Graceful solution of the day

graceful solutionsSo today i was looking for a good-sized chunk of available disk space on one of my 5 hard drives.  I found a folder with random things and i could-not-for-the-life-of-me remember what all that stuff was doing there.  Finally i found an outdated [...]

Endtimes?: Wireless, Lightup Product Packaging Is Here

The future of product packaging is just around the corner….  you may want to turn around and go back now.

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Yep, these cereal boxes light up. They’re using a new branded-technology called eCoupling that provides electricity via induction, which means the shelves have a coil with AC power [...]

Backing up Gmail…..Just in Case

peace of mindIf you are one of the many who relies on Gmail as your base of operations then you are no doubt enjoying it’s many productivity-enhancing features (labels, filters, priority inbox, i’m talking to you).  But what if the unthinkable should happen?  Or [...]

PDX Community Fiber

google toobs

Ever the gimmicky city Portland, OR—at the behest of our fearless leader, Mayor Sam Adams—is going to try for the world record for the longest game of telephone in a move that Portlandians hope will sway Google into giving [...]

Google DNS benchmarked. And it's s l o w .

It’s official, Google has taken over the internet.

If you missed the news, or just don’t care, Google announced the launch of their new DNS service.  In their own words, you could think of DNS as “the switchboard of the Internet”.  The move to offer this new service is a vertically integrated move for [...]

SELECT * FROM joel.friends WHERE interests = 'SQL' AND geek_factor >= 10;

I get real juiced up going to conferences and hackathons and such.  The energy of working side-by-side with gifted individuals, and the accelerated learning that goes on swells up my brains and fuels my ambition engine.  Plus camp is awesome!

In November I’ll be getting my [...]

The last musical instrument you will ever buy

alpha-bigFrom what i can gather, the Eigenharp is the future.  In all it’s Franken-instrument glory.

Not that i realistically expect to start seeing these things around Thom Yorke’s neck anytime soon, but this cutting-edge instrument is truly bridging the gap between digital and analog music [...]

OS haX: Undocumented, inaccessible, and incredibly useful

As enjoyable as Apple’s software is to use, they like to make us work.  Hidden below the surface of most Apple software are hundreds of undocumented little “switches” which can be turned on to enable new sooper-seekrit features.  By the same token, these switches can be disabled to [...]

More than just colors: My bash settings

bash_promptIf the title suggests to you either a party, or violence, then perhaps this post isn’t for you. If instead you are imagining a blank window filled with text, read on. If you are confused right now, but also strangely curious, you may feel free to read on.
Continue reading More than just colors: My bash settings

Is it time to deprecate phone numbers?

rotary_phoneWhy do we still use phone numbers?  I mean, we barely do anymore anyway, right?  It’s more a process of remembering someone’s last name at this point, than it is of recalling all 7 or 10 digits (and in the proper order).  In accordance with [...]