You have arrived at the web home of Noah Brier. This is mostly an archive of over a decade of blogging and other writing. You can read more about me or get in touch. If you want more recent writing of mine, most of that is at my BrXnd marketing x AI newsletter and Why Is This Interesting?, a daily email for the intellectually omnivorous.
I must admit, though, that I am pretty damn annoyed. Why in 2004 should I still have to reformat a computer every six months to keep it running? Shouldn't we be beyond that point? I keep my computer clean, keep virus definitions up to date and still, it refuses to keep running. Why? Someone needs to tell me why I should stick with a PC. I don't know whether the problem here is with Microsoft Windows or Compaq (now HP, the maker of my Presario 1500 laptop). Whatever the case, I've been thinking about it for a while and now I think I'm ready to go to a Mac. Why not?
After spending some time with a Mac I've gotten comfortable with OS X. I found it much more reliable and I loved how customizable the whole thing was. Most importantly, though, I'm sick of my PC. I'm tired of having to deal with all the problems and, although I'm not sure it'll make a difference, I'm willing to take the chance to prove my point (and independence). I'm not quite sure when I'll make the big switch because unemployment is probably not the best time to make a large investment in computer equipment. I also am wondering if Apple is planning on introducing a G5 laptop. Is there any news on this? I was searching for it today on Google but didn't really run across anything.
On another note, I found it interesting that when I gave a lot of thought to just how much I had on my hard drive that I really needed I could only come up with one folder of pictures that I didn't have backed up. I started to think about how much is backed up all over the place today and it's amazing. All my music is on my iRiver MP3 player. All my links are saved on del.icio.us. My photos are mostly saved on an external hard drive that I try to back everything up on. All my documents are pretty much in my GMail. I've got a blog that holds my thoughts and other writings. If it weren't for that one damn folder of pictures I don't have backed up anywhere else, there'd be no reason not to just have formatted the hard drive already.
Beyond that, life has been fairly uneventful. Bears won on Sunday against the Vikings and still have a bit of hope to make the playoffs. Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah and I'm going to see Yo La Tengo. I'm working on my year-end top 50 albums list as well as my list of my top 10 songs of all time. Oh, and I should have some job info by the end of the week.