The Spandex, not the Flannel

Blades of Glory
It's my 24th birthday tomorrow. I came to the unanimous decision that I was going to single-handedly make rollerblading socially acceptable outside of Venice Beach. For granted, I have not rollerbladed since 1999, but expect to see me gliding down the Embarcadero on a killer pair of blades in zebra striped spandex.

As others try to bring back the 80s, it seems only natural to try to stay ahead of the game by falling back to the 90s.

Let's hear it for the 80s.
Today on BoingBoing.net: "After a troubled and turbulent decade, one of the most iconic faces on the planet during the post-punk era is returning to active service, and in a most unpredictable and chaotic style. Over the last few weeks, Adam Ant has been turning up unannounced at assorted club nights for quick guerrilla gigs - a dandy highwayman in the underworld - and joining other artists onstage for surprise duets."

Dave S's take: Quite frankly, I find it offensive when your generation fetishes the 80s. You weren't there, man. I had to live it. Met a girl in a coffee shop - was listening to a discman! She was maybe 21. She said she wanted to get some cassettes.

Cassettes? Well a couple of my friends, hipsters who hate hipsters for being hipster, have record players. Vinyl is the new polycarbonate plastic.

A hot-new-thing, that's actually been around for a long time, but now we call it something else: Push-To-Talk.
Hip Voice is a cool new app that works on all mobile devices with any carrier that enables Push-To-Talk technology. You know what 'PTT' technology really is? It turns your cell into a freakin' Walkie Talkie. Whether you asked Santa for it or it was a Hanukkah demand, this was on the top of your list if you were a product of the 80s. HipVoice is supposedly the hottest thing out of the Founder Institute in LA. I am not a fan of the name, but I think it is a pretty neat product. When luring investors, throw around "Push-To-Talk," but if you want to win the masses, for Christsake, just say "Walkie Talkie." Roger That.

For more 80s, if you can't get enough.
Anecdotes about the development of Apple's original Macintosh computer, and the people who created it.

Cooler in Clay.

Cloud Computing, With a Chance of Meatballs.

Saturday I survived my first baby shower. I believe my friend registered at Babies R Us, but I decided the bookstore was safer territory, and picked up some classics. Since it's a boy, I bought Clifford, Curious George, and a couple books about trains. If I know one thing, if anything at all, about boys, they dig transportation. I personally do not know of any cool kids' book about computers that contain important life lessons like honesty and perseverance and not trusting big bad wolves. Gosh Mom and Dad, if only I learned html with the ABCs!

In today's post, I wanted to mention a new buzz word for a phenomenon that's actually been around for a long time.   Cloud computing.  Oracle and IBM have been doing it for years, referring to it as "grid computing," before the buzz-word "cloud" appeared on the Doppler. IBM has actually distinguished between the metaphors.

In my search for a definition, I found that Wikipedia's was the most cohesive and coherent. However, my friend, NYT Dave, one up-ed them all.

Definition: Cloud computing- "If you use Gmail, you are cloud computing. People find the concept hard to grasp, but I don't know why. When you keep your shit on the Internet, instead of your computer, you are cloud computing. That's all there is to it."
Wow.

Random Hot Finds:
This Times article fails to give away the mind blowing content contained within. Best find in weeks.

Poor kid!