A Little Ludwig Goes a Long Way

A smattering of opinions on technology, books, business, and culture. Now in its 4th technology iteration.

Halloween postmortem

04 November 2007

Another great Halloween. Hundreds and hundreds of visitors. Awesome weather.

A few notes for myself:

* Pneumatics failed. Compressed died. Why? I don’t think it was just an untimely compressor failure. I think there was some overload condition created by my load. * I placed one skeleton over a blue yard uplight just randomly. It looked awesome! I should uplight all skeletons in blue next year. * More i-zombie lightning controllers! Lightning is always popular * More fcgs! I have a couple windows that would be great. Also Kurt recommended illuminating with a moving blacklight on a panning fan base.

bug labs

04 November 2007

Bug Labs – not sure what i would use this for but a cool concept.

Two thoughtful posts about the Buckeyes

31 October 2007

From last week. Over at SMQ: Sunday Morning Quarterback :: MEET YOUR FRONTRUNNER: OHIO STATE – a nice analysis of the Buckeyes. Warms the heart.

And at Buckeye Commentary, an analysis I hadn’t seen of OSU’s historical failures against SEC teams. The record is not good. A hypothesis is that OSU has generally been playing against higher rated opponents in bowls as OSU fans travel well. Some reasonable data. Doesn’t explain the debacle in the desert last year tho.

Troubleshooting your network

30 October 2007

How to Troubleshoot your Network ~ Chris Pirillo recommends Axence Nettools. He’s also a fan of OpenDNS which I admit seems cool, but the neat shortcutting thing won’t work obviously when I am on some other network.

Then there is Lanroamer if you need to operate at a lower level.

Of course there is Network Magic which in my not unbiased view, just gets more and more robust and more and more useful. Now on version 4.5. Mac support now available which is one of the best things I find, since Mac/PC networking is still way too hard (though I haven’t tried Leopard yet and it seems to have a lot of new features in this area).

Vortex Tunnel

29 October 2007

Too late for this year but maybe next – Eric recommends this – Laser Widow laser light show is battery powered and lights up the room with a cool home laser light show. - Disco Dj Party Lights Lasers – his notes: “These projectors usually come with preset or sound-triggered patterns (stars / circles / lissajous, etc.) which they generate by bouncing the beam off of two tiny, rapidly spinning mirrors. I turn the sound activation off, then fiddle with the controls until I get a fixed- or pulsating-diameter oval. I mount the projector about five feet above the ground and aim it down our long driveway. With even a moderate bit of fog I get a great looking oval tunnel that’s at least 50 feet long – as victims approach via the driveway, their heads are right in the middle of the tunnel for quite a distance. (Getting the beam in someone’s eyes is not really a concern since it’s moving so rapidly.) The effect of the fog being “cross-sectioned” by the beam is quite something.”

The Buckeyes are dominant

28 October 2007

Latest BCS standings – 7385660_37_1.pdf (application/pdf Object) – the voters are pretty much behind the Buckeyes. The computer polls are a little squirrelly – I’ll accept LSU ahead of OSU in computer polls, they have played some quality teams.

And maybe I can take BC, though this is debatable. Nonconf foes were Army, Mass, BGSU, and ND? Inconference was Wake, NC State, GT, VT. Is this really materially better than OSU’s record?

But Kansas? Who played Central Michigan, SE Louisiana, Toledo, Florida Intl nonconference? and K State, Baylor, Colorado and Texas A&M in conference, with narrow wins over most of those? Does Sagarin factor in the coach’s weight?

Halloween Status

27 October 2007

Dry run last night:

* Foggers in good shape. Large fogger ran fine on about a 12.5% duty cycle, will crank up by Halloween night. 3 point foggers (Cujo’s doghouse, mausoleum, tree) all worked fine. Will need to check fog fluid levels. * Sound systems all operational. Thunder and lightning sounds good, Mausoleum sounds good, Courtyard good, Tree good. Main entrance good. Doghouse levels seem a little off. * lighting all good. Lightning, spots, uv spots all operational. Added LED eyes to skeletons today * major props all functional. active props all working – tree, crate, FCG. Static props all holding together.

Good to go!

Apple, Starbucks, AT&T, and T-Mobile Suck

27 October 2007

OK so I am in the grocery store this AM trying to check college football scores on my iPhone and what do I get? The stupid T-Mobile homepage because there is a Starbucks next door. And to support the iTunes store Apple slams you on to the stupid T-Mobile network, but no other web connectivity is allowed. This sucks. Here in the land of Starbucks, there is a Starbucks T-Mobile Wifi net about every 100 yards, so basically I have to turn off Wifi service continually. Sucks.

Apple – how is this a freaking benefit? You should let all my non-iTunes traffic default to a different wifi provider or edge. Starbucks – this is driving me out of your stores and pissing me off at you even when I am next door! You need to provide free Wifi. AT&T – this is completely screwing with customer perception of the network performance of the device. You need to help Apple get non-iTunes traffic onto your net. T-Mobile – I am never ever going to pay for your stupid service. You had better figure out fast how to shift to a free service business model or you will become completely irrelevant.