From Out of Nowhere

Posted on by in Charts & Data, Current Events, Technology

Via Barrons via The Big Picture, interesting trends in the computing space: I find it a little bit funny that the graphic says, “from out of nowhere, smartphones have passed global PC sales.” The slope of both smartphone graphs shifted sharply upward the month the first iPhone was released and haven’t changed since. I’d say the passing was rather predictable at any point after the iPhone came out until it happened. Even if PC sales had maintained their trend growth, that only would have delayed the inevitable by a few months.

Cloud Follow-Up

Posted on by in Technology

In response to my post yesterday on cloud backup solutions, Colin suggests another interesting solution: Rather than pay $60 a year for cloud backup, I invested in the personal cloud. Connect this to your router and set your Mac or pc to backup automatically. Completely automated and way more storage. I like the idea of this approach, and it definitely has its cost benefits over the long-run,  especially on a per GB basis, but I would still worry about the improbable scenario of a fire or theft. If my computer and local hard drive were both stolen or damaged, everything would be gone for good. But it does look like a great product nonetheless. Thanks Colin.

The Cloud’s Got My Back

Posted on by in General, Technology

I’ve had a rough couple of weeks with my computer — at times I’ve felt as though I’m back in the 90’s when computers just crashed on a regular predictable basis for all sorts of nonsensical reasons. The focus of this post is on various cloud backup solutions, and how well they worked for me throughout my most recent computer mishap. For anyone reading who doesn’t use cloud backup, I’d seriously consider it if you have content you don’t ever want to lose. My recent problem all started with an upgrade to Windows 8. I paid the $40 to try out the new OS, and the install went fairly smoothly. I won’t spend a lot of time reviewing Windows 8, but

Continue reading

Thoughts on Flying a Plane

Posted on by in Boston/Cambridge, Flying

Last weekend I was fortunate to have the opportunity to fly a plane for the first time. My girlfriend Laura purchased a lesson for my birthday, which turned out to be an amazing gift. It’s something I’ve loosely thought about trying for some time, but I probably wouldn’t have pulled the trigger without a push. It always seemed like an expensive and difficult thing to do. Having now been through the experience, that’s certainly not the case. The lesson was purchased through a school at Minute Man airfield on Living Social. The deal included an hour of on-the-ground instruction, followed by an hour of flying.  Leading up to it, I was fairly certain that the hour of instruction would be

Continue reading

Congrats to my Brother

Posted on by in Current Events

My brother Ben just graduated from the Sound Design for Digital Media program at the Vancouver Film School. That means he’s really good at managing and executing the end to end sound design process for films and video games – everything from creating and recording sounds to mixing and post production work. If you’re still not sure what that really means, take a look at his final project. It’s awesome. He took a video game trailer, stripped away all of the sound, and recreated all new tracks from scratch. A couple highlights: those creature screams are pigs and sea otters, and the sizzling sound when the soldier steps on the smoking body is meat hitting a frying pan. Congrats Ben. Well done.

Great Investing Advice

Posted on by in Markets

Many people often ask me for investment advice, usually with questions about individual securities. I generally don’t like to respond to these questions for two reasons. First, I believe asset allocation is the single most important decision in the portfolio construction process. For this reason, I like to evaluate investments in the context of a diversified portfolio, not in isolation. There are always exceptions, sometimes for good reason, but I try to avoid them. Second, I can’t predict the future, and anyone who claims to be able to do so is lying. I have opinions on which companies, markets, and sectors appear to offer favorable opportunities, but if you ask me if a particular investment is going to go up

Continue reading

LCD Soundsystem – Sounds from Buttons & Knobs

Posted on by in Music

I apologize for the lack of blogging over the past month. After a two year break from reality, I’ve reentered the workforce and haven’t had time to put together many posts. Over time I’ll hopefully find a happy medium, and get into a routine with at least a few posts a week. For any LCD Soundsystem fans reading this, here are two rather interesting clips of James Murphy using a sequencer to make sounds in the studio. For any non LCD Soundsystem fans, here are two really strange videos: On related note, I saw James Murphy’s movie, ‘Shut Up and Play the Hits’ a couple weeks ago and have to say that I was a bit let down. It was fun

Continue reading