Chris Hardie's Blog

Let's see, how am I doing on my target of blogging three times per week in 2010?  FAIL.  Actually, January and February were pretty good, but March has been sorely lacking.  I will for now use the excuse of "I was busy" and throw in some specifics like "I was planning an open house" and [...]

For over a year now, I've been living well without cable or broadcast television in my life.  I thought I would share some thoughts on how that transition has gone, and some pointers to tools and technologies you might be interested in if you're on a similar path.
(Disclaimer: I'm not here to tell you how [...]

I've been consuming a lot of information, and I'm here to tell you, briefly, what I've learned:
Book, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz: a great little book, a quick read full of wisdom that seems like it should just be common sense.  To find happiness, be impeccable with [...]

I'm retroactively (for 2009) and proactively (for 2010) spreading the word about the Phantoscope Film Festival that just concluded its third year here in Richmond at the Art Museum.  It's an event that is just absolutely phenomenal to be happening right here in town, but that is sadly under-promoted and under-appreciated locally.
Every year, high school [...]

This is a triple header movie review post, hold on tight.  No overt spoilers, but if you like going into movies without any preconceived notions, I hope you'll stop now and come back later when you've seen them for yourself.
The Reader is one of those films that haunts my thoughts and dreams for some time [...]

About five years ago, it was one of those deals where the cable company gave you a nine hour window in which they would have someone out there to do the installation, and you just sat around and hoped that they showed up at all. I was apparently favored by the cable installer gods [...]

The folks at Magnolia Pictures were kind enough to send me a reviewer's copy of the new movie about Hunter S. Thompson before it came out earlier this month, but I only recently had a chance to watch it. I kept putting it off partly because I didn't know enough about Thompson's life to [...]

On Wednesday this week, I experienced the great joy of being a part of what might have been Richmond's first 100-Mile Radius Potluck - where all of the ingredients in the dishes you bring come from within 100 miles of Richmond. It was a great success, with delicious food, good company, and a strong [...]

These "links for the week" posts are a lame substitute for real blog posts, but I hope you enjoy them anyway. I'm working on some other entries about my experience with "power off day," my preferred task list organization system (it's NOT GTD), the difficulties of personal change in a vacuum, and more on [...]

The "pros and cons of a global distributed network" edition:

Do you depend on Gmail or Google Calendar? Did you know they're not ready for production use yet?
The Rockridge Institute, a progressive think tank (THE progressive think tank for many) abruptly closes its doors because there wasn't enough money coming in. But as a [...]