...and encouraging people to come to Thursdays on First this week and eat, drink, and be merry! In particular...from 4pm-5:30pm on the south stage (next to Bilotti's and Dooley's on First Ave) will be...my band! From Bob Marley reggae to Aretha Franklin soul to Santana, we will be doing some great tunes!
Come one, come all!
Monday, August 30, 2010
DADT
There are so many of these stories I don't generally forward them (just hop on youtube and search on "DADT" and you'll see them) but this is an example of the perfectly good servicepeople and officers that we're discharging for absolutely no good reason. This guy was discharged despite keeping quiet about his personal life and despite both his captain and chief saying how good a serviceman he was and how much they needed him back on duty.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Wesley Snipes as Geordi???
Another fun one for all you Star Trek TNG fans:
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/08/star-trekcasting.html
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/08/star-trekcasting.html
We're in trouble...
I know you can edit video and find stupid people, but the fact that there are even THIS MANY functioning adult people in our country that don't know some of the most simple things about history and current events is tragic.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Video Game nostalgia
All of you that played Atari 2600 games will remember these:
http://www.rundlc.com/news/the-misleading-world-of-atari-box-art-part-two-xbox-live/
I think it was kind of fun to imagine what the game would actually look like/do based on the graphic on the front of the game. Now we're pretty much there :)
http://www.rundlc.com/news/the-misleading-world-of-atari-box-art-part-two-xbox-live/
I think it was kind of fun to imagine what the game would actually look like/do based on the graphic on the front of the game. Now we're pretty much there :)
10 ideas to change the world
A neat/short pictoral article with some great simple ideas. Thanks to friend Dan for this one:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/23/10.simple.things/index.html?hpt=C2
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/23/10.simple.things/index.html?hpt=C2
Monday, August 16, 2010
Big Band Weather
Lots of fun and beautiful weather going on last night in Pine Island, as I subbed on lead alto for the "Rochester Big Band", a band I've played with in the past. The Pine Island crowd at the band shell was great, the weather was great, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of playing big band music :)
An overall productive weekend, including our "kitty" life returning to normal as Fluffy Face is now out of kitty jail and we're slowly letting him back into more rooms. It's nice to see them both back chasing each other around and laying in their favorite spots by the window on the couch. Besides investing in a second identical litter box (so they each have their "own"), I purchased some cat-calming plugins from catfaeries.com, as well as cleaning the spots Fluffy Face has had accidents on a number of times with the special "kitty-be-gone" scent-removing enzyme.
In the coming weeks I'll be gearing up for what should be a great musical evening, playing saxophone with my friend Dan's "put-together" band. We had our first rehearsal last week and WOW is there some talent there. We are playing from 4pm-5:30pm at the south stage of Thursdays on First on September 2nd, opening for the feature band that evening. I encourage everyone to come out and have some drinks at Dooley's pub and sit and take in the great music :)
An overall productive weekend, including our "kitty" life returning to normal as Fluffy Face is now out of kitty jail and we're slowly letting him back into more rooms. It's nice to see them both back chasing each other around and laying in their favorite spots by the window on the couch. Besides investing in a second identical litter box (so they each have their "own"), I purchased some cat-calming plugins from catfaeries.com, as well as cleaning the spots Fluffy Face has had accidents on a number of times with the special "kitty-be-gone" scent-removing enzyme.
In the coming weeks I'll be gearing up for what should be a great musical evening, playing saxophone with my friend Dan's "put-together" band. We had our first rehearsal last week and WOW is there some talent there. We are playing from 4pm-5:30pm at the south stage of Thursdays on First on September 2nd, opening for the feature band that evening. I encourage everyone to come out and have some drinks at Dooley's pub and sit and take in the great music :)
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Some historical geek stuff
First, George Lucas must need to buy another few ranches or something, because here come the Star Wars movies on...Blu Ray.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/14/george-lucas-officially-announces-star-wars-on-blu-ray-in-2011/
I have purchased the "original" ep 4, 5, and 6 four times now - the original VHS tapes (Han shoots first), the THX remastered VHS (Han shoots first) which was a dumb purchase because I didn't have a sound system to handle the better sound at the time, Special Edition VHS widescreen (Greedo shoots first, Jabba in Star Wars, super cleaned up special effects, extra Darth Vader walk scene in Empire), and finally the Special Edition DVD widescreen (Anakin at the end has been replaced by the Episode 2 and 3 Anakin). I doubt I'll be buying the Blu-Rays unless something changes - I haven't dove into Blu-Ray yet and don't plan to, as I predict in 5 years physical media will be obsolete in favor of everything being streamed/online.
Second, a fun "comparison" article between the Apple II graphics tablet (from 1979) and the Apple iPad:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9180224/Face_off_1979_Apple_Graphics_Tablet_vs._2010_Apple_iPad
Of course realistically there is no comparison, but it is a great illustration of how technology has changed between 1979 and 2010. I think one of the most interesting points is that the graphics pad was $650 in 1979, the iPad and its thousands of times more advanced technology is $499 in 2010. $650 in 1979 is $1900 in 2010 adjusted for inflation. So for roughly 1/4 of the cost of the 1979 graphic pad we are getting the iPad.
I didn't have a graphics pad, but I did have two Apple IIGS's, and grew up learning to program on Apple IIe's and original MacIntoshes. I remember the memory card we added to our IIGS - originally it comes with 512k of memory (k!!!!) and there was a huge card you could buy, roughly the size of a VHS tape, that added another 512k (k!!!). I just bought two tiny 2G (gig!!!!) memory modules that were about the size of a half a credit card.
And the original Apple IIGS processor? 1MHz (one megahertz). My current Intel core i7 is 3GHz (three gigahertz). My phone processor is 1GHz. The processor in the TV is probably at least 300MHz, heck the fridge probably has a microprocessor bigger than that, the ABS in my car uses at least a 486/66MHz processor :)
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/14/george-lucas-officially-announces-star-wars-on-blu-ray-in-2011/
I have purchased the "original" ep 4, 5, and 6 four times now - the original VHS tapes (Han shoots first), the THX remastered VHS (Han shoots first) which was a dumb purchase because I didn't have a sound system to handle the better sound at the time, Special Edition VHS widescreen (Greedo shoots first, Jabba in Star Wars, super cleaned up special effects, extra Darth Vader walk scene in Empire), and finally the Special Edition DVD widescreen (Anakin at the end has been replaced by the Episode 2 and 3 Anakin). I doubt I'll be buying the Blu-Rays unless something changes - I haven't dove into Blu-Ray yet and don't plan to, as I predict in 5 years physical media will be obsolete in favor of everything being streamed/online.
Second, a fun "comparison" article between the Apple II graphics tablet (from 1979) and the Apple iPad:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9180224/Face_off_1979_Apple_Graphics_Tablet_vs._2010_Apple_iPad
Of course realistically there is no comparison, but it is a great illustration of how technology has changed between 1979 and 2010. I think one of the most interesting points is that the graphics pad was $650 in 1979, the iPad and its thousands of times more advanced technology is $499 in 2010. $650 in 1979 is $1900 in 2010 adjusted for inflation. So for roughly 1/4 of the cost of the 1979 graphic pad we are getting the iPad.
I didn't have a graphics pad, but I did have two Apple IIGS's, and grew up learning to program on Apple IIe's and original MacIntoshes. I remember the memory card we added to our IIGS - originally it comes with 512k of memory (k!!!!) and there was a huge card you could buy, roughly the size of a VHS tape, that added another 512k (k!!!). I just bought two tiny 2G (gig!!!!) memory modules that were about the size of a half a credit card.
And the original Apple IIGS processor? 1MHz (one megahertz). My current Intel core i7 is 3GHz (three gigahertz). My phone processor is 1GHz. The processor in the TV is probably at least 300MHz, heck the fridge probably has a microprocessor bigger than that, the ABS in my car uses at least a 486/66MHz processor :)
Rubik
I love that 30 years later, the Rubik's cube is still in the news:
http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/study-uncovers-every-possible-rubik-s-cube-solution/1407748
http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/study-uncovers-every-possible-rubik-s-cube-solution/1407748
Friday, August 13, 2010
Corporations should stay out of politics...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Liberal-groups-push-to-apf-2321043209.html?x=0
I'll refrain from commenting on the particular situation with Target...in general though, this is the exact reason why it's in the best interest of corporations and companies to stay out of the election part of politics. In this example, if Target donates money to a candidate or organization on "the other side" they are opening themselves up to everyone demanding that they also donate to their "side" in order not to alienate anyone.
So, while I firmly believe that there shouldn't be a law prohibiting anyone from making political donations or support (the Supreme Court struck down the laws that have been passed to try to limit and categorize who and what can and can't donate, and personally I think that any type of grouping or limiting is a violation of the first amemdment), I believe companies are smartest to stay out of this stuff, and stick to doing things based on business decisions. A good example are companies that offer domestic partner benefits to their employees - it's much easier (and to me, less discriminating) to say "we offer domestic partner benefits to our employees because we want to attract the best talent available, regardless of their race, gender, orientation, etc." vs. "we offer domestic partner benefits to our employees because we are taking a moral stand in favor of the civil rights of GLBT people". To take the position of wanting to hire the best and brightest employees, period, is as non-discriminating as you can be, and is a hard statement for anyone to argue with or be offended by.
I'll refrain from commenting on the particular situation with Target...in general though, this is the exact reason why it's in the best interest of corporations and companies to stay out of the election part of politics. In this example, if Target donates money to a candidate or organization on "the other side" they are opening themselves up to everyone demanding that they also donate to their "side" in order not to alienate anyone.
So, while I firmly believe that there shouldn't be a law prohibiting anyone from making political donations or support (the Supreme Court struck down the laws that have been passed to try to limit and categorize who and what can and can't donate, and personally I think that any type of grouping or limiting is a violation of the first amemdment), I believe companies are smartest to stay out of this stuff, and stick to doing things based on business decisions. A good example are companies that offer domestic partner benefits to their employees - it's much easier (and to me, less discriminating) to say "we offer domestic partner benefits to our employees because we want to attract the best talent available, regardless of their race, gender, orientation, etc." vs. "we offer domestic partner benefits to our employees because we are taking a moral stand in favor of the civil rights of GLBT people". To take the position of wanting to hire the best and brightest employees, period, is as non-discriminating as you can be, and is a hard statement for anyone to argue with or be offended by.
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