Occlusion Culling

Hotels in Hong Kong - Peninsula

2012-01-19T16:39:00.000-08:00

The Peninsula in Hong Kong attracts me most because it features in James Bond. I explained last time why I found the Intercontinental - Grand Stanford a better place to stay at, but I still wanted to visit the Peninsula, and the ideal moment for that was for afternoon tea. According to at least two sources it is the best place to have afternoon tea in Hong Kong, so I was very disappointed when I failed to get there in time the day we had to leave Hong Kong. Obviously afternoon tea is at 16:00, but the book I had stated they would serve until 19:00. They don't. In fact, if you arrive after 17:00 you'll be out of luck, as there is a queue that takes at least an hour. I discovered that the next time I was in Hong Kong.

Because one of the things you can do in the Peninsula is watch other people, the wait in the queue is reasonably enjoyable. You can prepare yourself for the event by watching the people that are drinking tea, and there is a chamber orchestra playing from the balcony. The songs are rather popular (Vivaldi, Queen) and not every note is clean, but this, together with free Internet, makes for a quick hour. Once seated I discovered the tea isn't actually that expensive (obviously it is expensive for tea, but there are places in London where you'd pay more for less) and comprehensive. You can just order the afternoon tea (I'm not sure why they even bother with a menu) which consists of your choice of tea (or coffee) and a three course set of finger foods.

The initial tea is served to perfection. They steep it just for the right amount of time, and their tea leaves have a magnificent quality (certainly better than what Lupicia, Teavana or Twinings offer). Later cups are, of course, slightly more bitter, but still very tasty. The first course are the scones, with cream and strawberry jam. This is the only place where strawberries taste good, and I enjoyed them. The second course are a variation of sandwiches (cucumber, mushrooms, cheese quiche) which were tasty enough. Finally there were the deserts, which included cheese cake, chocolate and various other tasty bites.

The experience was worth the hour long wait, and the two visits. The atmosphere is good, the food is great and the tea is excellent. It might all feel overly English, but I loved it.

Hotels in Hong Kong - Intercontinental Grand Stanford

2012-01-13T10:46:00.000-08:00

For our trip to Hong Kong we had only limited time. We would be there two nights, and would arrive in the evening, so I wanted to make sure a good hotel was booked in advance. As a James Bond fan, I thought the Peninsula hotel would be the best, but after consulting Frommer's Hong Kong guide and looking at prices online I decided that the Intercontinental Grand Stanford was a better option, because it had a much better harbour view, was slightly farther away from the centre (allowing more steps on the beautiful Tsim Sha Tsui promenade), and promised to be luxurious.

Travel to the hotel was fast and simple, using the airport express and the K3 shuttle. Welcome was great, bags were handled properly and (free) bottles of water were waiting in the room. The bed was great, the view was even better than on the pictures (sleeping with the curtains eased the jetlag considerably) and the bathroom was grand. The bathtub was not ideal, but very few bathtubs are (I'm picky when it comes to tubs). I know some people might object to the fact that you have to pay for the Internet, but when you have only a few days in Hong Kong being on the Internet is not of prime importance, especially when the front desk staff of the hotel is so helpful (providing maps of the city and the subway).

Normally I avoid restaurants that are inside the hotel that I stay at, but ate at the Cafe on M three times. The staff there was very helpful (although eager to get you to fill out the survey). The buffet was especially delicious, with so many options that you certainly find more than enough to enjoy, but the menu items are also tasty.

I've not tried any of the other hotels, but this one was so good that I would probably stay there the next time as well. In fact, the whole Hong Kong experience was such that I'd gladly come back. There is a YMCA in a great location too, but I've never really been keen on Youth Hostels. For me the $260/night for the harbour view room was very good value for money.

Telnet gateway form

2011-12-20T07:09:00.000-08:00

For those that still wish to use the telnet gateway, I made a form that links to the VPS in Europe. Hopefully it works for you, however, that server might go down without notice.

Mosha down for the holidays

2011-12-20T00:49:00.000-08:00

Because I'll be rather busy for the holidays I'm not able to properly manage the Mosha server, it will therefore be down until the 8th of January. My apologies for the inconvenience. If you're using cliser, you might be able to still connect using the europe.mosha.net server running at ports 8080 and 8000, but I'm still setting that server up and it is quite unstable. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Daemon of Cormagan blog

2011-05-06T11:06:00.000-07:00

I started another blog related to my novel. Together with my blog on my electronics project, this will mean this blog will become even more starved for content, but at least things are now properly separated.

Mosha down

2011-04-05T08:55:00.000-07:00

As I wrote on the Facebook newsfeed, Mosha is currently down, as it can't be turned on in its current location. I can move the server, but for that I would need a wireless AP with ethernet connection (as there is no ethernet port in the new location) and the amount I received in donations is less than half. The old location will be available again on the 5th of May, so at that time Mosha will be turned back on.

Talker

2011-03-23T18:31:00.000-07:00

In my novel, which I hope to publish this year, I have the concept of a talker. My illustrator asked me what such a device looks like, and I decided to try to make a raytrace of one, which you should be able to see. A talker is basically a steampunk version of a cellphone. It doesn't use electricity, instead it uses a combination of air pressure (stored in a tank, and increased using a manual pump, similar to that of a blood pressure meter) and phosphorus, which is charged in sunlight. The description in my technology document is as follows:

Transmitting: The talker has a light source (portable ones use a phosphor compound, which charges as long as it is exposed to light, wall mounted talkers usually use a friction light). When in use, the vibrations of the speaker cause a small mirror to vibrate, causing the light to change in amplitude. The crystal shape changes this light into a beam, which can be sent over a distance.

Receiving: When a beam hits a crystal anywhere, it is captured, and using the structure of the crystal aimed at a tiny metal valve that expands and contracts based on the amount of light (when there is no light, the valve is closed). The valve allows air to flow from a pressure chamber (manually inflated using a small pump in portable talkers, using a continuous pump for wall mounted versions) into a hose that ends in an ear piece, which allows the receiving party to hear the voice.

Signalling: Certain wavelengths will not be aimed at the valve by the crystal, but instead will cause the crystal to glow in a particular color, indicating in incoming call, or show other important information.

Switching: The large crystals mounted on top of mountains are connected to glass pipes, linking to exchanges, where operators receive the calls and redirect them to other talkers or to other exchanges using glass rods.

In the device on the picture you can see the green crystal (with the light green light of the phosphorus behind it), the mirror, the rubber ball used to pressurize the copper tank, the valve under the lens under the crystal, the blackish rubber tube leading to the ear piece, which can be attached to the side of the tank when carried. There is also a hook that allows you to hang the talker from your belt. The most important component of the talker is the crystal, which has four tasks.

1. It needs to convert incoming light into heat, using a lens that is attached below the crystal. The heat operates a miniature valve that responds rapidly to these heat changes, and allows minute amounts of air to escape from the reservoir depending on the amount of heat (or light). Diffuse is filtered by the crystal, and never reaches the valve.

2. It receives light from the phosphorus via a mirror. The mirror is mounted on top of the reservoir, aimed at the phosphorus and the crystal. Two springs hold the mirror at an angle at which it is at the verge of sending light to the crystal. When the mirror vibrates, the mirror will reflect the phosphorus on the crystal, which will turn it into a parallel beam emitted in a specific direction.

3. When parallel light of a certain wavelength is received, the crystal will light up. This allows the user to ensure correct alignment (the crystal is able to correct for certain variations, but aiming is important). For stationary talkers this ability is used to alert a user that there is an incoming call.

4. Diffuse light is gathered and aimed at the phosphorus, allowing it to charge when not in use.

Early steps with Starcraft 2

2010-11-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

This weekend I completed the campaign of Starcraft 2. I played it mostly on casual, except those scenarios that I failed to complete on casual, which I replayed at a harder level. I was a bit disappointed in the length of the campaign: for some reason I had expected... More. It's the same reason why I stopped playing World of Warcraft: I like the parts that are hardest to create: story lines. I don't really care doing things a second time at a harder level if they continue to look the same (in Ulduar things looked surprisingly different on hard modes, which made them something I wanted to do).

However, I don't think people play Starcraft 2 for the story. In fact, I only played the campaign so that it would be marked as complete on my profile: I was already heavily involved in playing with other players. I use "with" deliberately here: my first games were with a friend of mine against the computer. Unfortunately the AI is easily tricked by a cloud of mutalisks, which you can build before their first wave hits. By carefully attacking their base right at the moment they arrive at yours, you can force their army to return to their base, leaving you more time to build more units... So fighting against the computer became slightly less interesting.

This is where we decided to form a group and fight in a dedicated 2v2 league, for which we developed and tried out a number of strategies, some of which I will describe in later blog posts. For some reason, playing those 2v2 games reduced the number of practice games I had available as well, and after doing some practice games too, I decided to qualify for 4v4. 4v4 had one problem, though: despite being fast, my MSI GX630 is not fast enough for that mode. 3v3 works fine, but in 4v4 the battle is over before I can do anything. So I decided to quality for 3v3 next.

I'm avoiding 1v1 because I'm playing more to cooperate with other people rather than fight against people. Of course, most people seem to think of this differently, and there were even cases where my partners started to fight each other over resources, rather than focus on the common enemy. But this is part of the fun. I'm still in the copper league at all levels, which means I'm in the bottom 40%. But that's ok, I'm only just beginning to grasp how everything fits together, and there might be many things that I'm still missing.

My "new" keyboard

2010-09-20T16:46:00.000-07:00

My old keyboard, a 1984 Tulip, sadly died. The CTRL key had already broken off once, but I had managed to glue it back on. This time the damage was too much, though, and I had to get rid of it. Fortunately I had another keyboard, the Northgate Omnikey Ultra, in storage. This is a slightly more modern keyboard, from 1989, and is actually a step up from the Tulip. Some of the keyboard layout is a bit odd (I fixed most of it by reassigning scan codes, but there are still a few areas that I need to get used to) but the typing is amazing. I had used it before at work in Rochester, but there the people complained about the noise (it is loud) so I stopped using it. A keyboard like this makes you want to type. I looked on the Internet, and generally people seem to agree (Wikipedia calls it "the best in the industry". Other websites talk about "a legend in the computer industry", "personal favorite", "best keyboard", and the leader of PC World's column "the 30 products and services we miss most").

And PC World is right. The Tulip keyboard, the Northgate, and the IBM Model M keyboards are no longer available. The only way you can buy them is used, and given their lifespan of about 30 years, they will eventually only be seen in musea. Creative Vision Technology tried to make a keyboard like them in 2006, but it seems those aren't sold anymore either. What these keyboards have in common is that they use Alps Slider Switches, rather than a membrane. This means that they are more susceptible to liquids (if the liquid gets into the switch, your keyboard is basically dead) but also that anyone typing on them will notice that they are better. They aren't necessarily ergonomic (they can still cause carpal tunnel syndrome) but they just feel extremely good. And, just faster than sound flights, they are no longer commercially available.

The disappearance of these magnificent keyboards is most likely caused by the mouse. Because the mouse became more important in the interaction with the computer, the keyboard became less important, and people were no longer willing to spend $190 on a good keyboard. Instead, they bought a $5 keyboard and a slightly more expensive mouse. Which is fine for people that never used the old keyboards. But I will miss them. Let's hope my Northgate will last a long time, still.

Risk assessment

2010-07-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

Today I saw someone update their feed with "Stuck in traffic [...]". I'm hoping that a passenger sent the message, but it is likely that the driver, while stuck, decided an update wouldn't hurt. Oddly, in the same feed is a message "[...] school bus w/o seat belts [...] Should I just drive her & pick her up?". For some reason there are people that think that buses (even without seat belts) are less safe than cars, and that sending updates from cars while driving doesn't increase risk. Here are some statistics:

Number of deaths per billion based on one hour of risk exposure (from the book 'Dangerous Places'):
Rail or bus in the United States: 10
Traveling by car: 1200

Increase of crash risk due to sending a text message from a car: 23x.

Mosha down: visitors

2010-06-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

Mosha is in the guest bed room, and the visitors complained about the noise, so I had to turn the server off. I should be back in at most two weeks. My apologies for the inconvenience.

Mosha temporarily down

2009-12-23T21:44:00.001-08:00

Mosha will be brought down for the Holidays, because I am too busy having fun to keep managing the server. I will be monitoring this post for comments, and my apologies for the inconvenience. It should be up after the first week of January again.

Nanowrimo winner

2009-11-30T20:01:00.000-08:00

I finished my novel just in time to make the deadline for the NaNoWriMo 2009. Here is my award. Of course, it will need considerable editing before anyone else gets to read it, but if you want to help edit I might be able to send you a copy. I will expect pretty serious feedback in that case, though.

Pre Technics LEGO gears

2009-10-03T15:11:00.001-07:00

Before LEGO came with the "LEGO Technics" (of which many parts are used in LEGO Mindstorms) they experimented with different gear systems. Displayed is the one I used in Europe (I understood that a different version was released in the USA). The gears can be combined at a 90 degree angle as well. The gears have 21, 15 and 9 pins, allowing gear ratios of 7:5, 7:3 and 5:3.

Even though the axles are white, they are still compatible with Technics. Similarly the bricks, wheels and stop bush are all still usable, although they have different colours. Not all the stop bush have the same shape: some are intended to be stops, others are intended to be used with rubber bands. The metal pins are used to connect the system to the 4.5V and 12V motors that existed at the time. The threads allow attachment of regular LEGO parts, unfortunately most of the pieces of the thread got lost.

Museum expanded

2009-10-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

After getting some feedback from a co-worker I decided to reduce the amount of rust slightly, and add more hints that it is a museum setting. I also made the floor less distracting by adding a plate, which would also ensure that the marble wouldn't be damaged by the engine itself.

Steampunk time continuation

2009-09-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

I think this version makes my idea much clearer, and probably needs less explanation, which is good.

Raytracing competition entry

2009-09-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

The Internet Raytracing Competition has as current theme "Steampunk Time". Instead of creating a time piece, I'm creating a steam (punk) style machine that has suffered through time. Here is my first real rendering of it, it undoubtedly needs more work.

Travelling and moving, Mosha down

2009-05-11T19:07:00.001-07:00

Due to travels (going to Rochester and driving back to California) and moving I decided that I didn't have enough time to supervise Mosha, and therefore turned it off for the time being. Hopefully everything will be fine after the 26th of May and Mosha will be back online. My apologies for the inconvenience.

Levan Polkka

2009-05-03T13:22:00.001-07:00

Here is some music that will stay in your head...

New Cashimor website

2009-03-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

This is Cashimor's blog, and Cashimor now has a separate website. It's still under construction, and I got way too much space (10 GB) to put anything sensible there. I will move my old website there, and possibly part of Mosha, although users of Mosha shouldn't notice this.

Mosha is more and more alive

2009-01-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

The most important service of Mosha, the HTTP2telnet gateway, is now operational. I haven't yet started sending out registrations, and am actually planning on changing the mechanism to an allow list, with a list of sites that will be able to connect regardless of the origin. This will make things slightly more convenient for people, and especially easy to try out the service. However, the list of accepted targets will be limited.

Also note that the current Mosha server makes a rather large amount of noise, and since it is sitting in my apartment, this means I can get annoyed by it, at which point I will turn it off (this is prone to happen at night). I have been told that the solution is to buy an EEE box from Asus, which are quiet as a whisper, however, there is still the little detail with regards to the money. They are inexpensive, but even $250 is something. Feel free to comment and give suggestions.

Mosha dead, long live Mosha

2009-01-19T16:25:00.001-08:00

As this is still the place for Mosha updates, I can announce that the old Mosha is completely dead. Both the motherboard and the processor are done for, and will never work again. As donations have been insufficient to replace Mosha with a new computer, and ad income never exceeded $100, I have to resort to using an even older system to run the gateway on. I'm currently in the process of instaling it (it is at http://home.mosha.net at the moment, but don't expect it to work in any way). I'm currently recompiling the virtual machine, hopefully it will lead to a version that actually works (the current virtual machine is too new, if you can believe it, and causes strange run time errors).

Update on Mosha downtime

2008-12-09T19:20:00.000-08:00

I have not yet heard from my counterpart in the Netherlands. I already booked a flight and will head over there, hopefully I should be able to get the server back up by the 4th of January.

Mosha is still down

2008-11-17T17:19:00.000-08:00

The server that I run in the Netherlands, Mosha, is still down. I decided to redirect traffic to that website to this blog, so that at least people visiting there know what is going on. For some reason Mosha lost all network connectivity, both to the router as well as to the local subnet. Unfortunately it does not have a monitor or keyboard, so looking into the problem is hard, also because I'm in the United States of America and I have to investigate the problem through a friend. The time zone does not make things easier either.

My apologies for all the people that visit my website. Hopefully we can bring the server back up as soon as possible.

What can I say?

2008-11-09T20:00:00.001-08:00

More time has passed... I also started a new blog, which should be accessible through my profile. It will be less dark than this one, that is for sure. Listening to "fairytales" from Alice Deejay, which is really only useful for programming. Ah well...

Small update

2008-03-11T14:24:00.000-07:00

And yes, I mean it will be really small. My birthday is approaching, which creates all sorts of strange elements in my life. Taxes need to be done. Missing Shonda. My cousin's birthday is in two days. Zus is not doing well, and will undergo an operation. Miuty attached the TV cable. Need to clean up as tomorrow they will replace all the lights in my house with energy saving ones. More will follow. It has been too long.

Tuesday

2007-06-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

On tuesday I woke up and found my cellphone charged in the bathroom. It was there because Bryan "Zriest" P. wanted Zriest to get some more XP and had sent me a text message "What are you doing now?". This was while I was cycling, and the battery went dead, so I had to charge it. After cycling I usually need to use the restroom (ok, I had to pee). As the message of Bryan "Zriest" P. still read "What are you doing now?" I sent back that I was... (ok, peeing). After that he insisted that I help him get XP, but sadly for him food was a more pressing priority. I took the cell phone and put it in its carry case and moved it to my pants, so it could travel with me that tuesday. I then went through the usual routine, except for printing the address of my sister on a big box, which contained a Mutsy Sitter and baby clothes. As her second son is growing rapidly, she needed the sitter soon. I also synced my GPS with the computer, to store the trip I made to Yosemite (though it was a valley, and sattelite reception was not very good). I then used plastic twine (which Miuty enjoyed greatly, and is still enjoying greatly) and tied the box to my bike, and cycled to the post office in Belmont. Halfway I discovered that I did not have my cell phone with me.

I did have my bank pass in the left pocket, together with money, as I went to an ATM, as I was expecting postage for the big box to be rather high (it turned out to be $42.60). I also had my bag in the bag of the bicycle, the big box, and clothes on. I became a tad scared that my cell phone might've dropped on the floor in the hallway while I was tying the box to the bicycle. On the other hand, it could have never made it on my belt, as I changed into a fresh pair of pants. So I decided to press on, and arrived at the post office. There I immediately started filling out the usual green customs form, and when I was almost done, the person behind the counter handed me another form: "Big form for big box" he said. So I filled out the big form as well. I mailed the box, continued to work, where all my coding went rather well. I also checked the Newegg website for the hard drive that was supposed to arrive. I wanted to reinstall Windows on a fresh drive, as my old drive had a wierd spyware virus on it, which I disabled, but which still tried to start Internet Explorer every second. Their site didn't work, but give me a number which looked suspiciously like a UPS tracking number, so I entered it on the UPS site, and they said it was out for delivery. My sister also confirmed that I had sent the box with her stuff to the right address, which was a relief, because I never know which number they live at.

In the evening I went back home, where I found a UPS truck in front of my apartment. I asked the driver if he had my hard drive, he asked me who I was, and it turned out he was holding the drive in his hands. I gave my ID, signed the electronic signing device, and took the hard drive. He said he left a note on my door, and that I could've called the number too, and he would've brought it to my work. This is why I like UPS over FedEx: FedEx refuses to go to your door, and instead leaves the note in an impossible place. FedEx also refuses to have the recipient change the address where the package goes to, and requires you to go to the sender to change this. FedEx also has an incomprehensible phone system that never gives the option you want, and when you get to speak someone, it still doesn't help. Fortunately, Newegg allows you to choose. Once I got upstairs with all the stuff, (although the box was a lot smaller than the one I left with), I even found my cell phone, which was near the pants that I decided not to wear.

Time

2007-05-25T15:16:00.000-07:00

Now my clock is almost finished, I'm not entirely sure why I made a clock. It works reasonably well, though, especially now I fixed the bug that made it show derivatives of seven o'clock all the time. The only thing missing is the notorious "Teddy Bear" mode, but that should be done next week. I will also need to add birthdays. Fortunately there aren't many birthdays in May, that I know of.

Time is of course also relevant to this blog: one post a month is a tad abysmal. However, it also indicates that things are more interesting at work, with the development of the protocol and the signing off of the functional specification. I could've written lots of fun stories, had it not be for the fact that it all is supposed to be very secret.

Meanwhile Dawn's blog is progressing rapidly, with her moving to Turkey and investigating tanks, and also Johannes is doing well, moving to a nicer house with similar bathroom problems. Today my cousin will arrive... Jeroen. As usual he is flying to San Jose, so I rented a car. This is also useful in case we want to go places, which we might, or might not. Lots of options. It was rather cold for him this morning (San Diego is a lot warmer than San Francisco). It will be a long weekend: we have monday off as well. It's called Memorial Day. Probably also something to do with time.

This silly visual DNA

2007-04-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Tasteless organic food

2007-03-08T10:11:00.000-08:00

Opposite to my house is a so-called "Whole Foods". It is a scary place. Superficially it looks like a Wegmans, but in reality it is a different beast. Amazingly enough, people come from tens of miles away in their big SUVs and minivans to shop there. I've even heard jealous comments of people that realised I lived so close. However, I do not share their enthousiasm. Let me start with establishing a basic background on the concept of organic food.

There is a misconception that organic food is better for the environment. This is not the case. Most organic food is grown in third world countries, and because of its restrictions takes three times as much space as regularly grown food. This space is usually made by cutting down rainforest. Also, because insecticides and plant food are still needed, organic food uses "natural" alternatives, that are equally, if not more, deadly than their "chemical" counterparts. Note that in my book, everything that exists is natural, and everything is chemical, but it seems some people make a distinction between the two. Just to please people, and you can quote me on this "Tigers are natural". There are a few positive things about organic food as well: more use of animal manure, and more appropriate treatment of animals. Of course, if you eat vegetarian then there will be no animal manure, nor need for animals to be kept at all.

There are (or soon will be) 10 billion people on this planet. All these people need food. If all this food was produced organically, only a small portion of these people could be fed. With the current advances in crop diseases and animal diseases we'll soon require genetic engineered food in order to stay alive. Possibly we should have less people on this planet. This would solve the food problem. And global warming. And wars. And... Let me just say that eating organic is not going to reduce the population of the world anytime soon. Unless you're counting on those crop diseases and animal diseases to wipe out the food supply, causing massive starvation... In any way you view it, eating organic food (maybe not when you grow it yourself, though you still have to wonder: could the land I grow it on not be used more efficiently in another way?) is an elitist behaviour.

This leads me to the title of this entry: tastelessness. I'll address the idea that organic food is good for you only sideways, but the tastelessness is really obvious. Let me list the products that I can guarantee taste less than those you buy in a regular supermarket:

Peanut butter. Apart from the fact that the oil separation looks disgusting, ruins knives, and quickly reduces the remaining peanut butter to a inedible hard mass, the stuff tastes like... Nothing. This means I have to use three times as much, which doesn't really strike me as healthy.
Mushroom soup. It is brownish mass resembling something that I find in the restroom on bad days. I can't say it tastes the same, though, as that would imply it has taste. It's like eating flour in water.
Bread. At least half of the slices will have some form of sand in them, which grinds between your teeth. Don't expect honey oat to have any honey taste. And make sure you eat it in two days, as by the third day the bread guaranteed has healthy green stuff growing on it.
Turkey dogs. This is certainly the worst. They actually look the same, until you prepare them (they have no preparation instructions, just claims of things they do not contain). They explode quickly, which makes them look like the monsters from the Silent Hill video game. Now if they only tasted like those monsters... Then at least they would be meaty. But no... All you taste is bread and condiments.
Yogurt. This needs a special mention. It is actually not that tasteless. In fact, it almost tastes the same as the other yogurt. However, when Miuty the Cat (with how many letters do you spell that?) eats it, he invariably vomits a few minutes later. How is that for healthy organic food?

This list goes on and on. I'm sure to come back to this some other time. Wish Wegmans was here.

Desert

2007-02-14T11:44:00.000-08:00

This coming weekend my cousin insists that I see a desert, and he probably isn't referring to his front yard (which is the beach with an ocean view, though he calls it a lake). So for president's day I'm going to San Diego, which will be a fun change of scenery. At home I'm playing GuildWars, watching various movies (tonight the animatrix should arrive with Netflix, although I was actually hoping for 24 season 5), and slowly thinking up my next project. After getting the PIC_WEB to work, I could either expand it to allow external connections... Maybe make a small terminal. The problem with any PIC_WEB work is that I will have to install the C18 compiler, which has only 60 days of license, which I will have to use to finish the project. So that will probably happen after the desert.

Another option is to build a MIDI interface. That shouldn't be too hard. Writing good code for it might be harder. I'm actually looking for something that determines what I'm playing, and, after I play it enough times, will start repeating it at appropriate times. It would be funny to see if that could actually work. Not sure how you would tell it to stop, though.

Of course, my calculator is trying to get itself filled with more addresses too. I'm actually using it more as a clock, at the moment, because it is so nice at telling me the time after I take my watch off (which happens often in the evening as I take long baths... Which aren't listed above).

Opening sequence

2007-02-08T16:06:00.000-08:00

After Schrödinger's cat and similar considerations of light as a particle or as a wave we come to this: the start of a new blog. After "Don't Read This" (http://horta.urmc.rochester.edu/~mhofman/novel/blogger.html), which might not exist for a long time, this will be the main source of obfuscation surrounding my life. Of course, the fact that you shouldn't read this hasn't changed, but this time, it will be translated into the world of video games. I hope you have fun.