Matt's Blog

I can’t say I’ve ever read Steinbeck, but based on a few Youtube videos, I’m pretty sure I get the idea. The Grape Lady is probably one of the top 100 videos on Youtube, to the point that a local radio station sampled the sound she makes and I think I was with most listeners [...]

I’ve got my police scanner on, and overheard the snow plows in Manchester discussing that there’s a parking ban in effect due to the snow. From the sounds of it, a lot of people either don’t know or don’t care. Being a geek, instead of thinking, “I don’t live in Manchester, so I don’t care [...]

“Hi there, It has been long time since we did not meet.” It goes on to pitch me some sort of medical site, but I can’t help but think that “It has been a long time since we did not meet” would be a memorable line in a poem or something. But instead, it’s trying [...]

A lot of companies give to charity, and it’s a great thing. Some match what their employees donate, and others just donate some of their profits to charities. But a trend that drives me insane is when companies ask if you want to donate money to them to donate to charity. The “Product Red” campaign [...]

I’ve been thinking of building a new desktop… I was hoping for some peer reviews to see if I’m missing anything. I’m not positive what this will run, but I’m trying to favor OSx86 hardware in case. This machine will probably house some virtual machines, hence the quad core and generous RAM. I’m not going [...]

From Ask Metafilter: Did Pythagoras actually exist? It seems that a number of historians and mathematicians have argued that he was more of a mythological figure that led a cult of people, rather than an actual mathematician. Also, while learning that a2 + b2 = c2, we definitely never learned that he founded a religion [...]

I’m still conflicted as to what I want for a machine; I sort of want a desktop, sort of a laptop, sort of a Mac, sort of not… But as I was checking out FatWallet and Slick Deals, I wanted to point out some highlights: ZipZoomFly has a 320GB, 7200 RPM SATA laptop drive, $75; [...]

It’s Friday night. What am I doing? Watching the epoch. n1zyy@t60:~$ date +%s 1234567890 Kind of like New Year’s. Only more epic epoch.

I’ve been wrong before, but my gut is telling me that Microsoft’s physical stores are going to end badly. Though I confess to being somewhat ignorant here: I’m not sure why it’s being done at all, but now seems like a pretty bad time to launch a brick-and-mortar store, particularly when you’re selling things found [...]

I was disappointed to hear that Judd Gregg had withdrawn from consideration as Secretary of Commerce. (The position is cursed?) Even though I typically vote blue, I’m a big believer in ensuring that the minority party still has an active role, and really liked the idea of a fairly fiscally-conservative Secretary of Commerce. (And a [...]