Weird places to split an encyclopedia
I'm sure they do it just by page count, but some of these make me wonder if the editors weren't having a little fun:
Say it real fast, it sounds like 'ménage-à-trois'
Well, they do have the highest per-capita murder rate..
"Ooh, what lovely little Edisons you have around the tree"
We could use a little more of this..
Cylinders, perhaps?
I don't think they had those...
The avowed enemies of the Zoroastrian Alliance, I'm sure
Dead bulb
My projector's bulb died this week after 600 hours, when it was rated for 2000 hours. Grr! Nobody seems to have them in stock right now, and I'm not going to pay Sony the full retail price for a new one ($350!?), so it looks like I'll be stuck for a couple of weeks unable to play Wii or watch Netflix movies. Oh well.. It's a good thing I just canceled my cable TV.
The actual bulb looks pretty weird - here's a pic:
Shameless plugs
Recently I've been a "guest writer" on Jensen Harris' popular Office UI Blog (popular in the HCI and MVP communities, at least :P).
If you're curious about what I work on all day, check out my posts:
They're pretty targeted to 3rd-party ISVs that leverage Office 2007 as a platform, so if you aren't one of those then the articles probably won't make much sense (and will probably sound like complete gibberish if you aren't a programmer).
There probably won't be any new posts on that blog for a while (due to the holidays), but in a few weeks there should be more.
I also just finished up writing an article on RibbonX for MSDN Magazine, so if you're a subscriber make sure to check out the upcoming issues! Once it's published I'll grab a copy and get a pic up here.
Time for a bigger monitor
It must be time to get a bigger monitor.. All the junk on my Desktop is approaching 30% of the visible area again. Maybe another fix would be to delete some of the stuff, but what fun would that be?
Waiting for Wiidot
I don't know why, but this idea came to me while I was in the shower. Don't ask - I have no idea ;). My apologies to Samuel Beckett fans. (If you don't get it..)
Waiting for Wiidot
A tragicomedy in one act
A Wal-Mart parking lot. A bench. Night.
Estragon, sitting on the bench, is trying to warm up his feet.
(enter Vladimir)
Estragon: (giving up) Nothing to be done.
Vladimir: That’s what I’m saying.
Estragon: And might I inquire where you just went?
Vladimir: Behind the dumpsters at the back of the store, in the bushes.
Estragon: That’s disgusting you know.
Vladimir: Of course. But what else are we to do?
Estragon: You could wait. Like me.
Vladimir: Ah, how well is that working out for you?
Estragon: Not that well.
Vladimir: I doubt you’ll make it until they open in the morning.
Estragon: I have to.
Vladimir: It’s too much for one man.
Estragon: Suppose we gave up.
Vladimir: Now? It’s two in the morning; we’re half-way there. And we have a good spot in the line.
Estragon: What if they run out? Do we wait another week?
Vladimir: We don’t have anything else to do.
Estragon: So we wait until we get one.
Vladimir: Of course.
(enter Pozzo)
Pozzo: Cheerio!
Estragon: Are you handing out the Wii tickets?
Vladimir: He doesn’t look like a Wal-Mart employee.
Pozzo: The what tickets?
Estragon: Wii tickets.
Pozzo: You tickets?
Vladimir: No, we’re in line to buy the Wii, you see.
Estragon: ..and we thought you might-
Pozzo: In line to buy yourselves? I say, that sounds like a strange thing to do.
Estragon: Nintendo Wii.
Vladimir: It’s a game console.
Pozzo: A what? You’re making no sense.
Vladimir: I don’t think it’s us.
Estragon: Look, it’s just called Wii and we’re in line to buy it. At some point they said they were going to come around and hand out tickets to people in line.
Pozzo: I don’t have any tickets.
Vladimir: And you’re not in line?
Pozzo: No.
Estragon: Why are you here in the middle of the night?
Pozzo: How would I know?
Vladimir: You’re cracked.
Pozzo: Am I? You’re the ones waiting in a line to buy yourselves.
Estragon: No, the Wii is a gaming device -
Vladimir: Let’s just drop it.
Pozzo: Drop what?
Vladimir: Nothing, we were just confused.
Pozzo: I’ll say you were; I’ve never heard such boffo. Anyway, I’m off! Adieu.
(exit Pozzo)
Estragon: That was weird.
Vladimir: Maybe he’s been in line for a few days and just lost it.
Estragon: I didn’t see him when we walked by.
Vladimir: Or maybe he waited for a PS3 and didn’t get one.
Estragon: At least it passed the time.
Vladimir: It would have passed either way.
Estragon: Yes, but not so rapidly.
(Long silence)
Estragon: How much longer?
Vladimir: Still six hours.
Estragon: I’m so bored I could hang myself.
Vladimir: Do it.
Estragon: What would you do?
Vladimir: Laugh.
Estragon: I knew it.
Vladimir: Do you hear something up ahead?
Estragon: I believe I do.
Vladimir: I think they’re handing out the tickets for the Wiis.
Estragon: It’s about time.
(enter Wal-Mart Employee)
Employee: .. 52 .. 53 .. 54. (stops)
Vladimir: What about us?
Employee: That’s it.
Estragon: But we didn’t get tickets. Where are the rest of the tickets?
Employee: We only got 54 Wiis delivered. You’re number 55.
Vladimir: But the other lady said you had 75.
Employee: The day manager? She’s a little flaky. I counted them. 54.
Estragon: How could you only get 54? That’s not even a round number.
Employee: I just work here.
Vladimir: But we have to get one! We’ve waited all night.
Employee: We’d still have the same number of Wiis if you’d waited a year.
Estragon: This is crazy! Off by one.
Employee: You could try the Beaverton store. Or wait until we get another shipment next week. Sorry.
(exit Wal-Mart Employee)
Estragon: Should we wait?
Vladimir: Are you nuts?
Estragon: I will be if we don’t get a Wii.
Vladimir: You could hang yourself.
Estragon: (looks up at light pole) I could, you know. In fact, I think I will. (gets up, takes off belt)
Vladimir: Is it long enough?
Estragon: I think it is. (pants fall off)
Curtain.
Retreat Pics
Here's some pics of the Leavenworth retreat. I might write up a more detailed description later if I fail to get a Wii tonight 🙂
There was a lot of snow on the bus ride up
The lodge
Unpacking
You got a cot if you failed in the scramble for beds
The power went off for the first night, which was lots of fun, especially when we discovered that the toilets and showers were on a water pump, which was also off
No Fishin'
Rope traversal across a "chasm" of wet horse poo
Getting lost on the compass & map activity (I'm in the back)
Class activities
On the bus ride back we learned a bit of Mandarin Chinese. When we learned numbers there was an argument about whether we should learn 1-10 or 0-9. Can you tell we are programmers? 😉
More news about false religions
I got back this week and found this on my chair. Looks like one of my co-workers was concerned that I didn't get the message :). The usual suspects claim it wasn't them, so I'm still figuring out who it was...
In other news, comments are re-enabled.
Starbursts
I think I have OCD. Now that I have them all lined up, right side up and facing the right way, I am annoyed that I forgot to sort them by color...
Tootsie Roll Sphinx
For the second year in a row, after all the kids picked through the mixed bag of candy, the only things left were Tootsie Rolls and Tootsie Roll Pops. I sort of agree with the kids - they do get kind of gross after you eat about two of them.
So, what to do with all the extra Tootsie Rolls? I know what you're thinking, and I was thinking the same thing. Sculpt a sphinx out of them!
The Tootsie Roll sphinx sculpture
Halloween
Well, I didn't get invited to any parties for Halloween night (boo), so I decided to throw my own! (at work). It was pretty good.
Here's me as Darth Vader vs. Igor's son Peter as Luke Skywalker:
Special thanks to Erin for taking the pic!
Monome Apps
Here's a video (below) of a few of the more interesting monome apps I've made so far (see this post for an explanation of what a monome is).
- "Grid" game: I haven't thought of a better name, but this game is sort of like Othello or Go. Players play as "light" or "dark" and try to capture the opponent's territory by toggling his/her pieces and then capturing any surrounded squares. It's interesting to play at first, but after playing several people without finishing a game, we determined that it's probably not actually winnable as long as both players always make intelligent moves. But, interestingly enough, a "greedy" AI that plays against itself will often end up winning (and losing), as long as it doesn't get stuck in an infinite loop.
- "Raindrop": this is a raindrop ripple simulator. You can create ripples by pushing buttons - the more you push, the bigger the ripples. It's pretty cool.
- Pong: the classic. The resolution (8x8) is a little low, but it actually works pretty well since the computer simulates the board at higher resolution. The main problem I see with Pong is that each player has only 2 inputs (up and down), so it's not using the full power of the 64 buttons, which it seems like good monome apps should.
Here's the YouTube video:
The End of False Religion is Near!
Some Jehovah's Witnesses rang my doorbell this morning and woke me up, apparently just to let me know that "The end of false religion is near!". If nothing else, they demonstrated firsthand the power that false religions still hold over people, even today. The irony was clearly lost on them..
Them: (standard blah blah blah..)
Me: Why do you believe that?
Them: See, here are the Bible scriptures that prove it, 1 Corinthians 6:9, Ezekiel 18:4, blah blah blah
Me: So it's true because the Bible says so?
Them: Yes
Me: Why?
Them: Because the Bible is the infallible word of God
Me: How do you know?
Them: Because it says it is
Me: The Koran says it's the infallible word of God, too
Them: Well obviously it's not
Me: Why is that obvious?
Them: Our church says so
Me: So you believe what your church tradition and teachers tell you to believe?
Them: Well, yes..
Me: But here in your booklet it says that one of the hallmarks of "false religions" is that they rely on "traditions and commands of men as doctrines"? Isn't that what you just -
Them: You're obviously going to Hell, we're going to the next house
Me: Huh?
[Edit 11/04: Disabling comments on this post since JW's keep finding this page through Google and leaving insulting comments for me and I'm tired of clicking 'Delete Comment' :). Since when is harassing and insulting people a good way to convert them to your religion?]
Monome 40h
I recently got a Monome 40h, which you might recognize from Engadget or Maker Faire. It's a USB grid of 64 backlit buttons (40h, 64, get it? ..is it sad that I do?).
The best part is that it doesn't come with any software in the box, no CD or even a slip of paper with a download URL on it. You have to write your own software from scratch to use it. How awesome is that? It pops up as a USB serial port when you plug it in and it uses a dead-simple 2-byte protocol so it's pretty easy.
So what does it do? It doesn't do anything ... in particular. It does whatever you make it do. It seems that most of the apps people have written so far deal with using it as a sort of MIDI sequencer (see this video for an example).
I have a ton of ideas for cool little games for it, but I'm not yet sure how well they'll work. The main problem I see is that there are only 2 states for the LEDs: on or off. So even a simple 8x8 game like checkers wouldn't work, since you need at least 3 states (5 with kings). "Blinking" could be used as a third state for those kind of games, but I think it would get kind of distracting.
I'm going to start off by making an Othello/Go-type game and a Pong game and go from there.
If I played WoW it could be useful as a gigantic macro pad or something like that, but I don't (fortunately?).
Magic LED Box
On Sunday I was bored, so I built a box with some LEDs and mirrors inside of it:
It has blinking LEDs on the ceiling and a couple of convex mirrors on the bottom which reflect the LEDs and make it look like there are more than there really are.
Since it's dark inside the box, the blinking LEDs distract you from noticing the water nozzle in the middle hooked up to a squeeze-ball behind the box. When I activate the squeeze-ball it squirts you in the face:
I brought it to work and had moderate success showing it to co-workers. Many were initially suspicious of the weird-looking box, but I was eventually able to prank everybody that came by (except one guy who recently had an eye operation that I decided not to squirt).
It turned into a sort of a social experiment in how to get people to stick their faces into a box. I had some interesting observations:
- People were much more suspicious if I said "hey, come look into my magic box" "what's in it?" "oh, you'll see.."
- Instead, if I waited until they walked by and asked about the box they were much more gullible, especially if I said something like "oh, do you want to see the LED light show too? ok, let me turn it on..."
- Everybody was expecting to get an electric shock when they looked in (probably because of the circuits and LEDs on the top). Nobody guessed that it would squirt water
- It's probably a good idea to ask people if they wear contacts before squirting them in the face with water (of course that would ruin the surprise in this case..)
Here's a video clip with some highlights. I got a bunch of other people too but forgot to turn on the webcam in time:
Cereal Bugs
Don't you hate it when you find out that your cereal is full of dead bugs only when you're halfway through the last bowl of the box?
Napkin Backs
In a comment on a previous post, Paul expressed confusion about whether napkins have backs. So at lunch today we took the following pictures in order to demonstrate the differences:
Front side of a napkin
Back side of a napkin (for doing calculations)
Weird Google searches
So, after 3 months of running Google Analytics I've had 1174 visits and 2050 page views for a total of 1.75 pages/visit (this doesn't count RSS hits).
The things I find most interesting are the 497 different Google queries that have led people to my site. It's good to see that my name and variations on it are the top hits, but there's quite a "Long Tail" of other random Google searches. Most of them have something to do with my previous posts, but some of them are completely random queries that happened to hit words from multiple different posts (and comments). Here are some of my favorites:
- defeating evil genies
- sugar momma w4m
- how to build knd weapon
- lego store in stanford mall
- how to build a lego ipod case
- pcb designer blog
- most difficult lego kit
- faller car system video
- fixing jetta airbags
- loyalty and membership card programming
Here's the full list: link
Eames lounge chair
This is the "Eames classic" lounge chair. Introduced in the 50's, it's become a bit of a bit of an icon of American modern(ist) furniture design. It's featured in NY's Museum of Modern Art, and more notably (for some generations) it was a centerpiece in Frasier Crane's apartment. If you've seen one of my shirts, you know I want one:
The only problem is that it's a designer chair sold by Herman Miller, so it's naturally quite expensive. I've always been unable to convince myself to buy one, afraid of it becoming my own personal Rubicon on the way to a life of lavish decadence. Do I really want to become a person who spends $2000 on a designer chair? Perhaps that's the wrong way to think about it though: I don't necessarily want to become that kind of person, but I do want to have a nice, comfortable chair. Where does one draw the line between appreciation for the finer things and conspicuous consumption? I'm not exactly sure..
Right now I have an IKEA Poäng, which has become increasingly uncomfortable with its velcro-on polyester pad and rigid wooden armrests, especially for long periods of reading. So I've been giving the Eames some thought again recently, considering I might have some bonus money left after paying off my car loan (something I was planning to do a long time ago, but I kept buying too many toys). It's very tempting. Must.. resist..
I envy you Eddy. The only questions on your mind are, Who's going to walk me? Who's going to feed me?
Splat Monster
It looks like the eyes were probably painted on by somebody, but if not, how cool would that have been if this splat monster had just formed randomly?
Kafka vs. Kefka
I just read The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, whom I was previously unfamiliar with. I wasn't always precisely sure what constitutes a "Kafkaesque" situation, but now I have a much better idea.
After reading, one thing that struck me was the connection to Final Fantasy III's villain Kefka. I totally missed this connection as a child but now it seems quite obvious. Everything from his theme music ("Metamorphosis") down to the extreme existentialism and absurdism of the character is clearly an homage to Kafka's philosophy. It may not be the most complimentary portrayal, but it's still quite interesting.
Squeezebox
Today's question: What's the best way to stream MP3s from my computer upstairs to my stereo downstairs? (my life seems to be beset with these sorts of problems)
Here are the network music player requirements that I was forced to work with:
- It needs to connect wirelessly to my 802.11g network
- It must support WPA-PSK encryption
- It should have S/PDIF digital audio outputs
- It should be super-easy to use once set up (minimal work required to turn the music on and off)
The first thing I tried out was an Airport Express with Airtunes from Apple. It aced the first 3 requirements, and I figured that nothing else would score better on #4. Unfortunately I was wrong on the last one.
The problem with Airtunes is that it just pretends to be a set of "remote speakers" and requires a computer to be running iTunes all the time to play the music. I ended up with two options:
- Leave the computer upstairs on all the time playing music (easier now that I have a Mac Mini Media Center). This worked, but in order to switch songs or playlists I had to run upstairs and switch them on the computer, which was annoying.
- Run iTunes on a laptop downstairs and play the music from there. This worked if I was already using the laptop, but if I was just eating breakfast I would have to go over to the laptop, wake it up, type in my password, find iTunes and hit play. Then when I was leaving I had to walk back over, stop iTunes and sleep the laptop. Far too complicated.
The only other network music player I could find that fulfilled the first 3 requirements was a Squeezebox (and only the very newest model supports WPA). It works by streaming the MP3 files from a network server and playing them directly. It also has a remote that can be used to browse the music collection on its big LCD and (most importantly) the ability to start & stop playback with one button push. It also runs its own web server so you can manage which music is playing from any computer on the network (including a cell phone).
It was pretty much exactly what I needed. Here's a picture of it in action:
And here's the back:
It has a headphone port, analogue RCA stereo jacks, optical and coax S/PDIF jacks, and an ethernet port (for wireless network bridging, also very handy).
So far it works great. Setting it up was the only difficult part. Typing in the 256-bit WPA key with the remote was very painful, especially since it kept crashing with a helpful "malloc failed" error message and rebooting, forcing me to start over. But, now that I have that all sorted out I haven't had any problems with it.
Hot air balloon flyover
So I'm sitting here and a huge hot air balloon flies right over my apartment, really low to the ground. By the time I got my camera out it was a ways away, so it looks small in the picture. It was a lot bigger when it was right over me:
Now I have this strange urge to take a hot air balloon ride (something I've never done). It probably costs a lot, so I need some other people. Anybody else want to go on a hot air balloon ride?? Let me know.
Synchronizing Media Center TV shows to an iPod Video
Part of my justification for getting a new iPod would be that it would have video support, and I could use it to watch recorded TV shows while I'm on the bus or waiting in line somewhere. I figured that somebody in the world must have written some software to automatically synchronize TV shows recorded on a Media Center PC to an iPod Video. I mean, right?
Apparently not. Or at least I couldn't find any software to do that, free or commercial. Sure, there are various tutorials for converting MCE videos to iPod-compatible files, but they all involve manually running 3 different programs and then importing the video into iTunes by hand. There must be an untapped marked for an MCE plugin that automatically converts and syncs TV shows to an iPod. Somebody could make a killing here!
In the meantime, it looked like I would have to write my own program to do this. These were the requirements I had:
- Plop the iPod into the dock
- Go to bed
- Wake up, the iPod automatically has all the TV shows I recorded the day before
I wrote a small C# program that does the following things:
- Check if I have deleted any recorded shows from the Media Center PC. If so, delete the iPod versions out of the iTunes library.
- Find all of the new TV shows that the MCE recorded since last syncing to the iPod.
- Take each new show and convert it from a .dvr-ms file to a .mpeg2 file using DVRMSToolbox.
- Convert the .mpeg2 file to an MPEG-4 file using ffmpeg, shrinking the video to 320x240 at 512 kbps.
- Delete the temporary MPEG 2 file.
- Save the .mp4 file into the iTunes video library folder.
- Force iTunes to update its library database and sync to any connected iPods (using iTunes Library Updater).
Next I created a Scheduled Task to run MCEiPodSync every day at 3:00 AM:
Now all I have to do is plug in the iPod and go to bed. Sweet! Here is a pic of the iPod playing Full House (it was on while I was testing):
Here's a link to the source code for my little program if anybody's interested: MCEiPodSync.cs. You just have to switch the const strings at the top to point to the correct path to your Recorded TV and iTunes library folders.
Picture of iPod adapter
I forgot to include a picture of the iPod actually hooked up to the adapter!
Here it is, sporting the VW logo:
GTI iPod adapter install
Unfortunately the 2006 GTI does not come with an integrated iPod adapter (unlike the '07 model, grr). But, VW does make an adapter that connects the iPod to the stereo system and pretends to be an external CD changer. It's not the best solution, but at least it powers the iPod and I can control it and switch tracks from the steering wheel.
I was already pissed that I would have to pay $150 for the dumb little cable, and I refused to pay the dealer another $150 to install it, so I got one off eBay and did it myself. Unfortunately the instructions were in German and assumed that I already knew how to take apart the dashboard to get to the radio, with VW-specific tools that I didn't have.
So if anybody else is trying to do the same thing, here are pictures of how I did it:
First pry off the top dash vent with an "ausdruckwerkzeug" (whatever that is - I used a credit card)
Remove the front vents and the screws holding the radio in
Pull the radio out and disconnect the wires in the back
Move the audio wires from the satellite radio connector to your iPod adapter cable
Splice the ground wire to the iPod adapter cable
Stick the other end of the cable in through the glove box
When it's all done, the iPod shows up as an external CD changer. The first 5 playlists on the iPod show up as CDs 1-5. Unfortunately the track/artist/album names don't show up on the radio or the in-dash LCD, and you can only use 5 playlists, which kind of sucks. Oh well.
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