So our pal John Biehler is currently soaking up the rays in Hawaii with his wife. It’s been a long tradition of ours (and by long, I mean about two months) of having a nerd camp at my place. We had one today and John couldn’t make it, so here’s a quick Flickr video showing what he’s been up to: ...
Video by Miss604:
We all have a pile of computer work to do this weekend, so we’re just sitting around messing with them. One of these days I’ll take my christmas tree down. ...
So I felt like flexing my brain a bit tonight. Everyone has been going rather stir crazy over Flickr video, so tonight I uploaded a few and played around. Two things I really like:
The quality is really good
They let you use whatever aspect ratio you want
Those are two big wins in my eyes. Anyways, I reverse engineered their RSS feed a bit, and modified the Crossroads plugin to handle video. The end result is now on my website, and you can play with it my clicking on the videos listed in the sidebar.
Have fun! ...
Yesterday I read a really interesting article about the end of Windows as we know it. I can’t say that I disagree with that assessment at all.
As many of you know, Windows Vista was basically my sole reason for moving to a Mac last year. I had installed it on my Toshiba notebook computer and it was the slowest piece of a garbage I had ever used — none of the drivers worked properly, and it crashed for no reason. The worse part was their “upgrade wizard” said my machine would be fine. Here’s a little video I took while installing it (looks like it’s up to 50,000 views on YouTube):
The ...
Yes, sports fans, it’s been twelve days since I decided to move my hosting back onto my living room floor. So far, it’s been 12 days of pure bliss, of heavenly visions filled with bunny rabbits and endless fields of sunshine and happiness, where kids run forever.
But seriously, things have been going rather great. I haven’t had a single hiccup, and get complete SQL backups emailed to me twice a day, just in case something were to ever go wrong. All my data is backed up with RAID 5 storage (and will email me whenever a drive starts to get old, thanks to hourly SMART diagnostics), so unless ...
I just saw a fairly recent (February 2008) film showing a slide-show that Al Gore recently gave on climate change. Here’s a version of the video from Ted.com. It’s inline with the material presented in his film, An Inconvenient Truth, but includes recent data and observations.
I watched that video once earlier today, and once again the moment this posting went live. To be honest, while I think he makes amazing points, I have a hard time watching it, mostly because the frustration is so evident in his speech. As far as he is concerned (along with most of the scientists out there), everything ...
Back at it again. Now that the Junos are over, I’m basically full swing back into the daily grind. I have an interesting optimization problem at work that I’ll write about at some point (from the perspective of how to speed up compilation of a project), but other than that, it’s just business as usual.
I started getting a tickle in my throat yesterday which has somehow exploded into a full-on sore throat today. So, while I’m at work, I feel like I’m on the verge of getting sick. It’s most likely related to being on a few crowded planes and shaking hands with tons of new people last ...
Ok, I’m going to go into rant mode. Why is everyone so enamored with Google these days? I read yesterday about their recent Google App Engine, and didn’t really see anything that particularly turned my crank.
I’ve been bouncing around the web today reading what people are saying, and for the most part, everyone is down in the People’s Temple drinking the Kool-Aid. I don’t think the App Engine is a bad idea, I just don’t really get why you’d even consider it, especially considering AWS is around and has a much more flexible offering.
First, I’m going to start by saying that 99% ...
Russell Peters:
One of the best things I heard him say all weekend was his response to a question a reporter asked him during the press conference. They asked him what he was bringing to the Junos this year that was different than what previous hosts have brought.
He responded “talent” ...
Well, I am officially 31, and I feel old. Tonight, Keira, Amy, John and Rebecca came by and spent the night eating nachos and watching Apple TV with me. I easily had over 100 messages between email and Facebook related to my birthday, which considering where I was last year, is totally amazing and completely appreciated. You guys are all awesome.
On the plane today I ran into my old high school friend, Laura Street, and we spent the flight chatting about old times. I think there’s a camping trip in Banff on the horizon for all of us. But until then, thanks so much.
Tomorrow I’ll write about ...
I’m sitting in a hotel room, in Calgary, lying in bed in my boxers, eating some nachos that were delivered via room service. That, people, is how I rang in my 31st birthday tonight. There were lots of parties going on in Calgary, but truth is I just wanted to relax, watch some TV, and reflect on another year.
I actually had the perfect photo to put up here for this entry. It was a shot of me with a bunch of other photographers at the Junos, all hanging out with Russell Peters after the awards. I thought it would be a fun shot, and would sort of sum up this weekend for me in a photo. But when ...
So, I really don’t know how to describe the last few hours. It was pretty amazing.
The thing is, I was invited to shoot photos on the red carpet for some all inclusive event. Unfortunately, even though it was sponsored by a company and they wanted lots of publicity, as a photographer most of us weren’t allowed inside. So after about 20 minutes of taking photographs in the cold, I figured I had better uses for my time, and headed down to this other party downtown (thanks to a girl we met during the night).
Anyways, despite not being on the guest list, we all somehow get ourselves into the hotel. ...
I picked up a cab and headed down to the Saddledome to attend the Junos tonight. However, as soon as I got to the front door, I was told that I wasn’t allowed inside by some lady. Of course, I received countless emails that said I had access to this event, which of course I tried to explain to her. Her argument was that those emails didn’t mean anything, and that they were limited by space. Eventually she let me in, but it was a rather big hassle.
The media room here is fairly nuts. There are about twice as many photographers as last night, but they are stuffed in about half of the space. ...
First, the Penthouse Party at the Fairmont in Calgary. It was awesome. I put my camera down the entire time and just enjoyed myself, which was cool because almost every Juno nominee at the Juno Fan Fare came and hung out. I sat down and put myself next to this really cute girl (Nadine) from a Toronto Media Company. While chatting with her, the guys from State Of Shock swung by and I chatted with them for a while (great guys). There were Juno nominees everywhere, but I was too busy mingling and drinking free beer to notice.
I just got back from a full behind-the-scenes look at the Junos setup for ...
So there were five bands that played tonight, and to be honest, they were all awesome in their own way. I’m not a big country fan, but standing three feet away from Justin Rutledge listening to the guy pour his heart out in a southern drawl is enough to rope anyone in. Lindsay Ell was an absolute cutey, and I even got a chance to talk to her briefly after the show.
And while they were all awesome, God Made Me Funky was pretty unbelievable. They are a group of eight members from the Toronto area, and their show is this amazing mix of funk and dance. I had the opportunity to talk to Danny from ...