11 years of mobile phones, digital music players and computers

I finnally got to making a timeline of all the “general tech” I’ve owned since 2000. 11 years worth of cell phones, computers and digital music players.

12 Cell Phones, 6 digital music players, 5 CPU’s, 6 GPUs, 3 laptops and a tablet. I wonder what the total cost would come to.

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Web Editors

Mansur and I have always joked that titles for web developers/ masters / designers / editors / presidents are completely non descriptive and a real hassle to explain the details of to friends and family – mainly because “the web” is such a broad topic. My requirements for my next job are that I simply be titled correctly.

web-editors

What is a Web Editor?

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I now present, Briscoe in a sombrero

Taken a few years ago

Cat wearing a Sombrero

¡Ay, caramba!

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Today was a day

Today was a day. Not a bad day. Not a good day. It will be one of those days I forget, like last Monday. That was only a week and a half ago and I really couldn’t tell you much about it. Today will be one of those days (as opposed to one of those days). A day that is part of a string of days that is doomed to be forgotten. I feel sad for the death of today, that is, Wednesday June 29th, 2011.

Oakland Sky

Nearly a year ago, June 29th sat patiently on an unopened 2011 calendar, when new calendars generally go on sale. June 29th had the potential to be a day I would remember. A time in the spotlight. It could have been a good day: a day I got a raise, or made a new friend or moved to a new area. Even bad days get remembered;  like the day I got my first layoff  notice (June 3rd, 2009); or the day my father , mom and I got into a major fight over video games (September 9th, 2001).

No, today is doomed to be filed away in my memory as “routine” and will become part of a composite that consists of all the other days I went to my current job, had lunch, did some work, went home, and watched some TV; a general, but imperfect picture. As much as I love my brain, it can be pretty damned lazy at times.

black and white bench

So I mourn for the loss of today. Life isn’t meant to be just a chronological listing of major events. The space between your best friends wedding and your grandmother’s funeral is time worth remembering, but our consciousness is constantly at odds with this notion. It’s not June 29th’s fault life didn’t hurl a meteor into my driveway, or that I didn’t plan a Caligula style orgy with all of my closest friends.

There’s always next year though, June 29th. I can plan something more extravagant, or you can get to work on the second coming of Jesus.However, I think we should just keep it low key though. It can be our quiet little nothingness.

briscoe

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SF Nostalgia

Cincopa WordPress plugin

A short little montage created from video I’ve collected on my cellphone and D90 over the past couple of years. Nothing special, but a fun waste of time to a good tune.

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Chat-log Nostalgia

I was searching for an email in my Gmail account today, when I stumbled upon some old chats I had with a friend back in January 2007. It was actually a pretty big moment in mobile history; because it was when Apple released the first iPhone.

iPhone release chatlog

Cingular? iPods? What are those?

A pretty cool throwback. I actually was pretty skeptical of the iPhone when it was released (no keyboard, and yeah, 600 dollars fully subsidized), but at least I don’t have any of that on record. However, I scrolled down and found this gem:

Apple stock chatlog

"pffft Apple's stock only went up 4% that day!"

Today. Apples stock (AAPL) closed at $322.81 .

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My Guide to Buying a Smartphone

I get asked all the time (being the resident technophile) about which phones and/or providers to get. Since phones change so much, it’s hard even for me to stay on the edge. I did some research to find the best phones (based heavily on my own CES trip in January).. Also shows my thoughts on the different OS/platforms. Enjoy.

Selecting a smartphone

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Belated Stories: The Bay Area Society of Freeloaders

One of my friends had an HTC phone and it reminded me of this:

Sometime in mid 2010 (that year sort of blurs together for me now), I was living in San Francisco and happened across a Facebook post for an HTC party. Being the geeky technophile I am, the idea of a party for and about cell phones sounded pretty awesome.

I got to touch this phone before lots of other people

And it was. There was food, 4 free drink coupons, working models of HTC phones, Rock Band/Guitar Hero, and a hands on demo for the HTC Aria. I got to mingle with other mobilephiles, met a few android app developers and chatted a bit with an Engadget mobile blogger. You know how some people go to Hollywood for movies? The tech culture was one of my reasons for moving to the bay area.

The biggest take away I got though was an interesting group of men I encountered.

At first glance they were a little out of place. Four older gentlemen whose attire was nice, but still a bit out of “Miami Vice” (think Scarface but fatter and older.) I had noticed them early on – as they had been some of the first people in line, but it wasn’t until later that I struck up a conversation with one of them.

It wasn’t exactly a gripping conversation – but long story short, he told me about how he and his league of extraordinary gentlemen had been crashing parties since the mid 90s. As I talked and watched them more and more, I realized just how committed these guys were to their craft.

They were shameless in their execution; sniping every food tray and coordinating with each other like a Navy SEAL team. Seriously, hand-signals, push to talk cell phones – these guys were not amateurs. I was actually having a pretty pleasant conversation with the squad leader (who ran some travel agency out of his garage), except for the fact that every time a food tray wandered into his peripheral vision he’d run across the room to the tray, come back with his hands full of bagel bites, and resume talking right where he left off like nothing happened.

Not only that, they had other members at other events in San Francisco who were reporting on weather there were better places to loot food (I heard “Shoe Convention” over one of the cell phones). After word got out about the drinks and food at the HTC party, two more freeloaders arrived (I assumed by repelling down a helicopter) and began to partake in the rape. To add insult to injury, two of them managed to win Aria cell phones from the drawing. The leader informed me this was a common occurrence, and they would redistribute / sell the phones.

He wouldn’t let me into their club (your damned right I asked), but now every time I go to an event in the city, I’m on the look out for this elite squad. I think it’s the closest I’ve ever come to meeting the Justice League.

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