the cult of the amateur: how cynicism can overshadow a good book

I’ve been reading Andrew Keen’s first book, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture, and I have to say it is one of the most negative books I have read to date. The book in its entirety is awash with cynicism and negativity with Web 2.0 squarely in its sights. … Read more

Windows Vista – Still on the horizon

I’ve been working with Vista almost every day now for nearly 6 months and my impressions of the newest OS from Microsoft haven’t deviated much from my initial impressions. I continue to be plagued by problems and anomalies which seem to have no concrete origin. Where it works I particularly enjoy how it handles the … Read more

The over-reactionary web – iTunes update hysterics

The one thing I have come to loath about a (seemingly) good portion of folks who use the web, is the basic principal that every opinion should be taken as fact, any opposing view is a personal assault upon whomever authored or has read the original opinion, and everything is an over-reaction. Just look at … Read more

What happens when your left brain takes a vacation?

Upon recommendation of one of the blogs I usually read; Presentation Zen, I took a look at Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED presentation:  My Stroke of Insight. The presentation itself was simply fascinating, the fact that she had such clarity of thought during what I could only expect to be a terrifying experience in the best … Read more

My son is the Cthulhu for the Lego-verse

My youngest son, who just turned 4 not too long ago – has evolved into the official Cthulhu for the Lego Universe. Just replace the victims on this shot of a Vinyl toy available from Brand Fury, with minifigs – and it’s spot on. I got him a couple more little Lego trains for his … Read more

Primanti Brothers – definately not worth the drive

After almost two years of people telling us we need to go to Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh because they have the best sandwiches in Pittsburgh, we finally went there for dinner yesterday. The experience was an astounding let down. It’s like when movie studios over-hype a movie to the point to where when you finally … Read more

Gary Gygax: Roleplaying loses its father

Considered by many to be the Father of role playing, Gary Gygax was known and admired worldwide for the game that sparked movies, TV series, cartoons, hundreds of knock-off type games, convention centers full of people in garb, and probably more black eyes than any other person in the history of gaming. At the age … Read more

Acid 3: The Litmus Test your browser will fail

Yesterday The Web Standards Group announced the release of the Acid 3 test, and it’s sure to generate a bit of ire among the web community; mainly because all of the known browser will fail. My results were pretty abysmal in fact. Firefox received a 50/100, as did Flock. Opera received a 46/100, and IE … Read more

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