QuickThoughts: Hacking, Leopard, Car
Hack the Planet!
Last night I watched Die Hard 4: Live free or Die Hard. What a title. The title didn’t actually connect well with the plot except for in the vaguest of ways. It was a great over the top action flick. Better not to think to hard about anything in it, just sit back and enjoy the choreography and effects. The acting was good, the characters weren’t completely flat, in short it’s probably the best you can expect of the summer blockbuster genre.
But what I did get a kick out of was the heavy computer security/hacking angle. No it wasn’t portrayed at all realistically. Technology and interfaces are catching up with the movie looks, then again they used nearly the same visuals they’ve been using for the last ten years. What was portrayed pretty accurately was the whole geek/hacker attitude and lifestyle.
From the early scenes, seeing the geek in his habitat (squalor except for high dollar tech and toys,) made me very nostalgic. I was that guy in high-school. I especially liked the scenes with Kevin Smith’s character. Very hacker/survivalist/borderline paranoid. Very close to reality. As I look around my office I see similarities. I’d like to think I’m a lot less paranoid and cloistered.
I definitely need to find my copy of Hackers to watch again.
The inevitable bashing of the newest Apple Product
I’m seeing a lot of gripes about Leopard. At first it was all about the blue screen on install (caused by a third party application that changes some core system functionality.) All I have to say on that one is: duh.
Techmeme has several recent links on Leopard being the “new vista,” which I find funny. It’s funny because they’re comparing it to vista because of bugs. I don’t doubt that there are bugs in leopard, but on my G5 iMac and my macbook I haven’t run into anything yet.
I haven’t run into a single error.
I use these both on a daily basis, so I must be doing something right. I use both machines pretty hard, lots of applications open at once, ram heavy and processor heavy tasks. I am sure there are flaws, but I’m surprised I don’t hit them. I develop software. I run lots of third party utilities. I write my own applescripts and automator apps to simplify workflow. Photoshop is regularly open, and occasionally Illustrator. What am I missing?
Oh well, no complaints here. It happens every release, I attribute it to Apple users being a very very vocal minority.
Say hello to Dagny
Friday I bought a 1999 Mazda MX-5 (Miata.) It’s Emerald Mica, which is basically a metallic British Racing Green. Tan top and leather interior. Check out the pictures here.
Handles really really well, plenty of power for it’s size, nice sound system and overall just a lot of fun. Looking forward to cleaning it up and tuning it better and better.
I also just bought a special harness for Duncan so he can ride along with no worries.
4 Comments
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Comment by Bethany — December 3, 2007 @ 12:23 pm
Dagny truely is an appropriate sucessor to Fransico. I approve.
Comment by hthth — December 8, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
Agree on the Kevin Smith scenes. I actually had no idea he was in it — had to pause and go “Wait a minute …”
Hack the Planet!
Comment by Causalien — December 14, 2007 @ 12:32 pm
your About page is broken
Causa
Comment by Alex — January 20, 2008 @ 11:30 am
About page fixed but forgot to mention it here.