Monthly Archives: May 2008

Latest Addition To The BLOC: GV Hurley's

I don’t know how to say this, but GV Hurley’s is probably the only place worth spending your time and money when it comes to nightlife on J street between 27th and 28th.  What can I say, I’m a fan of the place.  GV Hurley’s, with its classy and elegant style, fits in nicely among the other nearby eateries, but a wide swooping bar sets this place apart and above others on ‘The BLOC’ .

Let’s not forget to metion the staff is friendly, knows their game, and are familiar to boot (one of our favorite folks is now tending bar.)  The food is tasty and drinks are reasonably priced.  Normally you wouldn’t find me somewhere so far from the Streets of London , but this new restaurant and bar has my attention.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.


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Latest Addition To The BLOC: GV Hurley’s

I don’t know how to say this, but GV Hurley’s is probably the only place worth spending your time and money when it comes to nightlife on J street between 27th and 28th.  What can I say, I’m a fan of the place.  GV Hurley’s, with its classy and elegant style, fits in nicely among the other nearby eateries, but a wide swooping bar sets this place apart and above others on ‘The BLOC’ .

Let’s not forget to metion the staff is friendly, knows their game, and are familiar to boot (one of our favorite folks is now tending bar.)  The food is tasty and drinks are reasonably priced.  Normally you wouldn’t find me somewhere so far from the Streets of London , but this new restaurant and bar has my attention.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.


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Content Battle Copy Copy Right Battle Content

I’ll admit, and you should be honest, who isn’t excited now that they’re understanding why it was important for google to buy youtube?  I’m excited, that’s for sure.  This whole Viacom vs Youtube thing could never have ended well in the old days, which isn’t to say that it will now, but it couldn’t be any worse than youtube going at it alone.  They just didn’t have the resources to fight such an important battle.  Now that google is involved with all its internet pressence and deep pockets, we can watch this thing unfold for years to come.  What we ought to hope for, or at least what I hope for, is that by the time any sort of final decision is made, it won’t matter.  But loads and loads of money will still have been burned.  Woohoo!  That’s great for someone.  Not sure who, though.
To be fair, I’m not a huge fan of Youtube.  Not to imply that I’ve never made use of the service to host a home video, but I haven’t been able to get into the countless hours of wandering through pointless videos.  It’s not the same as wandering through countless hours of pointless web pages.  (Countable hours are much preferred.)
Again, to be fair, I’m not entirely against Viacom.  I understand their want for protecting their copyrighted content.  The stuff that brings in the money.  (That other stuff.)
So let’s revisit this in a few years and see if there’s been any progress.  I think for now we should focus on how and where all this content is distributed, rather than what the content actually is.  Heck, there will always be content.  Whether or not it’s worthwhile, that’s a million other opinions.  Let’s all say, “billions of handhelds, millions of users, thusands of data centers.”  Think about that cloud and smoke it up.

We've Been Tracking You

It’s true, we’ve been monitoring your cruise using Google Earth and Google Travel, and probably some other Google products, with which we are unfamiliar, but are using nonetheless. The photos are from two years ago, but we’re certain it’s the same ship, and it’s going about in the same way. (Route and speed.) Sometimes we can see folks up on deck, waving, and singing, probably, thinking they are kings of the world. Which isn’t the same as being a street king. That’s more like being a rouge cop, or a gang member. Perhaps part of some organized crime cartel. You don’t hear a whole lot about cartels anymore. Maybe that’s just me. I don’t know where I’d be that I’d hear about them. I’m around online, and from time to time, but you know how it is, you start reading comics in the morning and then before you know it — it’s lunch, and, well, who has time for that sort of thing? Not me, my man. That’s all I’m saying.

Anyhow, there isn’t too much time left, although there’s plenty of space, so we’ll have to leave it at this. In the meanwhile, thanks for stopping by and having a few. We all back here hope that you enjoyed your trip over there.

We’ve Been Tracking You

It’s true, we’ve been monitoring your cruise using Google Earth and Google Travel, and probably some other Google products, with which we are unfamiliar, but are using nonetheless. The photos are from two years ago, but we’re certain it’s the same ship, and it’s going about in the same way. (Route and speed.) Sometimes we can see folks up on deck, waving, and singing, probably, thinking they are kings of the world. Which isn’t the same as being a street king. That’s more like being a rouge cop, or a gang member. Perhaps part of some organized crime cartel. You don’t hear a whole lot about cartels anymore. Maybe that’s just me. I don’t know where I’d be that I’d hear about them. I’m around online, and from time to time, but you know how it is, you start reading comics in the morning and then before you know it — it’s lunch, and, well, who has time for that sort of thing? Not me, my man. That’s all I’m saying.

Anyhow, there isn’t too much time left, although there’s plenty of space, so we’ll have to leave it at this. In the meanwhile, thanks for stopping by and having a few. We all back here hope that you enjoyed your trip over there.

GTC West – Governor Schwarzenegger Speaks

After being introduced by the CEO of GTC, and then again by California CIO, Teri Takai, the honorable Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger addressed a room bursting at the seams with IT folks eager to snap photos and record video with their latest and greatest hand held devices. He cracked some jokes, warned us to keep an eye on elderly neighbors while the heatwave is passing through, and said a little about our great State and its current state. Pointing out that the State lacks the necessary infrastructure to adequately support its residents.

That’s it. There wasn’t a whole lot going on. Most of the folks left when Arnold left. I guess not everyone was interested in hearing Scott McNealy speak about…well, I’m not sure, because I left. Doh!

All in all, the conference is a good use of a few hours of your time if you have it to spare. It’s free to attend, so you can’t beat the price, and you’ll meet a bunch of new folks eager to sell you things for your business. They’re going to have to spring for some drinks at the bar, though, if they expect to get anything done.

GTC West – Wednesday Highlights

GTC stands for Government Technology Conference.  It’s a time for a large group of people working in the IT field to gather in one place with all their favorite vendors, as well as enjoy lectures from a few keynote speakers.  The most notable at this year’s confrence being California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (speaking tomorrow morning.)

OpenDNS.com — Perhaps the most useful thing I took away from visiting with a variety of vendors.  There are two server IPs they use, and after configuring my network to utilize these addresses, managing where my office network traffic goes becomes much much easier.  Management is a breeze once the online account is set up for tracking stats and configuring access.  I can easily block entire categories (adult themes, social networking, nudity, etc.) from being accessed by anyone using one of my networks.

YouTube — Offers up 10 hours of content every minute.  I don’t know if this is true, but I could believe it.  It came up in conversation while I was talking with a software developer from IBM who is currently working on a video-mining project.  (He writes code to search video.)  I had never given much thought to it, I just assumed there was a lot of data moving around, but 10 hours every minute is an insane amount.