Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

Egg-Bot

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

xkcd and The Original Egg-Bot

I recently acquired an Egg-Bot from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. After lots of playing around, I figured out that AutoTrace does an extremely good job at creating drawings for the Egg-Bot from line-art when using the --centerline flag. I then quickly found a popular xkcd frame and printed it on a golf ball.

The results are quite good, if I do say so myself.

xkcd and The Original Egg-Botxkcd and The Original Egg-Botxkcd and The Original Egg-Bot

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…

Monday, May 24th, 2010

Apparently I still have this blog. This is not news. But I should continue summing up the last few years.

At last post I had lost and found again several hundred? thousand? photographs that I was sure to have lost forever. I have those back now, but many other things have changed. Time for an unordered list of them. I may be a bit more personal than usual on this as well.

  • I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelors of Science in Engineering Physics.
  • My trusty iMac G4 got hit by lightning through the phone cord, the computer still works, but several ports are inoperable and there is the distinct smell of burnt electronics coming from the inside.
  • I purchased a 27″ quad-core i7 iMac, my first foray into Intel Macs.
  • I started working at the most amazing job in the world. (Can I talk about it? The blog is already non-anonymous. Maybe in the future when I get more brave.)
  • I’ve begun to pick up a few more hobbies, namely electronics and robotics.
  • I met a local group of similarly minded mad scientists and began to attend their weekly meetings.
  • …and lots more I haven’t listed.

Da Blog

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

Da Blog. Daaa Blog. Da blog da blog da blog…

</snl>

Again, my blog has become extremely neglected, so let me start at the beggining… or at least somewhere in the middle of where I left off last time.

You may notice that my last entry was in 2008, about an event that happened in 2007. I had fully intended to continue with the items in my Updating My Blog post, but due to circumstances unbeknownst to me the hard drive containing all the pictures that I wanted to post became completely unresponsive. After that, there was no reason to write a post about a bunch of pictures I no longer had.

However…

Flash forward a few months and I actually call the company that made my hard drive to try and get a replacement. I went through all the symptoms and got back this message:

Michael,

The symptoms you’re describing are usually a problem with the power supply cable, rather than the drive itself.

As it is a worthwhile troubleshooting step, and I can also tell by your serial that you are within warranty, I will send one to you at no charge.

They ship Federal Express ground, and should be with you in approximately 3-5 business days.

I plugged in the new power cable, turned the Hard Drive on and low and behold, he was right! I had all my photos back! I did learn an important lesson about a proper backup; The backup isn’t the only place you store important things, even if you are starved for disk space.

And so begins the story of the past two years…

Theatiki 2007

Friday, July 11th, 2008

The Theatiki (Kankakee River)

Each year, a group known as The Habitants du Theatiki organizes a reenactment of life around the time of The French and Indian War called The Gathering on the Theatiki. It’s quite an extraordinary event to visit. I just happen to be lucky enough to have The Theatiki (also known as the Kankakee River) run nearby where I live.

This year, I went on the woods walk for the first time. We were quickly ambushed by the French and their allies and had to flee from the ensuing battle between while guarded by our British and Scottish escorts.

I took a few photos of this event so you can see some of the highlights of the tip. If you live anywhere close to the Kankakee, IL area, I would highly recommend taking part of your weekend during the summer to visit the Gathering on the Theatiki. While you are there be sure to get some sassafras root beer and kettle corn, they sure to be some of the highlights of your trip.

Updating My Blog

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

I haven’t updated my blog in about a year now, so I’ll have a lot to talk
about:

  • Theatiki 2007
  • Chicago 2007
  • Vacation 2007: Michigan & Canada
  • Breaking my SuperDrive
  • Magnolia pictures
  • Chicago 2008
  • WALL·E
  • R-Place, Hornbaker’s

The Gathering on the Theatiki 2008

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

The Gathering on the Theatiki is a yearly event, held here in Kankakee county at the Davis Creek Annex of the Kankakee River State park. In 2008 the Theatiki will run from July 12th through the 13th. Most likely I will be there on the 13th.

I still have a lot to update on this blog. More content is forthcoming.

The Gathering on the Theatiki

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

The Gathering on the Theatiki is a yearly event, held here in Kankakee county, at the Davis Creek Annex of the Kankakee River State park. In 2007 the Theatiki will run from July 14th through the 15th. I will be there one of those days.

After the event is over, I’ll be sure to write up more.

Mountains

Monday, April 30th, 2007

Mountain Panorama

I finally took the time to stitch my photos into a panograph using Hugin. Hugin automates the whole panograph making process by using external tools to find control points, adjust the images and then stitches them together.

Due to prodding by local MacWarrior Chad Weider I’ve also created a QuickTime VR of the mountains, enjoy.

(Note to self, do not edit posts in Newt’s Cape.)

LaTeX in WordPress

Friday, April 27th, 2007

[tex]$1+2=3$[/tex]

I just installed a LaTeX in WordPress Plugin, and now have the ability to enter formulas inline in the blog.

[tex]$V~=~\left[ \begin{array}{ccc} V_{ud} & V_{us} & V_{ub} \\ V_{cd} & V_{cs} & V_{cb} \\ V_{td} & V_{ts} & V_{tb} \end{array} \right]$[/tex]

Vacation

Friday, April 20th, 2007

Last summer I went on vacation to the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.

Waterfall

On the whole it was a fun trip, a lot of walking up hills and down hills, but the scenery was great, once you got out of the tourist traps. I took some photos of the better sights, and of my family. A lot of these were taken with making a panograph in mind, but I haven’t stitched them together yet.