Skuunk Works

You watch more TV shows and movies on your computer than you do on TV and the movie theatre. You spend more time blogging about movies than watching them. You are genuinely excited whenever Apple releases a new computer (even though it only makes your current MacBook more obsolete). You IM people who are right next to you instead of talking to them. Your wife IM's you to get your attention. You don't need a blankie because your laptop keeps you warm at night. When you do finally get tired of using your laptop you pick up your phone and surf the web there. If it isn't online it doesn't exist. You open your laptop before you brew your first cup of coffee. When you call your laptop your wife and your wife your mistress.

So one of my upcoming projects may involve Adobe Flex so I am trying to get my brain Flexy again. It's been almost a year since I coded anything in that language so I am trying to get back into all the usual concepts (code behind, cairngorm, etc...). Of course the day I decide I am going to start looking at this, Flex Builder 3 is released (along with Adobe AIR, codenamed Apollo) which leaves me with a conundrum. Do I start this project in Flex 2 or 3? I am not really a fan of "brand new" tech as it normally has a lot of bugs that need working out, but those geniuses (geniui?) at Adobe have finally put in some backwards compatibility. Also it doesn't look like the language has changed much (mainly the IDE) which is a great relief (there was a huge jump between Flex 1 and 2). So with the release of Adobe AIR I can finally call myself a Desktop developer too (as AIR allows you to write desktop apps with web app languages). If only they would switch over to Ruby from Act...

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/adobe-light-field-lens   This thing is cool. Not only does it allow you to make 3D pics, but you can also choose variable focal lengths in the picture (click on the link to see it in action).   I am guessing there is a software component to this too (duh).

Yay! Sign of relief...

http://www.neopoleon.com/home/blogs/neo/archive/2003/09/29/5458.aspx This is just too funny (especially the Kodak funtime camera). Unfortunately they left out Powerpoint (which seems to be the preferred choice of my marketing team).

Most people who use the Net nowadays really fall into one of two categories. 1) Internet Consumers - This is most of us. We may occasionally paste some video into Facebook, but we normally use the Net to swap emails, read the news and occasionally look at pictures of other naked people. 2) Internet Producers - Leaving aside the techies for a moment (the people who "build" the Internet), these are the people who are obsessed with getting their points across, their opinions discussed, their crappy music demo listened to, and posting naked pictures of themselves online for the Consumers to look at (oh yeah, let's not forget those budding young stars trying to get their 3 minutes of YouTube fame). Ok, so most of us probably fall somewhere in the middle. We blog, we may occasionally post something to YouTube, and maybe we daydream about being naked online before we realize what a bad career move that is... For about 10 years now I have been making a living as one of these p...

http://gizmodo.com/355350/wowzerscheapest-hdmi-cable-weve-ever-seen-is-2   Of course shipping and handling is probably another $20...

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/02/07/the-evolution-of-tech-companies-logos/ You gotta wonder what your new Nokia cell phone would look if it had the old logo on it...

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2008/02/06.8.shtml Danish Police were apparently confused while trying to confiscate someone's 1G iMac thinking it was only a monitor. 'Where's the computer?' he said. 'On the desk. That's the computer,' I said. 'No, the computer.' 'That's the computer, dude.' I wonder if "dude" is a literal translation from Danish. Personally I remember the 1st generation iMacs and the guy was lucky not to get arrested for taste reasons alone (what with those garish candy coated colours...).

I wished I could re learn every programming language using a guide as poignant as this. http://poignantguide.net/ruby/ I wonder if this guy has any plans to write a JavaScript tutorial too. I wonder how he would handle closures and prototype using elves and talking foxes...