What does it mean to reverse engineer the brain?
18 August 10 11:54 AM | BrandonLive
PZ Myers takes Ray Kruzweil to task for claiming that we might be able to reverse engineer the “program” that our brain runs, and indeed make a computer-based “port” of it, sometime in the next 10 years.  He doesn’t just refute Kruzweil’s claim, he seems to be using it as evidence for his argument that Kruzweil is a moron. I [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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On Roger Ebert, Video Games, and Art
21 April 10 05:40 PM | BrandonLive
It came to my attention this afternoon that Roger Ebert, previously on record claiming “video games can never be art,” has sought to elaborate on this statement for… well, for some reason, I should think.  He builds his case as a rebuttal to Kellee Santiago’s TED talk at USC on the subject.  If this discussion interests [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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When final notices aren’t very final.
08 April 10 02:37 PM | BrandonLive
Yesterday I was very excited to receive a message from SIRIUS Satellite Radio which was labeled as the “final notice” in their incessant attempts to sign me up after my trial subscription, which came free with my car, had expired. Unfortunately, it seems they couldn’t live up to their promise. Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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Kindle review
28 March 10 08:35 PM | BrandonLive
A few weeks ago I decided it was time to buy an E-book reader.  I really only considered two options, the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Amazon Kindle (specifically the “Kindle 2” model).  I’d briefly seen each in person, but hadn’t had time to really look at or play with either of them. The Investigation I [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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Measuring memory usage in Windows 7
21 February 10 08:13 PM | BrandonLive
Historically, measuring the amount of memory in use by a Windows system has been a somewhat confusing endeavor.  The labels on various readouts in Task Manager, among other places, were often either poorly named or simply misunderstood.  I’ll tackle a prime example of this, the “commit” indicator, later in this post.  But first, let’s look [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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The so-called “God Mode”
04 January 10 04:38 PM | BrandonLive
A thoroughly ridiculous “trick” has been making the rounds over the last couple days, which was described by Ina Fried on CNET as follows: By creating a new folder in Windows 7 and renaming it with a certain text string at the end, users are able to have a single place to do everything from changing [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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What does age mean in the tech world?
30 December 09 04:16 PM | BrandonLive
Mary Jo asks:  “At Microsoft, is age more than just a number?” In the responses to her post I saw a few comments along the lines of, “ageism happens, get over it.”  One commentor wrote: “Truthfully, younger Folk will just not like you, simply because of your age, and in the workplace that has insidious ways of [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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Two weeks with a Droid
13 December 09 07:03 PM | BrandonLive
A couple weeks ago I made a rather impulsive decision to purchase a Motorola Droid with a new Verizon account.  The frustrations I’ve had with AT&T have been piling up for a while now… dropped called, slow-to-respond data services, zero service in crowded places, and horrible customer service problems (such as being lied to and [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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New Google home page. Is this for real?
03 December 09 02:30 PM | BrandonLive
A recap of what went through my mind yesterday as I read the Official Google Blog post about their new home page design and tried out the “updated” page: - Is this a joke? - This is terrible. - If this is real, why is this Google person so excited about an inanely stupid and minor change? - Marissa Mayer wrote [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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When version checks go wrong
29 October 09 02:19 PM | BrandonLive
Ars Technica’s review of Windows 7 is extensively detailed and contains a lot of good information.  But one piece jumped out at me, and that was this paragraph on the last page: If Vista had gotten the reception it actually deserved, and become a brand worth keeping, it seems highly likely that the name would have [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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Windows 7 released!
22 October 09 03:52 PM | BrandonLive
As of today, Windows 7 is officially the latest commercially available operating system from Microsoft.  That’s a pretty cool thing for me in several ways.  First of all, when discussing Windows 7 over the last few months I’ve had to add the caveat “and it’ll be available toward the end of October.”  On several occasions [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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Windows 7 demos in 7 seconds
22 October 09 02:17 PM | BrandonLive
Cool new Windows 7 ads. Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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Can I bill Chase for my time fixing their problem?
12 October 09 03:37 PM | BrandonLive
If it seems like my blog has turned into a forum for me to vent my frustrations, I apologize.  I’ll make more useful posts soon to make up for it, I promise.  But in the meantime… Last month I traded in my car.  This involved having the dealer pay off the remainder of my auto loan [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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Office move 2009
10 October 09 07:47 PM | BrandonLive
Yesterday afternoon some long awaited details about my team’s upcoming office move made their way out to the team.  At Microsoft, it’s a common practice to divvy up offices based on seniority – meaning those who have been at the company the longest get the first shot at window offices, and those who are newest get the [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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AT&T rant. Giving up on getting an iPhone 3G S.
18 September 09 09:02 PM | BrandonLive
I think I’m giving up on trying to get a iPhone 3G S.  In fact, I’m really tempted to ditch AT&T altogether and get one of those fancy new Windows Phones coming out next month on Verizon or Sprint.  Why?  Well, AT&T’s sales / service people have been extraordinarily awful since my iPhone was stolen [...] Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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