I'm happy to report that the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows, is good. It's very very good.
I'll spare you the gory details in a review, but I definitely recommend checking it out. I am continuously suprised that a band like Radiohead can produce good and innovative music over a career as long as theirs. It's difficult to create one great song, let alone a great album, let alone seven. Wow.
Megan, Bonnie, Gus, and I all headed over to Marymoor park Tuesday night and saw Wilco live and in person. What a treat. A couple of notes:
1) They had special 'Hybrid' parking at the show. Bonnie drives a Prius, so we skipped the line and parked right by the entrance (among a bunch of other Prius's). Nice!
2) Marymoor is a great place to see a concert. Now that I'm older and more mellow, 'the berm' in the back is perfect. Bring a blanket, a little food, go grab some beers and hang out and listen to some great tunes.
3) Wilco's range was really impressive in person, even more so then when just listening to albums. They, of course, have a ton of great songs, but when you see them in person you really get your head around the varied styles and sounds that come from this band.
4) The crowd was really pretty mellow. Even the folks standing up front weren't rocking out as much as they were just taking it all in. Bonnie noted that the beards were out in full effect. Given that Bonnie, Gus, and I went to Macalester and Megan went to UNH so it's clear that these were our people.
5) Some video is already on Youtube, though the audio quality isn't awesome.
My recommendation- see a show at Marymoor. Also, see Wilco.
The other computer in our household... I mean, one of the other computers in our household is a Lenovo z51t (a very sweet little laptop). It has built in wireless via Intel 3945 a/b/g. For the last couple of weeks, it has frequently dropped off the wireless network, causing much annoyance and headache. 
After my last experience with Vista and networking, I went straight to the driver. When using Vista to check for an updated driver, no joy. When searching on the Internets to find one, joy.
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2259&lang=eng
After a download and install of the drivers, the z51t is back on the network and the signal strength appears better (it was listed as 'good' even though the laptop was about 5 feet from the wireless router). It's too early to declare success, but this is looking good.
If all goes as planned, I will spend tomorrow afternoon at Safeco field, sitting behind home plate with a lap full of Garlic fries and watching Daisuke Matsuzaka pitch. Feel the jealousy.
So I'm reading a back post from Joel on Software and I stumble upon a quote from Dave Winer that I believe (without any reservation) hits the nail on the head.
So when I say "inch by inch" -- that's what I mean. To create a usable piece of software, you have to fight for every fix, every feature, every little accommodation that will get one more person up the curve. There are no shortcuts. Luck is involved, but you don't win by being lucky, it happens because you fought for every inch.
Once you know the truth of the above, there almost nothing more depressing than watching software get created by people who aren't fighting for every inch.
Bravo!
So I recently cleaned up my home machine, repartitioned the drives, and reinstalled Vista. Exciting since it will mean the machine is in a wonderful clean state (I had previously upgraded over XP, which worked fine but always makes me a little bit suspicious). But, since that time, my network performance has been just terrible. How terrible? Well have a look-
You're reading that right- my Comcast cable modem was performing just a little better than dialup. It felt like 1995 all over again.
Continue reading "Vista Wired Network Performance Problem Solved" »
