Matt's Blog

When I moved into my apartment, my roommate and I came to the realization that neither of us valued cable television at more than a few dollars a month. I have a nice television, and I do put it to good use, just not via cable. I live in the suburbs of Boston, so I [...]

Apple’s tablet was rumored to exist months, if not a year, before it was announced. There’s probably at least a decade of tradition involved — people have always talked about an Apple tablet. The media coverage of this rumored device was so over-the-top that one reporter called the reporting “fan fiction,” and a few tech [...]

If you’re not a Boxee user, you need to change that ASAP. It’s software meant to form a sort of HTPC, bringing all sorts of free media together in a totally awesome interface. It runs on all major platforms, including not just Linux, Windows, and Mac, but also things like the Apple TV. Just don’t [...]

The Watertown (MA) RMV is in the Watertown Mall. If you drove by ten times looking for a sign but didn’t see one, that’s because there isn’t one. Tuesday at 1pm is not a time when no one is at the RMV. If your ticket indicates a 33 minute wait, but you worry that the [...]

I grew up with a police scanner, so for quite some time, I’ve been listening to emergency calls. By college, I’d realized that I could be a halfway-decent writer if I put in the time, so when the person writing police logs for the student paper was up for replacement, I accepted the position eagerly. [...]

While the product is uninteresting, this Uncrate post makes me want to take up woodcarving. I have a block of wood from a $10 cheese platter, no artistic ability, and a pen knife. This sounds like a recipe for success.

For probably at least a decade, rumors have occasionally popped up about Apple working on a new tablet device. This time, they’ve really taken, with mainstream news sources talking about it, too. All of the frenzy around a device that is still just a rumor led one newspaper article (I think that’s where I saw [...]

I saw an interesting idea recently. It was attributed to Bruce Schneier, though I can’t substantiate that. In general, people find it easiest to remember words, so most people’s password is essentially a word. This is bad, of course, since it’s easy for a computer to run through every word in the English language in [...]

This is an interesting post. The police in Denmark have a really spiffy command post that they apparently upgraded in anticipation of all the heads of state coming to the climate summit in Copenhagen. It’s an all-Mac shop. What’s interesting to me more than anything, though, isn’t just that they use Macs, but that the [...]

Only one will survive. I wonder who it will be. Oops, no, not that. I’m talking Linux-based HTPC solutions: Boxee Beta, versus XMBC Both are very impressive-looking. Of course, when the Boxee Box comes out, the choice will be a lot easier.