Thank you Mr. Einstein. This blows my mind right out.
August 22, 2010
July 29, 2010
July 25, 2010
Coming Soon: Tab Candy
Tab Candy for Firefox. This looks like a great addition. I really need this (I currently have about 30 tabs open)
July 1, 2010
May 24, 2010
Okay, DON’T Take My Money
We skipped the series finale of Lost last night due to a work party, so we were going to do what we always do and catch it on abc.com. Instead, we decided to ante up the three bucks for the full HD iTunes download so we could get it without commercials or without annoying stream pauses at critical moments (something that’s happened a lot in the past).
So I open iTunes on the mini downstairs and try to buy the last episode of Lost. Sorry, you must be upgraded to the latest version of iTunes to download content. Oh, okay. Twenty minutes later I’ve installed the newest iTunes and try to buy it again.
Sorry, you must have version 4 or greater of Safari to use the iTunes music store. Huh? The ITMS doesn’t even open Safari, and I use Firefox anyway. Grr…. So I go online again and update Safari. Whew. Okay Apple, here’s my money.
Sorry, this version of Safari does not work with your version of OS X. Please update your OS. AARGH!
I’m loathe to update the OS because the home automation software that runs the house on that computer works great, and doing OS updates has tended to make things unreliable in the past.
Look, I understand that you want to keep the user experience reliable, Apple, and one of the ways you do this is by making sure people’s software is up to date. But I seem to be running into this sort of thing a lot more lately, and I can’t help but wonder if there’s something else going on. Why all of a sudden have your engineers lost the ability to make stuff work well across a couple of different iterations of the software?
And before you think it’s because Apple just wants to stick me with a paid update to the OS or something, in fairness I have to say that all the updates I’d be required to do would be free inter-version updates (4.5.1 to 4.5.4, for example). Still it’s a hassle to have to keep all this stuff current across three machines. I would set stuff to auto update, but I’ve been burned in the past when a machine has updated software and broken a current application (Studio Vision Pro, Finale, etc) that I rely on absolutely for my income. I’d rather have control over my system, get things functioning smoothly, and then leave it alone until my season ends.
There’s got to be a better way. Maybe Virtual Machining is the answer?
Comments Off
March 26, 2010
For Want of a Cable, a Studio was Rewired
The new MIDI interface is USB only. Max USB cable length is 16 feet (they make 20′ cables, but MIDI is very timing sensitive and subject to error on long runs). The MIDI interface is 18′ from the computer.
When I first wired my studio three years ago I was extraordinarily careful about not crossing power and data runs, about the order of equipment and heating issues, about careful and neat cable tying behind the racks, and about workflow and equipment access. I spent days deciding how everything should be laid out, drawing diagrams of each piece of gear. It’s paid off as I’ve almost never had an issue with buzz or noise in the system.
I may now have to completely disassemble and rewire my pristine studio layout based on the fact that a single cable is two feet too short.
I’m going to risk $15 on a 20′ cable from Amazon and see if the MIDI signals are reliable, but if they’re not…
Someone kill me please.
March 11, 2010
Really Fast
…Having created a medium in which the refractive index is less than one, Putz and Svozil’s idea is simply to immerse a computer in it. That simple act (and presumably some clever design to create an optical computer in the first place) would allow superluminal computation to take place.
Assuming that this device could actually be built, what could you do with a superluminal computer? That’s a good question that Putz and Svozil do not address directly. They say such a device would fall into a class of processing machine known as hypercomputers. These are hypothetical devices more powerful than Turing machines, that allow non-Turing computations. They were first discussed by Alan Turing in the 1930s.
I suspect a lot of this hype is of the not-as-good-as-it-sounds variety (i.e. maybe it’s technically “faster than light” because the medium has a slower value for c or something (kind of like Cherenkov radiation). Still, it’s neat sounding.
March 9, 2010
Media Upload Test
Here’s a media upload test. First, a waterfall sound effect:
Now, a movie:

and finally, a picture:

any of these come through?
December 16, 2009
December 7, 2009
Ex Libris
I may have posted this a while back, but it’s worth a re-post. The ultimate Geek Library.
November 4, 2009
October 13, 2009
There Goes My Afternoon
Google introduces Building Maker, which is nothing short of their attempt to get you to build out their infrastructure for free. And it’ll work, because it’s cool.
I’ve been brushing up on my SketchUp skills lately by designing props that I’ll build for the upcoming show (one fun and large one that’s straightforward and one thats… a challenge). Building Maker helps you build real-world buildings and drop them right into Google Earth.
We’re making the Matrix, a vertex at a time.
September 28, 2009
I know Windows is awful. Everyone knows Windows is awful. Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it’s there, and there’s nothing you can do about it. OK, OK: I know other operating systems are available. But their advocates seem even creepier, snootier and more insistent than Mac owners. The harder they try to convince me, the more I’m repelled. To them, I’m a sheep. And they’re right. I’m a helpless, stupid, lazy sheep. I’m also a masochist. And that’s why I continue to use Windows – horrible Windows – even though I hate every second of it. It’s grim, it’s slow, everything’s badly designed and nothing really works properly: using Windows is like living in a communist bloc nation circa 1981. And I wouldn’t change it for the world, because I’m an abject bloody idiot and I hate myself, and this is what I deserve: to be sentenced to Windows for life.
That’s why Windows works for me. But I’d never recommend it to anybody else, ever. This puts me in line with roughly everybody else in the world. No one has ever earnestly turned to a fellow human being and said, “Hey, have you considered Windows?” Not in the real world at any rate.
By the way, have you seen the hip new Windows 7 infomercial?
August 11, 2009
Cool Tool
This looks nifty. ODB reader, trip computer, and engine scanner all in one. Put it on the birthday wish list.
May 11, 2009
Test Post!
Thanks to Sean’s friend Jeff Snyder, thebigthink now has a new home. I can now Link to other sites! I can even post pictures!
Thanks, Jeff!
April 24, 2009
Avoid Mozy
MOZY for Mac is terrible! I just installed the backup utility and have had no end to problems. Half-baked UI, frequent beach-balling (why does it freeze for 30 seconds when I deselect a check box? Intolerable!), and general slow operation. Even the oft-blasted beta was better than this. I had high hopes for Mozy but I’ve been very disappointed.
Recommendation: Avoid Mozy until they get their act together. Even the free version isn’t worth what they charge. Why would I pay $60/year? Awful.
April 2, 2009
Robot Overlords
This bears reading:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/newtonai.html
wherein a robot correctly deduces the law of conservation of momentum, and Newton’s second law of motion using only first principles. That is, the programmers gave the computer the ability to test and modify its theories, then the computer figured these laws out for itself. Also today is this:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10211175-1.html?part=rsstag=feedsubj=Crave
Wherein the robot “Adam” (ahem), becomes “the first machine to independently come up with new scientific findings.”
Exciting and a little disturbing.
March 9, 2009
Blog Mess
Sorry, folks, the blog is a mess. For some reason the new install of Word Press won’t allow me to make posts with links. They end up looking like the posts below with all the messy html showing. Good friend Sean and I are not really in control of the blog, but he’s got a trouble ticket in to the relevant life forms and is trying to get it fixed. In the meantime, posting might be a bit light.
February 1, 2009
New MarsEdit
The new version of MarsEdit blogging app has a nifty Flickr integration tool. It lets you grab photos directly from your Flickr stream and post them to your blog. Really neat. Testing it out here.
Scott, Barry, and Jason in Waco Hall. shot by Greg
January 30, 2009
Model Man
I’ve always been a big modeler. From as far back as I can remember I’ve enjoyed building with my hands and creating something out of a kit, or out of raw materials. As a kid I built dozens of spaceships (mainly Apollo-era “real” spacecraft) as well as airplanes and ships. Never built any science fiction stuff, simply because recreating the real world was somehow interesting enough.
I would have thought that somewhere along the way I would grow out of this phase, but instead I simply graduated to building bigger things (furniture and other woodworking stuff, mainly). I’m really happy that I never outgrew the desire to create. I’m currently working on a small gothic church done with Hirst Blocks. It’s this one, in fact:
I spent about a week casting the individual stones in hydrostone (a special dental plaster that’s much stronger than plaster of paris) and then glued it all together. I then painted it and now I’m onto the roofing stage. I made up a miniature roof subassembly last night and cut out a few hundred shingles that I’ll hand apply over the coming days. It’s slow going but really rewarding.
Still, I look forward to the day when creating something from my imagination is even easier. It looks like that day is closer than we may think. Rapid Prototyping (RP) technology has gotten much more available lately, and while the $10,000+ machines are still not what you’d call “desktop”, I think it’s only a few years until we start to see them get really small and high quality. The first laser printers were clunky, big, and low quality and cost $20,000. I bought my current color laser printer for less than $250. Give it a decade and you will be able to print up any common object on your desktop, or use Sketchup to design whatever you want and have the machine spit it out. Cadspan already has a free (!!) plugin for Sketchup that will take a Sketchup model and prep it for an RP machine.
The results now are rather small and simple looking (but not too simple!). Here’s an example:
Pretty good, but not quite to the replicator stage yet.
An open source organization called RepRap has created a machine (also called “a RepRap”) that is designed to create simple prototypes. Being open source, this organization has released its plans into the wild with the intention of constantly improving the technology. Their first goal was to design a desktop replicator with enough flexibility that it could, given the correct plans, recreate itself. They recently succeeded. The initial machine cost about $500 to create, but the second machine (the one that the first one made) cost only a few dollars. Currently, the RepRap can’t do a heck of a lot. Its output is limited to simple objects like flyswatters:
door handles:
or shoes:
In fact, it’s currently limited to making things that can be extruded from a plastic polymer much like toothpaste coming from a tube. However, even with this simple set of limitations, there are literally hundreds of useful things that it can create, and the open source community is working on getting the RepRap to be able to work in soft metals. The step past basic structural forming is going to be really big. They’re trying to enable a RepRap to extrude thin conductive material and be able to embed the metal in their creations. Why is this big? Because if they’re able to do this, RepRaps will be able to start constructing common consumer electronic devices. We’re still a ways from replicating your own iPod, but making a basic light switch or doorbell-level device would be utterly simple.
So here’s my dream: I would love to be able to design something on Sketchup, send the file through an RP machine, and have whatever I can imagine pop out the other end, complete with wiring all set to take lights or other electrical components. Far from just a tool to create models of my own design, this little tool would open up whole new worlds of creativity. And the fact that I could make you a RepRap of your own in an afternoon means that these things will be all over the place.
It’s now 2009. I am going to say that within 5 years the RepRap will be able to create a simple and useful household device: a hairdryer. That’s my guess. It’ll be interesting to see if they get there. I’ll also say that it makes, oh, 90% of the thing and you only have to add a small motor or maybe a cord you can buy at the hardware store. Let’s see what can happen before January of 2014.
What would you make?