I purchased the MacHeist NanoBundle this morning. I haven’t gotten much of a chance to look at the apps included yet, but a big draw was MacJournal, which appears to be compatible with independent wordpress installs (this is my test). Also Tracks looks like it could have some serious potential. It’s a little menu bar icon that allows you to search your itunes library and find/play a specific song super quickly. It also scrobbles to last.fm for you if you want (I do want). I’ll put up some more info as I have a chance to play with the applications more, but until then you’re probably best of going to macheist.com to look at the list of programs yourself because I believe there’s only one more day left to purchase.
On my walk home from the bus today I felt extra compelled to make something of myself as a blogger. I decided (like I do every other time I feel this way) that the most significant trait of a successful writer/blogger/sharer/internet media person is that they provide a constant a reliable stream of content. In order to create content you need topics, or even just one topic. I set out to obtain such a topic via twitter.
Now when Hitesh responded he wanted me to write a post about “How soccer explains the world” I assume he meant he wanted my view point on how you can explain the worlds happenings, troubles, etc through soccer. I’m going to take the cop out and state what many of you already know. How Soccer Explains the World is a book. Now that I’ve stated the dull fact I can proceed to briefly share some of my thoughts on said book.
It’s a moderately compelling read. Even if you’re not a huge soccer fan, you’ll probably want to finish the book once you start just because it mostly contains interesting stories rather than “solely soccer material.” You’ll come across stories of Red Star Belgrade essentially being used to proliferate genocide. Later you’ll get into anti-semitism expressed towards Tottenham Hotspur and how their fans decided to embrace it as part of the cultural identity of the club. Religious ties continue during the discussion of the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers, and you can’t helped but be entertained by the strangeness of how the clubs have embraced players of religious faith different than each of their historical basis.
Towards the end of the book you’ll hear about how the writer really mainly became interested in the book because he took a walk through Barcelona’s museum. At that point you’ll realize he did some good research but isn’t connected to the game with the same intensity you are. You’ll have decided the rest of the book is now less interesting. That’s how it will go, now you can go read the book and tell me I was right.
Cal Tech and MIT have had a fun rivalry going for a few years now (or rather the practice of hacking between the two schools increased during my undergrad years). Knowing that I wasn’t too surprised when I received a link to mitrejects.com and saw the end result.
It’s a relatively harmless and humorous little joke, but I wonder how the Cal Tech administration will respond. More interestingly, I wonder the Cal Tech administration can do. I doubt there is any law on the books anywhere that mentions “defamation via domain name.” My guess is that Cal Tech will look of the owner of the domain name and ask them nicely to stop redirecting it to caltech.edu. The joke may end there, but if the owner of the domain name politely declines the request, I expect that Cal Tech will look into legal options before ultimately realizing that the mostly likely option for resolving the issue will be to issue a request or “take-down notice” of some sort to the domain registrar for the domain mitrejects.com. At that point it would not at all surprise me if the domain redirect was killed by the registrar, trumping the wishes of the actual owner of the domain name.
It’s a realistic possibility, and it begs a couple questions:
- Should there be laws preventing this sort of internet bullying/pranking?
- Should your domain registrar really be able to force you to accept terms of use that cede your control of the domain to them?
Note: this is all entirely speculative, and potentially completely wrong and inaccurate. I however, don’t think it’s a bad guess.
A ball is played cross field, where 1 defensive and 1 offensive player are within a playable distance of the ball. The defensive player makes the first touch on the ball out of the air, knocking the ball beyond his control. The offensive player runs straight through the ball heading it forward towards goal. The ball rolls clear and the defensive player hits the offensive player from the side, sending him tumbling to the ground, and eliminating his play on goal. The referee blows the play dead for a direct free kick, no booking is made. The referee has made a number of questionable and uncertain calls through the first half up to this point in the 42nd minute. The conversation with the referee proceeds in a completely calm and conversational manner as follows:
Offensive Player: “Of all the calls you’ve made in the game, that is the one that should be a yellow card.”
Referee: “There’s no yellow there.”
Offensive Player: “Well I didn’t expect you to know what you’re talking about.”
Referee: “That’s a yellow right there!”
While walking home this evening from the light rail stop I heard the most interesting criticism of the iPad anyone has mentioned yet:
It doesn’t even have a DVD player.
Listening to the concerns of people who don’t make their living around software or technology can sometimes be quite enlightening.
I arrived in Texas on Thursday night. A few of us (MS employees) were in town for a Microsoft recruiting event at the University of Texas. The event was Friday afternoon and closed out a busy week of classes and career fairs for students. While I’m sure some of the students were tired from all the activity, the turn out was quite good and gauging from the students I talked to afterwards a number of them enjoyed the event. Highlights from the trip include:
- The recruiting event (I got to to talk to a lot of students, and it’s always interesting to answer their questions and remember what it was like when I was asking the questions)
- Walking around the UT-Austin campus. It’s enormous and quite different from my college campus
- The Salt Lick. What I was told is the best BBQ in Texas. That claim may be inflated, but it still stands as the biggest restaurant I’ve ever seen, with the biggest parking lot, and it’s the only restaurant I’ve ever been to that is BYOB and people regularly walk in with enormous coolers.
- I also was able to get in a run on Friday. I might be getting back into shape a bit because my muscles are not nearly as tired as I would have expected.
I’m pretty tired from the slight time shift. Even though it’s only two hours getting up earlier than I’m used to and inadvertently shifting my meal times starts to get to me.
It’ll be time to board the flight back towards Seattle shortly, and at this point I’ll be glad to get on the plane. I’m starting to get uncomfortable sitting on the floor (ready access to power outlet for the laptop…)
Monday it’s time to get back to work making software. Things are starting to get busy, but it will be to have lots of stuff going on around the office.
“I don’t need new friends, I keep the ones I know.”
I Know - Evidence - The Weatherman LP
The fact is this is not the case for me, perhaps I wish it were. I don’t really move around that much, but in recent years be it for school or work I tend to uproot my life leaving behind most of what I know.
I think this Dilbert comment may know more about my soul than even I do.
One day you could be driving home from work and realize you’re driving behind a Sith Lord. On that day you’ll likely realize one of two things:
- I really wish I was a Sith Lord
- I’m really glad I’m not that guy
These pictures are from some time spent in Quito on my way back to the US from Ecuador this past April. I had a long layover so I spent most of the day with a family friend. While we were driving home in the evening I got these pictures of kids hopping in the back of the truck. Whenever the vehicle slowed down or came to a stop more kids hopped in. Before they all finally jumped out and ran away there were 18 of them in riding in back. The only pictures I could get were with my iPhone towards the beginning, they all shyed away when they saw me get my camera out.
