Been meaning to do this for months now…. I got three shameless, 100%-voluntary plugs for a real estate agent, a home inspector, and a wedding videographer. I could have used a reference for each in the last year so hope it can help someone:

Back when E and I went through the home buying process we used Brian Cichella and I’d recommend him to anyone looking in the west-of-Boston/Natick+15mi-radius area. He was real professional yet personable and it only took 20 minutes with him to realize that he’s really actually honest about things, not cool-and-friendly-sales-guy honest. Also he gave us a $100 gift card to HD _after_ closing as a gift and has e-mailed multiple times since the spring with things like ‘hey how you guys doing?’ or ‘erika how is school?’. All in all, he was exactly what worked perfect for us.

Second the guy who did our home inspection was fantastic. Has been doing nothing else for decades…. Name is Frank Deveau and he works for Jackson, I was just blown away by how he performed.

Lastly the guy E and I used for our wedding videographer deserves mention, his pricing was good and he did a great job the day of and with all the post-production. He is JG Lis from Revel Video.

So slashdot had this wicked cool story about Toshiba’s new micro Nuclear Reactors. I read about the trial and certification process for these about 3 years ago (some remote communities in Alaska were testing them instead of diesel generators). It sounds like they got over the final major hurdle, which at the time of the certification was the cost per kilowatt. At the time they thought it would only be good in places where shipping fuel made energy expensive, but now they’ve gotten the cost down below grid costs. It would be great if we started building energy neutral apt complexes. Throw in some green space and telecommuting and you could have a miniscule carbon footprint. The slashdot article:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/20/0429200

and the article itself:
http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nuclear-12.17b.html

Afternoon ladies-

I have come to shamelessly attempt to gather company for another UFC event I am going to see at Good Times in Somerville on Saturday night, December 29th. This one is the big one though… UFC 79, the year ending blockbuster!!!

Come see Georges “the Flying Frenchman” St. Pierre do battle with Matt “the Flying Farmboy” Hughes (neither nickname are accurate) for the Welterweight belt, and the longest-awaited match in MMA history when long-time Pride light-heavyweight champion Wanderlei “the Axe-Murderer” Silva goes head to head with long-time UFC light-heavyweight champion Chuck “the Iceman” Liddell to prove which organization reigns supreme.

These two fights are as big as it can possibly get in this sport, and the other fights on the card huge are big time as well. No filler here, only top tier matches, so if you are a big fan this will be the ultimate show, and if you are a first time or casual watcher this is a great intro! Plus, Good Times is a great time before/during/after the actual event, what with the variety of food/drink/amusements available, so don’t be shy. Come on out, should be SICK!!!

Google Maps Street View now covers Providence and Boston.

commence snooping into your neighbors windows!

So I always thought the GNU people were tools for making a recursive acronym (why, I don’t know I just feel that way don’t judge me). That said I was wondering what it costs to develop games for the Xbox. So I pull up Microsoft’s website to see how much the development environment costs. Turns out it’s called XNA, reading the FAQ’s about it I see:

Q: What does XNA stand for?
A: XNA’s Not Acronymed

Tools.

Figured I’d post here since I’m not sure how many of you see pskalum.

My company has a few open job reqs posted. I won’t repost them here since this is public, but if people are interested, drop me a line and I can give you more details.

One is for a senior level J2EE developer, 5 years experience, etc.

The other is for an entry level MIS/Helpdesk sort of position. New system builds, network/system troubleshooting, and all kinds of other odds and ends.

What does this acronym stand for you ask? Hot Chicks with Douche Bags, of course! This is a fantastic site, the commentary is pretty hilarious. enjoy.

Not a ton of time to post.

Robert Jordan’s widow has chosen the author who will finish the last book based on RJ’s manuscript, notes and outline.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/10/1752244

I just got a beta invite to a cool new service called Hulu. Hulu is a company partnered with numerous TV studios whose service lets you watch full length TV shows. From my initial use, it seems that you can watch the most recent 4-5 episodes of most shows (at least the ones I was looking for). Fifteen second commercials take the place of regular commercial breaks, and are relatively unobtrusive. This seems like a great step towards watching TV legitimately over the internet, not to mention the video player and overall usability of the service is much better than other networks’ internet sites.

Though I haven’t explored this site fully, it is sure to turn up some good material.  Here is one example:

http://i-hate-the-new-england-patriots.blogspot.com/

Now that Japan has decided to start adding Humpback whales to it’s annual “scientific” whale hunt, Greenpeace has been working to prove how unscientific the research really is (Sadly eating something doesn’t automatically make it science). They’ve decided a better approach is to team with scientist and tag the animals, tracking their movement through the ocean. Unconventional, I know. To draw attention to their effort, Greenpeace has put up a contest on the web to name one of the tagged Humpbacks, with traditional names like Aiko (Little Love in Japanese) or Babu (means ‘grandfather or old man’ in Swahili). Well thanks to the power of the internet, the current naming front runner by a wide margin is Mr. Splashy Pants! So hurry up and vote, because nothing makes a day at the beach better then knowing Mr. Splashy Pants is out there having a splashtastic blast under the waves.

So, who wants to head outdoors this weekend? The north country is getting 9-24 inches of the white stuff by midweek alone, and we’re supposed to get more snow later in the week. Bunch of the mountains have a good number of trails open. Leave early Sat and have some fun?

So…this has been tauted as the next big MMORPG, anyone interested in or planning on trying it out? I am an official beta tester now, so I can login and play apparently. Not sure how active I will be, so if you are interested, let me know.

In Soviet Russia, guitar tunes you. Now available outside Russia.