Anyone looking for direct evidence that history repeats itself can stop. Go pick up a newspaper, read, and weep. Why is this country in the state its in right now? What explains this incredible push by the religious right? Is this the way its going to be, or is this just a phase and the backlash is coming? Smarter men and women than me can’t seem to find an answer. Sure, some have theories (no pun intended), but predicting the future is always a tough business to be in....

I was planning on buying a new laptop this summer. I was going with a IBM Thinkpad, because I wanted to finally get one before Lenovo completely took over production. To sweeten the deal, I get an IBM discount through Lockheed. I had picked out the model I wanted, and I was waiting for it to drop about $100 more dollars before I was going to get it. I discover today that the settlement between IBM and Lenovo was finally inked today, and now its officially not an IBM Thinkpad (though Lenovo is going to keep using the name for the next five years), but even worse, I don’t get my nice corporate discount any more!...

I hope to get the Photography Resource on the main site written in the next few weeks. I’ve especially been working on Pano photography. I’ve discovered quite a few resources that I’ve found extremely useful. However, for some unknown reason I’ve had a bitch of a time getting FTP access to my host. It keeps dropping out, and then locking me out, saying I’ve reach maximum connections for my host. Hopefully they can resolve it soon....

I didn’t have high hopes going in. I had seen the trailers.. I had caught a few of the reviews on Friday… But I wanted to like the movie! I went in thinking, “It might not be great, but its still Hitchhiker’s Guide”. I don’t do that with many movies. Unfortunately it wasn’t worth the price of admission. Frankly, save the money and go out and buy the books if you haven’t read them....

Does anyone else’s head hurt listening to him?? (The one who decided to give a speech in primetime this evening). It is amazing how much he talks and how little he says. His energy bill is a joke… I didn’t need Ann to tell me, but all the things Ann brings home… its fucking scary!! As Ann just said, “And we thought OJ Simpson got away with murder…” Lets reduce our dependance on foreign oil by increasing the supply of domestic oil, instead of reducing our demand!...

I’ve added two new sections to my Gallery. The first is an area featuring some of my favorite photos. All of these I’ve printed in some form and few currently as some of my best work (you have to start somewhere). Additionally, I added an album looking back at my years at Duke through pictures. I’m sorry about the poor quality in some (my freshman year I still had a 1MP HP… amazing how fast technology has advanced since then)....

So I actually have been doing a bunch of work on the site. The main area hasn’t been updated because the menu system I use (allwebmenus) hasn’t responded to my email about a link to their v3 software (which I paid for). They only have v4, which I haven’t (and didn’t want to) upgrade to. Personally, I think it is incredibly disingenuous. Hopefully they get back to me soon and don’t try to stiff me....

I know… Linux distributions and their funky names. But this one is a quality distribution. I had never tried Debian or a Debian-based distribution before, and I have to say I’m impressed. Debian itself is an interesting community. It has three “releases” (stable, testing, unstable). Stable is always incredibly out of date, while unstable takes new updates as they are available. The key to any Linux distribution (IMO) is the packaging method....

This is a great article by Neal Stephenson about the evolution of the Operation System as a marketable product. His roots in computing go all the way back to punch card mainframe systems, and moved to Mac’s and then to BeOS (which I’m actually not at all familiar with). Its really a fascinating insight into how the current OS market evolved and where its possibly going. While you don’t need much computer background to grasp his points, they are firmly rooted in computing examples....

So I know its been a while since an update. Things have been pretty crazy, and that surge of web creativity gave way to other things (music an photography). I recently ordered Nikon’s new D70 dSLR, and I can’t wait to get it! I’ve always loved photography, but never really pursued it much until digital came along. The price of film and that overhead was just too costly, and not that much fun when you spent that time and money to develop a 24-exp roll, only to discover there wasn’t a good shot on it, or you forgot to set something....