Coffeeshop blogging

So I have a new laptop and it comes with an integrated camera for all your photoblogging needs as well as potentially embarrassing coffee spills. I'm at a local coffeeshop working on some, uh, work.



Once I set another laptop up for my wife, we'll be able to try video chat using Sightspeed, which from what I understand is similar to Skype video chatting, but I could be totally wrong as I've never used Skype before!

A vintage Halloween pic

Vintage? Really? Halloween was only what - six months ago? Is that my timeframe for blogging? Can there BE any more questions (or Chandler references)?

Anyway, we cut a pumpkin on Halloween. 2007 - please. Wait...does the act of cutting the pumpkin turn it in to a jack-o'-lantern? I think so, but let's see. Wikipedia to the rescue!

Yes, it does.

So we made this jack-o'-lantern, and I kind of forgot about it for a while. Maybe just a week, but the spirit of Don King...you know, that traditional apres-Halloween visitor...came by and, well, this is getting out of hand. Picture, please.



Wow, that's a lot of buildup. Hmmm...I meant buildup in terms of raising expectations, but I guess it works in the hair/mold sense as well.

Finally some action pics

I know - playing a child's guitar in my jammies with a micro-Mariachi hat wasn't actioney enough. To satisfy my rabid fans, here you go.



Living on the Greenbelt is nice! Whenever we want to bust out the firepit, I just go outside the fence and find a big log. I tried using an axe, but I've had much better luck with my reciprocating saw from Harbor Freight.



I've gone through all my demolition blades and now I have a pretty scary specialty wood-cutting blade. Itsa nice! By nice, I mean it looks nice - I haven't actually cut anything with it. But believe me - it looks like it will do the job!

Here I am sanding our deck. We rented a huge industrial sander from Home Depot, and it pretty much drove us around the deck.



It was time for another treatment of stain, and we didn't want a repeat of the original stain job (oh, the humanity!) to happen again. Last time we waited too long after we had it built and then waited until the weather was as hot as possible. It was awful. The wood was so hot the stain would not be absorbed, and it never got a good lock, or set, or whatever the term is to indicate that stain has soaked in to your wood correctly.

Now we have to decide whether or not to keep the deck or take it down and build a stone patio!

My newest, cheapest guitar

So I was in our local Goodw*ll the other day and saw a guitar in their auction pile. Hold on a second - it wasn't just a guitar. It was a child-scale classical guitar, with case, and the best part? Two Mariachi, uh, hats.

Unfortunately, the hats were child-scale too.

 

The auctions are held on Saturdays at high noon, and I had a few reminders to make sure I was going to be there. Throughout the week the items are in silent auction mode, with binders out with pages for each of the items. On Saturday, in an bid (ha!) to get more money, the items transition to traditional auction mode, with one of the employees doing the auctioneering. The bidding started out at $16 and there was some back and forth between me and someone else behind me. I wanted to play fair, so I didn't turn around and psych him out. I just kept my cool and kept bidding. I stepped up to $21 - a level he dared not follow, and I won the auction!

 

The smaller scale doesn't bother me, but it is very resonant at the bottom end, so most of my work on it sounds bass-heavy.

 

You don't get to touch some of the items beforehand, as they are in lockdown in a metal cage. Once I got it home and started playing with it I noticed that there is some fret buzz on the high E string. It looks like I'll have to build up the nut and file down a string slot (thanks for the baking soda/super glue tip, Louis!) or replace the nut.

All in all, it's a sweet deal, as the guitar is solidly made, and you can't beat the price. We've used one of the Mariachi hats for a White Elephant gift (along with playing La Cucaracha when it was opened), and I'll have to bring the other hat up to work for the serious times

RIP Gary Gygax

Thanks to Cale for the tip - Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of Dungeons and Dragons, died yesterday.

Wow. I've been playing D&D for over 20 years...probably closer to 25. I remember the Basic Set my parents got me for Christmas. Man, that came out in 1977! I can't remember how old I was when I got it - I'll have to find out.

I have D&D to thank for many of the friendships I still have, and many new ones I've made since holding those dice for the first time.

Here is a link to one of the many websites that mention his passing, and it has an email address that was set up to communicate any thoughts you may have to the Gygax family.

Cryptonomicon

A few weeks ago I finished Cryptonomicon (more info here), by Neal Stephenson.



I really enjoyed it. Without giving too much away, it deals with cryptography, World War 2, Alan Turing, math, society, global finance, intrigue...I could go on, but I won't. If you have any interest in any of these topics, or none of these but you like a really good book, pick it up!

I've also read Stephenson's Snow Crash in college, and it was excellent as well.

3/4 update - we were in Goodwill last night and I picked up Snow Crash for $2.99!

Who's in charge here?

I stumbled upon a cool website - Who's in charge here?

It takes a publicity photo and asks readers to determine who they think is the leader - based on the photo only. It doesn't matter if you know who is the "leader" of the group...this is an examination of the dynamic within the oh-so-important press materials.



There is some hilarious text and some great comments are sprinkled throughout.

Speaking of cheeseburgers....

Okay, you're hiking. Somewhere remote...rugged terrain...carrying everything you need in your pack. The tent is pitched, campfire blazing, perimeter secure. What's this? Hunger pangs? What sounds good?

Trail mix?

No.

Can of beans?

No.

Granola bar?

No!

There's only one thing that can satisfy camping hunger. What do you turn to when you're sleeping on rocks and putting your food in a tree away from bears?

Cheeseburgers.



Specifically, cheeseburgers in a can.

Check out this website for all your shipped cheeseburger needs. Something tells me that what comes out of that tin when the seal breaks won't look exactly like the picture.

If they could combine those burgers with the self-heating coffee can technology, I think we would have a winner.

Thanks Cale!

I can has cheezburger?

What do you get when you combine cats, cameras and bad grammar? I can has cheezburger!

This website contains photos of cats (and other animals) submitted by people on teh interwebs with captions, usually from the animal pictured. Some of them are so-so, but some are FUNNY! I showed my wife some the other day, and she was moderately amused, at best, but I couldn't stop laughing...and looking at more...and laughing...etc. She had to practically shake me off the computer. This is the picture that started the website:



This internet phenomenon was dubbed "lolcats" and originated on some message boards before the aforementioned website.

Check and mate! Finally something worth blogging about!

My oldest son was accepted into his school's chess club yesterday!



So what's the big deal? Normally they don't allow first graders into the chess club. That's one smart cookie, and I'm one proud daddy!

I found this book of chess for kids at Half-Priced Books for some ridiculously low price, and it is a good one for a chess beginner or semi-beginner. It describes each of the pieces, has some basic strategy and one or two opening gambits.

Anything else about chess? Sure! One of the tattoos I've been preapproved for is a Knight's Tour, which is having a knight move according to the rules of chess and landing on every square exactly once.



Sort of like this, but I would have to use my rippling muscles to make it move.

I would love to find some sort of chess applet that I can put in the sidebar of my blog for ongoing games, but so far I've found some graphics that I can manually update only. Oh, the humanity! If anyone has found something else let me know!

Darth Vader Harmonica Bayou

Really, I never knew he was so talented!



Thanks Louis!

Desktop Tower Defense

I've been playing a lot of Desktop Tower Defense. It's a simple game, but very addictive. Your goal is trying to shoot all the "creeps" that are trying to get from one side of the screen to the other, and you do this by placing guns in what amounts to a maze-like configuration.



You are given all the time you want for the initial configuration, but once the game starts it doesn't stop! You spend most of your time frantically upgrading guns or placing new ones of different types. Some creeps are immune to certain guns.

It's fast and I'm addicted to it - check it out! It has gotten into a few game journalists' and reviewers' Game Of The Year lists as well.

We were dreaming of a White Christmas!

I'm back!

We went to Copper Mountain, Colorado, for Christmas. The first leg was to Lubbock to spend the night with my brother and his family, and then we drove to Aurora, CO, to stay with some friends. Here is the view from their front yard.



We stayed in a condo, spent too much money and didn't ski enough. Here's another pano from the condo porch:



This is outside the condo, and you can see the dumpster.



We stayed in Silverthorn. Behind me is Lake Dillon, and we would drive over the dam to get from Silverthorn to Dillon.



These are icicles. Relax - it's just frozen water.



The morning we left it was 12 degrees below zero. That's not the wind chill! Including wind chill I think it was about 20 to 25 below zero.



We're on the road back!



We drove from Silverthorn to Denver where we stayed a few days with some friends of ours. Thanks Karen! Thanks Michelle!



We left Denver and decided to drive straight through the night just to have more time at home and not have to worry about finding a motel, carting in all the valuables, sleeping late, food, etc. It was 20+ caffeine-bombed hours.

I think this is Mt. Capulin that we passed on the way through New Mexico.

Presenting Data and Information course by Edward Tufte

Monday I went to a seminar on how to effectively present data by one of the masters of visual information, Edward Tufte, with more info here.

It was in the Doubletree Hotel, and I parked in the parking garage and decided to walk down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. This corridor is straight out of the movies.



I figured if something was going to go down, this was the place. Luckily (for them), nothing happened.

The seminar was in a conference room, and they had some surprisingly good coffee.





Here is another "review" of his seminars by someone else that went - some great details that I left out.

ET, as he is known online and to the community, is a great presenter, and I liked his style. Most of it was him talking with a little bit of some multimedia stuff. He's a Mac guy, but he doesn't come off as pretentious.

Patrons of the seminar received four of his books, which I heartily recommend. They are fantastic references as well as just plain great reading.



I also picked up a copy of his mother's book, Artful Sentences.

So why did I take this course? I have to present a lot of data, the lion's share of it is performance data, and my customers are engineering, marketing and sales. Whatever I can use to make what I show more effective (and have them come back to me less) is a win!

Evolution of Netflix DVD shipping wrappers.

I found a short article about how Netflix has changed the design of their DVD mailers over the years - check it out.

Here is a direct link to the gallery of mailers from the beginning. I think the earliest mailer I can remember is the 2001 era mailer, #9 on the list.

We're on our second run of Netflix memberships, and we have definitely been affected by their (in)famous DVD throttling plan. There seems to be a DVD distribution hub located in Austin, so delivery has gotten faster lately.


The mailers are famously red and can be picked out at a distance, as seen here. I've wondered about Netflix thieves watching the post offices for those telltale envelopes, but it turns out a lot of such scams exist. There is even what must be an upper echelon of discriminating DVD thieves, as seen here.

More 3d benchmark

I'm trying to revamp my 3d city for the benchmark. I came up with some back of the envelope (literally) sketches, and I'm getting closer to something I like, but I'm not there yet.



I'm torn between a center landmark with streets radiating out from it and the basic city block layout. I also plan to have some elevated roadways as well as some flying vehicles.

You mean I can get a new rate...AND syphilis?

I got a nice email the other day. Whoever this person is seems pretty helpful! Who wouldn't want a $200,000 loan for $626 per month?



Something tells me that the "gift that keeps on giving" isn't a good rate. If this person actually followed my blog they would know that I'm used to getting mail from unusual people. Something like this almost doesn't even show up on my radar!

Portal

I just started playing Portal the other night, and I'm hooked! Portal is a game that also acts like a technology demo. If you've played any first-person-shooter computer game you instantly know how the control scheme, but the twist is the Portal device. This will let you create portals on different surfaces that allow you to solve puzzles and complete levels.

I was going to just "check it out" a little bit when I started and before I realized what was going on I was at level 15 and it was about 12:30am - an hour flew by!



If you must know more, check out the wikipedia article, but beware - it contains spoilers.

I'm not even going to attempt to create more of a mini-review than this, but I highly recommend this game! It is bundled in the Orange Box, which is a fantastic deal (if you haven't already played/own Half-Life 2) in that $37.99 (lowest price I've seen it at Circuit City) gets you Half-Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2 (the latest revision of the granddaddy of class-based shooters...this time with sublime art direction). That's alotta gaming bang for the buck!

As I mentioned in the previous post's comments, a 2D Flash version of Portal is here.

Stacks of games

We just got to spend over $650 in games at lunch today. It's kind of surreal to be looking at a stack like this, but I don't mind!

New 3d benchmark work

There is an industry standard benchmark for measuring overall system performance that we (as well as everyone in the, uh, industry) use for our own benchmarking, competitive analysis, etc.

It's made up of multiple suites, and one of the suites is a 3D subsystem test, but it is 3D in name only. It loads a scene in a popular 3D application...and renders it to a file. Basically, it is a CPU stress test. Great for processor scaling...not so great for 3D graphics, as the benchmark result scales with processor frequency and cache and not with the graphics chipset.

I'm working on developing a new 3D suite, and one of the subtest will be a cityscape with airships, roads, etc. It's in its infancy, but here are some preliminary shots. No lighting, no textures, and these are only four city "tiles."



My plan is to duplicate these tiles with rotation and some tweaking, as well as add some larger buildings and skyscrapers to break up the skyline.

Here is a shot from within 3D Studio MAX. I'm using the built-in Polygon Counter and I've highlighted one of the original tiles. Each tile is 27080 polygons, with the set of four reaching 108320 polygons.



I'm not sure how close I'll get to this level of buildings, but I definitely want to make an effort on texturing so they'll hold up to observation while the scene is playing.