pretending to work, hating my job, wishing that I didn't have absurd amounts of loans imprisoning me in my chosen hell of a profession
me: yep
welcome to your 20s!
and early 30s
you should start twittering
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Greece is terribly post apocalyptic
So if you pay any attention to the news, you'll know that youth riots have crippled Greece over the past week. Essentially it boils down to a bad economy and a frustrated populous, topped off by the murder of a teenager at the hands of the police and you have some really awful riots.
Here's a photo gallery that made the top page of Digg today.
2008 Greek Riots Read more
Oh, let the Top 10 Lists Begin:
So its that time of the year when bloggers and writers find that they have to somehow quantify the last 12 months by making thoughtful and carefully crafted lists of things. Being that I'm a little bit lazy, I've shortened my Top Albums list to only ten, but with a few honorable mentions thrown in there at the end.
Just as another preface, I have to say that all of these albums are phenomenal, and ten albums is only about one every 5.2 weeks, so go ahead and listen to these if you haven't already.
1 Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever
Just recently got into this album, and boy did I. It's a great album that stands up to repeat listenings. Its haunting and distant, but it still feels like you're being shown something private and secretive. Gonna find this on vinyl.
2 Beck - Modern Guilt
If you had told me in 2007 that an album by Beck would be on my list for 2008, I wouldn't have believed you. I've had a love / hate relationship with Beck's music, and didn't have plan on returning to his catalog, ever. Then I heard the first 4 tracks of Modern Guilt at a bar, while eating a burrito, and knew that I had to get it and listen to it.
3 MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
Fun is the optimum word to describe MGMT's sophomore effort, because its practically bursting from every synth-y hook and catchy chorus. You should be running to the nearest where-ever-it-is-you-get-music to listen to this.
4 Lil Wayne - Tha Carter 3
Lil Wayne is the best rapper alive. After downloading mixtape after mixtape that were being billed as the lead up to this album, and the itunes only ep The Leak last December, I'd have to say the hype leading up to Tha Carter 3 has just as big of an impression in my mind that the release did. The album turned out to be a grower, to-boot. Wayne is in true form on nearly every track, and the skits are kept to a minimum, making for somewhat of an anomalous mainstream rap album: one that's listenable start to finish. Up there with The Chronic in terms of genre changing releases. I own it on vinyl.
5 David Byrne and Brian Eno - Everything that will happen will happen today.
Surprisingly good album. Not really though, considering how good their first collaboration was (-thanks, mom, for the vinyl), but it really showcases these two unique musicians. And it proves that its possible to still be cool and super relevant when your old, even if it is easier to slip into moments of poignance. Only available online, which sweetens the deal.
6 She & Him - Volume I
Who knew Zoey Deschanel had such a great voice and kept such good company? I guess it makes sense when you sit down and think about it, but the indie actress's collaboration with M. Ward produced a classic country-ish record defined by great songwriting and an even better voice behind it all.
7 Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Modern Life
Couldn't get more different that She & Him, but Fucked Up has fueled most of my skateboarding sessions for the past few months. Aggressive, yet contemplative and thorough post-post-hardcore. That's the only way I can describe this without shouting.
8 Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
A really solid first outing for this band. It's great how diverse folk and alt-country-ish influences hav become so prevalent. Reminds me of a more laid back Band of Horses.
9 Man Man - Rabbit Habbits
Another album on this list that I had a lot of expectations about before it even came out, which is usually a good formula for a letdown (read: Of Montreal), but Man Man gave the world a great, albeit a little bit distracted, album.
10 Girl Talk - Feed the Animals
I'd feel bad if I left this one off the list, even if 2008 marks the year I stopped listening to Girl Talk. The problem is, that's it's way to good to stay obscure and ignored, like it really should be. Maybe its because I'm selfish with things that I've been into since they first showed up like little unknown presents of wonderfulness that I could bump incessantly and tell all my friends about. That's how I felt about Girl Talk, even though I had started to feel that itch of burgeoning popularity as soon as 2007. Now it just seems like he's everywhere, and everyone's really into it--which is cool, minus the fact that I feel robbed from in a little despicable way. So listen to / don't listen to Girl Talk.
Honorable Mention:
Colin Meloy - Colin Meloy Sings Sam Cooke & Colin Meloy Sings Live!
The debut solo album for The Decemberists frontman, and the tour only EP where two great listens this year. Great gifts for fans of The Decemberists.
Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping
A little bit too hit-or-miss to make my top 10, but Of Montreal keeps surprising just about everyone with each successive release. Had I been blogging, 2007's Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer would have topped my list, easily.
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
I hate this album. Deep, real, seething hatred. I hate how its played at Urban Outfitter on an endless loop, I hate how it was automatically enshrined as the "cool, hip new album of 2008" when it came out. I also hate how god damn good it is.
The Replacements Rhino Re-Releases (esp. on vinyl)
Thank you, record company gods for realizing that there's a huge niche market for stuff like this! I've only been able to find Pleased To Meet Me at my record store, but there are rumors that Let It Be, aka my favorite record of all time is going to get a nice 180g pressing too. And that's The Replacements, not the Beatles. Read more
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Vista Experiment Dual booting XP, Part 3
So I successfully have a system that dual boots XP SP3 and Ubuntu 8.10. It took a bit of fiddling and research on how to properly configure the GRUB bootloader to recognize where XP's partition was and that it was something bootable.
Like anything Ubuntu related, I found the correct answer through the Ubuntu Forums. It's threads like this one that make Ubuntu Forums such a worthwhile resource. Not only is the user base pro active and helpful, it's large enough that about 95% of any problems you come across running Ubuntu have already been posted and solved. Even when I transitioned to 8.10 a few weeks early I found that there was already a great deal of posting about how to get just about everything working even with beta software.
At the end of the day computers are far too useful to be held down by only one OS. There are things that are easily done in linux that just don't work as well in Windows. On the other hand, Linux, no matter what the distribution, can produce real headaches and lots of time configuring and rebooting to diagnose a problem--and most of the time its something like a proprietary video driver that you wouldn't have to spend but a few seconds on in Windows to get it functioning.
I've been part of the linux community since about 1999 and have participated in varying degrees. Just recently I've become involved in posting on the forums when I can help diagnose a problem, but most of my experience is that of the end-user. I can't stress enough how happy I am with how the linux community has developed and I feel like the OS is finally getting to a point of maturity that would allow it to be used by just about any average user. It's still going to remain the choice of true enthusiasts though, because its free and legal and ultimately incredibly scalable.
The relative ease of installing and dual booting XP was a pleasant surprise, and I'm actually impressed at the boot time of the tidied up repack of SP3 that I ended up loading. I'm looking forward to getting Photoshop up and running and finally getting to stretch the legs of the graphics card I bought a few months ago. I don't think I'll be able to run super-current games, but I look forward to installing some classics that I used to play (Black & White, anyone?) and see what I can throw at it before it breaks.
Also, this really wouldn't have happened if not for this article over at APCmag, which gave me the courage to go ahead and take the plunge and commit to the install. They're actually got a whole series of articles about dual booting. If you're a Windows user that wants to see what this whole linux thing is, or a linux user that's a little unsure when it comes to partition tables, it's really never been a more straight-forward process to dual boot your PC. Read more
Like anything Ubuntu related, I found the correct answer through the Ubuntu Forums. It's threads like this one that make Ubuntu Forums such a worthwhile resource. Not only is the user base pro active and helpful, it's large enough that about 95% of any problems you come across running Ubuntu have already been posted and solved. Even when I transitioned to 8.10 a few weeks early I found that there was already a great deal of posting about how to get just about everything working even with beta software.
At the end of the day computers are far too useful to be held down by only one OS. There are things that are easily done in linux that just don't work as well in Windows. On the other hand, Linux, no matter what the distribution, can produce real headaches and lots of time configuring and rebooting to diagnose a problem--and most of the time its something like a proprietary video driver that you wouldn't have to spend but a few seconds on in Windows to get it functioning.
I've been part of the linux community since about 1999 and have participated in varying degrees. Just recently I've become involved in posting on the forums when I can help diagnose a problem, but most of my experience is that of the end-user. I can't stress enough how happy I am with how the linux community has developed and I feel like the OS is finally getting to a point of maturity that would allow it to be used by just about any average user. It's still going to remain the choice of true enthusiasts though, because its free and legal and ultimately incredibly scalable.
The relative ease of installing and dual booting XP was a pleasant surprise, and I'm actually impressed at the boot time of the tidied up repack of SP3 that I ended up loading. I'm looking forward to getting Photoshop up and running and finally getting to stretch the legs of the graphics card I bought a few months ago. I don't think I'll be able to run super-current games, but I look forward to installing some classics that I used to play (Black & White, anyone?) and see what I can throw at it before it breaks.
Also, this really wouldn't have happened if not for this article over at APCmag, which gave me the courage to go ahead and take the plunge and commit to the install. They're actually got a whole series of articles about dual booting. If you're a Windows user that wants to see what this whole linux thing is, or a linux user that's a little unsure when it comes to partition tables, it's really never been a more straight-forward process to dual boot your PC. Read more
Vista Experiment, Part 2: Epic Fail
So none of the Vista disks I have want to load on my system. At all. Therefore, I switched to XP Professional SP3, which is installing now.
The only thing thats kind of a drag about the install is that I had to disconnect my IDE hard drive because Windows doesn't take kindly to being installed on a second disk unless it gets to write on the Master Boot Record of the main drive. Needless to say, it will be a bit easier to make changes to Grub once I install, without having to use a live cd to get let back into your OS.
Currently formating the 50gb I left free on my new SATA drive to, wretch, NTFS via the XP good ole' text based installer. XP is what I have to use at work, and I'm really only installing it because I have the extra space now. Worst case scenario is that I lose the 50 or so gb that I'v written on the first partition of the new disk, but I find that to be not very likely.
Just a couple of notes on the install so far:
I'd almost forgotten how far Linux distros have come in the last few years in terms of ease of use. Windows seems incredibly painful just even getting it off its feet, and this is software that you have to pay for.
The fact that Vista just said "No," to my hardware doesn't do much to reaffirm my faith in Microsoft. I'm hopeful that Windows 7 will buck the trend started by Vista. I thought MS was all about hardware compatibility anyway. Or at least that's the impression I get from the fanboys, however few of them are left.
It's funny too that my failed Vista install happened today, hot on the heels of this article at PCWorld, about how XP is refusing to fall by wayside behind Vista. Read more
Analog Apartment = New Favorite Blog
Analog Apartment is a new blog that I found out about via twitter. I think they saw my tweet the other day about listening to Magnolia Electric Co on vinyl and started to follow me.
They blog about storage solutions and cool vinyl nerd stuff in general, so they're pretty much right up my alley. It's cool to find blogs that are fairly new--its exciting to see a little community grow up out of just a handful of posts.
The other cool part of Analog Apartment is that the site is a launching pad for a developing web app that would act as a cataloging service for vinyl collectors. I had an idea similar to this a few years ago, but I think it was more along the lines of a social network than a web app. Pretty neat stuff tho, so I gave them my email so I'll get updates on their progress. Good luck! Read more
Vista Experiment, Part 1
Well to start off, the name of the this post is a bit of a misnomer since I haven't been able to successfully get it up and running on my computer yet. I'm trying one more disk before I go tried and true with XP. So far, three different versions of Vista have failed to even boot for me, BSOD'ing after the initial load from the disk.
Granted, if this had happend with a linux distro, I'd probably been able to scour forums and find at least something relevant to whatever issue was causing the system to lock up before it even got interesting. So I'm just waiting on the next discs to arrive, and I'm thinking I might just go the complete opposite direction and load another linux distribution onto the extra partition I've left on my new 500gb SATA drive. I'd forgotten that non-ancient harddrives run whisper quiet compared to the grinding cacophony that comes out of my older hardware.
So Vista, you're losing the challenge of making me ignore all the bad hype. The only reason I have to run Windows anyway is that I want to have issue-free installs of the newest Adobe Products on my desktop, because doing graphics-anything on my laptop really sucks.
Also, after spending a few days getting acquainted with our editing comp at the office, I desperately want to bring some sanity to its heavily disorganized workflow. Multiple User Accounts on one machine running OS X = bad. Read more
Granted, if this had happend with a linux distro, I'd probably been able to scour forums and find at least something relevant to whatever issue was causing the system to lock up before it even got interesting. So I'm just waiting on the next discs to arrive, and I'm thinking I might just go the complete opposite direction and load another linux distribution onto the extra partition I've left on my new 500gb SATA drive. I'd forgotten that non-ancient harddrives run whisper quiet compared to the grinding cacophony that comes out of my older hardware.
So Vista, you're losing the challenge of making me ignore all the bad hype. The only reason I have to run Windows anyway is that I want to have issue-free installs of the newest Adobe Products on my desktop, because doing graphics-anything on my laptop really sucks.
Also, after spending a few days getting acquainted with our editing comp at the office, I desperately want to bring some sanity to its heavily disorganized workflow. Multiple User Accounts on one machine running OS X = bad. Read more
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
We Like the Cars, the Cars That Go BOOM!
From Lying In the Gutter, Looking At the Stars:
This is an excellent little tumblog I found recently, so check it out! Read more
This is an excellent little tumblog I found recently, so check it out! Read more
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
This is why I'm a bad blogger.
Lack of capitalization in headlined, maybe? Probably not. I've not been able to keep up with me 1-2 day posting schedule at all this month--its been really quite dismal actually. But here's the scoop, and you'll know most of this if you communicate with me regularly or follow my facebook or twitter.
I went to San Francisco last week, for the first time, to do some filming for my most current project. Although I can't go into details about the project, its associate with the most recent web development that I've done, and involves historic formula one cars. Lots of historic formula one cars.
We got a lot of good footage, mostly interviews, and we're really excited to start editing it into what we already have. I wish I could do a little better in terms of details about this, because its all really exciting, but being intellectual property that's not my own I'm unable to go any further.
That's not to say that this is the last post about this by any means though.
I'm going to be super lazy and only post two of the pictures here from over the weekend, but take a look at them on my flickr.
The other photos are here. There are about 20 others up as of this writing with more on the way. Maybe some stills from the weekend too, we were shooting in 1080 the whole time--and we got some truly gorgeous stuff! Read more
I went to San Francisco last week, for the first time, to do some filming for my most current project. Although I can't go into details about the project, its associate with the most recent web development that I've done, and involves historic formula one cars. Lots of historic formula one cars.
We got a lot of good footage, mostly interviews, and we're really excited to start editing it into what we already have. I wish I could do a little better in terms of details about this, because its all really exciting, but being intellectual property that's not my own I'm unable to go any further.
That's not to say that this is the last post about this by any means though.
I'm going to be super lazy and only post two of the pictures here from over the weekend, but take a look at them on my flickr.
I love those abstracted rack focuses. Favorite photo of the weekend.
Obviously, the other picture has yours truly in it. The other gentleman pictured is "Dangerous" Brian, a fine mechanic and the most excellent of hosts. Brian made me stop taking pictures and get in the car to see if the steering wheel was still too close to the driver's knees, making it so you ended up pressing against it to depress the very stiff clutch. Brian would have done it himself if he wasn't entirely too large a person to fit the cramped cockpit of this 50s era F1. Get back to me for the year and model, there were far too many to remember.
The other photos are here. There are about 20 others up as of this writing with more on the way. Maybe some stills from the weekend too, we were shooting in 1080 the whole time--and we got some truly gorgeous stuff! Read more
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Flock Makes Me Feel like I'm Cheating On FireFox
Flock is a newish browser based on Firefox 3 that has a plethora of social networking and web 2.0 tools integrated right into the browser. With feature rich extensions for sites like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and Flickr, Flock attempts to reshape the web browsing experience with new layers of functionality. By taking advatage of the various APIs, Flock delivers social networking like status updates and photo uploading without having to browse directly to the site. Using the good ole sidebar and a spiffy media stream pane that appears above your tabs, I've got to give it to Flock for taking a new approach for using the internet.
There are a couple of things that bother me though. First, I've gotten so used to the minimalist Firefox theme in OS X that the bright colored buttons and generally shinyness are a bit distracting. Second, I couldnt get the Digg functionality to work, but admittedly I gave up when it didn't work automatically like everything else did. Other than that, Flock seems very well packaged, and could definitely displace Firefox for a good deal of my daily browsing.
Also, Flock includes a great RSS aggregator and a pretty decent blog editor (which I happen to be using), which are both something that you can incorporate into Firefox with a good deal more custimaztion.
Overall, this is a browser that has a lot of potential and can hopefully inform some future upstream development in Firefox. I'm definitely sticking with Firefox as my go-to browser because Flock seems a bit distracted by all of its features at times. It's great for anyone that relies on a social networking addiction to get through their work week.
Oh and the branding on their website is lame :P Read more
Saturday, November 29, 2008
The Internet Strikes Back!
A Star Wars marathon is on tv tonight, hence the outward nerdiness of the title line. But here's what I've got:
- Home-brew beer with one of my favorite blogs, BoingBoing.
- Upload pictures into your own ASCII Art!
- See how the ISS stacks up to real spacecraft/
- A desktop tour of Fedora.
- A great write up of Songbird and other iTunes replacements over at TuxGeek.me.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Wine in Ubuntu is the best!
Wine allowed me to install a certain proprietary piece of windows only software (starts with an eff and ends in an assssh) to get some crucial web development work done yesterday when I was home sick. It didn't work with the most current version, which means that I'll have to go back and redo some stuff with the 8-core screamer at the Mito office, but I made some major progress with the software none the less.
If you're not a linux user, that means that there's no reason for you to know about Wine, but essentially it provides a layer of functionality to your linux setup--the ability to run windows programs seemlessly. Mac users know that this has been possible since the OS 9 days, but it requires a layer of processor hogging OS emulation, and hasn't really been a viable option until the recent releases of vmware Fusion and Parallels 4 (3 was ok too). On the mac tip, I use vmware Fusion and love it!
The main problem with emulating the entire OS is that it really is a burden on your processor and your ram comsumption, in addition to requiring booting or unfreezing before you can start using it. Also, it requires a copy of Windows to install on top of the copy of vmware or Paralells you purchased. Wine acts as an Windows API layer over X in Linux, bypassing the need to purchase an OS that you don't really want.
In the past, Wine has been somewhat a piece of vaporware, due to the uber-nerd L337 skillz to get it up and running. I had bad luck ever getting it to run back in the glory days of RedHat 6, 7 and 8, but now with the ease of apt-get in Ubuntu, Wine is preconfigured and precompiled via automatic updates. It's still a little shakey, but I've successfully been able to run quite a few programs that I thought would be doomed to a Windows partition.
Oh, and on the computer front, the 500gb harddrive I ordered on sunday should be here by the weekend (fingers crossed). At only $60 it was a steal! I'm looking forward towards giving Vista the ole' college try with 100gb partition. I'll post my travails in the Windows world once I start tinkering. Read more
If you're not a linux user, that means that there's no reason for you to know about Wine, but essentially it provides a layer of functionality to your linux setup--the ability to run windows programs seemlessly. Mac users know that this has been possible since the OS 9 days, but it requires a layer of processor hogging OS emulation, and hasn't really been a viable option until the recent releases of vmware Fusion and Parallels 4 (3 was ok too). On the mac tip, I use vmware Fusion and love it!
The main problem with emulating the entire OS is that it really is a burden on your processor and your ram comsumption, in addition to requiring booting or unfreezing before you can start using it. Also, it requires a copy of Windows to install on top of the copy of vmware or Paralells you purchased. Wine acts as an Windows API layer over X in Linux, bypassing the need to purchase an OS that you don't really want.
In the past, Wine has been somewhat a piece of vaporware, due to the uber-nerd L337 skillz to get it up and running. I had bad luck ever getting it to run back in the glory days of RedHat 6, 7 and 8, but now with the ease of apt-get in Ubuntu, Wine is preconfigured and precompiled via automatic updates. It's still a little shakey, but I've successfully been able to run quite a few programs that I thought would be doomed to a Windows partition.
Oh, and on the computer front, the 500gb harddrive I ordered on sunday should be here by the weekend (fingers crossed). At only $60 it was a steal! I'm looking forward towards giving Vista the ole' college try with 100gb partition. I'll post my travails in the Windows world once I start tinkering. Read more
Man Man Seek Kitten
Sunday, November 23, 2008
INTERNET
- Don't ever run these commands, ever.
- Watchmen trailer broken down for what's definitely made it in.
- These are fun if yr bored.
- And, an eagle swimming, a cat on a roomba, and chicken police.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
To Trash Or Not To Trash: What to do with 5 years of Music
or, 1200 words about hard drives, videos and way too much music
So I've reached a bit of a crossroads: my storage demands are being stretched to their limits, and every one of my HDs is beginning to fill up. I'm a bit strapped for cash at the moment, so simply upgrading to a bigger and badder HD isn't an option thats really on the table, and the temptation to just delete all that music that I don't listen to anymore is becoming more and more of a palatable option. And anyway, its not like any of this stuff is *that* important. I mean its just media, right?
In a time when we are becoming increasingly defined by our tastes and consumption of mass media (just look at anyone's facebook or myspace profiles--most offer a laundry list of music and movies that are they're favorites), what does it mean if you simply don't care enough to keep all of those old files anymore? Maybe its just because I'm behind the times in terms of drive storage: 120gb internal on both my laptop and desktop, then 200gb and 80gb externals, it seems like a little over 500 gb is paltry compared to the multi-terabyte rigs that are en vouge. I'm no stranger to multi-gigabyte project workflows (I work with digital video) and the necessity for massive amounts of storage, but it just seems like 500gb is still a lot of data for me as a personal user.
So here's how my data usage breaks down: about 30 gb on each computer is music, some of which overlaps between the two systems; OS and software take up about 40-50gb on my laptop and about 20-30 on my desktop; most of the rest of the space is taken up by video, mostly mp4 or avi, leaving about 15gb free on my laptop (this changes alot though because I use it for work and need at least that much free space) and less than 10gb on my desktop. The externals hold video and music exclusively, and are as full as the internal drives on both of my computers.
Essentially, I would only have to pay about $100 for a decent 500gb hard drive, but I just have this nagging feeling that I'm wasting money to do that primarily because I really don't listen to all of my music anymore, nor by any means do I watch all of my videos.
It turns out that most of my videos on my HD are now streaming on my Netflix Player, too. I think the real reason for not deleting my movies is because they are all high quality dvd rips that I made myself, over years of buying and borrowing. I have a dvd player and hundreds of dvds, but I prefer to upscale them through my computer via the ripped files. Still, I don't think that I could ever have enough space to do what I wanted to properly without running into a database problem and crashing the drive.
So ultimately, the movies stay with a few exceptions here and there for things I know I just don't need to have lying around.
Now my music is another beast entirely. I was 13 years old when Napster came out and it was one of the single defining moments in my growth as a music listener. Suddenly, every song, album, and band were at my disposal to download at about 5kbps, at least until my family got cable internet. By the time I was a senior in high school, I had discovered newsgroups as well, and now my music collection was in two main parts: the single song folder of MP3s culled from Napster, Bearshare, iMesh, Gnutella, Limewire, Kazza and every other fad piece of software (most of which came packed with spyware & malware) that defined the early years of P2P filesharing; and a meticulously well kept folder heiarchy of bands and albums made by hand before iTunes made it easy for you. That was when things were easy, when I only had one computer and one ipod (which I still have, btw), and generally listened to music in 2 main locations: my car and my computer. It also must be noted that I had lots and lots of CDs, mostly burned, which have since been abandoned at my parents house, where they will probably stay forever.
Then I moved away to college and my music collection started the chrysalis its still currently in. I was forced to pick and choose from about 80gb of music because that's exactly how big the HD on my first powerbook was. I ended up with only the newest and most beloved of my music collection, leaving behind the archives of my music that so defined me as a teen.
As I went through college, my music tasted changed more rapidly then they ever had before, and I eventually made the switch and started to collect vinyl--both new any used. Now my vinyl collection is well into the hundreds and its the primary way that I listen to music besides my ipod. Ipods are another part of the story, too: all in all, I think I've had about 5 different iPods over the past decade, most of which either crashed or were stolen. But averaging about 20gb, they were perpetually full and used constantly. I also DJ'ed parties using my computer for about a year, so having everything that I wanted to play stored on my computer was essential.
The problem was that eventually I ran out of space. I started deleting frantically so my computer to slink along on a day to day basis until I justified needing an external drive for editing at school. I went big, and thats the 200gb HD I use at the heart of my media center. But what happened was that I couldn't save anything and it eventually led to the fragmenting of my music over multiple computers and hard drives. I eventually went back to my parents house and collected the internal HD with all the music on it, so some of that was thrown into the mix too.
So as it stands, I feel like I have multiple copies of my music in a couple different places but I don't have the time or energy to sort through it all and try and compile it into a single location. At some point in the near future, I'm doomed to add a 500gb (or larger) HD to my collection of storage devices, thus confusing things even more. On the bright side, the some file system improvements in linux now allow me to merge folders, copying only new files and not asking me the dreaded question, "keep or replace," for entire directories. Read more
So I've reached a bit of a crossroads: my storage demands are being stretched to their limits, and every one of my HDs is beginning to fill up. I'm a bit strapped for cash at the moment, so simply upgrading to a bigger and badder HD isn't an option thats really on the table, and the temptation to just delete all that music that I don't listen to anymore is becoming more and more of a palatable option. And anyway, its not like any of this stuff is *that* important. I mean its just media, right?
In a time when we are becoming increasingly defined by our tastes and consumption of mass media (just look at anyone's facebook or myspace profiles--most offer a laundry list of music and movies that are they're favorites), what does it mean if you simply don't care enough to keep all of those old files anymore? Maybe its just because I'm behind the times in terms of drive storage: 120gb internal on both my laptop and desktop, then 200gb and 80gb externals, it seems like a little over 500 gb is paltry compared to the multi-terabyte rigs that are en vouge. I'm no stranger to multi-gigabyte project workflows (I work with digital video) and the necessity for massive amounts of storage, but it just seems like 500gb is still a lot of data for me as a personal user.
So here's how my data usage breaks down: about 30 gb on each computer is music, some of which overlaps between the two systems; OS and software take up about 40-50gb on my laptop and about 20-30 on my desktop; most of the rest of the space is taken up by video, mostly mp4 or avi, leaving about 15gb free on my laptop (this changes alot though because I use it for work and need at least that much free space) and less than 10gb on my desktop. The externals hold video and music exclusively, and are as full as the internal drives on both of my computers.
Essentially, I would only have to pay about $100 for a decent 500gb hard drive, but I just have this nagging feeling that I'm wasting money to do that primarily because I really don't listen to all of my music anymore, nor by any means do I watch all of my videos.
It turns out that most of my videos on my HD are now streaming on my Netflix Player, too. I think the real reason for not deleting my movies is because they are all high quality dvd rips that I made myself, over years of buying and borrowing. I have a dvd player and hundreds of dvds, but I prefer to upscale them through my computer via the ripped files. Still, I don't think that I could ever have enough space to do what I wanted to properly without running into a database problem and crashing the drive.
So ultimately, the movies stay with a few exceptions here and there for things I know I just don't need to have lying around.
Now my music is another beast entirely. I was 13 years old when Napster came out and it was one of the single defining moments in my growth as a music listener. Suddenly, every song, album, and band were at my disposal to download at about 5kbps, at least until my family got cable internet. By the time I was a senior in high school, I had discovered newsgroups as well, and now my music collection was in two main parts: the single song folder of MP3s culled from Napster, Bearshare, iMesh, Gnutella, Limewire, Kazza and every other fad piece of software (most of which came packed with spyware & malware) that defined the early years of P2P filesharing; and a meticulously well kept folder heiarchy of bands and albums made by hand before iTunes made it easy for you. That was when things were easy, when I only had one computer and one ipod (which I still have, btw), and generally listened to music in 2 main locations: my car and my computer. It also must be noted that I had lots and lots of CDs, mostly burned, which have since been abandoned at my parents house, where they will probably stay forever.
Then I moved away to college and my music collection started the chrysalis its still currently in. I was forced to pick and choose from about 80gb of music because that's exactly how big the HD on my first powerbook was. I ended up with only the newest and most beloved of my music collection, leaving behind the archives of my music that so defined me as a teen.
As I went through college, my music tasted changed more rapidly then they ever had before, and I eventually made the switch and started to collect vinyl--both new any used. Now my vinyl collection is well into the hundreds and its the primary way that I listen to music besides my ipod. Ipods are another part of the story, too: all in all, I think I've had about 5 different iPods over the past decade, most of which either crashed or were stolen. But averaging about 20gb, they were perpetually full and used constantly. I also DJ'ed parties using my computer for about a year, so having everything that I wanted to play stored on my computer was essential.
The problem was that eventually I ran out of space. I started deleting frantically so my computer to slink along on a day to day basis until I justified needing an external drive for editing at school. I went big, and thats the 200gb HD I use at the heart of my media center. But what happened was that I couldn't save anything and it eventually led to the fragmenting of my music over multiple computers and hard drives. I eventually went back to my parents house and collected the internal HD with all the music on it, so some of that was thrown into the mix too.
So as it stands, I feel like I have multiple copies of my music in a couple different places but I don't have the time or energy to sort through it all and try and compile it into a single location. At some point in the near future, I'm doomed to add a 500gb (or larger) HD to my collection of storage devices, thus confusing things even more. On the bright side, the some file system improvements in linux now allow me to merge folders, copying only new files and not asking me the dreaded question, "keep or replace," for entire directories. Read more
The Tain
A few years ago, The Decemberists, one of my personal favorites, relesed an EP called The Tain.
It was a sinlge 18 miunte track divided into 5 cantos based on the Irish epic Táin Bó Cúailnge. As for the song, it's amazing and just about as epic as a song can get, and now after years of painstaking hand animation, it has a video.
The task was taken by Montana filmmaker Andy Smetanka, who specializes in construction paper stop motion animation. When I first saw this video, I was convinced that it had to have been done with After Effects, Motion, Toon Boom or one of the myriad other pieces of niche software that specialize in creating cool & off-kilter animation. Yeah, there were a few "hairs" on the film, and some of the exposures looked a bit uneven, but 18+ minutes of hand animation without a digital workflow? Please...
Not so apparently. Mr. Smetanka works entirely with Super-8, the medium that I was introduced to my first semester in film school, but long since lost interest in once that cameras and film got bigger and better in the semesters to follow. Now whats really amazing about this is the animation timing. This guy has to be equal parts meticulous and mathematical--in order to accomplish a single minute of this would take months of trial and error, even for someone trained in modern animation techniques--animation like this simply isn't done like this anymore. The level of frame complexity, synchronization with the soundtrack, speed of cutting and the sheer amount of all of it blow my mind.
Just a note on how all of this was physically constructed: construction paper cut-outs, complete with pinned together joints are laid down over a light box which is covered in a mixture of layers of opaque tissue paper & solid construction paper to form fixed backgrounds. Then, one frame at a time the characters are animated to perform desired action. Since this way shot on Super-8, it was potentially a little bit easier because most Super-8 cameras shoot at 18 frames per second--six frames less than the motion picture standard of 24fps. I'm not 100% sure about whether or not Mr. Smentanka uses a camera that shoot on 18fps or 24fps, but either way, directing animation on film that you have to develop is if anything, painstaiking. So here's the embedded video, and a link for the hi-res version. Enjoy!
Hi-Res available here Read more
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Boinc Manager: Tough to Explain to Friends, Fun to Use
So for the past few months I've been putting my computer's extra cycle time to good use by partaking in several @HOME projects using the BOINC Manager. If you don't know what an @HOME project is, I'll take a moment to explain.
The best and oldest example is the SETI@HOME project, started in 1995, which uses radio telescopes to search for extraterrestrial life--yeah, like in Contact. Up until 1995 the SETI project relied on supercomputers to sift through the massive amount of data, most of which was random noise, which created a painstaking process that was slow to yield results. That's when David Gedye decided that it could be better done by linking multiple computers via the internet to function together as a virtual supercomputer, thus eliminating the need for sole reliance on massively expensive time on a real supercomputer. This concept came to form the basis of cloud computing well before anyone even mentioned the words "Web 2.0".
Fast forward to present day. Its now practical and fairly simple to participate in. In addition to SETI@HOME there are many other offshoots, such as Rosetta@HOME, researching protein folding for cancer research, and Eienstein@HOME, which is searching for pulsars.
The reasoning behind doing something like this? I leave my linux-box home server running 24/7, but only use it a few hours a day. The program that manages my @HOME projects, BOINC, only uses processor time when the system is idle, which includes LAN activity, and is set to use only 2gb of disk space at the most. Essentially, it downloads files (big math problems) then uses processor cycles to complete them, uploading the results and deleting the original files.
So, if you have a machine that is on for most of the day that is mostly idle, why not set this up and contribute to some scientific research? It can be a great use for older systems too! If you have a box that's been collecting dust in the basement or garage, just throw a network card into it, install a lightweight Linux distro, like Puppy Linux or Xubunutu, then setup BOINC, pick yr projects and start contributing!
Here's a screengrab of my BOINC Client:
Read more
The best and oldest example is the SETI@HOME project, started in 1995, which uses radio telescopes to search for extraterrestrial life--yeah, like in Contact. Up until 1995 the SETI project relied on supercomputers to sift through the massive amount of data, most of which was random noise, which created a painstaking process that was slow to yield results. That's when David Gedye decided that it could be better done by linking multiple computers via the internet to function together as a virtual supercomputer, thus eliminating the need for sole reliance on massively expensive time on a real supercomputer. This concept came to form the basis of cloud computing well before anyone even mentioned the words "Web 2.0".
Fast forward to present day. Its now practical and fairly simple to participate in. In addition to SETI@HOME there are many other offshoots, such as Rosetta@HOME, researching protein folding for cancer research, and Eienstein@HOME, which is searching for pulsars.
The reasoning behind doing something like this? I leave my linux-box home server running 24/7, but only use it a few hours a day. The program that manages my @HOME projects, BOINC, only uses processor time when the system is idle, which includes LAN activity, and is set to use only 2gb of disk space at the most. Essentially, it downloads files (big math problems) then uses processor cycles to complete them, uploading the results and deleting the original files.
So, if you have a machine that is on for most of the day that is mostly idle, why not set this up and contribute to some scientific research? It can be a great use for older systems too! If you have a box that's been collecting dust in the basement or garage, just throw a network card into it, install a lightweight Linux distro, like Puppy Linux or Xubunutu, then setup BOINC, pick yr projects and start contributing!
Here's a screengrab of my BOINC Client:
Read more
Friday, November 14, 2008
Man's Manual For Living
List of Problems Solved by MacGyver
I'm a big MacGyver fan. I remember watching it with my older brother and thinking he was the coolest person ever. I mean he lived on a houseboat, how cool is that!? He also drove a sweet Jeep and and was a zeitgeist of late 80s / early 90s man's man fashion.
Some of my favorites include:
"In order to fix a piston connecting rod for a water pump, MacGyver makes an arc welder out of a generator, some jumper cables, and two half dollars. By running the DC current from the generator through the coins, he creates heat and electrical discharge, with which he can weld the con-rod."
"MacGyver destroys a building with a propane tank, a grindstone, and some ball bearings. He lets the gas from the tank loose and switches on the grindstone. From outside, he shoots the ball bearings into the building at the grindstone. Although he doesn't hit the grindstone, the bad guy he is after shoots a crossbow into the building, and does hit the grind stone. A spark ignites the gas, and the building is destroyed."
"MacGyver creates a diversion and a surprise attack using an inner tube, pressurized air, chloride, a catalyst, two glass jars and a gas mask. The inner tube was put in a truck and filled with air until the glass broke creating a loud noise. Meanwhile MacGyver filled the two gas bombs filling one glass jar with chloride and the other with a catalyst. Then he threw them at his attackers resulting in a reaction producing toxic chlorine gas when the two liquids mixed."
The whole thing make for great reading. Really, just scroll through it at random and stop anywhere, you'll find out how to make and do just about anything. Read more
Thursday, November 13, 2008
the internets giveth...
- Beeeeeessss!!!
- Digg Down = LAME. Where's all that capital going?
- New Red Cam - Even though I knew it was coming, it's still pretty awesome and cool. Fingers crossed.
- TuxGeek - a newish linux / tech blog I found today, added it to my Google Reader Feed!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
A Valid Reason to Hate Internet Explorer
So there are lots of things that have bugged me for a long time about Internet Explorer. Once Microsoft's flagship product, it really did herald in the internet sans AOL keywords for my generation and is the default browser for the worlds most ubiquitous OS. But over time, Internet Explorer refused to change along with the internet as it presented new standards and an increased demand for functionality.
While the end-users wanted attractive, easy to use layouts, colors fonts and GUIs, the coders and web designers demanded a structure that was easy to code and parse while scalable. This inherent clashing led to the splintering of web standards, rendering engines and eventual cross browser compatibility. Presently, there are two major divisions and several smaller ones between how browsers render web pages: safari, firefox, opera et al handle the majority of tags and css fairly similarly, but with a few minor differences; Internet Explorer chooses to do whatever the fck it wants with your html and css.
Even though the browser has recently adapted to be more compliant in general, the fact remains that its really wasting my time right now having to research work arounds for things that look perfectly normal in firefox and safari. The only time that I have to use ie is at work, but thats because I prefer the functionality & look of my company's webmail because it was written for Internet Explorer.
Bad standards acceptance makes me a sad panda. Read more
While the end-users wanted attractive, easy to use layouts, colors fonts and GUIs, the coders and web designers demanded a structure that was easy to code and parse while scalable. This inherent clashing led to the splintering of web standards, rendering engines and eventual cross browser compatibility. Presently, there are two major divisions and several smaller ones between how browsers render web pages: safari, firefox, opera et al handle the majority of tags and css fairly similarly, but with a few minor differences; Internet Explorer chooses to do whatever the fck it wants with your html and css.
Even though the browser has recently adapted to be more compliant in general, the fact remains that its really wasting my time right now having to research work arounds for things that look perfectly normal in firefox and safari. The only time that I have to use ie is at work, but thats because I prefer the functionality & look of my company's webmail because it was written for Internet Explorer.
Bad standards acceptance makes me a sad panda. Read more
Sunday, November 9, 2008
I think my commitment to nerd-dom might be complete
Because I've been "thanked" in a post on ubuntuforumns.org, a site for Ubuntu users to solve all the little quirks that drive linux users nuts. And pretty much all I've been doing with my free time is web development.
The website I'm building for a local new media venture goes live in about a week, and there's lots to get done before then. Unfortunately I can't link to anything until we do go live, but its shaping up to be clean & classy. Pretty much the only thing I have left to do is build and implement a flash player for our hd content. Embedding Vimeos works ok, but I need a packaged deal-y before I can sign off on my work.
Also, a new version of my personal site went up last night, and pretty happy with how that's looking--it's really turning into a showcase for all teh cool new tricks I've learned recently. So check it out samuelbreed.com Read more
The website I'm building for a local new media venture goes live in about a week, and there's lots to get done before then. Unfortunately I can't link to anything until we do go live, but its shaping up to be clean & classy. Pretty much the only thing I have left to do is build and implement a flash player for our hd content. Embedding Vimeos works ok, but I need a packaged deal-y before I can sign off on my work.
Also, a new version of my personal site went up last night, and pretty happy with how that's looking--it's really turning into a showcase for all teh cool new tricks I've learned recently. So check it out samuelbreed.com Read more
Monday, November 3, 2008
Can I possibly write about anything other than the election?
Along with being the most important day of for the future of our country (ed. note: failing at mission statement), it also marks the release of the third Futurama movie, Bender's Game!
I feel like the decision to produce direct to dvd 90 minute features was overall a good decision for Futurama. Although it was done out desperation after being dumped for inferior programming, the movies have turned out to be refreshing explorations of the hysterical, often non-sensical universe of the year 3000.
Bender's Game was announced with the release of the last movie, The Beast With A Billion Backs, and delves deeper in the machinations of the series. Also, it includes the first break from the sci-fi setting and into the fantasy realm of Dungeons and Dragons. Major nerd points for that, to possibly one of the biggest nerds in the country, David X. Cohen.
Unfortunately, Bender's Game is possibly the most stale of the movies thus far. Now, that's not to say that it's not funny per se; it has a lot of great lines from a wide variety of character's, but my dislike of most Mom-centered episodes easily carries over to the movie. Without revealing the plot its hard to discuss the main points of my criticism. To sum it up though, Mom isn't a very interesting character, and the arc of the main plot revealed itself a little too early.
The advantage of the first Futurama movie, Bender's Big Score, is that it was full of u-turns and plot points that make the ending a complete surprise and repeat viewings a must. The Beast With A Billion Backs was interesting enough, but felt a little light in comparison to some of the strongest episodes. This is starting to come off as an argument against the movies, but bear with me, I'm getting to my point. The Futurama movies work because they take the best elements of the series and combine them with the show's flare for long form absurdity. It's a joy to watch the writers take multiple premises, in-jokes and bizarre settings and stretch them out for 90 minutes at a time.
What's left will be a great box set to own, and a wonderful possible end to the too-short run of the series. In a different world, The Simpsons could have gotten this treatment too, but they're doomed to run forever at this point. Read more
And thus ends an election cycle.
I've heard throughout the day that its been nearly two years since the start of the current election cycle and it culminates with the final casting of the ballots. The campaigns of the two candidates are coming to a close: McCain is attempting a final push back deep in his own territory while Obama is continuing his 50 state plan with the confidence of a man who knows its almost over. Barack Obama has stood up to more investigation and criticism than any other candidate before him, starting way back in 2006, even before this year's hard fought primary season. It's hard to think that it was only a few months ago that Hilary Clinton was not only putting up a fight to be remembered, but took it to the wire with an army of rabid supporters.
Then came Palin, the GOP bounce and McCain's piloting of his ticket like a jet fighter who was recklessly shot down. More than once. It's trivial to go back and nit pick over McCain's constant gaffs and blunders because what matters is this: Obama has done everything right, nearly every step of the way. He resisted the urge to fight dirty against Clinton and Palin, and has renounced those who did. He's been scrutinized more for casual affiliations than any other candidate before him, and the figurative rounds fired at him have only ever turned out to be blanks.
Barack Obama has proven on every stage that America has to offer that he is the choice to lead us out of 20th century and into a future, however uncertain it may seem.
I proudly supported Barack Obama when I cast my ballot and I can only hope that intelligence can prevail in the country, for at least once in my life. Read more
Then came Palin, the GOP bounce and McCain's piloting of his ticket like a jet fighter who was recklessly shot down. More than once. It's trivial to go back and nit pick over McCain's constant gaffs and blunders because what matters is this: Obama has done everything right, nearly every step of the way. He resisted the urge to fight dirty against Clinton and Palin, and has renounced those who did. He's been scrutinized more for casual affiliations than any other candidate before him, and the figurative rounds fired at him have only ever turned out to be blanks.
Barack Obama has proven on every stage that America has to offer that he is the choice to lead us out of 20th century and into a future, however uncertain it may seem.
I proudly supported Barack Obama when I cast my ballot and I can only hope that intelligence can prevail in the country, for at least once in my life. Read more
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Ahh, Lord Jim
Started reading Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad last night and I was
surprised by how readable it is. I remember from high school that
Conrad was difficult and boring, but I suppose that was just me under
appreciating it.
surprised by how readable it is. I remember from high school that
Conrad was difficult and boring, but I suppose that was just me under
appreciating it.
Other than that, I've been coding the new Mito Media site all weekend,
and I'm really starting to get some CSS chops! I'm gla that I'm
finally parlaying my love of internetting to a marketable skill.
Taking a well earned computer break to watch some teev with amy!
_____
Sent from my iPhone
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
More Election Woes
So it seems like theres a little bit of anticipation in the air about next tuesday. Obama aired a 30 minute infomercial on just about every channel. I watched it and it was indeed a well crafted, smart piece of propaganda to stir the hearts of the steely undecideds. But will it work? I find it pretty hard to believe that people are still ambivalent about this election, but maybe this gesture will change a few minds. It really is more of a grand gesture than it is anything else. Unless you haven't been in America, Europe, South America, China, Indonesia, or pretty much anywhere else in the world, you've heard just about everything there is to hear about both of these candidates from the horse's mouth.
Read more
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Bacon Cupcakes are Glorious
There's nothing better than the satisfaction of a day well spent, and that's why I ate a cupcake with bacon on it. To wallow in one's own crapulence is entirely necessary, if only once in a while.
And here's a picture of a duck I took today.
Some abstract shots, too:
I'm thinking of having another movie marathon tomorrow. There's so much to watch on the Roku, it just might be necessary. Read more
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Saturday Mornings with Dr. Horrible
I had really forgotten how funny Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is. If you don't know what Dr. Horrible's is, yr finger might not be on teh pulse of the internets. Do I have to say more than "Neil Patrick Harris + Singing"??
Here's the full episode from Hulu, which is my favorite site for streaming teev on the internet. Its how I've been watching this season of The Office.
Read more
Here's the full episode from Hulu, which is my favorite site for streaming teev on the internet. Its how I've been watching this season of The Office.
Read more
Thursday, October 23, 2008
I'm still alive, but my google reader wouldn't know
So I've been working like an animal at a job I don't like, and I've been letting it get the best of me. I've had to put my other projects on hold, including my blog. It was hard enough to hash out the two posts I made yesterday, which feel a bit strained. I was just at a loss to talk about anything but receiving dozens of boxes of American Apparel clothing or interviewing way too many job applicants in a downturned economy. The latter of which really sucks, by the way.
I've retreated back into things that I know make me comfortable: There's a pawed, dog-eared copy of The Long Goodbye sitting on the nightstand and The Empire Strikes back was in the background of my linux hobby-ing last night. But for today I'm trying to branch out a bit by watching some cable tv, something which I haven't made any effort to do in a long time.
So, I watched Countdown with Keith Olbermann while I was cooking dinner (wow, never thought I'd write the second half of that sentence), and now I'm really enjoying The Rachel Maddow Show. I've caught it once or twice before, and her style of punditry is refreshing. Also, the New York Times wrote this piece about her the other day, hence my going out of the way to view this tonight.
For now I'm looking forward to the weekend and somewhere lurking in the future is the return of normalcy in my work life. The colors have been changing, and I'd like to get out and I shoot some more pictures this weekend.
Oh, and Amy and I have been together for two years today. I love you monkey :)
Read more
I've retreated back into things that I know make me comfortable: There's a pawed, dog-eared copy of The Long Goodbye sitting on the nightstand and The Empire Strikes back was in the background of my linux hobby-ing last night. But for today I'm trying to branch out a bit by watching some cable tv, something which I haven't made any effort to do in a long time.
So, I watched Countdown with Keith Olbermann while I was cooking dinner (wow, never thought I'd write the second half of that sentence), and now I'm really enjoying The Rachel Maddow Show. I've caught it once or twice before, and her style of punditry is refreshing. Also, the New York Times wrote this piece about her the other day, hence my going out of the way to view this tonight.
For now I'm looking forward to the weekend and somewhere lurking in the future is the return of normalcy in my work life. The colors have been changing, and I'd like to get out and I shoot some more pictures this weekend.
Oh, and Amy and I have been together for two years today. I love you monkey :)
Read more
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
One more thing...
Oh, and I voted early today.
It felt really good. I had mailed in a ballot for the last presidential election, so this was my first time going to a polling place and filling out a paper ballot. It only took about 35 minutes and now I don't have to worry about scrambling to get it done on Nov. 4th.
I went ahead and took the opportunity to set precedent at my work by not clocking out when I walked the two blocks to the courthouse to cast my ballot too.
Wanna guess who I voted for? Read more
It felt really good. I had mailed in a ballot for the last presidential election, so this was my first time going to a polling place and filling out a paper ballot. It only took about 35 minutes and now I don't have to worry about scrambling to get it done on Nov. 4th.
I went ahead and took the opportunity to set precedent at my work by not clocking out when I walked the two blocks to the courthouse to cast my ballot too.
Wanna guess who I voted for? Read more
7 Reasons Why Roadhouse Is the Best Movie Ever
1. Patrick Swayze's strength is derived entirely from Thai Chi.
2. Zen philosopher who earns $500 a night to 'clean up' rowdy bars? Yes.
3. Patrick Swayze includes his alma mater in his medical records.
4. The gratuitous nudity (e.g. The Swayze's butt shot).
5. The idea that the main protagonist is rich from "running" such a small town. It has like three businesses total.
6. Sam Elliot's glorious silver mane.
7. Nobody wins a fight. Read more
2. Zen philosopher who earns $500 a night to 'clean up' rowdy bars? Yes.
3. Patrick Swayze includes his alma mater in his medical records.
4. The gratuitous nudity (e.g. The Swayze's butt shot).
5. The idea that the main protagonist is rich from "running" such a small town. It has like three businesses total.
6. Sam Elliot's glorious silver mane.
7. Nobody wins a fight. Read more
Sunday, October 19, 2008
TV as Second Display: Check.
over the weekend by her parents. So I decided that it needed to go
into my office to act as a second display for the Linux server.
Earlier this week I had put in a new video card with multiple video-
outs, so all I had to do was configure the xorg.conf file and plug it
in. It's great for watching movies through vlc, but not much else due
to the low resolution.
I also upgraded to the beta of Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex, which
solved some nvidia driver issues. Everything is running smoothly and
I'm glad I upgraded rather than waiting or the full release.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Firing People Sucks
So up until yesterday I had never had to fire anyone.
I've been working in management positions for a few years now, and although I've been through some firings, I've never had to do it myself. Or involving someone I work with almost every day. I'll avoid going into detail, but don't show up drunk and late and expect to keep your job.
I've been working on the website a little more, and now my blog will live at blog.samuelbreed.com forever, and I should have a css version up this evening.
In other news, the new Macbooks are looking good, and I figure I'll be ready for a replacement in about another 6 months or so. Better start saving now... Read more
I've been working in management positions for a few years now, and although I've been through some firings, I've never had to do it myself. Or involving someone I work with almost every day. I'll avoid going into detail, but don't show up drunk and late and expect to keep your job.
I've been working on the website a little more, and now my blog will live at blog.samuelbreed.com forever, and I should have a css version up this evening.
In other news, the new Macbooks are looking good, and I figure I'll be ready for a replacement in about another 6 months or so. Better start saving now... Read more
Monday, October 13, 2008
There's a Doin's a Transpiring!
So I've been making some changes to my website and managed to midly break it, which means that my blog address isn't linked to my domain name currently. Need to fix that, but its getting a little late.
I'm experimenting with web design for the first time since I was a kid, and am really enjoying it. Its fun learning the new coding standards and playing with the graphic design.
But as it stands, I own and host samuelbreed.com, and there's no reason to not have my blog hosted there too. Maybe the redirect from blog.samuelbreed.com will start working soon, but until then, I'm just hard linking here from my home page. Read more
I'm experimenting with web design for the first time since I was a kid, and am really enjoying it. Its fun learning the new coding standards and playing with the graphic design.
But as it stands, I own and host samuelbreed.com, and there's no reason to not have my blog hosted there too. Maybe the redirect from blog.samuelbreed.com will start working soon, but until then, I'm just hard linking here from my home page. Read more
Sunday, October 12, 2008
New Moniter, Super Exciting
Amy's parents gifted me with a new flatscreen monitor today! It's nice to finally have a non-ancient monitor in my little home office, as I'm beginning to spend more and more time sitting at my desk. My personal workflow is finally getting the kinks worked out of it, and soon enough I'll have a new graphics card in the desktop, opening up the possibility multiple displays. It's not a current card, but I'm living on the cheap these days, and I'm tired of hiccuping video on an amply powered computer.
My home server has been up for about 2 months now with 21 days since the last reboot and its still going strong. Another few months and I'll upgrade the ram again and possibly an SATA hard drive in the months to come, since I'm starting to run out of disk space.
Still raining in Boulder, so I'm going to spend the afternoon getting some work done & possibly writing. Read more
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Re-Building My Photography Portfolio
...has been a real pain in the ass.
I used to have a fairly good portfolio going. Some would say it was even kick ass. Good examples of portraiture, uses of artificial and natural lighting and some action photography. I took many of the pictures when I was freelancing as a production photographer during my freshman year, as well as from that summer photographing bands in Tampa.
Only about 20 stills, but most are now lost and gone forever thanks to a fried power book about a year ago. I think I still have a paper copy of it at my mom's somewhere, but even getting scans of those wouldn't be anything compared to having the .RAW files. So this pretty much sucks. It really really sucks.
So now I'm going through the process of reconstructing my portfolio. I've culled through the few gigs of pictures I did manage to backup, but only came up with a few pictures I still like. Which means that I need to shoot more, but its a bit hard with my work schedule.
There's a link in my sidebar now, and here's the gallery below.
Read more
I used to have a fairly good portfolio going. Some would say it was even kick ass. Good examples of portraiture, uses of artificial and natural lighting and some action photography. I took many of the pictures when I was freelancing as a production photographer during my freshman year, as well as from that summer photographing bands in Tampa.
Only about 20 stills, but most are now lost and gone forever thanks to a fried power book about a year ago. I think I still have a paper copy of it at my mom's somewhere, but even getting scans of those wouldn't be anything compared to having the .RAW files. So this pretty much sucks. It really really sucks.
So now I'm going through the process of reconstructing my portfolio. I've culled through the few gigs of pictures I did manage to backup, but only came up with a few pictures I still like. Which means that I need to shoot more, but its a bit hard with my work schedule.
There's a link in my sidebar now, and here's the gallery below.
Another Frightening Week with the Economy
So the Economy is failing. Really failing, actually. It's impossible to ignore, even for someone that lives on cash, like me. The numbers may seem unreal, and the entire structure of the global credit market can be at times surreal with all those trailing zeros.
Personally, its been a tremendous learning experience for me because I was never interested in economics in school, and barely remember passing high school econ. But I'm a shrewd and curious person, so when I started hearing about the subprime mortgage crisis earlier this year, I began to look into it.
That was about the time that I started listening to This American Life religiously. And of all the unlikely news sources, I've learned the most about the global credit crisis from this oft-kilter left of center Saturday afternoon radio show.
TAL has a great way of breaking down the relationships and steps that have led to 3 weeks of roller coastering stock averages and a freeze up of the credit markets that are threatening to plunge America, and the world for that matter into depression.
Admittedly, I was upset about the bailout when it was first propsed. Partly, this is because the politicians in this counrty aren't capable of properly explaining such a complex problem. Although the roots of this are spurious and deplorable, its imperative to stop the freezing up of credit markets and attempt to bring stability to the stock markets.
And most important of this whole thing is to learn to regulate again and vote for responsible leadership. I don't necessarily think Barack Obama has all the answers, but I think of either of the candidates he is more to listen to intellective advice instead of an anti-intellectual base.
Here are some useful links:
Planet Money - An extension of This American Life's financial coverage.Read more
This American Life streams all of their episodes. Listen to Giant Pool of Money and
Another Frightening Show About the Economy.
The New York Times talks about how TAL has done such a good job of explaining this by asking the "dumb" questions.
Also at The New York Times, a great interactive graphic about the severity of the current crisis.
How Credit Default Swaps are spreading the effects of the Sub Prime Mortgage Crisis.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Meta Kills
Had time on my lunch break today to stop by Meta to pick up a new shop deck, and was rewarded with a new super scary graphic just in time for halloween. I'm usually a big fan of simple graphics on boards--that's why I started buying shop decks--but this is pretty rad. I love the feeling of a new deck the first few times you skate it, when all the pop is still in the tail, especially when you combine it with new wheels and bearings.
I'm psyched to skate this weekend, too bad it's supposed to snow. Read more
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Sarah Palin Scored an 841
http://buzzfeed.com/scott/sarah-palins-sat-scores
Which is fucking ridiculous. At least George W. Bush went to Yale, for christ's sake. Can you even go to community college with a score that low? Is this an example of a rational choice for a VP? Answer: no.
Thats it for right now, just pretty incensed by that. Read more
Which is fucking ridiculous. At least George W. Bush went to Yale, for christ's sake. Can you even go to community college with a score that low? Is this an example of a rational choice for a VP? Answer: no.
Thats it for right now, just pretty incensed by that. Read more
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Broken Skateboards and Domain Names
I don't think those are two things that should necessarily go together, but I guess that's a testament to how strange my day has been. After cramming 5 hours of work at the slave house this morning, I met with Carlos to set up and appointment and then found Amy when she got out of class. Came home and had lunch on our balcony because the weather is still beautiful. Minus the internet not working all afternoon, fuck you comcast, everything was comin' up Milhouse!
Until about six o'clock.
That's when I decided to take advantage of the last hour or so of daylight and go skateboarding. I've been loving these ledges of the pedestrian underpass near my apartment, so naturally I was just going to hit those up for my new favorite trick, the bs noseslide (ollie up, slide along rail / ledge / whatever with the nose of your board). But on the way I brilliantly decided to epic fail a gap ollie. Great, bloody elbow & swollen wrist + palm before I even fucking get to where I was going. Shaking it off, I hit both ends of the ledges for a while and was having a great sesh. Progressively moving to higher and higher onto the ledge, I was hitting new slides pretty well for not having skated for a few days.
Then my fat ass decided to crack my board at the nose.
It wasn't a complete break, so I was able to angrily limp across the street to get a gatorade and then push home on a creaking, broken board. And that was epic fail #2.
Then at home with hurt hands and in need of a new deck, I decided to finally register my domain name. I did it through google, but not through blogger, which turned into a fucking two hour nightmare which left me frustrated and upset and Amy mad as hell because of my shitty attitude.
I stepped away and talked to Amy about how terrible my evening had turned, and less than 15 minutes later I sucessfully linked my newly founded domain with the blog and was feeling much, much better about things.
And I wanted one of the new Meta decks anyway. Read more
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Drunk Goggles for Gmail
So, not that this has ever happened to me, but sometimes when you're drunk on a friday or saturday night the internets get dangerous. Facebook, myspace, gmail, all can make for some serious regrets when you're sober and hungover in the morning. (Note: I stopped using MySpace about a year ago because it was too slow and full of spammers.) So Google labs is offering a filtering service before it lets you send that drunken proclamation of love / hate on friday night.
I think its a funny idea that has great practical applications. Always impressive, g-men.
On another note, there's a fabulous blog post over at Small Parts: Choking Hazard, and I expect good things to come from this. And I love the title, wish I'd though of it. A few other things to check out: Alex's excellent biweekly podcast has been giving me excellent tune-age when I'm trapped behind budget spreadsheets in my home office. And for the record Google Reader is still trying to ruin my life.
I've been super busy working on an upcoming project (one whose details I'm unfortunately unable to divulge until a bit later in the game), but I'm working with some great people. Read more
I think its a funny idea that has great practical applications. Always impressive, g-men.
On another note, there's a fabulous blog post over at Small Parts: Choking Hazard, and I expect good things to come from this. And I love the title, wish I'd though of it. A few other things to check out: Alex's excellent biweekly podcast has been giving me excellent tune-age when I'm trapped behind budget spreadsheets in my home office. And for the record Google Reader is still trying to ruin my life.
I've been super busy working on an upcoming project (one whose details I'm unfortunately unable to divulge until a bit later in the game), but I'm working with some great people. Read more
Sunday, October 5, 2008
New Writing
Here's a single session piece I wrote before bed the other night:
What a vague, terrible time we live in.
I ride my bike to work and picture a future where there are no new cars, just rusted out hulking suvs that burn expensive fuel and pollute the already polluted streets. It feels like this is the beginning of something real actually happening. You can feel it. People are nervous. Even the weather is erratic. The delicate balance as they say has been knocked off kilter, and is slowly spiraling downward towards chaos.
At least it feels that way.
There's nothing more pathetic than an empire in decline, and thats how I feel the first of October two-thousand and eight. Even when I drop all the politics I still have an ugly, vapid culture staring me back in the face. There's no surprise that real greed is even more painful and damaging then what's in the movies. Real greed pushes this entire country off the edge of a cliff with nothing to do about it but sit back and occasionally blog. My generation is too busy updating its damn facebook to look around and realize that the america that they grew up in is changing and falling behind the rest of the world.
A few months ago I read the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. There's great emphasis in the later books about the empire's decline, about its shabby fall into physical and intellectual decay. It's weird that I can see little examples of that here and there, little cracks in the facade of the richest nation on earth.
Even the homeless population in Boulder seems to have grown a bit, favoring the young and desperate. Why get a job that takes money out of your meager paycheck when you can panhandle and keep one hundred percent of your profits? Some of the street performers make hundreds of dollars a day, and even the least pathetic looking vagrant is bound to get a least a few bucks every couple hours. And they just get to sit around getting high and talking shit with their other street kid friends. We call them mall kids, and avoid eye contact at all costs, except for the occasional sneer. But how are they any less american than I am? They're living on terms that they alone brokered, like cowboys in the old west. Except their horse is a pipe and the mall is their sunset. But anyway, this population has always been here, regardless of whats happening with the economy.
I guess that I should be glad I have a job, even though I hate it, and I should be glad that I at least make the same amount of money that I did a year ago. But I need more. I need to relegate this unpleasantness to my early twenties and be done with it. I need to be paid for doing what I'm good at, and I'm starting to figure out what that is. Read more
What a vague, terrible time we live in.
I ride my bike to work and picture a future where there are no new cars, just rusted out hulking suvs that burn expensive fuel and pollute the already polluted streets. It feels like this is the beginning of something real actually happening. You can feel it. People are nervous. Even the weather is erratic. The delicate balance as they say has been knocked off kilter, and is slowly spiraling downward towards chaos.
At least it feels that way.
There's nothing more pathetic than an empire in decline, and thats how I feel the first of October two-thousand and eight. Even when I drop all the politics I still have an ugly, vapid culture staring me back in the face. There's no surprise that real greed is even more painful and damaging then what's in the movies. Real greed pushes this entire country off the edge of a cliff with nothing to do about it but sit back and occasionally blog. My generation is too busy updating its damn facebook to look around and realize that the america that they grew up in is changing and falling behind the rest of the world.
A few months ago I read the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. There's great emphasis in the later books about the empire's decline, about its shabby fall into physical and intellectual decay. It's weird that I can see little examples of that here and there, little cracks in the facade of the richest nation on earth.
Even the homeless population in Boulder seems to have grown a bit, favoring the young and desperate. Why get a job that takes money out of your meager paycheck when you can panhandle and keep one hundred percent of your profits? Some of the street performers make hundreds of dollars a day, and even the least pathetic looking vagrant is bound to get a least a few bucks every couple hours. And they just get to sit around getting high and talking shit with their other street kid friends. We call them mall kids, and avoid eye contact at all costs, except for the occasional sneer. But how are they any less american than I am? They're living on terms that they alone brokered, like cowboys in the old west. Except their horse is a pipe and the mall is their sunset. But anyway, this population has always been here, regardless of whats happening with the economy.
I guess that I should be glad I have a job, even though I hate it, and I should be glad that I at least make the same amount of money that I did a year ago. But I need more. I need to relegate this unpleasantness to my early twenties and be done with it. I need to be paid for doing what I'm good at, and I'm starting to figure out what that is. Read more
Support Your Local Library
I usually take the care to misspell library on nearly every occasion to (libary being the favorite), but I've decided to take the high road and not do that in my headline.
This week I picked up a great book at the Boulder Public Library, and its really an invaluable resource to me. I tend to buy a lot of books, and although they're mostly used, it still has the tendency to be financially straining. So I've sort of created a cycle to my reading that involves alternating phases of exclusively using the library and exclusively buying my books. There is some overlap, but for the past year or so its worked itself out to be a fairly predictable transition.
One of the best reasons for going to the library is to check out books that you wouldn't normally consider buying, but are still worth a read. Mostly trashy fiction and super serious dense non-fiction--both of which I thoroughly enjoy reading, and the latter of which I'm reading now.
Every Man A Speculator by Steve Fraser is a comprehensive (and I mean comprehensive, complete with thick appendices) history of America's relationship with Wall Street, as sort of a lay man's guide to the most complexly historical parts of our economy. Given the nature of the news the past few weeks, this was an easy choice and is a surprisingly light read. Well, light only in the figurative sense; it's an easy 600 pages.
So generally I'm pretty open with my casual reading regardless of whether or not I'm purchasing. I'll read anything, nearly. Just keep it interesting and keep it moving is the motto I stick to, and I came across this subject via one of my favorite sources of news and cultural commentary, NPR.
I wouldn't say that I'm addicted to NPR, nor have I drank the cool-aide and donated to them or anything, but it does make great background noise for most of my workday. The author, Steve Frase, was on the interview program Fresh Air this past wednesday and lets say he was interesting enough to prompt me to take a walk to the library on my lunch break and pick up one of his books. This isn't his newest title, that one was checked out, but this was one of the books mentioned on Fresh Air.
And remember, kids: knowledge is power! Read more
This week I picked up a great book at the Boulder Public Library, and its really an invaluable resource to me. I tend to buy a lot of books, and although they're mostly used, it still has the tendency to be financially straining. So I've sort of created a cycle to my reading that involves alternating phases of exclusively using the library and exclusively buying my books. There is some overlap, but for the past year or so its worked itself out to be a fairly predictable transition.
One of the best reasons for going to the library is to check out books that you wouldn't normally consider buying, but are still worth a read. Mostly trashy fiction and super serious dense non-fiction--both of which I thoroughly enjoy reading, and the latter of which I'm reading now.
Every Man A Speculator by Steve Fraser is a comprehensive (and I mean comprehensive, complete with thick appendices) history of America's relationship with Wall Street, as sort of a lay man's guide to the most complexly historical parts of our economy. Given the nature of the news the past few weeks, this was an easy choice and is a surprisingly light read. Well, light only in the figurative sense; it's an easy 600 pages.
So generally I'm pretty open with my casual reading regardless of whether or not I'm purchasing. I'll read anything, nearly. Just keep it interesting and keep it moving is the motto I stick to, and I came across this subject via one of my favorite sources of news and cultural commentary, NPR.
I wouldn't say that I'm addicted to NPR, nor have I drank the cool-aide and donated to them or anything, but it does make great background noise for most of my workday. The author, Steve Frase, was on the interview program Fresh Air this past wednesday and lets say he was interesting enough to prompt me to take a walk to the library on my lunch break and pick up one of his books. This isn't his newest title, that one was checked out, but this was one of the books mentioned on Fresh Air.
And remember, kids: knowledge is power! Read more
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Even More Live Blogging!
wookiehangover: #vpdebate quasi-caves, gotta be careful of them
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:26 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate Biden's lookin good
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:25 PM
wookiehangover: all she has to say is 'hockey mom' and i win palin bingo
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:19 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate apparently scott mcclellan was appointed commanding general in Afghanistan while I was tweet'ing
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:18 PM Read more
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:26 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate Biden's lookin good
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:25 PM
wookiehangover: all she has to say is 'hockey mom' and i win palin bingo
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:19 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate apparently scott mcclellan was appointed commanding general in Afghanistan while I was tweet'ing
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:18 PM Read more
Live Blogging the VP debate
wookiehangover: #vpdebate i hate children and people with families
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:13 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate yeah scranton!
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:11 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate ahh she just winked at me
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:10 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate john mccain knows how to win a war, ask him about vietnam
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:07 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate oooh, 70% percent disapproval debate honey
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:55 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate this whole administration has been an abject failure, you can go a head and say it, joe
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:54 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate second holocaust, gotta get a point for that
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:52 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate kissinger talking to palin, thats a lark
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:49 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate there is it again new-clu-lur. and again. a third time. she's a dumbshit.
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:48 PM
wookiehangover: Ok, palin bingo is just about tied up now
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:46 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate ouch, tongue tied-much
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:43 PM Read more
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:13 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate yeah scranton!
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:11 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate ahh she just winked at me
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:10 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate john mccain knows how to win a war, ask him about vietnam
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 8:07 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate oooh, 70% percent disapproval debate honey
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:55 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate this whole administration has been an abject failure, you can go a head and say it, joe
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:54 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate second holocaust, gotta get a point for that
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:52 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate kissinger talking to palin, thats a lark
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:49 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate there is it again new-clu-lur. and again. a third time. she's a dumbshit.
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:48 PM
wookiehangover: Ok, palin bingo is just about tied up now
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:46 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate ouch, tongue tied-much
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:43 PM Read more
Live Blogging the VP debate
wookiehangover: #vpdebate lies, lies, lies sarah
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:40 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate foreign policy, oh yeah track is in iraq, hope he get shot
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:39 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate you aren't tolerant sarah, you're just not
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:38 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate same sex marriage rocks, joe
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:37 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate NEW-CLU-LUR lol what a dumb cunt
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:35 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate she's rambling!
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:32 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate ooh boy here comes the climate change question
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:31 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate can we all just get over this goddamn main street / wallstreet shit?
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:28 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate Just spit out those econ catchphrases, sugar. Biden just audibly sighed.
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:27 PM
wookiehangover: Attacking the government when ur party's been running shit? DUMB.
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:19 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate Dammit losing already at Palin bingo. ooh, Biden's full of zingers
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:14 PM
wookiehangover: joe six-pack, really sarah?
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:12 PM
wookiehangover: Like a trained bird, she starts to speak...
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:05 PM
wookiehangover: Nice outfit, sarah. the whole little "can i call you joe" thing was cute, too.
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:03 PM
So I'm gonna try live blogging this little showdown between Smokin' Joe Biden and Dumbshit Sarah Palin, complete with Palin Bingo! Prepping with some Countdown, which makes it pretty clear which side I'm rooting for, but Olberman is a nice change of pace from the O'Reily-centric cable media of the past decade. I think I'm gonna go the route of just tweet'ing the shit of this thing too.
Debate's starting let's go! Read more
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:40 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate foreign policy, oh yeah track is in iraq, hope he get shot
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:39 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate you aren't tolerant sarah, you're just not
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:38 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate same sex marriage rocks, joe
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:37 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate NEW-CLU-LUR lol what a dumb cunt
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:35 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate she's rambling!
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:32 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate ooh boy here comes the climate change question
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:31 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate can we all just get over this goddamn main street / wallstreet shit?
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:28 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate Just spit out those econ catchphrases, sugar. Biden just audibly sighed.
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:27 PM
wookiehangover: Attacking the government when ur party's been running shit? DUMB.
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:19 PM
wookiehangover: #vpdebate Dammit losing already at Palin bingo. ooh, Biden's full of zingers
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:14 PM
wookiehangover: joe six-pack, really sarah?
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:12 PM
wookiehangover: Like a trained bird, she starts to speak...
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:05 PM
wookiehangover: Nice outfit, sarah. the whole little "can i call you joe" thing was cute, too.
Thu, Oct 2, 2008 7:03 PM
So I'm gonna try live blogging this little showdown between Smokin' Joe Biden and Dumbshit Sarah Palin, complete with Palin Bingo! Prepping with some Countdown, which makes it pretty clear which side I'm rooting for, but Olberman is a nice change of pace from the O'Reily-centric cable media of the past decade. I think I'm gonna go the route of just tweet'ing the shit of this thing too.
Debate's starting let's go! Read more
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
777 Means Nothing to Me
If only if the dow had dropped 666 points yesterday, I could be blogging about this being yet another harbinger of the apocalypse. But alas, there was a last minute speech from House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and over 100 Republicans helped to put an end to bailout package 1.0. So in turn, the fiduciary gods decided to punish the markets for congress' unwillingness to prop up the now failed money markets.
Personally, and this is really only from the standpoint of greed, I have absolutely no interest in this bailout coming to fruition. Now, thats not to say that I don't understand why it may be necessary, but the realities of my personal financial situation make this impossible to agree to. Isn't personal fiscal freedom the most important aspect of a free market economy?
The markets are volatile, yes. Perhaps this is a sign that we may need to rethink some of our most basic tenets of modern banking. Maybe all of this fictional borrowing and trading has finally gotten the better of itself. But on the same note, the last major (by that I mean on the scale of only this and the great depression) government interference with banking institutions came with the New Deal, which helped to lay the foundation of sixty years of almost uninterrupted American prosperity and wealth.
I think that the urgency that all this has been carried out with is tantamount to its failure. Our lame duck president has only brokered another deal to bail out those to whom he has already helped so much through his blindfolded economics policy. I think that this can wait until a more nuanced, rational president is in office. Read more
Personally, and this is really only from the standpoint of greed, I have absolutely no interest in this bailout coming to fruition. Now, thats not to say that I don't understand why it may be necessary, but the realities of my personal financial situation make this impossible to agree to. Isn't personal fiscal freedom the most important aspect of a free market economy?
The markets are volatile, yes. Perhaps this is a sign that we may need to rethink some of our most basic tenets of modern banking. Maybe all of this fictional borrowing and trading has finally gotten the better of itself. But on the same note, the last major (by that I mean on the scale of only this and the great depression) government interference with banking institutions came with the New Deal, which helped to lay the foundation of sixty years of almost uninterrupted American prosperity and wealth.
I think that the urgency that all this has been carried out with is tantamount to its failure. Our lame duck president has only brokered another deal to bail out those to whom he has already helped so much through his blindfolded economics policy. I think that this can wait until a more nuanced, rational president is in office. Read more
Monday, September 29, 2008
More reasons to love Roku
Especially now that I've forced it to always stream at 2.2mbps! During my struggle to keep up with my google reader today, I found this gem, a mortal combat-esque button combo that opens a debugging menu! The only options that are available relate to streaming and a debugging mode, but you can set your default streaming speed. This is great because my internet connection can usually always deliver the full 2.2mbps (thats 4 netflix quality dots / 480p 4:3 and 16:9), which is consistently better than my comcast cable, and having this as a default option is great.
I can't say enough how satisfied I've been with the netflix roku player. Now that they've announced that a SDK and plans to open the player up to other streaming services, there's lots of hope for not only HD quality streaming, but also potential for making it a front end for a home streaming-media server (sort of like the one living in my home office).
Opening this device up would really be a big move for Roku, and I hope they stick to the language in their press release, that "everyone" could develop streaming for this thing. I knew that there was good reason to invest in this, because its more and more becoming the center of my television consumption.
On the note of streaming media servers, my linux box is coming along quite nicely. Now I've got all my interface tweaks up, a reliable smb.conf file and firefly streaming my backup'ed itunes library. The only real drag is making my macbook act as the frontend when I want to connect my tv to the sever.
My ugly, ugly setup for watching everything:
Also, the time has come to properly wall mount my tv and condense my tangled mess of cables and components into a proper shelving unit. Although it doesn't really bother me that my setup is messy, which it is, because it all works beautifully. The next addition is a ps3 or xbox 360, obviously. Read more
I can't say enough how satisfied I've been with the netflix roku player. Now that they've announced that a SDK and plans to open the player up to other streaming services, there's lots of hope for not only HD quality streaming, but also potential for making it a front end for a home streaming-media server (sort of like the one living in my home office).
Opening this device up would really be a big move for Roku, and I hope they stick to the language in their press release, that "everyone" could develop streaming for this thing. I knew that there was good reason to invest in this, because its more and more becoming the center of my television consumption.
On the note of streaming media servers, my linux box is coming along quite nicely. Now I've got all my interface tweaks up, a reliable smb.conf file and firefly streaming my backup'ed itunes library. The only real drag is making my macbook act as the frontend when I want to connect my tv to the sever.
My ugly, ugly setup for watching everything:
Also, the time has come to properly wall mount my tv and condense my tangled mess of cables and components into a proper shelving unit. Although it doesn't really bother me that my setup is messy, which it is, because it all works beautifully. The next addition is a ps3 or xbox 360, obviously. Read more
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Production Stills
At the wrap party for Breathless, the movie I worked on a few weeks ago, I got a dvd with all the production still on it, and there are some really great photos. It was a lot of fun despite the long hours and night shoots. We got some really good looking footage, and Mr. Koester is going to have a pretty hott little movie at the end of this.
Here are the stills:
Pedestrian bridge we lit:
Some pretty big guns:
There are innumerable pictures of me texting during downtime on set:
Ride that dolly:
Yeah for genny-powered sets:
Read more
Here are the stills:
Pedestrian bridge we lit:
Some pretty big guns:
There are innumerable pictures of me texting during downtime on set:
Ride that dolly:
Yeah for genny-powered sets:
Read more
Friday, September 26, 2008
Presidential Debates Tonight
Gonna watch? Its been a really interesting week, with the federal bailout and the sitting lame duck looking silly. To top that off John McCain "suspending his campaign" to deal with the financial crisis, which didn't really do much other than paint him as a politicking distraction.
Go Obama! Read more
Go Obama! Read more
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Permanent Record is straight from Big Brother
Last night my friend James pointed me to this site, permanentrecord.com, and its actually really scary. Culling bank records, magazine subscriptions and other public information, this thing is literally a directory of almost everyone in America, with detailed demographic information and "guesses" about certain personality traits, even religion. The site is simple enough that anyone could use it. Even though its captcha protected, I don't feel any more comfortable about it.
I searched for the obvious: my name, my family's names, my friends--it had nearly all of them in its database. Not all of the info is correct, but it could potentially be enough to steal someone's identity. Here's part of the site's official statement:
I searched for the obvious: my name, my family's names, my friends--it had nearly all of them in its database. Not all of the info is correct, but it could potentially be enough to steal someone's identity. Here's part of the site's official statement:
Your bank. Your cell phone provider. Your water company. Your government. Your gas station. Where you buy your music. Where you buy your frozen dinners. That timeshare pitch you suffered through a while back. Pretty much every organization you can name. And a few you probably can't.Read more
Amazingly, everything you see here is stuff that other people make public about you, right or wrong. A lot of it can be found with just a few minutes with Google. We bring it all together for you to see. We're going to shake things up a bit.
See, they've been selling your information to each other for years. It's a big industry. So fine, at least now *you* can see what they think they know about you. Of course, invariably some portion of it is wrong, so don't take this too seriously. But like it or not (and who would?) this stuff is part of your Permanent Record because this is what thousands of people and companies use to classify you. Shame, isn't it?
Monday, September 22, 2008
We are so proud of him...
So my older brother, Max, was mentioned in the New York Times today. Its pretty exciting stuff, here's the blurb:
Despite New Law, Subsidized Tenants Find Doors Closed
Maxwell Breed, a lawyer for Ms. Escano’s landlord, Mon-Rose Realty Corporation, said: “Our policy is not to comment on pending litigation.”Way to get our family name out there bud! Despite being generally construed as being on the side of evil, my brother's foray into the tabloids was largely successful. Little else relating to my kinfolk was mentioned. Here's the link to the article:
Despite New Law, Subsidized Tenants Find Doors Closed
via Nytimes
Read more
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Day Off
Spent most of today being punished for going out last night, but was interesting productive as well. I worked on my bitchin linux server for most of the day and am pretty satisfied with what I was able to accomplish. Not only did I get my BOINC client up and running, but I got awm and conky to work finally. And I increased my screen resolution for increased productivity (even if it means ctrl-+'ing every time I open a new tab in firefox).
All suitably nerdy, esp. with the screenshot.
I bought a few more used books today from bookworm, as per usual. Find of the day would have to be Joyce Images by Bob Cato and Greg Vitiello--dozens of great pictures of James Joyce and neat forward by Anthony Burgess.
I attempted to make some nice hi-res scans, but my scanner software was refusing to behave, so I had to settle for slightly lower quality than I wanted. I plan on posting some more of these, but only when I can get a bit better quality out of my scanner, because it can definitely do it.
Also I got a Norton Critical (my favorite edition of pretty much anything) of Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad and Voltaire's hilarious Candide, a nice paperback Great Gatsby from the 70s and a copy of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which has lots of juicy crit in it. Nothing new, per se, except the Conrad, but all great editions of books that I tend to read ad nauseum. Read more
All suitably nerdy, esp. with the screenshot.
I bought a few more used books today from bookworm, as per usual. Find of the day would have to be Joyce Images by Bob Cato and Greg Vitiello--dozens of great pictures of James Joyce and neat forward by Anthony Burgess.
I attempted to make some nice hi-res scans, but my scanner software was refusing to behave, so I had to settle for slightly lower quality than I wanted. I plan on posting some more of these, but only when I can get a bit better quality out of my scanner, because it can definitely do it.Also I got a Norton Critical (my favorite edition of pretty much anything) of Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad and Voltaire's hilarious Candide, a nice paperback Great Gatsby from the 70s and a copy of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which has lots of juicy crit in it. Nothing new, per se, except the Conrad, but all great editions of books that I tend to read ad nauseum. Read more
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