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The Magpie Developer
Jeff Atwood is one of the best programmer/writers around. I love reading his stuff, some I agree wholeheartedly with, other stuff we disagree, but this post is about a dead-on as they come. This idea has been floating in my head for a long time, but it is hard for me to conceptualize it in words, Atwood does a brilliant job at it. Must read for any developer. |
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Andy Olmsted's Last Blog Entry.
(Warning: Pretty rough) No matter how you feel politically about the war, this reminds you that each number people throw around as statistics is a human life. This is extremely well written, and pretty rough on your soul towards the end, but something everyone should read. Its a shitty situation all around, but there is always a human face behind the statistics and I want to make sure I never forget that. |
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Drinking stories that put yours to shame
Via Keith
To preserve his body during the voyage home, the second-in-command stored Nelson's body in the ship's vat of rum and halted all liquor rations to the crew. Not a bad idea, but when the ship reached port, officials went to retrieve Nelson's body and found the vat dry.
Disregarding good taste (in every sense), the crew had been secretly drinking from it the entire way home. After that, naval rum was referred to as Nelson's Blood. |
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making vodka pills in 24 hours
Recently, Chef Fabian was experimenting further with the Adria/Torreblanca technique of making 'vodka pills.' I use this word to describe the process of making liquid-filled candies by pouring flavored alcohol syrups into cornstarch and letting it set until a hard outer shell forms. |
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Strategy Letter VI - joelonsoftware.com
As a programmer, thanks to plummeting memory prices, and CPU speeds doubling every year, you had a choice. You could spend six months rewriting your inner loops in Assembler, or take six months off to play drums in a rock and roll band, and in either case, your program would run faster. Assembler programmers don’t have groupies.
Entire Article is Dead On. A must read for anyone in the software biz. |
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(Tuesday, November 7)
HD movies, TV shows coming to Xbox Live
"On November 22, the anniversary of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft will be offering high-definition television shows and movies for download. The offerings span a large demographic, from CBS and Nascar to Adult Swim and MTV (yes, 'Pimp My Ride' will be included). Movies include, Nacho Libre, Superman Returns, and the original Jackass: The Movie. The TV shows will be download to own, while the movies will only be rentals."
I love Netflix and have no problem wtih DVD quality movies currently. Yes HD does look better but it isn't going to make me upgrade my equipment and dvds to HD/Blue Ray. The #1 reason I won't is the HDCP, I still like having a DVD in my hand and acting like a Ninja wanting to throw it at something. During last week's Xbox Live upgrade I noticed the media section had changed, so I figured this was inevitable (although I figured it would only be music/tv shows at first). This seems to be their first step with the Zune tie ins for the x360, i assume that Urge will be coming to the x360 soon also (which is a good thing because we pay a monthly fee for it and I would love it to come to the x360), but alas I don't think my measly 20gig x360 hard drive is gonna make it very far... OH WAIT! WHATS That you say? a 100 gig HD is on the way from MS? How convenient!!1!
Anyways, I won't be downloading and paying for any movies on my x360 anytime soon (esp with cable boxes being so nifty these day) but it is a step forward. I just hope average Joe doesn't think it is cool to pay $5-10 for a movie downloaded over an hour to his x360 which he can ONLY watch on his 360 is even comparable to just driving down the street to blockbuster and picking it up, or to Best Buy and paying $15 to OWN a copy of it.
There is this really good cartoon I saw in a guitar magazine once that had this kid with his electric guitar and all these fuzz boxes and stomp boxes and processing equipment and he is standing with all this equipment and his electric guitar and he looks at the other guy and says "Check it out dude I can make it sound like an acoustic" That pretty much sums up this announcement for me.
HD movies, TV shows coming to Xbox Live
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Travis - The Boy With No Name
Travis is back. I wouldn't say I hated 12 memories, it was meant to be very political, I just thought it went a little overboard and was somewhat preachy. Then when the greatest hits CD came out to be honest I was really hoping it didn't mean the end to one of my favorite brit bands. Boy With No Name is everything they were capable of. Supurb CD all the way through. Every song is brilliant. Big Chair is probably my favorite song and the opening to the CD on 3 Times is as good as it gets in music imho. |
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Pop! Why Bubbles are Great For The Economys (Gross)
One of the better economic books I have read in while, where the author gets their premise across in a well written, clear and concise manner. Basically Gross believes that the infrastructure left over after economic bubbles, provides companies with the ability to move forward (maybe more than the original bubble did). Not a hard read, I would definitely suggest it for a day and the beach/lake. |
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Feist - The Reminder
I CANNOT GET "I feel it all" OUT OF MY HEAD. Period. Great album, angelic voice. |
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Catan - Xbox Live Arcade
I am hopelessly addicted to this board-turned-video game on the xbox360. I had never played the board game but had seen it being played in some comic shops growing up. Click the Pick and play the demo, it isn't the 360 interface, but same game. |
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Arctic Monkeys - Favorite Worse Nightmare
No Sophomore slump here. Just as good (if not better) than Whatever they Say. |
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Beautiful Evidence (Tufte)
Tufte reads like a text book, most people would say bleh, but the information about "information" that he can deliver is top notch. My first Tufte book was "A Visual Display To Quantitative Information" and it was extremely well done, albeit confusing at time. I think beautiful Evidence is a little easier of a read (I am still only half way through it) and a little easier for myself to understand the ideas he is presenting.. |
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Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather
Fountains of Wayne are the Gods of pop music. If Welcome Interstate Managers was a collection of short stories in song form, then Traffic and Weather is an even better collection with more humor. I already feel like CNN has the hottest female anchors, imagining them throwing their lust around like the Title track to the CD makes it even better. |
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Game of Thrones (Martin)
I started this book assuming it was going to be a high fantasy novel. Elfs, Dragons, Magic and the like. It isn't. It IS fantasy but more surrounding the politics and cunning of a few high ranking families. Incest, Murder, Intrigue, unscrupulous midgets. It has it all and more. |
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.
© Copyright 2003-2007, Eric Thompson |
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