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January 2000 Archives

Sick of the game? Try this

For the last 5 SuperBowls I have looked forward to the ads between the "big game" much more than the game itself.

This year's clash between the 2 dynasties of St. Louis and Tennessee is no exception.

If you too are looking for a little advertising entertainment, would like to vote for the best SuperBowl ads, or catch the ones you missed, AdCritic.com has just the page for you. It has set up a SuperBowl Advertising portal just for you and anyone else with an Internet connection (preferably a fast one) and some time to kill.

on friends and loyalty

I have the good fortune of having many very loyal friends.

Good or bad I believe loyalty to be one of the greatest gifts one person can give to another. I try to be loyal in all of my relationships. That being the case I can honestly say that I am a pretty good friend. I would do everything I can to protect, provide for, and serve those who I call my friends.

Because I do these things, I have high standards for my own friends. Is this too much to ask? If it ever becomes so, I will wish myself friendless, for what is a friend but someone you can trust with anything; someone you can trust to look out for you, and to stand by you, to go down swinging in an attempt to protect you. I am lucky. I have some of these friends. I have been made very proud these last couple of days at the outpouring of support and compliments I have received. Thank you.

Innocence Lost

Things change. Decisions are made. Face is saved. Points are earned. Empires fall. People learn. Martyrs live. Things remain the same.

This very true commentary is

This very true commentary is from The Onion... The Onion is funny.

"AOL Acquires Time-Warner In Largest-Ever Expenditure Of Pretend Internet Money
DULLES, VA--In the largest merger of imaginary assets in corporate history, Internet giant America Online last week acquired media megacorp Time-Warner for an unprecedented $161 billion in pretend money. "This merger will revolutionize the way invisible amounts of non-existent cash are transferred," said Steve Case of AOL, a company whose actual revenues are a tiny fraction of its make-believe valuation. In an effort to keep pace with AOL, website blairwitchproject.com is expected to acquire General Motors sometime later this week."

~~~

Also, if you are using Netscape, stop. Its for your own good. Sites load faster and look better in Internet Explorer.

Made in America

Everyone's favorite goofball, William Shattner in a pricless Priceline.com commercial.

~~~

It is really refreshing to leave the U.S. every once and a while. I have found it easier, on the occasions when I have been outside the country, to look at my country more objectively. My recent trip to the heart of Mexico was no exception. While I was spending time in Mexico I was asked a question by a young boy. He asked me if Mexico was more peaceful than the United States of America.

This boy, having never been to the U.S. knew something that I had rarely thought of. His schoolmates and his family knew the same... the pace of life in the U.S. is more hectic. The days are a little shorter, the boss a little more demanding, the relationships a little more stressed.

This boy showed me what I constantly forget...what is important. I rarely see my friends and do not spend enough time talking to people, to my wife. (about things other than on-line buying processes and prototypes, .com this and IPO that)

As a society so much of what we think we are is tied up in what we "do". What I do is work a lot. What I do is worry and stress over things that the typical Mexican only shrugs at. From a monetary standpoint I am in a far better place than most Mexican citizens will ever find themselves in, but in many regards my life is no more full. In fact many arguments could be made that we, Americans just continue to run in place on a treadmill of technology, monetary gain, and success seeking with outside influences always turning up the speed.

You might be a web geek if...

I thought I would take yet another step towards true geekdom, by updating my site from another country, yes, in fact, while I am on vacation. Thanks to a lot of work by Scottie I can update aberro.com through a slick web interface.

I took part in my first Mexican wedding yesterday, and am polishing up on some pretty rusty Spanish here, in Aguascalientes, Mexico. (right there in the middle of the country a little north of Mexico City)

I was reading a very interesting article in Wired about a new way of searching using the more than 200 year old research and ideas of Bayes. Bayes theorem pretty much is a way to predict the future based upon the present and the past. As I look into it further I will update the site. One company who is using these ideas is based in the U.K. and called Autonomy.

This is almost enough to make me want to buy a Mac...almost.

The PowerMac G4 Cube is really damn cool. Its like a 1/4 the size of the regular G4 needs no fan and is easy to add components to. Just when I start thinking it would be cool to own, I think of that OS I would have to use and shudder. But I *hear* OS X is supposed to be out real soon. Haha.

Lot's O' Tech News

There are now over 1 Billion documents on the web.

Apache serves the vast majority of these with 60.33%.

~~~

The new Crusoe processor from Transmeta's Web Site is pretty damn cool. You may have heard of Transmeta because Linus Torvalds (father of Linux) currently works there.

The processor (the better one of two) is 128 bit, scales up to 700 mhz, is projected to cost between $119-329, and will be released mid-2000 (although the 400 mhz version is out now apparently). It runs with very low power (1 watt) and does not need a fan to cool it (it runs at 48 Celsius). It can power a computer for a complete day without recharging and stay in standby mode for weeks.

Many of its instructions are software based and it is fully x86 compatible even though it does not use that outdated architecture.

It looks like it really rocks for mobile computing.

Here's an article about it.

~~~

I am reading an article in Wired about electronic/computing implants for humans. This is an area I have been interested in for some time. I will post my thoughts on this in the near future.

Adios Amigos

I am heading south of the border on Thursday and no I don't mean going to Taco Bell for a chalupa.

My wife and I, and her parents and 2 brothers are travelling to Aguascalientes, Mexico for the wedding of Tanya, my wife's sister.

The town is not on the coast but I am still looking forward to going. I will let you all know more about it on Sunday or Monday when I return.


~~~

I almost forgot to post the photos of my puppy. Here they are.

I am a dork.

I sold my car this weekend...on eBay. Yeah, the guy drove up this weekend from Iowa and bought my 1989 Merkur Scorpio (it is basically a German-made Ford). It was the nicest car I have had as far as niceties goes and I hope to soon get back to the nirvana known as leaher seats (actually heated leather seats is true nirvana).

I also saw Magnolia again and it was just as good as before. See this movie if you have not yet. (Jesse see it again!)

The artist formerly known as Beck

I am definitely not ripping on Beck s new album Midnight Vultures but it does sound like it has a lot of influences from "the artist" among others. Beck and I have had our disagreements in the past and I don t want to take anything away from his new album (I think its exceptional), but hey everybody: its not that groundbreaking! Get over it! Its very good and a new sound/style for him but it has been done.

Some other good music in no particular order are:

Cable seems pretty damn fast

I just got my cable modem installed and it is really fast. Well at least I think it is. I was testing it by downloading files and going to this site. On this site you are able to test you connection speed. My ranges were: (8000 kpbs / 1000 K bytes/sec) on the high end and (1046 kbps / 128 K bytes/sec) on the slow side. Please send me your results and configurations.

USWest about to get the BSBoot

So I am now one of the lucky few in my area who are able to leave my phone company conglomerate, USWest. I was using USWest s phone services, and ADSL "high speed" internet access until now. Now I am able to leave that pinnacle of customer service (that was sarcasm) and compassion (again with the sarcasm), that huge friendly corporation (yup sarcasm) again and switch to another great big company, Media One. But this time I can get crappy customer service on a much faster connection 1.5 megabits, digital phone service with tons of features, plus cable for less money than I was paying before.

I will update everyone on how smooth this transition goes.

Would a flower by any other name smell as sweet?

There s this guy who says he has mathmatically proven the the year 2000 is the beginning of the new millennium. Here s an article about it. I personally would prefer this to be the case. Anyone know a counter case?

~~~

I saw Magnolia last night. It was very good, and I would recommend it to anyone. Well acted, many messages, good music. I have been really impressed with both of the movies I have seen from Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights). I believe him to be one of the best directors alive. This movie is among the top 10 movies I have ever seen and should be an Academy Award nominee for 1999.

FLat Eric? Phat Eric!

I know some of you out there like the Flat Eric Levis commercials as much as I do so I am providing these as a service to you all. Man, I love that muppet!

Prototyping

Because this is what I do in my job I thought this was a very interesting article on prototyping on A List Apart. Maybe you will find it that way too.

~~~

As people who know me know, I love movies. Well most media actually but movies especially. There is something in movies that can touch a person very deeply, make them laugh loudly, make them cry ... wetly?.

Whatever it is, there is just something about movies. To celebrate movies I thought I would share with you some sites that I particularly enjoy who s focus is the motion picture:

Cybersquatting? Watch your ass.

In the somewhat old news category:

Wouldn t it be great if you had a great domain such as coke.com, or newyorkyankees.com? Think of the traffic, think of the exposure, think of the money! Think again. Because Coke and the Yankees are thinking of those things as well, and now so are the US District Courts.

Here s a Wired Article about this.

More later, hopefully.

Damn Cobol programmers! Damn terrorists!

This may seem sorta cruel, or selfish, or whatever, but I was pretty disappointed with "Y2K". The switch over from 1999 to 2000 was a big non-event. Not even a power outage or mail bomb to speak of. I was really hoping that something would happen... something big. I wasn t alone in this desire, you could just see it in the major news anchor s faces. Brokaw, Jennings, etc, they were all praying to be able to report a bombing, or a hijacking, even a computer meltdown somewhere.

Sure there was some Japanese cellular phone issues and the National Weather data feeds got disrupted for like an hour, but big deal, that stuff doesn t even make page 2.

I guess, all I am asking is where are all the extremists, fanatics, rioters, hackers, etc? Have we become a world of wait-and-see-ers? Everyone was so interested in what was going to happen and watching those events that they didn t take the time to draw up terrorist plots of their own. Well shame on us all! Shame on those lazy militia groups and mass suicide cults, shame on anyone calling themselves an extremist or a guerrilla. Now there won t be another good "end of the world" day for some 1000 years!

All content by Ben Edwards, except where noted. Licensed under this Creative Commons License.

January 2000 Media

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All content by Ben Edwards, except where noted. Licensed under this Creative Commons License.