As of October of 2007, Apple has sold approximately 120 million iPods worldwide. At approximately $250 each, that’s $30 billion dollars in revenue. It is without a doubt one of Apple’s crowning technical achievements, both for the ingenuity of the hardware and for the revolutionary integration with software on several platforms. And yet lately, as I’ve trekked the 30 minute walk between my home and work with my iPod blaring away, I’ve started to wonder what the impact of this technology really is. For starters, those of us who listen to iPods frequently are subjecting ourselves to potential ...

I’m pretty much the least star-struck person I know. I met the Barenaked Ladies a long time ago, ran into David Duchovny at UBC during the X-Files, and last year ended up sitting beside Aaron Eckhart at the Vancouver Airport bar for a while. So when I heard that Jennifer Aniston was filming a block from where I work, I didn’t really think anything of it. On my way home tonight as I was passing the Hyatt on Burrard Street I decided to stop for a sec and see if I could watch anything being filmed or check out the lighting and stuff. Right when I was about to keep moving I heard a voice nearby ...

Yes, it’s that time of month again, maid day. When I got sick with pneumonia in the fall my mom came and spent a few days with me and ended up cleaning my entire apartment. Being a busy, single guy, it was in a pretty sad state. My mom, being a constant worrier, implored me, for her sake, to get someone to help clean my apartment so it would be clean and I wouldn’t have to worry about getting sick at home. Since I’m sort of cheap (at least for things that don’t involve technology), but wanted to put my mom’s mind at ease, I made myself a compromise — I’d get a maid but cancel my ...

Tonight I ended up down at the Paramount theatre in Vancouver for a premiere of Cloverfield. For those of you who keep up with such things, Cloverfield has been somewhat of a mystery, relying mainly on word of mouth and a few minutes of raw footage released as a trailer for promotional means. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD Going into the movie, I basically expected something similar to the Blair Witch Project, and for the most part, that’s exactly what I got. Granted there are a few more effects in this movie, and it is set in the heart of Manhattan, but for the most part it’s just the regurgitation ...

Eight easy steps: 1. Toss and turn all night 2. Fall asleep at 5am 3. Get up at 9:30am and try to head to work 4. Call a cab, and tell him to take you to work 5. Pay cab driver. Drop money all over the cab and look dumb. 6. Exit cab and close door, making sure to slam your iPod touch in the door 7. Stand there looking at iPod touch drive away with cab driver, only to fall off a half block away 8. Pick up iPod touch on the concrete, now without headphones ...

For the last few months, we’ve all been hearing Clay complain about being out of breath and not being able to walk very far around the office. His general doctor did some tests on him and said there wasn’t anything wrong and that he should just move past it. Eventually Clay got referred to a specialist since things just kept getting worse for him. Turns out he has a blockage in his heart which is why he’s having problems. Tomorrow Clay is heading down for an angiogram, and will probably have to get a stent in his heart. My dad had something similar last year, and while the procedure is relatively ...

I got an email this morning asking if I’d like to speak at a university technology conference in Venezuela in May. All expenses would be paid for. Caracas, Venezuela, photo by josemazcona Fun party in Caracas, photo my rmendezHell yah baby. Hell yah. I just have to come up with something to talk about. Maybe I’ll talk about the cute group of women pictured above. ...

Photo by miss604Be afraid. Be very afraid. I’m heading out to watch this tonight with Rebecca, John and John. Rebecca had tickets to the Vancouver premiere and invited me along, which is totally exciting. I’m going on the record as saying I’m pretty sure this is going to suck (the trailer reminds me of a techy Blair Witch Project), but it’ll be a fun suck with a bunch of friends. That sounds dirty, I know. Check out the trailer below: I’m pretty sure the entire budget for the film went into the funky Independence-Day-looking poster, just to attract more people. ...

I set up a small photography website over at photography.duanestorey.com a while ago. I think I’m going to over haul it this weekend and make it a bit better. I also want to get a domain name for it and make it a proper stand-alone site. If anyone has any ideas for a cool name for a photography site, fire me off an email. I’ve been trying to come up with west-coast oriented names, but so far no go. I’ll give a free 8×12 print and a blog entry on the new site for the person that picks the winner! Thanks! ...

Yup, I now have proof that yours truly is in fact a published travel photographer. What does that mean? That if you have a plane, a sandy beach, and maybe a few cute locals in bikinis waiting, I’d be more than happy to come help you out by shooting some photos. Air Transat’s In Flight Magazine, Atmosphere Air Transat sent me a few hard copies of their Atmosphere in-flight magazine, since I had only heard from a friend that some of my photos made it in. Sure enough, a few of my photos from the Dominican Republic are on pages 20-21 of the Winter edition of Atmosphere. Thanks for mailing it ...

I’ve been using Leopard now for around 3 months, and to be honest, I’m really not impressed at all. It’s an extremely buggy OS with a bunch of mediocre improvements, many of which I haven’t really found a use for. Spaces? I actually thought these would be cool, but I just haven’t been able to find a good use for them. In fact, I find myself accidentally switching between spaces from time to time thanks to how heavily I rely on the control and option keys for other things. Stacks is another completely useless feature, mainly because you can’t really see enough icons. Plus, it’s generally ...

Apple just announced an ultra-think notebook computer called the Air. Photo by Gnackgnackgranck on Flickr Looks pretty cool, but it doesn’t have a DVD drive, and is sealed shut like a big iPod. Based on my experiences with my Macbook Pro and Leopard, I think I’m definitely pulling myself out of the “early-adopter” crowd with Apple and waiting a while this round to see what happens. ...

I’ve decided that I want to go snowboarding a few times this season, starting like right now. I’m definitely going to hit Seymour with Rebecca and John soon, but was wondering if any other of my crazy readers were hitting the slopes this year. If so, where do you normally go? I need people who kind of suck to go with, since I’m pretty much guaranteed to roll down most of the hills. Snowboard, photo by miss604 The good news is that I absolutely hate my powershot camera, and will happily bring it along with the hope that I will a) capture some great, funny moments of me falling and/or b) ...

I have, for the last few years, had an idea about something I’ve wanted to do involving technology. I was talking to Boris about this a while ago, and I’m pretty certain this actually has a real name and has been done many times before in various cities. But for now, I’m just going to describe what would happen, and we’ll decide an official name later (until of course Boris wakes up in whatever country he is in and chimes in). The idea is that over the course of one full weekend (that is, starting Friday at 7pm until Sunday at midnight) you get a team of people together to develop a product/service/technology ...

Here are a few photos from the photo walk along the beach yesterday. The rest of them can be found on my Flickr photoset. ...

In about 30 minutes, the beach photowalk near my place is going to begin. It turned out to be a rather nice day with some ideal light, so hopefully there will be a pile of great shots taken. The challenge always for me is figuring out what lens to bring and what exactly I want to shoot. I haven’t shot film in quite a while, so I loaded some 160VC portrait film in my one camera and put my wide angle on it, and will bring my 70-200mm f/2.8L for doing some portraits near the water. I’m just making some coffee and making sure my cameras are good to go, then heading downstairs to meet people. I’ll ...

Keira and me, photo by Miss604 Read about the fun and the magic over at Rebecca’s website. Tonight is also Rebecca’s birthday margarita party. Should be fun. ...

Last night, Rebecca and Trevor told me about the sex show this weekend taking place at the Vancouver Convention Center. Since I’ve never been to one, and haven’t had an opportunity to take my camera out in a few weeks, I decided to head down and check it out. Live Entertainment In terms of layout and logistics, it was like any other tech conference I had ever been at. There were tons of booths, some of which made sense given the aim of the sex show, and some which obviously shouldn’t have been there. One that comes to mind is Sun Life Financial in the back corner. Seriously, do you really ...

I get a lot of notifications in my inbox daily about scientific rumblings going on in the world, but this one caught my eye this evening. Some recent NASA data in the arctic region seems to point to a huge acceleration in the melting rate of the ice — should the melting continue at its current rate, NASA scientists project that it’s only a matter of years before the arctic might be completely ice free in the summers. An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping ...

Anyone know of any micropayment gateways available in Canada? I’ve been looking at paypal and Amazon’s FPS system, but both of those only support micropayments in the US. Anyone have any ideas at all? ...