Yeraze's Domain 3.0

So this week I’m at the "Peaceful Valley" Ranch in Colorado (Just outside Denver) to attend the DOECGF07.  This is one of the conferences I really enjoy each year because it’s very small (~30 people), no vendors, and all folks working on the same problems I deal with on a day-to-day basis.  Not to mention that alot of these guys are heavy developers on software I use like ParaView, Ensight, & Visit.

Well, this place is … Interesting, to say the least.  Getting here is interesting, as it’s about 90 minutes away from Denver.  Not 90 miles, mind you, 90 minutes.  The difference is important when you realize that the bulk of the trip is driving up the side of the Rocky Mountains through Estes Park and such.  Twisting and turning past cliffs so tall you can’t see the tops from inside the car, seeing signs saying "Watch our for Falling Rocks", and "In case of flood, climb to higher ground" (I am not kidding, we actually saw a sign saying that).  There’s still a good bit of snow on the ground around here, and the scenery is truly beautiful.

On the downside, however, we’re at 8,500 feet above sea level, about 1.5 miles.  I think I’m suffering from "Altitude Sickness", as I’ve had a constant Headache and light-headedness since I got here.  It was particularly bad last night as I finally couldn’t take it any more when my vision started blurring.  Also, either from the remoteness of it all or the steep rock faces, we have absolutely no cellphone signal.  My room is equally sparse, as I have no radio or TV.  Luckily, I do have High-Speed Internet.  Of course, High-speed internet can fix alot   I can stream music from Pandora with Ease, and even stream TV from my MythTV at home thanks to MythStreamTV.  Even the phone is of minimal impact since I have IM, email, and Laura can call me via the Vonage line for free (where I pay 25cents/minute to call out).

But I have to admit the scenery is beautiful, and the air is clear.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve seen far too many horror movies start with tourists on a distant resort, out of the reach of cell phones and miles from civilization, then I might consider bringing Laura and the kids up here sometime.
[tag:doecgf][tag:travel][tag:colorado][tag:conference]

This weekend, while walking through the Bonita Lakes Mall in Meridian Mississippi, I was shocked to see a sign advertising that a bike made for Peavey Electronics (based in Meridian) from the guys at Orange County Choppers would be on display Saturday.  If the "Orange County" name rings a bell, they’re the guys behind "American Chopper" on the Discovery Channel.

I went back on Saturday and gawked for a bit.  My first reaction was that the bike is friggin huge.  I never realized just how big a "chopper" is, but it’s easily twice the size of the normal motorcycles I see running up and down I20.  I didn’t have a camera, but I managed to snap some pics with my Cell Phone and uploaded them on my blog in the Peavey Chopper gallery.

Some interesting quirks about the bike:

• Microphones for Handlebar Grips
• an electric guitar "holster" on the back wheel, complete with Guitar
• Frets up the center of the Gas Tank
• a Fully functional (although not fantastic sounding) power amplifier mounted under the seat, with a speaker over the rear wheel.

It’s a real beauty of the bike, and evidenty there is a 2-part episode of American Choppers showing it’s construction which has already aired.  I’m gonna MythTV it and see how it went.  One interesting tidbit from my Peavey Insiders:  In the episode they trick Hartley by smashing a cheap replica of the "Inspirational OCC Guitar" he gave them.  The episode was edited so that Hartley laughs through it all, but I’ve heard that in real life he was Livid for a few minutes before they let him in on the joke.

Update: Looks like I forgot to turn on Comments & Ratings in the Gallery.  Fixed now.
[tag:peavey][tag:chopper][tag:motorcycle][tag:orangecounty][tag:occ]

Thanks to a link on Slashdot, I just found out about the "Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique".  It’s a long winded name, yes, but they have a collection of "Badges" that members can earn based on their previous scientific experiences.  The list is pretty varied, but I thought i’ld collect all the ones I’ve earned here for a fun list. 

I put them as a table, so to keep from hogging my frontpage, click thru..[tag:sciencescouts][tag:badges]

I’m lucky.  At my desk at work, I have 5 Widescreen LCD’s (2 30", 2 24", and an IBM T221) connected to 3 computers.  At home I have my personal computer with a simple 21" LCD, and I have a work Laptop.  All together, that’s 5 computers I work with on a daily basis (not counting the MythTV, or time spent on other coworker’s computers).  With so many computers on so many architectures (Windows XP, XP64, Suse, Debian, & Redhat Enterprise) it quickly becomes problematic moving between them.  I’ve found several tools that can make this significantly easier, and I thought I’ld share them here with all of you.

The tools fall into two main groups.  First there are the Consistency Tools, the tools that let the different machines share data so that some of the most common operations are the same across them.  First and foremost is FireFox.  It runs on pretty much every platform in existence, and operates the same on all of them.  I combine this with the Del.Icio.Us Firefox Extension to let me access my bookmarks from any of my computers.  This helps alot with my basic Day-to-Day activities.  I also use VIM as my editor on the *nix systems, so Vim for Windows is a must as well, along with the changes to remove all the Windows Specific Stuff.

The other group is the Efficiency Tools, the tools that let me work more efficiently across the large environments.  These tools mostly apply to my work environment.  Having 6-feet of horizontal desktop real-estate, and 3 keyboards/mice to manage is a real pain.  That’s why Synergy is one of my favorite tools.  It is essentially a software-based KVM-Switch, allowing you to use the Keyboard and Mouse on a single (master) machine on multiple machines.  I add my new MarbleMouse Trackball into the mix so I don’t give myself carpel tunnel mousing from end-to-end, and it’s a serious productivity improvement.  Synergy also has a few other nice features like the shared clipboard, being able to Cut Text on my Linux Desktop and paste it into an email on my Windows Machine is a huge boon as well.

Launchy is another great productivity tool.  Mac users familiar with Quicksilver will recognize it, but it’s essentially a windows equivalent.  I have it scanning my entire Start Menu for shortcuts, as well as another directory where I’ve placed special shortcuts (via Putty) to all my remote linux systems.  A quick "Alt-Spacebar, H-O-Enter" and I’m connected via SSH to my computer at Home.  Speaking of which, working with so many Linux systems makes Putty a requirement in my environment.  Combining it with XMing ( A Free X-Server for Windows), I’m able to use my Windows Machine as my primary desktop for most functions.  I also use the new Lifehacker "Better GMail" extension to let me use Keyboard Shortcuts to operate GMail (my main email tools).

I also have alot of custom tools I’ve written to make some things faster.  These consist of primarily TCL and Python Scripts that use plink to connect to various systems.  I chose TCL & Python because of their ability to run equally well on Linux & Windows systems.    When I have to use C, I primarily use GNU compilers and CMake, again for the cross-platform nature of the tools. 

All of this together gives me a pretty much uniform environment across all my systems.  It’s not perfect, and I’m constantly finding new and better tools to do the same work.  I try my best to share them here, but it’s a hit and miss approach Any of you have any other tools worth me trying?
[tag:software][tag:productivity][tag:crossplatform][tag:windows][tag:linux]

It was a little over a year ago when I made my brief stint inside Second Life, and while I was impressed there simply wasn’t enough going on to really keep my interest.  Sure there was alot of porn and gambling, but that was about all I could find.  I had hoped to spend some time playing with their programming tools and trying to build some stuff of mine own, but the controls were far too cryptic and I never did figure it all out.

Well, a few months ago Linden Labs took the surprising step of open-sourcing the Second Life client.  A nice gesture, but given that they still own the servers it really means you can’t make any changes beyond the cosmetic.  Any new functionality or significant changes would break compatibility with the server, and then the client wouldn’t mean much anymore.  But now Linden has surprising taken the next step, Open Sourcing the Server.

As speculated in the article, this opens the gate for "Second life" hosting services for companies or independent groups.  Still not personally all that interesting, but neat I suppose.  What i’m really curious about is Neal Stephenson’s vision of the "Metaverse".  In "Snow Crash" he discusses the "Metaverse", a university/government virtual-reality network where people meet and interact daily (Just like Second Life).  The original company now just hosts the master planet, tho, and all the buildings are hosted on independent servers and desktops. When someone logs into the Metaverse, essentially the door to their house is a gateway into the main network, and vice versa.  This creates some interesting dynamics as people can only have so many visitors in their home as can be handled by their computer, and other interesting things where enterprising hackers have modified the code for their own servers to create fantasy worlds where physics and gravity no longer act normal.  It’s a great read, and it sounds like Linden may be taking the first steps toward implementing his Vision in Second Life.
[tag:lindenlabs][tag:secondlife][tag:metaverse]

I’m a little bored at the moment, and thought I’ld just post some fun links I’ve found today:

• Wikipedia’s "Don’t Forget to Mount a Scratch Monkey"
• Wikipedia’s Catalog of Incidents at Disney Parts
• Thinkgeek’s "Crystal Initech Award" – For the Office Space fan in all of us
• Zombie Horde 3 – A Fun single-player Flash Alternative to Urban Dead
• A hilarious Laugh on Youtube
• A Bizarre Will Ferrel Sketch
• A good writeup on some classic Hacks, including (My Favorite)  Robin Hood & Friar Tuck.

Always lots of fun stuff around the net if you know where to look.  A few pieces of humor to brighten an otherwise depressing day .
[tag:humor][tag:collection][tag:links]

One of the first accessories I got for my RAZR phone was a Bluetooth Headset.  I frequently use a hands-free system when I’m driving, but the classic corded earpiece with the dangling microphone always got tangled up as I reached around the car or turned my head to check blind spots.  Not to mention they usually weren’t really hands-free, as you still had to grab the phone to do any dialing with it.  So after some research I bought a simple Jabra BT350 to try out, and I continue to be happily surprised with how well it performs.

After using it for a few days, I had an odd thought.  How far away are we from using technology very similar to this to create a literal Bluetooth headset? By this I mean created a dental implant that can operate as a universal headset for your cellphone.  Replace a tooth (or supplement it with a Cap) to operate as the Bluetooth Headset and sync it with your phone. It seemed neat, but the obvious first problem was how to recharge it?  Wouldn’t want to be pulling it in and out to recharge, but I didn’t know of any way to really (safely) recharge it inside your mouth either.

Yesterday, on Slashdot, I found an answer.  Georgia Tech has created a small nanogenerator capable of generating enough power to recharge small devices with motion as small as moving your feet, and small enough to be implanted in a shoe.  A bluetooth headset doesn’t take much power (The BT350 holds enough charge for somewhere around 600hours standby, and well over 40 hours of talk time, and I’ve tested it enough to believe it’s true), and since you obviously move your mouth to talk, that should create ample charge to sustain the device.
[tag:bluetooth][tag:invention][tag:idea]

Happy Easter everyone.  Hope it was a good one.  Laura & I spent the weekend together working around the house.  "Working around the house" includes Cutting the grass, dusting for ants, hanging new Wire-rack shelves in our laundry room, spring-cleaning of all the closets, storage of all the clothes that don’t fit anymore, and many, many bags and boxes of garbage awaiting pickup in the garage.

But it wasn’t all work.  Laura lucked out this weekend and after 20 finger-numbing minutes of digging in the ice cream Freezer at Wal-Mart, victoriously returned with two pints of Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream.  Ever since I first heard of thing I’ve wanted to try it, and I have to admit it doesn’t disappoint.  Vanilla Ice Cream with Chocolate Fudge, Caramel, and Waffle-cone pieces.. It’s delicious. 

This weekend almost marked Laura’s first admission that the MythTV is pretty kewl ™.  Not only for it’s ability to automatically mark and skip commercials with incredible accuracy (We watched several episodes of House & Dresden Files this weekend, as well as Lewis Black: Black on Broadway and Bill Engvall’s 15-Degrees Off Cool), but for the ease with which I could schedule new recordings when she asked me to.  We were watching TV when a commercial for Lewis Black’s special came on and she said "We should watch that".  Knowing we’ld probably be busy, I grabbed the remote and turned on the MythTV, flipped over to the Program Guide, selected the show (24 hours in advance), and told it to record it.  Then flipped back to the live TV.  I think I’ve made a convert of her   Unfortunately, with all this new interest comes several more scheduling conflicts.  I’m gonna have to add in a 2nd tuner soon, I’ve just got to decide between another PVR-150 or a USB Tuner.

So as I sit at work and listen to Polka Floyd, I think it was a pretty good easter weekend.
[tag:easter][tag:work][tag:icecream][tag:americonedream][tag:mythtv][tag:waf]

My mom picked up the DVD of Happy Feet last week, thinking that Rhianna would like it.  Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a slow builder and Rhianna wouldn’t stay still long enough to really get into it.  Later that night, tho, we all sat down and watched it.

In short, it’s a cute movie.  It’s the story of "Mumbo" the penguin who was dropped by his father "Memphis" as an egg.  Because of this he’s "different" that all the other penguins.  In his tribe, the penguins all sing their heartsong (Which range from Memphis’s Elvis hits to other’s later Rap songs), but Mumbo doesn’t have one.  Instead he can dance, and does so incessantly and continuously.  This leads to him eventually being outcast from the tribe and finding another tribe where he’s accepted for his dancing skills, and eventually he returns triumphantly to his own tribe to get the girl.

From here, the movie takes an odd turn as the elders of the tribe blame Mumbo and his heretic dancing for the scarcity of the fish (?)  that the tribe has been enduring.  This starts a pretty blatant political angle to the movie where he goes to find the "aliens" (Humans) and explain to them (us) that we’re stealing their fish.  It’s not as blatant as the Inconvenient Truth, but it’s a similar message, albeit wrapped up in cute fuzzy penguins and adlibs from Robin Williams.

It’s a cute movie, and the CG is impressive.  Ranging from beautiful landscapes to several hundred coordinated penguins in breakout song and dance numbers, it’s a sight to see.  The musical selections are pretty good too, covering the gamut from R&B to County, from Rap to Monk Chants.  It’s pretty funny too, with most of the jokes voiced by Robin Williams as "Ramone" the penguin.  It’s cute, and I think Rhianna will enjoy it if we can get her to sit through enough of it to get to the first song & dance number.
[tag:happyfeet][tag:dvd][tag:movie]