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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, January 9)
AT&T FTW (IPTV on xbox360 Cont'd)
In talking to Microsoft today at their booth I discovered that the Podcasts speculation that this really won't be all that different from current cable TV is correct:
* The service will be offered in the US thorugh AT&T's lightspeed, which provides 35Mbps in bandwidth to the home. So AT&T would replace your local cable company and ISP.
* This bandwidth should be enough for 2 HD channels and 2 SD channels to be viewed simultaneously. The service will be comparable to existing cable offerings, only the provider will be AT&T.
* Availablity will be determined by AT&T's buildout of infratructure up to the last mile (The last mile will remain copper.).
* The service will be available with a regular set top box that is not an Xbox 360. However, with an Xbox 360 you get some nice features like the ability to access Xbox live (e.g. chat, accept game invitations) while wathing TV.
* For homes with an existing home network, your router will need to be replaced with a router that has special QOS (qulaity of service) features that enable the system to work well.
Just plain WOW (if this blog post is correct)
I had envisioned this to be brought out to multiple broadband carriers then slowly rescind into 1 carrier. MS is going for the death blow though with cable operators. Of course they are going to have to have a service provider with excellent speed (35MBS, I salivate over the thought of having that speed at my house), but man partnering for only one company in the US? Comcast (which includes Adelphia) should be convening a meeting of the minds on this one, they may get left behind when AT&T starts offering a free xbox360 with a 3 year contract to their service coupled with a 35MBS connection for regular voice (voip), Home Internet Service, and IPTV (Cable replacement). They could also throw in cellular service if they really wanted (Cingular acquisition).
If this is true, then AT&T seems a little more ahead of the game imho than some, in 2 days they possibly have made the announcements of huge deals above with Microsoft and also a very large deal with Apple (if you take into consideration the Cingular/iPhone announcements). Both of which are competing with each other in the digital TV home market. Apple with AppleTV and of course the MS with the x360.
Sounds kind of like when I read the Jobs keynote today, First Schmidt came out from Google, then Yang from Yahoo within a 10 min span. I bet the phrase "then everyone is a winner" gets thrown around at these high level meetings. I also wonder if it ever really works out that way though.
Peoples Republic Of: Xbox 360 and IPTV
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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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