Samurai.Chris - Chris Vacano, est. 1972

My Brother Sent Me This...

Thu, 2 Apr 2009 21:34:30 UTC

www.joyoftech.com

Why the Music Industry's Whining about Piracy is a Bunch of HOOOEY

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:51:03 UTC

During The Pirate Bay trial, the music industry placed the blame for the decline in their revenues squarely on the shoulders of file-sharers. Their logic is clearly flawed, but it could sway the verdict if no alternative explanation is presented. So, if piracy isn’t to blame, then what is *actually* killing the music industry?

[ full article from TorrentFreak ]

MacHeist 3 is under way

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:42:37 UTC

MacHeist 3 is up and rolling, and has already had 2 nanoMissions and 1 full mission. If you've never participated, it's a lot of fun. They people behind it, known as "the Directorate", have created an immersive online game environment where participants get to act out their latent hacker fantasies, solving puzzles and breaking through some very clever "security systems" (puzzles) with the end goal of getting free copies of popular shareware apps for the Mac.

If you're a Mac user, and haven't tried it, I recommend checking it out. Like I've said before, it's a lot of fun. And it's a chance to join a very friendly community of Mac users from around the world.

www.macheist.com

Best. Meal. Ever.

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:39:41 UTC

Okay, I promised myself I would write about this, and have been kind of slow getting to it. Back at the beginning of July, I road-tripped with the missus and the madre back to Colorado to visit friends and family (it was so wonderful to see you guys!!!!).

Let me wander off on a tangent for a moment... I promise, it's relevant. Have you ever seen "Swimming to Cambodia"? It's basically a film of a live performance piece by Spalding Gray (God rest his soul). In it, he talks about how when he travels, he looks for the 'perfect moment'... that experience that crystalizes the purpose of your trip and tells you it's okay to go home.

Back to Colorado. I had such a perfect moment. In a restaurant, of all places. See, part of the rationale behind our trip was to attend the Eisenhauer family (my wife's maternal family) reunion in Estes Park. I've loved Estes Park ever since I was a little hemophiliac camper at the YMCA Camp (location of the reunion, coincidentally), so it was a no-brainer for me.

Anyhow, on the evening of the 4th of July (don't ask me about the significance!), we found ourselves without dinner plans... so we decided to head into town and try one of the many restaurants we saw on the way up to the Y-camp. Our first stop was at an Italian place that looked really shee-shee and appealing, but totally blew us off because we didn't have a reservation and they were an hour behind on the evening as it was. Sucks to be them... they might be getting the effusive review to follow, if they hadn't been so totally indifferent to us.

Moving on down the road, and following one of my uncanny hunches, we settled on dining at the Sundeck restaurant. What a delightful twist of fate.

After a short wait in the bar, playing the peg board game, we got our table, and were attended to with utmost professionalism and courtesy. That's all well and good... should be expected by any respectable restaurant. That's not the story, though.

The story was the meal. I opted for the Forelle Blau, which is their house specialty. It's a poached rainbow trout (apparently caught out of the river 10 minutes before cooking!) with drawn butter and parsley potatoes. In short, it was the BEST MEAL I'VE EVER HAD. I would not kid about such a thing.

Should you find yourself in Estes Park and looking for a good place to eat, take my advice and get thee to the Sundeck and have the Forelle Blau. They also make a killer 'Gangster', if you're the drinking type.

Buon Apetito!

The future of browsing?

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 23:01:12 UTC

This is pretty amazing...

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Thinking about the noise machine...

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:12:54 UTC

'nuf said.

What's Wrong With Wall Street

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:37:54 UTC

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE AND OPINIONS AHEAD.

Ok, this from the WSJ:

Worries Over Jobs's Health Weigh on the Stock

Note that the latest storm of "concern" for Steve's health was touched off by a story in Rupert Murdoch's sleaze-journal, the New York Post. I cannot effing believe the shitheads on Wall Street are going to the NYP for information!!!

Moreover, where do they get off hiring investigators to snoop around and track his doctor visits and whatnot. And now hiring doctors to look at pictures to evaluate his condition?! Am I the only one here who thinks this smacks of that douchebag Senator Frist diagnosing Terri Schiavo by video tape?!

Furthermore, it looks an awful lot to me like some of these hedge-fund managers and other Wall Street shitheads are treading DANGEROUSLY close to HIPAA violations in the way they're trying to snoop around and get access to his medical information. I get that they have a vested interest in his well-being since he is so integral to Apple, but for fuck's sake!!! This is going too far. Let the guy be... if there's a problem, he'll disclose it when he's damned good and ready, and if the SEC doesn't have a problem, then the analists (intentional misspelling... makes you pronounce the first 'a' long) need to sit down and pour themselves a nice tall cool glass of shut the fuck up!

In Case You're Wondering...

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:12:21 UTC

Yes, I took down the entry titled "Tilling Up the Past." Apparently, it made the individual I was speaking to really uncomfortable, which was not at all my goal. Evidently, she's still as bitter and out of touch with reality as she was when we last crossed paths all those years ago. It's also abundantly clear that the time we spent together meant something very different to me than (she represented) it meant to her.

It's sad, really, and she has my heart-felt sympathy.

Note to self: poking around in the past can get messy. Doing so on one's public journal can get REALLY messy. Good intentions don't change this fact. Point taken. Lesson learned: examine your past in a dark, isolated place where nobody else can see or hear, lest you offend someone involved in that past.

Back to your regularly scheduled life.

Staking out a position

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:56:06 UTC

Okay, I normally don't give such public endorsements to presidential candidates, after all, who am I to recommend anything to anyone? I'll be the first to admit that anybody who turns to me for political advice is probably out of their minds. However, this is a little different, for a couple of reasons:

1) As a nation, we're in some deep deep shit (thanks a lot, George!) and the choices we make in the coming months are going to have profound effects for many years to come;

2) This is the most exciting presidential candidate that has come along in my lifetime. I happily cast my first ever presidential vote for Bill Clinton, but Barack is in a whole different league;

and

3) As of this weekend's caucus in Washington State, I'm a delegate for my precinct (and am going to take a shot at going all the way to Denver).

Democrats/Liberals/Progressives are really lucky this year: we're being asked to choose between good and great! The fundamental question is: do we need an efficient and effective manager in the Oval Office, or do we need a transformational president... a visionary... someone who is going to change the direction of this country and show us a new way to think of ourselves and our place in the world? Obviously, I think we need the latter.

Dare to Hope. (click the image to learn more and maybe join the movement)

Wow.

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 00:07:14 UTC

The Yoshida Brothers. These guys are amazing. A friend turned me on to them yesterday, and I am TOTALLY HOOKED.