October 2011
2 posts
March 2011
2 posts
Rancilio S27 Rebuild
Here’s my brand new stupid idea. I bought a old S27, not sure of the manufacturing date for a little bit of money. I plan on completely tearing it down and rebuilding it custom. Basically there are no panels or drip tray cover.
My great idea is to take my two Mac G5 tower cases, chop them up, and make a new case for the S27. Good idea, amiright? The machine is not in terrible shape,...
Creating a Linux based PID
I figured I’d make a post for my new project, creating a Linux-based PID. Not sure why, I’m waiting for xCode 4 to download and I have nothing else scheduled. Basically a PID is something that can measure the heat of an object (coffee roaster, espresso machine) and control the heat by activating the heating element and controlling it more finely than the simple thermo switches the...
January 2011
1 post
Canadian Internet
Monsieur Duceppe, S’il vous plaît noter que ceci est d’origine anglaise et a été traduit par voie électronique. Pouvez-vous s’il vous plaît me dire comment Bell Canada est en mesure de ne pas améliorer la vitesse d’Internet ou de la fiabilité, mais est en mesure d’augmenter les frais? Non seulement ils sont plus leurs propres frais, mais le gouvernement canadien a...
September 2010
1 post
“Zuckerberg’s critics argue that his interpretation and understanding of...”
– http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/09/20/100920fa_fact_vargas?currentPage=all#ixzz0zOynJpFE
August 2010
2 posts
The Social
It makes me feel like everything I’ve posted over the past four years on Twitter, Jaiku, Friendfeed, Plurk, Pownce, and, yes, Google Buzz, has been an immense waste of time. I was shouting into a vast echo chamber where no one could hear me because they were too busy shouting themselves. All this time I’ve been pumping content into the void like some chatterbox Onan. How humiliating. How...
“After observing idiosyncratically bad work, workers may lower their own output...”
– http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25636/
July 2010
6 posts
Death in an Elevator
This is almost and onion article. A 90-year old couple dies of heat exhaustion in their private homes elevator. Here are some quotes from family members.
We always said we hoped they would go together because if one went, the other wouldn’t survive long.
Especially if they were trapped inside a closet sized elevator for days before they die. Who knows how far apart they died? What an...
Kabuki Democracy
So this is it. The whole planet earth, and the lifeforms that have developed gradually over billions of years are going to be undone because of frail and shallow human psychology.
Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal put a ceiling on the amount of carbon to be emitted each year, and would force electricity providers and other polluters to purchase permits directly from the government or from...
Motivation
I’m quoting a inner quote of this article, so forgive me
When we were first acquired, we were not taking long lunches and coffee breaks. We were committed to help this Pink project out and show our stuff. But when our best ideas were knocked down over and over and it began to dawn on us that we were not going to have any real affect on the product, we gave up. We began counting down to the...
Venetian Snares
Amazing video of a Venetian Snares song played in a old school tracker called Renoise. I remember when I was in high school and trackers were really cool but it never seemed like there was a decent solution that worked well and for me, was on a Mac.
It’s neat to see this, I’ve heard rumours that he was using more advanced tech to make music, but now it’s pretty much the most...
Noitu Love
I saw this interesting indie game today. Noitu Love. It’s pretty interesting retro work. But I think it misses the mark for retro games in my opinion.
The environment, the controls, the graphics, animation etc all look really spot on for a NES game. But I think it misses the mark for that very reason. Retro games should definitely be sprite based, retro styled affairs. But they should...
Free Bumpers
This has been a sad few weeks. Now that Apple is being sued over the “poor reception” of the iPhone 4. I wish I wasn’t even talking about it, but it says something very sad about American’s litigious attitude. Apple’s response.
There is now a class-action law suit against Apple in regards to the iPhone, in fact there appears to be several. Even moderate opinions...
June 2010
36 posts
American Psychosis
I’m really fascinated by this article. I’ve always been pretty shocked the news cycle. How so very often something that riles the public can just blow over after enough time. No resolution and nothing fixed.
I like how society at large is described in the article. It’s an ad-hoc construction. A modified version of what the USA was built on hundreds of year ago but slowly...
Doodle Jump
The best case scenario for a game you developed for the iPhone, and sold for 0.99$?
4,000,000$, that’s right. Doodle jump has purportedly made that much money. This is obviously not surprising for the game itself, but it’s pretty shocking none-the-less. DJ has been on the top charts for maybe almost a year now. I’ve read articles about the top-players making ~50,000$ a day in...
Apple out of the PC Business?
Apparently Apple is out of the computer business. I just don’t know Cringely. Sure the Mac is only 25% of Apple revenue now. But what does that mean? iPhones, iPods, iTunes, App Store etc are all raking in relatively more money. I’ve already seen a lot of people make this statement. Apple is out of the PC business, they’ve forsaken OS X. Really?
Even if Apple was a little late...
Pixel Documentary
This is a pretty great documentary. Good overall coverage of the 8-bit music and visual artwork scene. Really interesting work which are mostly all worth pursuing. I wish there was some directions on how to break into this though! That could be really interesting.
Incompetence
Interesting article by Errol Morris about the blind spot that keeps incompetent people from realizing their own incompetence.
I think Errol Morris pretty much over thinks things, and it really seems like he’s paid by the word or something. “At first I thought, then I was puzzled then I realized…” But either way it’s pretty insightful.
I’ve witnessed this a lot...
Trucker's Delight
Trucker’s Delight. Yes. This is some great 8-bit music and some amazing video. Sorry, this is not at all safe for children in any shape or form.
Yes I know it’s old, but it’s too cool.
Scott Pilgrim
Video Games | Scott Pilgrim vs. The World | E3 2010: Exclusive Debut Gameplay Montage HD
I don’t know if this game is going to be any good. But I will give it every chance in the world to be good. I can’t think of any games I’ve loved better than Final Fight, Bad Dudes and a lot of other Left-To-Right fight games from long ago. It also looks like there are twoonies in...
“I will prepare, and someday, my chance will come.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Checkmates Released
Forgot to mention. My brother and I have made a new game. Checkmates! An iPad chess game with a unique pseudo-3D effect. Nobody has this yet.
Just us.
Apple Store
Website
Who knows where we’re going next. Not even me.
Libertarians
I still think about the Libertarianism. It really speaks to people as if we’re all happy to get along with each other. Hey, don’t limit what people can do, the invisible hand of the market will even everything out! How naive can you get.
When Steve Jobs says this about something like the iPad, that’s because that’s how the market works surely. People swear up and down...
Read This Essay By Malcolm Gladwell
I just read this essay by Malcolm Gladwell.
Again! Solace, and explanation of why exactly I don’t feel any satisfaction. An essay detailing how the successful entrepreneurs of the world are really not big risk takers as the mythical stories usually claim. It’s classic Gladwell. The successful are not singularly responsible for their success. They have all sorts of support like Bill...
Paul Graham Quotes
Paul Graham quotes. The most interesting to me is the one below.
5. People unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below.
This is just something I get a lot at work. I am also reminded of an offhand reference that I think Google talked about. A-quality people will hire A-quality people because that’s who they want to work with....
Disaster Mode
This article by Issendai about disaster mode and getting sucked into an organization/relashionship is interesting.
Eventually you’re so crazy that you can’t interact with anyone who isn’t equally crazy. Normal people have either fled, or told you once too often that you’re being stupid and you need to leave. So now you’ve lost all your reality checks. You’re...
Bill Gates' POV on Email
Bill Gates POV in regards to email is not naively utopian. It’s full-blown autism. Good luck on hermetically sealing yourself away Bill. Face to face conversations are one of the highest and most efficient ways to communicate. Anyone who asked two questions in an email and only received an answer to one in the reply knows this. Bill Gates has never been much of a visionary. MS has mostly...
RSA Animate Video
I have to post this video by RSA because I think it encapsulates what I have been pining for. The video is about motivation, and how elusive it actually is.
I get paid okay, but what really gets my goat is the fact that there really isn’t anyone in my organization that really cares much about getting things done with any efficiency or logic. I think that after about a year that started...
Pot This is Kettle...
This is perhaps the funniest thing I’ve read so far about this Apple vs Adobe saga. So, someone from the FSF weighs in saying that Apple does not embrace open systems and they have a walled garden blah blah blah. It’s supremely funny to see a FSF guy say this for one very good reason. Richard Stallman (president of FSF).
If you were to go, say, listen to Richard Stallman speak at a...
Adobe CTO's Letter
An interesting article from Adobe CTO, but still missing the point. He complains that Apple’s strategy is counter the web where there is platform agnostic coding that works on every platform. Apple is apparently not open about their technologies. The part he’s missing is that the App store is never the web, and was never the web.
Apple is open about the web, with WebKit and...
You're Full of Shit Ballmer
I find it really funny when corporations make statements and people have commentary for/against. I realize I’m doing it right now, let’s not get meta.
But what I’m getting at is when people like Steven Ballmer makes some comment about acompetitors release. Everyone feels the need to speed it around the internet maybe attaching some commentary. “Steve Ballmer doesn’t...
Tea Party
I think the tea party has been an indication that the secret-racists of America are now a viable “market” for politicians to try and capture. People like Rand Paul are so very careful to walk the line between outright racism and the wink to the all of bigots that he’s sure to turn his back on whatever crazy direction they go in.
Why is it somehow okay for politicians to act...
Letter Drop for iPhone
My brother an I made a game called LetterDrop for the iPhone. There I said it. It’s a pretty cool game, I don’t know how much time it actually took to make, but it’s been some time. It’s certainly been educational and pretty exciting. iTunes Link Website Link
Afraid
Sometimes when I’m in a McDonalds I am served by someone my age, perhaps older. What is the difference between me and them? I get anxious thinking about. I wonder if you could be marked for life working at such a place. Does your identify you to people as a certain class of person?
Does it determine your place in society? I wonder this because I’m not so please by what my own job says...
On Apple
Oh, how I dislike the internet in general. So many posts on Reddit or Digg or blogs are just insipid grabs for attention, or consumer complaints that the writer wishes to be seen by the offending company so they might have some magical gift.
I have seen so many complaints about Apple like this. People don’t just say “well it broke” or “it shouldn’t have...
Trojan Horse of Openess
Well, Google just wants to be talked about. So, not surprisingly, the cell-phone market is huge and extremely profitable for a lot of companies. As everyone knows, Apple is the champion to beat in the smart phone sector. Every smart phone maker for the last 3 years has a obligation to make themselves the iPhone killer. Even Blackberry has made what ostensibly looks like an iPhone OS (be it with...
Microsoft Implementation Fail
I found this article about Microsoft’s corporate culture enlightening. I’ve often wondered why it is that Microsoft is able to come up with interesting ideas and then botch the actual implementation. They never seemed to have fleshed out the actual application of the idea or the markets they would target (or create, which only Apple has done since the GUI).
I used to think that they...
Microsoft is Interested in Scale and Scale Alone
Oh oh, MSFT has responded to the original article, that I mentioned (I’m still tertiary). Apparently ClearType , a stifled tech in the original article is now a major part of Windows AT SCALE. Yes, just so you know, the code for this product is present on every copy of windows. Millions of them! Of course they skillfully didn’t say whether it was used on those machines, but the code is...
Cognition Enhancement
I’m moving from underabunant.comThis is a draft I never completed based on an article which I read. I’m not sure I’d read it again. So I post it now. Stanford Magazine has an interesting article about cognition-enhancing drugs becoming common place.
Interesting to say the least. When something like this becomes common place it’s hard to really say no. Even athletes taking...
Wifi State of the Art
I’m moving from my old site underabundant.comJuly 3rd 2009 This is a response to Rob Landley July 2nd, 2009.
Networking requirements are like computers, they need a killer-app to drive demand for faster speeds and capacity. I work at a University that uses VOIP technology. This has really driven us to standardize our network (cabling and speed minimums) at pretty high bandwidths in order to...
An Apple eBook Reader should be a large iPhone
moving from my old site underabundant.comJune 29th 2009
I love to read but I know I read immersively somewhat less now — and I’m in the publishing industry,
-Evan Schnittman, vice president of global business development at Oxford University Press
I don’t know if it’s coming, but if it is, the Apple eBook reader should be like an iPhone and not like a laptop. What I...
iPhone : Metric
Moving from old blog underabundant
JUNE 26th 2009
Just surprised to find out that the iPhone’s Core Location feature is based on the metric system. This is a really good job on Apple’s part in regards to keeping it international. They’re an American company making phones for the world, and they’re using the real multi-national measurement system.
Is Microsoft Copying Bang Bus?
I’m moving from my old blog underabundant.com
April 12th 2009
Is there something wrong with Microsoft? They must pay billions of dollars on ads, but the only ad from them that I’ve ever enjoyed was the Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld epic. But even that should be leaving a bad taste in peoples mouths. Bill Gates acts arrogant and aloof with the mega-rich Jerry Seinfeld (who, in...
Montreal Real-Estate
I’m moving from my old blog underabundant.comMARCH 04th 2009
I am sort-of considering buying a house these days. So far I am extremely disappointed with what I see in the real-estate world. The information on many houses is less than a typical eBay auction, and it’s near impossible to get anymore from the agents.
Looking through myriad of different posts the information on each...
Quebec Housing: Biased Towards Tenants, Landlords...
I’m moving my posts off my old blog underabundant.com
MARCH 11th 2009
I have been looking at real estate lately and have been thinking about moving, and I have to talk about this subject. I don’t think that the housing laws in Quebec make any sense, I don’t think they are really advantageous for anyone and I think it affects how people live a great deal. Whenever you talk to...
Why I Don't Like the Watchmen
I’m moving from my old blog underabundant.com MARCH 18th 2009
I read Watchmen a long time ago. I had borrowed it from a friend who recommended it highly. I believe I was between jobs at the time (or bored) and was more or less just passing the time. I had already read V for Vendetta and passed on 300 (on first glance). Watchmen was a pretty interesting read, at that time, and I had a...
The Problem With Midibox
I’m moving my posts from my old blog underabundant.com.FROM MARCH 2nd 2009
I have finally setup my blog. Typically they are half-assed attempts at writing about different subjects that interest me. Unfortunately I usually peter out after some time. I’d like to think it will be different this time.
Before, I tried to make my own blogging software; where I would obsessively build and...