Filed Under (Chatter) by colin.ake on 30-09-2008
I don’t pull for Alabama all the time, even though I have friends who wish I would. I was raised to root for two college football teams every Saturday… Georgia Tech, and whoever is playing Georgia. For as long as I can remember, I’ve pulled against Georgia and now, more than ever, I’m glad I do so. This was supposed to be their championship year, their year of undefeated football. And they got destroyed by ‘Bama this past weekend.
More than ever, I’ve noticed how obnoxious UGA fans can really be - they’re not normal obnoxious, it’s like they’ve taken obnoxiousness classes… And with majors like “Pre Business” and “Building,” who can blame them? Got to fill hours somehow.
So - go Alabama - that was a great game, if you’re not a “Dawg” fan. And I’m not just NOT a “Dawg” fan, I pull against them. Now, excuse me, I should really go buy the shirt from the bookstore that says “I pull for GT and whoever is playing UGA.”
I bleed white and gold, sucker. And I’m impressed with our team, and looking forward to November.
Colin
PS - Hope KnowShow is healthy in time for the Jackets defense…
Filed Under (Housekeeping) by colin.ake on 29-09-2008
Hey Fellas -
I’ve implemented a new widget on the right-hand side of the blog recently - it’s called Skribit and it’s a content suggestion system that YOU get to control. Want to see more reviews of web 2.0 applications? Vote for it. Want to see me write about open source in the military? Vote for it. Want to see me write about monkeys in the amazon rainforest that use Twitter? Suggest it. Skribit is a great tool for you to use to let me know what you want.
Skribit is the brainchild of Georgia Tech student and popular blogger Paul Stamatiou. Paul introduced the Skribit idea at Atlanta Startup Weekend last year and the application was built. He works with a couple other programmers and gets frequent advice from people over at Georgia Tech’s ATDC.
Give me some suggestions - they don’t have to be groundbreaking but they may make me blog more.
Take care, and good luck getting gas if you’re in Atlanta.
Colin
Filed Under (Chatter) by colin.ake on 25-09-2008
I’ve got a project I’m beginning work on, and at this point it’s called nothing other than Project Mayhem to people who haven’t been briefed on it’s powers yet. I’m currently fleshing out how it’ll work and some basic architecture, but I think it’d be the first entry in a category of the online shopping market that has yet to be touched, even by the mighty powers that be (rhymes with Oogle and Lambazon).
The guys at ATDC at GT started something called StartupGauntlet that I missed last night but I’ll try to make in the future once I get some more stuff nailed down. In addition, my group project in Entrepreneurship Forum will be focused around developing the business side of this project… and I’m in the search for a programmer with copious amounts of free time because this project needs a LOT of work on the programming side of things. I’d prefer someone still in school, but if you know anyone, talk to me.
So I’m working on Project Mayhem in my free time… should be fun and stimulating, hopefully something I can start somewhat successfully while I’m still in school - all the advice I’ve gotten is if you get an idea, work on it while you’re still in school. Time to take that advice and run with it.
Project Mayhem will be unveiled bit by bit as I figure it all out, so keep checking back and take care.
Colin
PS - I was typing ATDC above and nearly typed AC/DC instead… which would be appropriate in some ways - I did purchase AC/DC tickets with Nathan, Lance, and Mark for December 16. Should be a fun time.
Filed Under (Musings) by colin.ake on 19-09-2008
Every morning at 6:45, someone drives by the front of our house and honks for a good 3-4 seconds. You can almost set your watch by it.
We live on a residential street that is often used as a cut-through between two more industrial streets. Someone (in a not-quite-so-new silver sedan) has decided they don’t like people parking on the street and honks EVERY time they drive by. This has been going on the last six months or so - I kept hearing it from bed in the spring, but when I started getting up at 6 AM over the Summer, I noticed it happened every morning about the same time.
Mark and I decided to see who it is - and try and figure out why they’re doing it. If this person is just turning onto our street, honking, and turning off immediately, we think we have a fairly good case to argue our street should allow no thru traffic, or at least argue that constant honking is a disturbance of the peace.
Then the question comes - what’s next? Call the cops? Who do we petition to get this craziness stopped? Or is someone just going to slap a No Parking sign on our street?
Take care, and don’t be a jerk for no reason.
Colin
Filed Under (Musings, Politics) by colin.ake on 18-09-2008
These bailouts have got to stop. At what point does this madness stop? We’ve already fallen down a slippery slope. Our tax money is being used to bail companies out whose management have made poor decisions. I realize that in almost every case this happens, an argument can be made for the overall better well being of the economy, but at some point, after we hand out tens of billions of dollars every time a company is about to go under, aren’t we just throwing money down the drain?
At what point is there no longer a free market?
Here’s a quote from Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post (found via my friend Rob Johnson):
“What we are witnessing may be the greatest destruction of financial wealth that the world has ever seen — paper losses measured in the trillions of dollars. Corporate wealth. Oil wealth. Real estate wealth. Bank wealth. Private-equity wealth. Hedge fund wealth. Pension wealth.”
He’s right on. It’s scary. But is constantly handing out billions of dollars a good long-term idea??
Just something to think on…
Colin
Filed Under (Chatter) by colin.ake on 16-09-2008
My dad’s mom passed away last week unexpectedly - it has been a tough road but has brought the family close together and we’ve gotten to spend time with extended family. It’s been really difficult realizing Grandma is gone. I was a pallbearer and I spoke at the funeral, and that helped, but it hasn’t set in yet. I wanted to share what I said at the funeral - it’s rather long, but it is my memory of my Grandma.
Hope everyone is doing well - take the time today to call someone you haven’t had time to talk to… or make plans to go visit them soon. You never know when someone may be called home.
Colin
My memories of Grandma after the drop…
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed Under (Chatter) by colin.ake on 09-09-2008
So I’ve never read The Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, but the title seemed appropriate as we’re talking about the supposed end of the world tomorrow. For those of you who don’t know - that’s what dolphins (the smartest creatures in the world, supposedly) said before the earth’s destruction.
Probably while you’re still sleeping, the people at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider - the world’s largest particle accellerator (a 17 mile long circular tunnel deep underground the borders of Switzerland and France) will switch on their first experiment. They hope to discover new insights into how the universe formed by analyzing particle collisions.
Here’s where the “end of the world” part kicks in - some people think it’ll basically create a small black hole and we’ll be sucked into it. Now, if we’re lucky, it’ll just create a “small” black hole that sucks in France. No seriously, they say that even if it does create small black holes, that’s not a big deal. Here’s the quote from CNN: “The gravitational force is so weak that you’d have to wait many, many, many, many, many lifetimes of the universe before one of these things could [get] big enough to even get close to being a problem,” said Huth, professor of physics at Harvard University.
So, we may all die tomorrow during this test. Or it may be in the upcoming years as they try more and more intense experiments. But if we all die from this thing tomorrow, it was nice knowing you all. Don’t forget to comment or subscribe to the RSS feed - it could be the last comment you write or RSS feed you subscribe to.
Take care - see you when we’re all compacted into a lot more compact mass than we are now. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll be like “Honey, I shrunk the Milky Way” and we’ll never notice that we shrunk because our surroundings will have shrunk too. Who knows.
Colin
Filed Under (Entertainment) by colin.ake on 04-09-2008
I had the joy of shooting the Georgia Tech vs. Jacksonville State game last week - a fun game to shoot for a few reasons:
- The first game with Paul Johnson as GT’s coach.
- The first game featuring the triple option
- The first game of the season
It was quite an enjoyable game - thanks to Jon Drews for loaning me a very expensive lens and body I can’t afford to help capture everything. Enjoy the pictures!
Josh Nesbitt Cutting Through the Jacksonville State Defense
Running back Jonathan Dwyer breaking off his first touchdown run.
Paul Johnson gives quarterback Josh Nesbitt a piece of his mind.
Roddy Jones celebrates after a touchdown late in the game.
Hope the pictures were enjoyed. I love shooting sports - but football (especially night football) is particularly fun and more challenging than daytime football. It was great to see the Jackets out of the gate strong and end up with their first win of the season. Watch out, ACC. Here we come.
Take care.
Colin
