The 2013 edition of DevReach was held just a week ago. This is certainly the largest and highest quality IT event in Bulgaria (especially since there is no MS Days anymore) and probably on the Balkans. This year the event was even larger as the number of attendees reached one thousand and the number of countries represented was twenty five...

   Happy Programmers' Day to everyone whose job is to move bytes around or just does it for fun. I just realized I have not posted a programming article in a year. I really need to fix this or else I might have the right to celebrate revoked. Or maybe I can blame Nerds2Nerds for the lack of programming content here.

   Cancer has claimed another one of my heroes. Ray Manzarek best known as keyboard player and composer for the Doors broke on through to the other side. It is my impression that Manzarek was the musical force behind the Doors. His electric organ is quite possibly the most recognizable keyboard instrument sound in the entire rock music and his band is certainly one that changed the world and I do not mean only the world of music.

   Slayer's guitar player Jeff Hanneman has died yesterday due to liver failure. This was kind of unexpected. While it was known that he has health problems related to a spider bite on his hand nobody thought it was life threatening. Can Necrotizing fasciitis somehow cause a liver failure? Unlike many of his metal peers Hanneman was not known for heavy drinking or substance abuse.

   Slayer's best-known songs are written by Hanneman. Reign in Blood, South of Heaven, Season in the Abyss and Angel of Death will forever hold cult status among extreme music fans.

   I had the privilege of seeing Hanneman play live three times as part of the Big Four of Thrash Metal – Tom Araya, Kerry King, Dave Lombardo and Jeff Hanneman.

Update 10.05.2013
Turns out the reason was alcohol. At least things make more sense now.

   Over the years I have bought a lot of hardware even for a person in IT. I have bought new and second-hand mid-range parts for computers in an Internet café and I have bought a lot of high-end gamer hardware for personal use. One thing I have learned is that no matter how expensive and high quality hardware you get if you buy enough of it you will get a defective piece. I had parts of many different brands fail and I had parts of no-name brands work fine for decades. In my experience the more cutting edge hardware you get the more likely it is to fail. I have had an expensive high-end Asus video card fail and then its replacement fail again. This is why I am no longer impressed by people's stories about their ten year old laptops which still work fine. This is not interesting at all. The interesting part is what happens when the hardware fails because some hardware will fail.