brainwagon

A deserving Astronomy Picture of the Day. [tags]Astronomy,Mars[/tags]

It is far too elementary and unclever to even be considered a hack, but I wanted to create a map that showed the location of all the current major league ballparks. it took a side jaunt into using the python xml.dom.minidom to create (rather than parse) XML, but it wasn’t difficult. Witness the following crude […]

Before the presentations of the individual hacks at Yahoo! Hack Day, they showed a bunch of photos and then some short video clips from the various news stories. Each of these stories included two elements: Beck. Yes, Beck was there. That the term “hacker” was a term with positive connotations. Those guys who steal your […]

Well, I didn’t spend the entire night at Yahoo! last night, but I did eat a great deal of their pizza, with the net result that my 42 year old stomach is bitching at me big time. Guess I’m no longer used to a diet of Coke and pepperoni. The presentations are about to begin. […]

I’m spending the day at the developer presentations at Hack Day 2006 at Yahoo in Sunnyvale. You can check out the pictures here. As I write this, there are 246 pictures tagged with HackDay06, I wonder if any of them have me somewhere in the background. I tell you what, if anyone spots me (I’ll […]

From Google Maps, a continuation of my previous big bug theme. Quick, get those two tiny Japanese girls to summon Mothra! [tags]Big Bug,Google Maps[/tags] Addendum: Dan pointed me at this explanatory thread.

The one problem that I have been having with my new Macbook is with its network. I have a Linksys WRT54GS router with the DD-WRT firmware loaded on it, and when I am running on battery power, during periods where network access lulls the wireless from my Macbook disconnects. I haven’t really confirmed that it’s […]

Courtesy of Hack A Day, here’s a pointer to all sorts of telescope making stuff, including a nifty mirror grinding machine. I’ve got a dual spindle Elgin style machine in my garage that I must admit to my embarrassment, that I’ve never actually used. Cool stuff. [tags]Telescope Making[/tags]

Well, the inevitable finally happened: the Texas Rangers beat the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles California or whoever those guys are, and Oakland beat Seattle, clinching the AL West Championship in a 12-3 drubbing of Seattle. The A’s are headed to the post season after a two year hiatus. Congratulations to all the Athletics, including […]

Cool combination of gadgetry that gives you the feeling that you are a bird, by using VR goggles mounted atop an RC plane. As you look around, the remote camera tracks your head movement and looks in that direction as well. Too cool.

Yahoo! Hack Day Is Coming, and it looks like fate has conspired to force me to go. I’ve maxxed out my vacation time again, and so was going to have to take Friday off anyway, so I decided to register and see what I can learn about all this Web 2.0 goodness. I don’t actually […]

Courtesy of Lambda the Ultimate, it appears that the ICFP 06 is over, and some of their stuff is available online. In particular, I glanced over Ghuloum’s tutorial on constructing a Scheme compiler, and it looks really good. From his abstract: …We show that building a compiler can be as easy as building an interpreter. […]

How good of a microcontroller board can you get for $32 in quantity one? A pretty nifty one. My robotics project has stalled, but this controller might actually help energize it.

Blogs that don’t allow comments. Blogs which remove comments (real comments, not spam or abuse). I’m periodically deleting blogs in category 1 from my blogroll. Sadly, I’m discovering more and more in category 2.

Ants herding a caterpillar. VideoSift I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves. Addendum: the video is very cool in using foreshortening and very large depth of field. Thanks […]