11.24.08
R.I.P. MC Breed
There definately “Ain’t No Future in Yo’ frontin”
I hope it’s not genetic…
09.22.08
Can you help a Datacenter out?
Many of you in the tech industry have been aware of some interesting data center developments over the last couple of months, mainly to combat rising power costs and to prop up all of those green initiatives that everyone is championing. Beyond the largest impact to Infrastructure efficiencies in the last 10 years with virtualization, there have been some real efforts to physically reshape the concept of the data center.
Our boys at Sun came out with their “Data Center in a Box”
Intel had their idea for cooling the data center directly with outside air.
Google had their floating data center (an idea directly stolen from me, I might add, especially the wave / tidal driven power source)
Now our boys at Microsoft have flexed their intellectual muscle and gone one step further with Homeless Data Centers. Not only are they cooling with outside air but they also occasionally use rain and windstorms to keep their servers well-heeled. Further advancements will include tent cities for remote hands support, a urine exchanger for passive cooling, and a Mad Dog 20-20 basin for fire suppression. Microsoft was quoted in saying that they only saw a 30% increased failure rate in equipment and most of that was due to the remote hands staff selling the hardware for more Mad Dog.
Needless to say, Microsoft was really thinking outside of the cardboard box on this one…
Props to Lord Rex and The Manchild for coming up with the product marketing.
07.22.07
Wii Baby Still Rolling
What started out as an innocent YouTube post 5 months ago me playing the Wii with our son has taken a life of its own. Shortly after we posted it friends began to link to it from their blogs. From there, it got on to some really popular blogs including Gizmodo and it even made it on to Digg on a couple of occasions. We have reports that the video has surfaced on the Jimmy Kimmel show, and it has been used in the intro to the Nintendo Keynote at E3. (it’s there at 11min, 30sec, if you don’t blink).
Just in today, Wired has an interview that they did with us last week.
The YouTube post alone has had over 1.9 Million hits, making Theo’s video more popular than the Bennifer masterpiece, Gigli.
I’m still dreading what this will do to Theo’s overall psyche, once he’s old enough to understand his fame. I hope that we don’t have another ruined child star on our hands…
07.18.07
Where do you get your news?
06.24.07
Top 10 Most Influential Technologies
What would you pick for the most influential technologies of the last 200 years?
The BBC radio listeners picked these:
59.4% - Bicycle
7.8% - Transistor
7.8% - Electro-magnetic induction ring
6.3% - Computer
4.6% - Germ theory of infection
4.5% - Radio
4.0% - Internet
3.4% - Internal Combustion Engine
1.1% - Nuclear Power
1.1% - Communications satellite
You can see the whole article here. Leave to Brits to pick bicycle as #1, that’s why we had to save their butts in WWII.
Jen, Jason, and I came up with our own list:
1. Cell Phone - can’t argue this one. Communications is the key to survival. This is one where the USA is behind. You’re not a real country until you have more cell phones than people. Besides, they’ll have historical impact when 75% of the earth’s population dies of cell phone induced brain cancer in the next 10 years and the Amish inherit the world.
2. Tivo - ’nuff said.
3. The Microwave - Popcorn in under 3 minutes has freed the modern world to spend more time watching their Tivos.
4. The Modern Refrigerator - Again, the Brits were 40 years behind with this one, damning English cuisine for thousands of years to come. It is essential in completing the “Tivo, Popcorn, and Beer” triple-play.
5. The Video Game - It’s only #5 due to it’s dependencies on three of the first four (minus cell phones). As someone who cut his teeth on Zoo Keeper, Space Invaders, and Pac Man; who has owned almost every console created: Fairchild, Atari, NES, Super NES, Playstation, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, Wii; and who has spent over a year of his life living abroad in virtual worlds, this one is one that I couldn’t live without.
6. The Personal Computer -My first was a Ti99/4a, although I spent a lot of time on friends’ Apple IIs.
7. The Internet - I’ve been on it since 1989 (remember Gopher, or Mosaic?) I’d be jobless without it.
8. The Gas Grill - Mmm… Meat… Charred Meat… No lighter fluid taste, no waiting for the coals to heat up. The shortened cooking time has been key in keeping the Velociraptors from eating us while cooking outside.
9. The wireless remote control - This was the first major step toward humans evolving to the point where they don’t need their legs anymore.
10. Kozmo.com (defunct) - The single most depressing casualty of the dot-com bust. My calls to turn it into a public utility failed miserably. There’s hope, keep an eye on MaxDelivery (although they can never completely resurrect Kozmo, no matter how hard they try).
05.23.07
Internet 2.1
It’s time to start experimenting with flash mobs. Seattle needs some random parties to keep everyone on their toes. Anyone have any ideas? I’m thinking about combining Geocaching and flash mobs, the mob could show up and unearth a box of party favors. The sky’s the limit. Throw in the Google Maps happy hour mash up and you have a near endless supply of entertainment.
04.16.07
Late to the Game
Jen brought me into the modern age of social networking this weekend. I was one of the last people in my 512 contacts to not have a LinkedIn account. For those who don’t have one, I highly recommend it. Not only is it a nice place for job-related social networking and a great site to keep tabs on your friends, it’s extremely addictive. You get more points the more relevant your information is and the more links you have. For those that like to game it has a lot more appeal then something like Monster or Dice.
03.10.07
I Love Music
I’m becoming hooked on Seeqpod. Muldoon runs the IT side of the place and I have to admit, the first time he sent me the link I was a little confused as to exactly what they did. Well, I am a lot more comfortable with the service now and I’m in the process of building the Greatest Playlist of All Time. For those who don’t know, it’s a mp3-based search engine that links to the contect as it finds it on the internet. It’s like having access to the most massive MP3 store of all time. It also has a pretty sophisticated “Recommendation Engine” to pair you up with songs that you aren’t familiar with but match your listening style. I challenge anyone out there to build a better playlist. If you think you have what it takes, get a Seeqpod account, put your playlist together and submit it as a comment. I’ll post the submitals as I get them.
02.22.07
My Intervention
I was confronted by a couple of friends the other day on a subject that I was not ready to discuss. “Matt”, they said, “You really need to do something about your website.” “It’s nothing but links to other people’s content and rss feeds from communist sites like NPR, and Slashdot.”
After several months of hosting Wordpress blogs for the rest of the world, I’ve decided to host my own.
This is the beginning of my attempt to put things right. Hang in there…
For those that miss the old links to great things, check out my bluedot page (and get an account if you don’t have one yet!).
