brainwagon

Because of poor weather in Florida, Discovery has been safely relocated to Edward’s Airforce Base in California. Welcome home, astronauts. Until the problems with foam breaking away are solved however, the shuttle fleet will remain grounded. Break out the slide rules, boys and girls. Lots of that engineering stuff left to be done.

While I was off at SIGGRAPH, I had a problem with Comcast which unfortunately took a few days to resolve and resulted in some downtime. I’m back, and will undoubtably begin boring both my readers with my usual mix of topics soon. Sorry for that, I’m really going to have to shift this site from […]

I’ve been thinking for quite some time that I need to make some cards that I can hand out to people when I meet them so that they can remember my blog. These aren’t really business cards, but rather just reminders. Here is my first (well, second actually) attempt: To illustrate what a geek I […]

This is getting a lot of play everywhere, but Microsoft’s new mapping application, Virtual Earth is now live. In most respects, I find it very similar to Google’s offering, but the API seems a bit more refined, and it doesn’t have the problems associated with generating usage keys. You can find information about programming the […]

If there is ever a time that I seem like I sound too smug and self assured, just whisper “39th out of 40, and only by three seconds.”

I feel strangely sad by the following graph:

I’ll be trundling off to SIGGRAPH at the end of the month. Any attendees (who I don’t see everyday at lunch here at Pixar) want to get together and schmooze a bit? I haven’t been in a few years, so my dance card is likely to be pretty clear. Drop me an email and let […]

Driving back from Reno, and man is it hot! Thank you science for air conditioning. Update: It hit 108 degrees a few miles further down the road. Sheesh.

Nothing like relaxing with your new pair of Converse AllStars.

The second of two podcasts I recorded earlier this week, where I give my thoughts on the relative lack of utility in giving children laptops as replacements for textbooks.

The first of two podcasts I recorded earlier this week but only recently uploaded to my server. It’s mostly a rant against skinny people, stereotypes and weight loss.

Not content with merely screwing up one minor job, I had to go back to the well of human despair for a second time today. One of my larger popup sprinkler heads was apparently stuck: spraying water in only a single direction rather than circulating back and forth in the 90 degree arc that it […]

I, of course, meant “sheet metal” screws. Ever notice how the simplest tasks can become annoying because of abject stupidity? Consider this mornings tiny project: one of the fans in my server box has become noisy, so I decided to go out and replace it with a new one. I bought a spiffy Antec fan […]

I upgraded to WordPress 1.5.1.3 to help keep security up to scratch. I apologize for any temporary snafus. Polls seem not to work properly in the brave new world, I’ll have to figure out why sometime soon. It would also appear I’m having difficulty with referer spammers today. I’m researching solutions to this problem. To […]

Blogging lately feels pointless. Which of course it is, but it used to not feel so pointless. Grump.