that’s great…

opening your mind…

After watching the Gladiator movie (years ago), I realized that I liked the movie, but I really liked its soundtrack. Especially tracks like Earth, Sorrow, The Might of Rome, Elysium and Now We Are Free. Now, Hans Zimmer is a superior composer, this is a fact. However, some of the songs had a bit more… as it turns out it was the voice of Lisa Gerrard - also superior.

Anyway, with some schooling on the genre by some guy (Douglas), I started listening to music she had anything to do with, or just in the same vein: Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil, etc. I’ve always thought I had eclectic tastes in music, but in all honesty, this is out there. Not the music itself, but my interest in it. Dead Can Dance is so far from quality Hip-hop cats, such as Jay-Z, Kanye West, lil’ Wayne, Common, Mos Def, and the list goes on. Maybe I shouldn’t care. Maybe I should just sit back and enjoy the sounds.

So in my car, I primarily blast a mix CD of I’m So Hood, Pop bottles, You Can’t Tell Me Nothin’, etc. Sometimes I switch it up and rock that previous White Stripes album: track #1 Seven Nation Army - “Going to Wichita, far from this Opera”. You know what I’d talking about! In the morning, I blast either Jazz from 88.5 FM, or Classical (chamber) from 99.5 FM. Man, I love music…

I can’t say knowing and enjoying different genres of music will make you wiser; but from a few studies you can infer that it will make you smarter. Look it up. In basic terms, more music ya pump into your brain, the more brain matter you’ll need to analyze these new sound patterns. Also, if you spend time listening to a few tracks, over time you’ll start to here various sounds you didn’t hear before. Similar to watching a very layered drama or comedy. Try for yourself, if you don’t already own a copy of Arrested Development, get one. Watch that instant classic once. Wait a week and watch it again. This time make a conscience effort to note things happening in the background. Something small like the facial expression of someone just out of focus. You’ll get just a bit more out of that same experience. The short of it is by opening your mind, you’ll increase it.

agile gets it…

Agreed, Agile development only leads to complaining.

android says, “hello world”…

The Android SDK has been released. Based on the youtube demos, API and architecture, it seems this may be my alternative to J2ME. One of my major concerns with the openness of Android, was security. On this platform, what is a secure application? How does an application get more, or less permission? This section gives some answers.

Some have already made sample applications. This is a good thing because early adopters make the current buzz even stronger. Now, if these adopters they make usable applications, others will definitely follow. For example, look at the history of Google Maps. Users create and use applications based on the Google Map API daily. Not simply because it’s a Google item, but because of its ease of use and functionality.

As for hardware sales, in order for this to compete with (destroy) the iPhone, the GPhone will have to be somewhat sleek, and give a reasonable amount of of screen space. Also, gyroscopic elements wouldn’t hurt… I’d love to be able to turn the phone on its side and have the screen auto-magically rotate. Oh, and not having to change my service to AT&T would be nice.

One obvious thing in all of this is Google’s branding power: it’s unheard of! What other company in existence can release an API with an emulator, and have jerks (like myself) salivating over their unavailable mobile device (maybe by Q3 of 2008). Believe me, I’m not a Google fanboy; I’ve already gone with OpenLaszlo over GWT. Yeah, I use GoogleDocs, but OpenOffice is my primary document editor. Although I’ve seen Guice’s robustness and agility (performance benchmarks), I am going to stay a Spring user. Primarily, because I use more than Spring’s IOC/DI support. In the end, J2ME was not what I wanted in a mobile application dev-kit. So, I’ll give Android a try.

Bill Burr’s funny…

I’ve been a Bill Burr fan for about 2 years now. You may recognize him from the Dave Chappelle show, or even before that. HBO have a slew of One-Night stand specials (most of ‘em were real good), and his was one of the funniest! Anyway, here’s a youtube clip of him on the Letterman show. It’s safe for work.

help a person out…

In this Googlfied time in history, things are good for software and techie people. That’s great, but it would be even better to share some of that, wouldn’t it? Well, for those of you with a backup 360 (you know who you are), or lusting over that MacBook Pro (It does look nice…), or maybe eyeballing that new Mercedes C-class (how dare you) - take a moment to squeeze in some empathy for your fellow man… and woman… err humans. Even if you already give to a charity, consider Changing The Present. You can actually choose your donation’s target. Every little bit helps!