tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5875499687009149042024-03-07T23:25:56.269-07:00Percolate For Success!a directory of frivoltySAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-56039923060580989482008-12-22T19:54:00.002-07:002008-12-22T20:02:29.769-07:00This Blog Is No MoreI 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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />For the time being, my new blog is located at:<br /><br /><a href=" http://samuelbreed.com/percolate">http://samuelbreed.com/percolate</a><br /><br />This address will eventually forward to that address as well, but this iteration of my blog will always live at <a href="http://samuelbreed.blogger.com">http://samuelbreed.blogger.com</a>.<br /><br />-Sam BreedSAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-56573067127939188262008-12-21T19:36:00.004-07:002008-12-21T22:36:26.619-07:00Retrospecticus: 2008<span style="font-weight:bold;">Entry 3:</span><br /><h1>The Year I Started Blogging</h1><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-2458540300950177102008-12-20T15:03:00.005-07:002008-12-20T17:44:59.249-07:00Retrospecticus: 2008<span style="font-weight:bold;">Entry 2:</span><br /><h1>The Year I Started Working</h1>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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SU2RO40zvrI/AAAAAAAAAcU/zjQKb6WjjW4/s1600-h/me+on+a+dolly.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 194px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SU2RO40zvrI/AAAAAAAAAcU/zjQKb6WjjW4/s320/me+on+a+dolly.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282037622933536434" /></a>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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-9853867397345562552008-12-19T19:55:00.008-07:002008-12-19T20:57:18.938-07:00Retrospecticus: 2008As 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.<br /><br />So here it goes:<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Entry 1:</span><br /><h1>The Death of a Hero</h1><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SUxe82eq0_I/AAAAAAAAAcM/4jTt-Q41xFE/s1600-h/Photo+184.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SUxe82eq0_I/AAAAAAAAAcM/4jTt-Q41xFE/s400/Photo+184.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281700862508061682" /></a><br />The photo above was taken the morning of June 23, shortly after I heard that George Carlin was dead. I was really upset.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Carlin">some links</a> <a href="http://www.georgecarlin.com/">to get you started</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o">if you're not already</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrXvDXVhqfU">in the know</a>.SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-56882154542989374862008-12-19T19:22:00.004-07:002008-12-19T19:30:06.703-07:00Ahhh, the irony of it allThe other day, from gchat:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">mk</span>: your SF pics are terrific<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">me</span>: oh thanks<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">mk</span>: what's word with you today?<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">me</span>: shorter day at work, leaving in about 2 hours<br />whats up with you<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">mk</span>: oh the usual<br />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<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">me</span>: yep<br />welcome to your 20s!<br />and early 30s<br />you should start twittering<br /></blockquote>SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-5616572221391822272008-12-16T22:50:00.003-07:002008-12-17T00:11:06.789-07:00Greece is terribly post apocalyptic<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SUiTdfnI6oI/AAAAAAAAAcE/WilRr-qeKUQ/s1600-h/a21_17335163.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 249px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SUiTdfnI6oI/AAAAAAAAAcE/WilRr-qeKUQ/s400/a21_17335163.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280632698003057282" /></a><br />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. <br /><br />Here's a photo gallery that made the top page of <a href="http://digg.com/world_news/2008_Greek_riots_PICS">Digg</a> today. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/2008_greek_riots.html">2008 Greek Riots</a>SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-66296844682668354772008-12-16T12:03:00.006-07:002008-12-18T22:15:44.456-07:00Oh, let the Top 10 Lists Begin:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SUf_BKTBjTI/AAAAAAAAAb8/XpephNwlKTM/s1600-h/photo.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SUf_BKTBjTI/AAAAAAAAAb8/XpephNwlKTM/s400/photo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280469483524295986" /></a><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />1 <span style="font-weight:bold;">Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />2 <span style="font-weight:bold;">Beck - Modern Guilt</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />3 <span style="font-weight:bold;">MGMT - Oracular Spectacular</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />4 <span style="font-weight:bold;">Lil Wayne - Tha Carter 3</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />5 <span style="font-weight:bold;">David Byrne and Brian Eno - Everything that will happen will happen today.</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />6 <span style="font-weight:bold;">She & Him - Volume I</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />7 <span style="font-weight:bold;">Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Modern Life</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />8 <span style="font-weight:bold;">Department of Eagles - In Ear Park</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />9 <span style="font-weight:bold;">Man Man - Rabbit Habbits</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />10 <span style="font-weight:bold;">Girl Talk - Feed the Animals</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />Honorable Mention:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Colin Meloy - Colin Meloy Sings Sam Cooke & Colin Meloy Sings Live!</span><br /><br />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.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend</span><br /><br />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.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />The Replacements Rhino Re-Releases</span> (esp. on vinyl)<br /><br />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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Be_(The_Replacements_album)">Let It Be</a>, aka my favorite record of all time is going to get a nice 180g pressing too. And that's The Replacements, not the Beatles.SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-64245649197855796692008-12-14T19:17:00.007-07:002008-12-14T20:10:54.394-07:00Vista Experiment Dual booting XP, Part 3So 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.<br /><br />Like anything Ubuntu related, I found the correct answer through the <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org">Ubuntu Forums</a>. It's threads like <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=179902&highlight=grub">this one</a> 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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />Also, this really wouldn't have happened if not for <a href="http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_linux_is_already_installed.htm?page=1">this article over at APCmag</a>, 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.</span>SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-68003310393007785692008-12-14T14:17:00.003-07:002008-12-14T14:40:32.090-07:00Vista Experiment, Part 2: Epic Fail<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SUV7CHyM-sI/AAAAAAAAAbc/ZbQyr_WvtHc/s1600-h/photo.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SUV7CHyM-sI/AAAAAAAAAbc/ZbQyr_WvtHc/s400/photo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279761414541343426" /></a><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />Just a couple of notes on the install so far:<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />It's funny too that my failed Vista install happened today, hot on the heels of <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/155473/windows_xp_continues.html">this article at PCWorld</a>, about how XP is refusing to fall by wayside behind Vista.SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-48888266603645225462008-12-14T12:02:00.004-07:002008-12-14T12:13:42.118-07:00Analog Apartment = New Favorite Blog<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SUVY17rykeI/AAAAAAAAAbU/y38ZA6zJyok/s1600-h/FO1KNRNFF8XB8W0.MEDIUM.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SUVY17rykeI/AAAAAAAAAbU/y38ZA6zJyok/s400/FO1KNRNFF8XB8W0.MEDIUM.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279723821739446754" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://analogapartment.com/blog/">Analog Apartment</a> is a new blog that I found out about via twitter. I think they saw my tweet the other day about listening to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia_Electric_Co._(album)">Magnolia Electric Co</a> on vinyl and started to follow me. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />The other cool part of <a href="http://analogapartment.com">Analog Apartment</a> 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!SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-52638960333052763662008-12-14T01:04:00.002-07:002008-12-14T01:15:42.484-07:00Vista Experiment, Part 1Well 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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-85646317832994792282008-12-10T22:13:00.003-07:002008-12-10T22:20:35.117-07:00We Like the Cars, the Cars That Go BOOM!From <a href="http://redheadedruckus.tumblr.com/"><span style="font-style:italic;">Lying In the Gutter, Looking At the Stars</span></a>:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BaeNelsAOGo&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BaeNelsAOGo&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />This is an excellent little <a href="http://tumblr.com">tumblog</a> I found recently, <a href="http://redheadedrukus.tumblr.com">so check it out!</a>SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-87700028082827055622008-12-09T22:55:00.005-07:002008-12-09T23:25:24.316-07:00This 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />That's not to say that this is the last post about this by any means though.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25139756@N07/">flickr</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25139756@N07/3094665752/" title="DSC_0043 by wookiehangover, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3230/3094665752_2d6a7b4b9f_b.jpg" alt="DSC_0043" width="450" /></a><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">I love those abstracted rack focuses. Favorite photo of the weekend.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25139756@N07/3090647919/" title="DSC_0087 by wookiehangover, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3240/3090647919_af49a18af0_b.jpg" width="450" alt="DSC_0087" /></a><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">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.</span></blockquote><br /><br />The other photos are <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25139756@N07/">here</a>. 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!SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-19365271264002762242008-12-03T23:03:00.002-07:002008-12-03T23:06:01.686-07:00Flock Makes Me Feel like I'm Cheating On FireFox<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/PI-Y2Vjt-V4XEfBTb8tyNw?authkey=Pf_OYmCsxa8"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/STdsozNpsLI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/j9s5JIXEO5A/s400/Picture%202.png" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flock.com/">Flock</a> 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.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.digg.com">Digg</a> 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Oh and the branding on their website is lame :PSAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-17374249669788294922008-11-29T18:47:00.004-07:002008-11-29T18:57:49.914-07:00The 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:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/29/why-homebrew-is-bett.html">Home-brew beer</a> with one of my favorite blogs, <a href="http://boingboing.net">BoingBoing</a>.</li><li>Upload pictures into your own <a href="http://www.glassgiant.com/ascii/">ASCII Art</a>!</li><li><a href="http://gizmodo.com/5099175/how-big-is-the-iss-compared-to-science-fiction-spaceships">See how the ISS stacks up</a> to <span style="font-style: italic;">real</span> spacecraft/</li><li><a href="http://www.junauza.com/2008/11/visual-desktop-tour-of-10-fedora.html">A desktop tour</a> of Fedora.</li><li>A great write up of <a href="http://tuxgeek.me/2008/11/itunes-alternative-on-the-mac-songbird-vs-banshee/">Songbird and other iTunes replacements</a> over at <a href="http://tuxgeek.me">TuxGeek.me</a>.<br /></li></ul>SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-13139382069269709352008-11-28T19:19:00.004-07:002008-11-28T19:38:06.421-07:00Some Turkey Day Pictures<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/STCnIgvJBQI/AAAAAAAAAao/dxUphH6HjJo/s1600-h/turkeyday.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/STCnIgvJBQI/AAAAAAAAAao/dxUphH6HjJo/s400/turkeyday.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273898928319300866" border="0" /></a>Amy and I before dinner.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/STCnUxFaEdI/AAAAAAAAAaw/l2rqUJL94HM/s1600-h/photo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/STCnUxFaEdI/AAAAAAAAAaw/l2rqUJL94HM/s400/photo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273899138866090450" border="0" /></a><br />This is the country club where we had dinner yesterday.SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-86562519095236453432008-11-25T22:06:00.002-07:002008-11-25T22:58:21.890-07:00Wine in Ubuntu is the best!<a href="http://winehq.org/">Wine</a> 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.<br /><br />If you're not a linux user, that means that there's no reason for you to know about <a href="http://winehq.org">Wine</a>, 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 <a href="http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/">vmware Fusion</a> and <a href="http://www.parallels.com/">Parallels 4</a> (3 was ok too). On the mac tip, I use vmware Fusion and love it!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Oh, and on the computer front, the <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073">500gb harddrive</a> 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.SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-83127858567317556192008-11-25T22:04:00.002-07:002008-11-25T22:06:03.809-07:00Man Man Seek KittenFrom p-fork:<br /><br />Man Man are apparently seeking a cuddly cute kitten to squeeze into a miniature bowler hat on a video shoot in nyc this weekend. If only betty were a little bit smaller....<br /><br /><a href="http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/147739-man-man-seek-kitten-for-video-shoot">link</a>SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-79466173764541565542008-11-23T10:42:00.002-07:002008-11-23T10:46:10.345-07:00INTERNET<ul><li>Don't ever run <a href="http://www.junauza.com/2008/11/7-deadly-linux-commands.html">these commands</a>, ever.</li><li><a href="http://io9.com/5096241/easter-eggs-in-zack-snyders-insanely-ocd-watchmen-trailer?skyline=true&s=i">Watchmen trailer broken down</a> for what's definitely made it in.</li><li><a href="http://www.itsecurity.com/features/101-easter-eggs-040308/">These</a> are fun if yr bored.</li><li>And, an <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-world/2008/11/20/the-bald-eagle-who-likes-to-swim-115875-20908987/">eagle swimming</a>, a <a href="http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ-jv8g1YVI">cat on a roomba</a>, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybVb3t560oY">chicken police</a>.<br /></li></ul>SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-35638529446897085052008-11-16T14:34:00.004-07:002008-11-16T21:41:03.966-07:00To Trash Or Not To Trash: What to do with 5 years of Music<span style="font-size: 1.25em; text-indent: 1em; margin-top: -6px;">or, 1200 words about hard drives, videos and way too much music</span><br /><br />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? <br /><br />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. <br /><span class="fullpost"><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. </span>SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-41316708020472650502008-11-16T11:51:00.002-07:002008-11-16T21:35:48.327-07:00The Tain<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SSBr25bBtBI/AAAAAAAAAZw/29x6fNHBeVQ/s1600-h/Tain.jpg"><img style="display:block; text-align:left;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SSBr25bBtBI/AAAAAAAAAZw/29x6fNHBeVQ/s400/Tain.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5269330154894767122" /></a><br />A few years ago, <a href="http://www.decemberists.com/">The Decemberists</a>, one of my personal favorites, relesed an EP called The Tain.<br />It was a sinlge 18 miunte track divided into 5 cantos based on the Irish epic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A1in_B%C3%B3_C%C3%BAailnge">Táin Bó Cúailnge</a>. 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.<br /><br />The task was taken by Montana filmmaker <a href="http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/meet_andy_smetanka_the_artist_writer_filmaker_missoula_legend_in_the_making/C8/L8/">Andy Smetanka</a>, 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...<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 <span style="font-weight:bold;">you have to develop</span> is if anything, painstaiking. So here's the embedded video, and a link for the hi-res version. Enjoy!<br /><br /><object width="540" height="425"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="movie" value="http://video.pitchfork.tv/mediaplayer.swf" /><param name="flashvars" value="file=http://pitchfork.tv/node/2472/embed.xml" /><embed src="http://video.pitchfork.tv/mediaplayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="file=http://pitchfork.tv/node/2472/embed.xml" allowfullscreen="true" width="540" height="425"></embed></object><br /><br /><a href="http://pitchfork.tv/videos/the-decemberists-the-tain-">Hi-Res available here</a>SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-89766324822056318402008-11-15T13:41:00.005-07:002008-11-19T00:00:45.606-07:00Boinc Manager: Tough to Explain to Friends, Fun to UseSo 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 <a href="http://boinc.berkeley.edu/">BOINC Manager</a>. If you don't know what an @HOME project is, I'll take a moment to explain.<br /><br />The best and oldest example is the <a href="http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/">SETI@HOME</a> 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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing">cloud computing</a> well before anyone even mentioned the words "Web 2.0".<br /><br />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 <a href="http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/">Rosetta@HOME</a>, researching protein folding for cancer research, and <a href="http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/">Eienstein@HOME</a>, which is searching for pulsars.<br /><br />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, <a href="http://boinc.berkeley.edu/">BOINC</a>, 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.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://distrowatch.com/">distro</a>, like <a href="http://www.puppylinux.com/">Puppy Linux</a> or <a href="http://www.xubuntu.org/">Xubunutu</a>, then setup <a href="http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php">BOINC</a>, pick yr projects and start contributing!<br /><br />Here's a screengrab of my BOINC Client:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SR85qZV46pI/AAAAAAAAAZo/YsdZLSJtBi8/s1600-h/boincmanager.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SR85qZV46pI/AAAAAAAAAZo/YsdZLSJtBi8/s400/boincmanager.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268993489566755474" border="0" /></a>SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-49225380982281170342008-11-14T18:15:00.007-07:002008-11-14T23:54:05.016-07:00Man's Manual For Living<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/qO-pSdauw7pjcuwgyONwWA?authkey=Pf_OYmCsxa8"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_tx24svkrWgQ/SR4j_36wzhI/AAAAAAAAAZc/4rsNVKGbVmU/s400/macgyver-multitool.jpg" style="margin-left:0 auto; margin-right: 0 auto;"/></a><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_problems_solved_by_MacGyver">List of Problems Solved by MacGyver</a><br /><br />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. <br /><br />Some of my favorites include:<br /><blockquote>"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."</blockquote><blockquote>"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."</blockquote><blockquote>"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."</blockquote><br />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.SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-15607772793867718392008-11-13T23:29:00.001-07:002008-11-13T23:31:02.139-07:00Rachel Maddow Gets Rick Roll'd<iframe height="339" width="425" src="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/27708414#27708414" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><br /><br />Nice Rick Rolling, Kent Jones. At (1:45).SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-587549968700914904.post-1723375633311739052008-11-13T23:07:00.002-07:002008-11-13T23:21:12.764-07:00the internets giveth...<ul><li><a href="http://d.imagehost.org/view/0017/2916b1b412ea44fc43c635ed5b492259.jpg">Beeeeeessss!!!</a></li><br /><li><a href="http://www.samuelbreed.com/picture1.png">Digg Down</a> = LAME. Where's all that capital going?</li><br /><li><a href="http://www.red.com/">New Red Cam</a> - Even though I knew it was coming, it's still pretty awesome and cool. Fingers crossed.</li><br /><li><a href="http://tuxgeek.com">TuxGeek</a> - a newish linux / tech blog I found today, added it to my <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/shared/02907599764155696956?hl=en">Google Reader Feed</a>!<br /></ul>SAM BREEDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18301863314171140378noreply@blogger.com0