Beautiful rendition of ‘The Dragonborn Comes’ (Skyrim Bard Song and Main Theme) by Malukah.

You can download the mp3 for free at http://www.malukah.com/free/

Chords - The Dragonborn Comes

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Derrick Bell, Steve Jobs, and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.
(Photo: David Shankbone/Wikicommons, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images, REUTERS/Tami Chappell)

I am sad that Steve Jobs is gone. I didn’t know him, but like many other people, he changed my life. There have been many tributes to Mr. Jobs in the past week and it is easy to see how widespread his influence was. There is also some negative sentiment in which people are furious that so much attention and honor is given to the death of a corporate billionaire while the deaths of race scholar Derrick Bell and civil rights leader Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who died on the same day, were much less prominently noted. I definitely agree that the deaths of Derrick Bell and Rev. Shuttlesworth deserve at least as much attention as the death of Steve Jobs, but it is Steve Jobs’ influence on my life that I will write about here.

Apple IIe

Like many computer geeks, Steve Jobs was a hero and an inspiration to me. He changed ‘thinking different’ from a reason to get beat up to a reason to be respected (at least as far as nerdy computer geeks go). I have been in continuous awe of the things he has created since the day my dad brought home an Apple IIe in 1983. That, along with a Commodore 64 and a VIC-20 that we used in the high school Computer Club, were the first places I learned about programming. BASIC. Loved it!

To a person who thinks of things in a very literal way and finds it hard to get along in a world where logic does not always dictate reality, programming provides a comfort, a world where actions and consequences are dictated by logic alone.

Aside from learning some PASCAL in college, I was out of the computer/media loop until 1995, when my dad told me about Windows 95. I got my first PC, a Compaq Presario 100MHz mini-tower with 8KB RAM, and read “Windows 95 For Dummies” from cover to cover. Over the next 10 years, I learned to build and fix PCs. I learned to build websites using FrontPage Express, a program that was included with Internet Explorer 4. It had a split view where you could look at the visual web site on one side and the code on the other, making it very easy to see how changing one would affect the other. I also learned more than I ever wanted to know about the Windows operating system.

By 2004, I was sick of the constant problems with Windows and had decided to switch to Linux. 2004 was also the year that the San Francisco Apple Store first opened. Lured by the promise of shiny electronic things, I wandered into the store and was completely blown away by what I saw. The operating system of the time was OS X 10.3, aka Panther. It was simple and beautiful, yet had the power, stability, and security of a UNIX based operating system behind it. That was it. The bar was raised forever. My first mac was a 12″ PowerBook 1.33GHZ PowerPC with 256MB of RAM. Somehow, that little thing ran circles around my 3GHz Pentium 4 PC with 1GB RAM.

I knew almost nothing about my new mac, which was a little disturbing considering that I could troubleshoot Windows in my sleep. Luckily, Karen knew how to use a mac and showed me the way. Before long, I realized that I was so confused at first because everything was so easy to do! I expected everything to be more complicated and unstable like Windows, but it was not. There was no need to troubleshoot in my sleep anymore. Like programming, macs made sense to me.

I currently use a 24″ iMac, a 15″ MacBook Pro, and an iPhone to do my work, learn new things, play games, and communicate with the world in a way that was not possible for me in the past. I am thankful to Steve Jobs for thinking differently and for the amazing contributions that he has made to the technical world. I am thankful to him for his inspiration and vision. I will miss him and the contributions he surely would have made in the future had his life not been cut so short.

Steve Wozniak remembers Steve Jobs

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I had a great birthday. Highlights of the day were Macworld 2011 (regardless of the iPad-centricity), birthday cake with a bee on it, and champagne (Thank you K!)

The night before my birthday, Karen was kind enough to join me at an HTML5 meetup in San Francisco where Paul Irish, an awesome front-end development genius, was speaking about HTML5 Boilerplate, “A rock-solid default for HTML5 awesome”. If you are very sad that you missed it and would like to see it now, here it is!

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Mad World of Cataclysm Lyrics:

All around me are the brand-new races,
Messed up places, forlorn faces.
Deathwing broke the world I knew in pieces,
Flooded cities, unveiled new species.
Suddenly I’ve got a crappy gearscore,
No one invites me, pugs don’t like me.
Back to griding rep and max professions,
New achievements, quest progression.

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad,
Disenchanting all these epics after wanting them so bad.
It’s so humiliating, I’m upgrading with greens,
Hearthing back to Stormwind in a very, very,
Mad world.

Yesterday I was an epic raider,
Purple blader, Lich King slayer,
Now I’m not well-geared enough to get in,
Bastion of Twilight, Throne of the Four Winds.
Cued for randoms, I was very nervous,
No one knew me, pulled right through me.
Hello trainer. Tell me what’s my lesson?
Reforge this. Don’t stack that anymore.

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad,
Disenchanting all these epics after wanting them so bad.
It’s so humiliating, I’m upgrading with greens,
Hearthing back to Stormwind in a very, very,
Mad world.

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Credits:
Directed by: Jed Whedon
Music by: Jed Whedon
Lyrics by: Felicia Day
Main Vocal: Felicia Day
Rap: Jeff Lewis and Sandeep Parikh
Backup Vocals: Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon
Director of Photography: Omer Ganai
Choreography: Chantal Robeson
Edited by: Jeff Yorkes
Produced by: Christian Agypt, Felicia Day
Costumes: Sarah Trost
Weapons: Greg Aranowitz
Production Design: Tyler Robinson

Starring:
Vincent Caso
Felicia Day
Jeff Lewis
Amy Okuda
Sandeep Parikh
Robin Thorsen

Dancers:
Bijoya Das
Jul Kohler
Maurissa Tancharoen

English Subtitles: Daniela Figueiredo
Portuguese – Jonathan Iury and Dani Figueiredo
Spanish – Pablo Lopez Vila and Carles Soler Sala

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The TechKnowledgey Show by Devir Kahan
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Bejeweled 2
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Most Educational Distraction

This is my favorite distraction of all!

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[nggallery id=8]

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Found in Mom’s Basement

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Autism Reality is a 10 minute documentary film about autism by Alex Plank. The film features interviews with Dr. Temple Grandin, Alex himself, and a handful of others including Alex’s parents.

This film shows a perspective not often seen in autism media by portraying autism as a reality which is neither good nor bad, just a different way that some people are wired.

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More Responses:

• ABFH has posted a list of video and blog/article responses here.
• Turner and Kowalski are collecting pictures with captions for their parody video. Send some in!

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This video is just one part of Autism Speaks’ crusade to educate the world about how horrible autistic people are and how they will destroy the happiness of anyone who crosses their path.

If you haven’t seen the Autism Speaks video, it is exactly the same as this one except for the audio, which is almost the complete opposite. Lyrics are below.

A list of responses to the Autism Speaks video
is being compiled at I Speak of Dreams.

I… Am… Autism… Speaks…

I am Autism Speaks…

I am invisible to your children. And I will be invisible to you until it’s too late.

I know where you live. And guess what? It’s no use hiding.

I have my eyes on all of you… I am watching you all.

I am Autism Speaks.

I have no color… no religion… no morals… no love….

I speak the language of despair and disease. And with every voice I steal. I grow stronger.

I work quickly to make people believe your children are suffering worse than cancer or AIDS victims.

I am Autism Speaks.

And if you’re happily married… I’ll distroy your marriage with unattainable dreams and broken promises.

Your money will fall into my hands… And I will bankrupt you… And pay myself hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

I don’t sleep… And I’ll make sure you don’t either.

I will make it virtually impossible for you to leave your home without feeling the shame of diseased children.

I am Autism Speaks.

You have no defense against me…

Your advocates don’t have the money to fight me. And I relish your poverty.

I will make everyone think you and your children are diseased and disordered. And then… Turn on them.

I am Autism Speaks.

I have no interest in right or wrong.

I derive great pleasure out of your loneliness.

I will take away your hope.

I will rob you of your children and of your dreams.

I will make sure you will cry everyday.

You will wonder who will look after your children when you die.

And the Truth is… I… Do… Not… Care…

I am Autism Speaks.

And you are scared…

And you should be.

I am Autism Speaks.

You ignored me… And that was a Big mistake.

I am Autism Speaks…

And I speak in voices stolen from your children.

I am Autism Speaks.

Join the Protesting Autism Speaks “I am Autism” Video group on Facebook:

From Bev @ Asperger Square 8:

Thanks to Turner & Kowalski for stirring things up.

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