Category Archives: Computers
As I’ve posted articles recently, it’s been impossible to not to notice a looming milestone: post #300! Which is what this one is. At least, it’s the 300th post on this blog. The double qualifier is because there are a number of pages not included in that count, and because I had a go at a baseball blog before I started this one. (Plus, I have another blog with a small number of posts.)
On top of all that, there’s all the stuff I wrote on Newsvine and other online forums, not to mention several personal website incarnations. And I can’t even begin to number how much I wrote for work over the years; there were four websites I authored and countless user and technical documents.
But still… 300 Logos Con Carne posts, that’s not nothing!
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11 Comments | tags: 300, blogging, bowling, CSS, HTML, stylesheets, Watchmen, WordPress, XML file, XSLT, Zack Snyder | posted in Computers, Movies
As one might guess from yesterday’s post, which was supposed to be about vampires, that the geek force runs strong in this one. Of course, it always does. Far as I can tell, I was born an über-geek and shall remain an über-geek until my final breath (which will no doubt be some geeky observation).
But then geek comes from “carnival geek” and just means someone with expertise in a niche field. I’m fine with that — it’s just the plain truth in my case — but I like to believe my expertise is maybe just a little bit broader than biting heads off chickens. (On the other hand, as perhaps everyone does, I’ve sometimes wondered if joining a carnival might not make for a much simpler life.)
In any event, for a while I intend to indulge my inner über-geek.
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Leave a comment | tags: blog, blog blah, blogging, Chillaxmas, geek, Santa, Santa Claus, Sideband, uber-geek | posted in Computers, Science
November shouldn’t pass with just the one post. I intended a post last Science Fiction Saturday to rave about the new Doctor Who episode (celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who), but the day slipped to Sunday before I got the writing motor started. I’ll rave about it now: it was really, really good! A wonderful, delightful milestone marker and, as always, built on a damn good story.
I’ve not been idle lately! Dedicated post-retirement loafing finally shook the work dust off my shoes, and I’ve gotten back into personal project work. Seriously into it. In the 16-hour sessions, sleep and eating are unwelcome distractions, not knowing what time of day (let alone what day of the week) it is sense of seriously.
And I read some really good vampire novels!
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11 Comments | tags: Amy Heckerling, Berserker series, Bram Stoker, Chelsea Yarbro, computer generated images, computer programming, Count Dracula, Doctor Who, Fred Saberhagen, Johnny Dangerously, POV-Ray, Python, science fiction, vampires | posted in Books, Computers, Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday, TV
As reported earlier, this week got off to a rough start. I let my guard down (foolishly) and got nabbed by the greedy PC rapists. All I wanted was to find a particular font for a project. The next day a more careful search turned up exactly what I needed, the fonts and just the fonts (ma’am).
Monday I mentioned that I planned to share my font-needing project with you. It’s not finished (many of my projects live a long time as I tweak them — some are living things that grow and improve forever). But it turned out so much better than I expected, I just had to share it with you this Science Fiction Saturday.
I’m also going to boldly try a new WordPress blogging trick!
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10 Comments | tags: 3D, 3D images, CGI, computer generated images, ffmpeg, mp4, NCC-1701, POV-Ray, Star Trek, TOS, USS Enterprise | posted in Computers, Sci-Fi Saturday, TV
Over the last two days I’ve written about a way of viewing words, sentences, even entire books, as single (very large) numbers. We do that by treating the characters in the string as “digits” in a number system we define. Technically speaking, we interpret the string as a number written in some large radix.
This is actually what we do every time we look at a written number. For example, we interpret the four-character text string “2013” as representing the numeric value two-thousand-and-thirteen. We do this easily, because we’ve grown up with the base 10 number system, decimal. The systems I’ve written about simply extend the concept.
Today, as a Sideband, I thought I’d get into some of the more technical details.
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Leave a comment | tags: ASCII, CP-1252, decimal, hexadecimal, Mayans, number systems, Python, radix, Sumerians, Unicode, UTF-8 | posted in Computers, Math, Sideband
I find myself in an increasing funk the last few weeks. By now I’m feeling maximally funky, but unfortunately not in the good way. Funky often refers to smell, and in this case the increasing stink is mental. I’m just … fed up, halfway between tired and disgusted, many miles south of annoyed.
Work accounts for much of that, perhaps all of it. Yet another week of literally zero progress. In fact there was a setback: vendor work that didn’t, and the vendor is being difficult about dealing with it. I seem to be on the IT project equivalent of the Titanic (and there are a scary number of parallels).
And for a variety of reasons I’m feeling a strong sense of impedance mismatch with the world.
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9 Comments | tags: Bill Gates, buffalo, internet, Joni Mitchell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, technology | posted in Computers, Life, Science, The Interweb
Speaking of Happiness Moments, I finished my POV-Ray Tardis project. More accurately, I finished the first phase. The beauty of something like this is being able to return to it later and add details or make improvements. Sometimes there’s a new trick to be added.
That happens on programming projects, too. Exposure to the Smalltalk and Lisp communities gave me a view of code as a living thing that evolves (sometimes daily) as all living things do.
I’ll write about that sometime, but today I just want to show off my Tardis!
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15 Comments | tags: CGI, computer generated images, Dr Who, POV-Ray, TARDIS | posted in Computers
This is a bit of a drive-by posting. (Look at it this way: “Oh, goodie: more pictures!”)
I confess part of my distraction these days is being caught up playing with POV-Ray (which I’ve described quite a bit recently). Boy with a toy, I guess, but it’s just so much fun! It does open some great doors for blog illustrations down the road, so it’s worth building some degree of skill. (Plus, did I mention the fun?)
So just to keep my hand in posting-wise (it is so easy to get out of the habit), here are some pictures of what I’ve been working on while I’ve been ignoring you.
Bonus points if you know the post’s title reference!
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4 Comments | tags: planets, POV-Ray | posted in Computers, Life
By all indicators (page reads, Likes, comments), most of my readers don’t find POV-Ray quite as interesting as I do. That’s too bad, because I’ve finally decided on a theme for this blog. It’s going to be all-POV-Ray all the time! Think of the fun we’ll have!
Yes, of course I’m kidding. Anyone who knows me at all (hello, have you met me?) would know better. Me, one topic? It is to laugh. Out loud. (Honestly, I don’t know how mono-topical bloggers do it.)
But I do promise this is the last post — for now — about POV-Ray. We’ll just swing by the gift shop, and then move on to other things.
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5 Comments | tags: bar stool, BOOL Engine, EPS conduit, pool balls, POV-Ray, ray tracing | posted in Computers, Sideband
Take a seat! (click for big)
As promised last time, my simple tour of POV-Ray continues with some examples a bit more interesting than an abacus stone or a box with holes in it. Time to move beyond a bunch of teal-colored spheres! (How about a bunch of hunter-green cones?)
I think it’s nice to have a place to sit while I lecture, so I’m going to use my digital woodworking set to provide a bar stool (and maybe a beer). The beauty of the virtual world is that , well, free stools (and maybe beers) for everybody.
Because I don’t just make a stool. I make a thing that makes stools.
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Leave a comment | tags: bar stool, constructive geometry, POV-Ray, ray tracing | posted in Computers, Sideband
As I’ve posted articles recently, it’s been impossible to not to notice a looming milestone: post #300! Which is what this one is. At least, it’s the 300th post on this blog. The double qualifier is because there are a number of pages not included in that count, and because I had a go at a baseball blog before I started this one. (Plus, I have another blog with a small number of posts.)
Logos con carne 