With just our thoughts, we shall reach the stars!
As I predicted, the Spurs made it to the Western Conference Finals. Duncan is a total beast, and Parker is the best French player in the world. That’s right, I said it. I meant it. I represent it. I also predicted that the Pacers might be an up-setter, and tonight’s game was winnable for them. NBA Basketball is what it is: Entertaining and not super technical.
Looks like my round ball prognostications are on the money. Stay tuned for more!
It’s Friday and I spent all day working in my office on my awesome shiny new laptop, which I decided to name Terminus Est. I’ve been streaming this all day, which has been coming in beautifully with my Linux based media player. I switched my desktop environment around a little, and I’m rolling with e17, the latest version of Enlighetnment. It looks REALLY sweet… Check it out:
and …
I made the background myself with the GIMP, a free graphics utility that I really like… I’m really proud of what I have going on so I wanted to share. 
This is the official unveiling of the new site with the new stuff that I’m hosting myself! Yay! So far it’s awesome! This should show up on my twitter and FB streams…
I got a free EC2 instance from amazon and installed wordpress and migrated it. Let me tell you, if you are technical at all do this and never use wp.com and pay them. This is awesome! I have plugins, super awesome free themes… Amazing!
There exists a giant white elephant in the room of web development. It’s been there for years. People are using the internet to serve applications and using browsers as a thin-ish client layer, which is well and good, but all browsers can do is ask the server for data. Server pull was cool in 1997, but I’ve been waiting since then for server push technology to reach the browser.
Enter Node.js. Server push technology for your application. It’s based on Google’s V8 engine, which is unbelievably fast and backed (obviously) by one of the biggest players in the business. It’s great, and wonderful, and awesome, but it’s not for traditional web sites. Apache, et al are likely still a better choice if you want to make a web “page” the way that we did in the 90′s. And that’s cool, there are those of you who will, I imagine. For you, this article is over, and you may as well go pound rocks together in a cave somewhere.
Traditional web “sites” are tired. Imagine all of the sites on the internet that you love re-imagined as single page medium-client web “applications”. Think of Wikipedia with an interface that includes a javascript wiki editor that has spellcheck built in. Not the crappy spellcheck that all browsers have now, but a real spellcheck built with a server-side library of words and a high powered double-metaphone fully stemming search to make sure what you meant is in the list of suggestions. That’s just one possibility and it’s trivial to do in Node with a one other tool: A data storage with a full text search, like Sunspot. Wrapping the Sunspot JSON api in an object is trivial, so there you go. In fact, I might work on this and release it…
Mark my words: Traditional websites are going to go the way of the Dodo. In a few years single page web applications are going to replace websites for the most part. They might not use Node, but they’ll have two way communication with the server and they’ll be much cooler than what we have now.
Microsoft is up to their old tricks. Dirty pool. This might even be illegal under the terms of the Antitrust settlement, if the settlement still applies. They should be obligated to provide the same runtime environment to competing products that their own runs in, the way Android works. Maybe someone should remind MS what the DOJ had to say about this the last time they tried it? Their whole attitude sucks. I’ve worked there on several occasions as a contractor, starting in the mid-90′s, and their corporate culture is like cancer or some other terrible condition that you never want your company to develop but somehow seeps in anyway. This is a reflection of the fact that they want to be the BIGGEST software company in the world, whereas if they were motivated in what I would prescribe to be a more correct manner, they would be working at least as hard on being the BEST software company in the world. It’s obvious that they are only interested in the former: If they wanted to be the best they would design this OS to provide an equal forum in the form of the same runtime environment for all of the browsers, theirs included. Where they were shown to be deficient, they would know they needed to improve so that they could, in fact, be the best at everything.
The fact that they are up to their old tricks and trying to smash the competition with their huge size rather than actually compete is telling. I guess they didn’t learn anything from the litigation at all. I can tell you that while I was there, none of the people I worked with were interested in learning anything from the situation. They all spoke in platitudes and the general plan seemed to be that they were going to wait until the attention went away and go back to “business as usual”. I guess that’s what’s happened, and here they are doing the same thing that got them sued in the first place. Here’s a tip guys, fear of legal retaliation isn’t the only reason you should have changed your attitude. You look like bullies dressed in skeleton costumes chasing other companies around the school gym, with your cronies urging you to sweep the knee of the competition. You’re also doing yourself a dis-service and seeking to be rewarded for your position like an entitlement rather than seeking to always be the best. We can learn a lot from the Japanese in this regard, the constant struggle for excellence is something that they are very familiar with.
hate therefore I am, I’ve learned that goodness is a scam,
It’s taught to make us slaves, then send us to our early graves,
I live my life for me, the only way to win I see,
I take now what I want, I flex my mind my power taunts,
The weaklings all around, but to my face they’ll make no sound,
I’d crush them where they stand, but with my mind not with by my hand,
They always show their tale, they have no clue I’ve pieced the veil,
I see right through their souls, in place of passion they have holes
They’ve let go of their pride, and have no kind of strength inside,
I’m alpha, I am zed, I feed upon their souls, I’m fed,
Now sated I reverse, their itty bitty baby curse,
And magnify by ten, then twenty-five then ten again,
Now take back two for me, the curse reflects times thirty-three,
They called me their apprentice, and tried to force me with their menace,
Now is their disaster, when they face me here’s their Master,
Order them dismissed, they vanish from my life as mist,
And I keep all I’ve claimed: For Samael’s my secret name!
I’ve been watching the NBA for a good number of years and I’ve seen a good number of dunks. Some good, some bad, some that made me stand up and yell with excitement in the middle of a sports bar. Here is a list of my top 10 favorites. These are just the 10 best I can either remember seeing or hearing about right now, if I see a better one after this, I’m going to put it in the list and bump the bottom one off.
Here we go!
NUMBER TEN
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVcSndz52DE&w=210&h=172]
6′ tall KJ dunking on 7′ Hakeem, how embarrassing for the 2 time champ! He wasn’t a champ then, but all the same, Kevin Johnson? I’d cry if I were Hakeem.
NUMBER NINE
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_PzNsUotVI&w=210&h=172]
Shawn Kemp over Alton Lister in the playoffs! Kemp takes it down the gut of the defense, one handing it from the free throw line down, travels then windmills it around and thunder-dunks.
NUMBER EIGHT
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbyOevVAYQI&w=210&h=136]
Blake Griffin over Kendrick Perkins. I don’t much care for KP, he whines constantly to the referees while being a dirty player. He hooks people and throws them, he jams them with his fingers and elbows, and is generally foul. This is what he deserves.
NUMBER SEVEN
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srl2Bwh6A3I&w=210&h=172]
Scottie Pippen knocking ewing down and putting his balls in his face. Pippen takes it to Ewing on the fast break and floors him. Pippen is only 6’6″ while Ewing is a 7 footer, but Ewing was posterized and forced to look up Pippen’s shorts to see his dangling fury. On second thought, that probably made him erect, I know it would me.
NUMBER SIX
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaGcmyknSV8&w=210&h=172]
Kobe with the one handed turning around… OMG did I just see that dunk? The Black Mamba had to make the list.
NUMBER FIVE
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbbQp2DagFY&w=210&h=172]
Vince Carter dunking on Weis (7ft) In The Olympics. The video speaks for itself: VC is HALF MAN, HALF AMAZING. Seriously he goes OVER a 7 footer, grazing the guys head with his hairy, sweaty gentials. If that happened to me I’d retire.
NUMBER FOUR
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ziQNSETe4&w=210&h=172]
MJ streaks in after a missed free throw and hammers it down! AMAZING!
Now for the top three! The order of these is contentious to me, but I eventually decided this was the right order for my three favorite dunks of all time.
NUMBER THREE
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T64j5cja4AM]
When Shaq was going to come into the league, the NBA redesigned the backboard so that he wouldn’t accidentally break the glass every time he dunked. He’s that powerful, no backboard from before his era would take him dunking very many times on it. That said, they didn’t do any testing, and they realized quickly that they also had to REDESIGN THE ENTIRE ASSEMBLY THAT HOLDS THE BACKBAORD, which they did, to keep what you see in this video from happening after Shaq’s rookie season. As a side note, if this guy could hit his free throws they would have had to widen the lane for him, the way they did for Wilt the Stilt, and for George Mikan before that.
NUMBER TWO
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh2ZT1aPBoE]
Griffin dunking on Gasol after elbowing him in the face. Poor Gasol, everyone can see he’s got a soft game, but this is just Spaniard abuse.
AND MICHAEL JORDAN, THE GREATEST SCORER AND CHAMPION OF ALL TIME, WITH NUMBER ONE
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=330HeLlv52U]
This is MJ at his finest. He beats 4 out of the 5 knicks on the floor, and finishes with a dunk on Patrick Ewing. This happened in the Eastern Conference Finals I believe, showcasing that MJ is a bad man when the chips are down. 4 out of 5 defenders were involved trying to stop him on that play. MJ is a team unto himself!
Here is a writer’s forum that I participate in regularly. The main reason that I like this particular forum more than any other I’ve seen is that it’s based on the StackExchange software, and follows the overall philosophy (which is simple and clear, “A site to make the internet a better place”,) and guidelines of the StackExchange network of Q&A sites. Overall the users of the SE sites communicate well, understand logic, are polite, and provide constructive feedback, and the writers forum is all of the above to the next level. We need more people there, as the site is in a probationary period and the sooner it grows the sooner it will graduate to full site status. So, if you have any interest in writing, or if you know anyone who does, or even if you need tips on APA formatting for school or help with your thesis paper, or really any kind of writing, please come over and take part! We’d love to have you! Don’t forget to stop by the chat room for the site and say hi!
