I’m playing around with nano copters, the first I picked up was the “Syma S107c”:http://www.amazon.com/Syma-Channel-Control-Helicopter-Recording/dp/B0081VOEZM. Cheap and has a camera. So super simple to set up, it comes assembled, you just need to connect the camera up, charge the copter, […]
* “Going Clear”:amazon by Lawrence Wright. A tough look at Scientology. The author does a nice job of letting the evidence speak for itself. If even a fraction of the accounts of abuse are true, the church has some serious […]
The “sphero”:www.gosphero.com is nicely done and drives dogs crazy. Solid packaging and works. But it is crazy expensive for a little gadget. I appreciate everything that has gone into it, but it just costs too much. Because I really want […]
Trying to decide…I am drawn to the Zappa…
I am pushing myself a little this month. * “Real World Haskell”:amazon by O’Sullivan, Goerzen, Stewart. Functional languages have always seemed like a research toy to me. But some of the smartest guys I know are using the concepts at […]
* “The Machinery of Life”:amazon by David Goodsell. I have a reasonable understanding of atoms and electrons and electron-based chemistry, particularly for semiconductor materials. I have never really understood biochemistry — protein chemistry, DNA, etc. I love this book because […]
We always get some board games over the holiday season and have some gamefests. Settlers, Ticket to Ride, Survive have been winners in past years. This year we tried 3: * “Seven Wonders”:http://www.amazon.com/Asmodee-SEV-EN01ASM-7-Wonders-Game/dp/B0043KJW5M/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1357360279&sr=1-1&keywords=seven+wonders. This was the real winner of the […]
Ok I got an iPad mini for Christmas — thanks family! The lack of retina display does bother me, it is super noticeable. I will certainly upgrade to an iPad mini retina when it exists. But it is interesting to […]
Per @CFTalkThrough, through 14 bowl games, attendance is down more than 11 percent from a year ago. 574,095 in 2011, 508,969 in 2012. Too many bowls? Maybe. But “looking at fan bases countrywide”:http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/, when you take 5.8M fans out of […]
* “Black List”:amazon by Brad Thor. Eh. A treasonous cabal plans an apocalyptic cyber-attack on the US. Pretty standard suspense tale, some interesting characters left completely undeveloped, pretty standard plotting. * “The Quantum Thief”:amazon by Hannu Rajamiemi. Very nice tale […]
* Great list of tools from Patrick Rhone at “MinimalMac”:http://minimalmac.com/post/38230590462/some-tools-that-made-my-computing-life-better-in-2012. Installed doublepane right away. * “Infoxicate”:infoxicate.com seems like it could be IFTTT only really useful. Tho seems to be just a concept so far. * Powerpoint is so dull. I […]
“A nice article”:http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/11/to-eat-or-be-eaten.html from @mikeloukides that extends on the “software is eating the world” idea, and talks about how the world is eating software. Programmable behaviour is getting stuffed into everything, and the trend is just going to accelerate. I’ve […]
It is fascinating to me that a site like “MCM”:http://www.mcmelectronics.com/content/en-US/raspberry-pi has to limit raspberry pi sales to 25 to a customer. Many possible reasons for this of course, but exceedingly interesting.
A random collection of links I’ve noticed in the past month or so, need to follow up on most of these. * “APDuino.org”:http://apduino.org/. Standard software for managing an arduino fully populated with sensors. Feel like arduino hw and sw ought […]
A handful of airplane reads: * “Up Against It”:amazon by M. J. Locke. YA SF, set in the asteroid belt. Nice technical treatment of asteroid belt life and some interesting political plotting, but tissue paper thin characters for the most […]
Hey, Ohio State had a bye, I had to watch something. 3 observations after watching “the show”:http://www.bravotv.com/start-ups-silicon-valley: * I am now embarrassed to say I work in the tech industry. * Apparently there are just as many venal, shallow people […]
Hal presents “a reasoned and rational defense of the current state of Office on Windows RT machines”:http://hal2020.com/2012/11/07/understanding-office/. I am almost half convinced. But I do differ with Hal on some points. * The Office and Windows businesses have always been […]
* “FiveThirtyEight”:http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ and other election watchers have made it crystal clear that candidate attention has moved entirely to swing states — and increasingly swing counties and swing demographics within those states. You have to believe this trend will continue, and […]
Overall the Surface is, well, a turd. It is a crappy cheap laptop. Or maybe an ok-but-expensive tablet, although completely lacking the tablet apps I want. But it has forced me to think about the gear I carry. Right now […]
I have the attention span of a gnat, and too large a hardware budget, so of course I ordered a “Surface”:http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US day one. I got my Surface on Friday. 64G, black, both the touch and the type covers. My motto […]
