Random Thoughts

The flu bug that hit my family this past week-end finally got hold of me yesterday. What fun. The good news is that it seems to pass fairly quickly. At least it did with Lorraine and Matthew.

A few random links from my travels on the web.

Google drops support for H.264 in Chrome. Some people are upset about it. Some people want to drop support for the English language as well.

The guitar you would never sell? Strats, Teles, LPs and PRSs. I had to sell a 1970s Strat to raise funds for University. I was not sad to see it go back then. Nor, for that matter, now. It was a terrible guitar. I have a 1990s Strat that I would not be sad to sell either. But the Tom Anderson and the new Collings? Those machines are keepers. I would also keep my PRS Custom, my 1976 Les Paul, my 1984 Ibanez AS200 and my Fender Jazz bass.

If you are a couch potato investor, then you might want to check the unveiling of the 2011 portfolio models. Who knew that passive investing could be so complicated?

I spent some time checking out website designs from ten to fifteen years back using the Internet Archive:Wayback Machine. Cool. They even have richardcleaver.com from 2004. Not a bad blog design if I do say so myself.

Too little, too late. Yes indeed. On a number of fronts.

The best job on the planet? In technology of course. Specifically, a software engineer. I always thought that an enterprise architect was the best job.

Random Links

Nicholas Carr ponders the essence of Guitar Hero and extends the experience as consumerism.

More Facebook fun. The Whopper Sacrifice. Except that Facebook shut it down. How many friends would you sacrifice for a hamburger?

Order versus disorder. Surroundings do matter.

Microsoft geeks espouse an email management system called Pay It Forward Email Management. You can call it PIFEM.

Looks like Jonathan Schwartz hasn’t blogged since November. Could this be why?

Twitter carries the real-time web on the news of Steve Jobs. Is CNN in danger?

What the Fake Steve Jobs really thinks about Steve Jobs.

A bit blunt but certainly like my own experience with the Windows 7 beta.  At best Vista SP2. Maybe that’s why it is coming out so quickly after Vista.

The New York Times has an impressive collection called 2008 — The Year In Pictures. Set a little time aside to watch this one.