Ryckbost.com

I’ll be attending RailsConf this year. Awesome!

(lame post, but I needed an excuse for posting something here and making this website relevant)

I’ve been happily using my 360 HD DVD add-on since last Christmas when my parents gave it to me as a Christmas present. Shortly thereafter, I signed up for a Netflix free trial to rent some HD content and have been using it since. I’ve gone through, for the most part, all the worthwhile HD DVD movies. Now, I’ve been catching up on some films that I haven’t seen but had heard good things about them.

I checked my email a few minutes ago to find out that Netflix is moving to Blu-Ray exclusively. I have to say I’m a little disappointed, but I figured it was coming at some point. The price of being an early-adopter I suppose. Here’s what the email said:

We’re Going Blu-ray

Dear Brian,

You’re receiving this email because you have asked to receive high-definition movies in the HD DVD format. As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well.

While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements.

Toward the end of February, HD DVDs in your Saved Queue will automatically be changed to standard definition DVDs. Then toward the end of this year, all HD DVDs in your Queue will be changed to standard definition DVDs. Don’t worry, we will contact you before this happens.

Interim is officially over. Of the 5 books that were assigned, I dutifully read three (Bainton, Orend, and Maguire) and skimmed through the other two. I have to admit, my personal views about war and conflict have been affected by this course. I’m on the fence between realism and just-war theory, as were others in my class. All in all, my last Interim at Calvin College was hard work, but enlightening.

Now, I might have time to actually help with the planning of my wedding…

Interim started today. I’m taking War and Violence: Context, Cause, and Cure. It’s a philosophy class, and so it seems natural that we have to read 5 books. Here’s what’s on my list:

• Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace by Roland H.Bainton


• The Horrors We Bless by Daniel C. Maguire


• No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu


• Forgiveness in International Politics by William Bole, Drew Christiansen, Robert T. Hennemeyer


• The Morality of War by Brian Orend

In other subjects, I got some wonderful books for Christmas that I can’t get to dig in to. They’re mostly technology and design related, but should be highly interesting.

• The Mythical Man-Month by Federick P. Brooks, Jr.


• The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman


• Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman


• The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun


• Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass (thanks Dan!)

Ambitious? Perhaps, but I’ve got plenty of time to get through the techy ones. So, what’s on your bookshelf?