Nice collection of pictures summarizing the day at Buckeye Battle Cry. And USC wins tonight so that is good as well. Nice to see the Buckeyes play well in an important game, good to start getting that monkey off their back.

Been a slow slow blogging fall. Killing myself on two courses at UW, and a bunch of other stuff. But have been on airplanes enough to work my way through some modest tomes:

* “Await Your Reply”:amazon by Dan Choan. Strange tale of a serial ID thief trying to find a life for himself. Along the way he spawns more and more ID thieves, all of whom experience the freedom of creating themselves out of whole cloth. An interesting tale couched as a mystery but really a more thoughtful inspection of identity. Amazon says 4 stars, I would agree, this book has stuck with me a little. * “Fidelity”:amazon by Thomas Perry. Quality thriller. A PI is murdered, and his wife and colleagues dig into his life and his lies to understand the cause. Amazon says 3 stars. I guess that is about right, I honestly can’t remember much of the tale now. It was fine and won’t hurt your brain but accept it for what it is, an airplane read. * “In Pale Battalions”:amazon by Robert Goddard. A woman gradually discovers the truths about her family and background – the cruelty and crimes during WWI which defined her life. Unexpected and good. 4.5 stars on Amazon, this is a very engaging tale of family secrets.

• RT @Fat_Spaniel: We’ve got two big announcements coming at Solar Power 2009. A big partnership, and more. Stay tuned! #spi #solarpower #
• RT @fstdev: Fat Spaniel and Tendril Bring Smart Energy Home to Utilities and Consumers http://bit.ly/2pWI4u #
• $&#%. Roof leak. #
• Better late than never – at UW CSE Industrial Affiliates meeting #
• RT @pkedrosky: I like randomized claims like “The future of economic growth is social”. Works same with any combination of same words. #

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Dez Bryant ineligible for the year – “…NCAA, who ended Dez Bryant’s collegiate career for a stupid and relatively minor mistake in lying to NCAA officials about visits he had with Deion Sanders. If it requires work, they demur; if they can get a good hard swing in against a single individual, they will.” Who are these people who destroy a young man’s college career over a stupid dumb little mistake? Tell me, is any highly-paid adult anywhere going to have to pay a cost for this – a coach, an NCAA administrator, a college administrator? No? Just this student is going to pay? That is not right.

• Brutal Fake Steve: “NY Times all but says it: Ballmer must go” http://bit.ly/pNz6O #
• Gosh i love the book wars! RT @ericengleman: Sears piles onto book price war between Wal-Mart, Amazon, Target. http://bit.ly/22gpWY #
• @brettmarl beat you! Tamiflu is your friend in reply to brettmarl #
• Just finished a marathon week of MATLAB. Amazing tool, tho very easy to write crap code with it… #
• @mtnspring we’re convinced that everyone is dying to know where we are at. in reply to mtnspring #
• RT @michaelwolf: OK - here’s what Microsoft can do to save themselves a slow painful death: buy Amazon, make Bezos their CEO. #
• Congrats Dad and rest of OSU ‘54 natl champs – enjoy your 55th anniversary today! #
• @marcushartman hey no INT or fumble, so that was a relatively awesome possession in reply to marcushartman #
• RT @FakeAPStylebook While it’s tempting to call them “baristi” because of the Italian roots, the plural of “barista” is “journalism majors.” #
• Nothing like playing Minnesota to cure your problems #

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Scott mentioned this place, have to get there. Via this pretty useful capitol hill blog

BTW, this is a powerful but incredibly finicky piece of software. It is an X11 app, and I wonder how much that is affecting it.

One thing to watch for is the path length limitation on the names of m files. it is 63 characters total for the full path – that is right, the FULL path. the full path by default is some long path pointing into a MATLAB directory in your documents folder, in my case, 52 characters were already used up. So when i put a nice long name on an M file, I exceeded the 63 limit and got some completely nonsense error message about the file not being on my path. Well ok the error message was true, the truncated filename file wasn’t on any path anywhere, but stupid.

The other thing I’ve noticed is that Matlab really doesn’t like m files whose names begin with a number – ie it just will not run something called “55.m”. you need to start with alpha.

Silly. It’s 2009 guys. These feel like MSDOS restrictions circa 1990.

…sorry for bizarre appearance and content. working on.

Some silence in last month. Spent a lot of time enjoying family and central Ohio, fall is the time to be in the state with football, color changes, often good weather, etc.

And when not in Ohio, I was in Helsinki (recommended: Hotel Glo, Fazer Cafe), Stockholm (Lydmar Hotel, Vasa Museum, Sture shopping area, Skogskyrkogården, Sodermalm, Fasching Jazz Club, Opera Bar, oh and much more), and Brussels (Hotel Amigo, St Michael/St Gudula Cathedral, Roue d’Or, Musee Magritte, Comic Museum, Sablon, Wittamer chocolates, and much more).

Mentally I’ve been thinking about Fat Spaniel, a couple new things, and my half time load at UW this term as I continue my education. Lots of differential equations theory and numerical analysis, stuff I touched on 25 years ago, but good to get the base refreshed. Amazing how the tools have changed – MatLab and Mathematica are just incredible pieces of software.

• @mtnspring congrats on launch! Nicecoverage in reply to mtnspring #
• RT @mkapor: Tech industry veteran Adam Bosworth launches Keas, individually customized health plans. Very promising. http://bit.ly/4qCxCL #
• @richtong my drobo has been solid for 2 years. USB version, not net version in reply to richtong #

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• I’ve downloaded a billion myself: RT @om: Two Billion iPhone Apps Downloaded, Apple Says http://om.bit.ly/3GSqjj #
• Ncaa deserves to lose this one: RT @BCSFootball: Retired players seek to join Sam Keller’s suit vs. EA Sports: http://bit.ly/2a3lQS #
• @jberwin and yet you’re still a cal fan in reply to jberwin #
• @jberwin not in Cleveland, no one plays football in Cleveland. The Browns are a performance art troupe in reply to jberwin #
• @asackofseattle golfers will buy anything on the off chance it will fix their game in reply to asackofseattle #
• @richtong my time capsules have failed too. Useless. Using backblaze now in reply to richtong #
• Helsinki – very pleasant downtown. Feels like Portland? #
• RT @elevenwarriors: We have 50 Google Wave beta invites. Launch a DDOS attack on MGoBlog.com to get one. #notreally #

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* “If air travel was like health care”:http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/st_20090926_4826.php * “Value added by universities”:http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/09/value-added-by-universities.html. Interesting way to rank

After fall quarter ends…

* “Microsoft Courier”:http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet. Well covered by now but gosh looks like a cool device. * “Daytum”:http://daytum.com/. I feel like I should like this but not really sure what to do with * “StockTwits”:http://www.abnormalreturns.com/2009/09/how-to-make-the-most-of-stocktwits/. Should learn more about * “Iphone app discovery”:http://crashdev.blogspot.com/2009/09/iphone-app-discovery-mad-libs-for.html. Nice work from guys working with Chris * “Autodesk Sketchbook Mobile”:http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/autodesk_puts_the_fun_in_your_pocket_introducing_sketchbook_mobile_14649.asp

Not doing a big Halloween thing this year due to other commitments. Saving these tips for the future…

* “Monsterlist”:http://www.halloweenmonsterlist.info/. Starting point to find any kind of halloween project * “Kurt’s tool wishlist”:http://www.grimvisions.com/tools/tools-i-want-to-get. I can only aspire to Kurt’s skill and tool collection * “Kurt on prop setup”:http://www.grimvisions.com/halloween/setting-up-your-halloween-display-for-maximum-effect. The guy knows more than I ever will about this * “Scott on controllers”:http://tangleofwires.blogspot.com/2009/09/arduino-vmusic2-xport-halloween.html. Need to read and parse this, Scott is ahead of me here. * “Kurt on foam construction”:http://www.grimvisions.com/products/working-with-polyurethane-foams. Foam is my best friend at halloween time * “Measure tape tape”:http://toolmonger.com/2009/09/03/fill-your-shop-with-red-tape/. Simple but brilliant * “French Curves”:http://toolmonger.com/2009/09/04/french-curves/. Who doesn’t need these.

No time to blog, fall quarter starting, and travelling too. Dump of stuff that is interesting:

* “Ultimate Productivity Blog”:http://productiveblog.tumblr.com/. I think that is clear. * “Paintable transistors”:http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122605160/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0. Semiconducting polymer stable when applied at room temp, cool. * “Hydrophobic Nano Grass”:http://www.materialsviews.com/matview/display/en/1102/TEXT. Nano scale fluid handling tech is pretty awesome. * “Fantastic Solar System Photos”:http://www.smithsonianmag.com/multimedia/photos/?c=y&articleID=59247082&page=1. Humbling and inspiring. * “Structural Color Printing”:http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/40551. Structural colors are very cool – colors created by the nanostructure of an item, not by dyes. And now you can manipulate the color dynamically. * “Atoms jump around a lot”:http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/blog/624-under-observation-restless-atoms-cause-materials-age-25090.html * “Bionic Eyesight”:http://www.platformonomics.com/BionicEyesight.aspx. You rushed ahead and got Lasik surgery, while those of us late to the party are going to be able to see through walls and have heat vision.