10/26

So, I’m speaking at Barcamp ‘06 today and it is effectively a rerun of the talk that I gave on Saturday with one HUGE improvement.

Two Player Brain-Pong that actually works on request!

So, I’m giving my good friend Eric a demo, and two things occur.  Like all really capable engineers, he gets annoyed at the fact that my UI is in Flash (that happens A LOT).  Folks in my field generally mock other folks who cant do everything in pure python.

While there is an “import awesome” statement, it’s only used in dire instances and a pong game does not really fit the bill.

With that said, I did have to run an errand before my talk and when I came back I found that both my network stack and the overall pong code were being rewritten by my friend Eric and new friend Sam.

Damn geeks.  I should have locked my computer.

10/24

So, I spent today meeting with people who do R&D for the yellowpages subsidiary of AT&T (Death Star).

Now, one would think that by being led by a tyrannical leader bent on ruling the universe, the workforce (storm trooper army) would skew into the general evil category.  This simply was not the case.  In fact, I found quite it the contrary.  As it would turn out, they’ve assembled a good group of people and their recruitment pitch was pretty good.

In short, a great deal of resources at your disposal, minions to carry out your secret evil plans and a well lit and generally positive work environment await anyone who’s managed to do cool tech that they’ve found to be interesting.  Oddly enough, I found myself speaking to two of their Emperors (neither of which were the wrinkly Palpatine).  During our meeting, stories were shared of various technology victories.  My tales covered a wide assortment of topics ranging from mind control to ridding the world of it’s pollutants.  In order to join, they would test my biochemistry to ensure that I’ve not had any enhancement (in the last 30 days) and if all of the tests came back negative I would be asked to serve immediately.

Once my boastfulness had subsided, I departed with an offer in hand and a tough decision to make.

Do I join ranks against the empire?

10/22

Recently, I’ve made it a point to explore my personal weaknesses and in that exercise I’ve identified two very interesting quirks. I’m going to talk about the first one and leave the second for an upcoming post.

I am not the best at communicating (in sub-optimal situations)
This is an interesting observation.  I pride myself on being able to communicate and I think that for an engineer I do a fairly good job. Colleagues in the past have credited me for being a geek that they can talk too.  I simply credit that to my general social nature and less so with my ability to be a wordsmith. But there are situations that arise that cause me to breakdown in communicating.  These breakdowns are especially tough (and cause me the most amount of trouble) because they center around stressful situations.

A recent example would be one that centers around a personal project that I was completing for a monthly event called Mindshare. This is a great geek gathering of all sorts.  Artists, engineers and those that want to be groupies get together once a month to talk shop, drink and have a good damn time. This month I was tasked with creating an installation based on a previous talk that I gave on Neural Impulse Actuators.  In short, I built a game not so creatively called BrainPong (it’s pong, that you control with your brain).  Needless to say, things that work in the lab (at home) tend to work better than they do in the field.  In the rush of getting it all put together I was poor at communicating when I would arrive (if at all) to do the actual installation. When I arrived, computers and EEGs in tow, my friend Douglas who runs Mindshare wrote me off as not attending and was surprised when I showed up.

BURN

So, how do I solve it?

Therein lies the problem; I don’t quite know.  People seem to recite the Nike slogan more then anything else… that I should “just do it”.  That you knuckle down and just push through it.  I sit here thinking that I’m silly for having such a simple problem to solve, yet I am certain that I am not alone in this.  However, I am working on it and one of the first steps in solving a problem is identifying it.

Will I fix it?

Lord knows, I hope so.

10/21

So, this is my first real foray into blogging. I read them, rss them, grab code snippets from them, but writing them...that was something that I reserved for the professionals and the vain.

THAT CHANGES TODAY

I’m guessing that my site will be filled with personal projects, code snippits, random poker stories (both the bad beats and the awesome hauls), but one thing is for certain; it will contain my general crass sense of humor.

A good example of an entry is a story about a recent situation that a new friend and I got to witness.

I seriously cant make this stuff up
I went to meet up with a friend at Kettle Fried Chicken, a super tasty place in Culver City. For those not familiar with the place, it seriously may very well be the best fried chicken EVER and its certainly among the best I’ve ever had. Kettle Fried has two locations, one in Culver City for the hipsters and the other in Compton.... I’ll leave the obvious joke alone here, but just know that It has to do with how a certain minority wrongly gets accused of eating a disproportionate amount of chicken, enjoys watermelon, and has a penchant for Caucasian women (especially those who have larger then normal posteriors). But if you happen to have some sort of race card and you like to keep score:

If you guessed Jews, then you are a winner!

We order our tasty delights. My buddy Eric gets a plate of fried chicken and I get a get a chicken breast and pancakes ("The healthier of the choices,” I say to myself). Along with our meal, arrives a moron asking for us to trade tables.  His party of 6 are cramped inside and would like to sit at one of the larger and SUN FILLED tables outside. Now, generally speaking I pride myself on being accommodating but it bugs me when folks come late to events, lunches or social functions, and expect to have the perfect scenario. Needless to say he gets an “eff you” sandwich and Eric and I go back to talking about tech.

After a hearty meal, Eric and I cross the street and witness the BEST THING EVER.  I know I say that quite a but but damn this is good.  Two people on motorized wheelchairs are crossing the street (I know that sounds like a total joke setup but hear me out) and they are about 4 feet apart as they make it along the intersection.  Everything seems okay but I soon notice that the first of the two wheelchairs (now dangerously close to the curb) has miscalculated his route and didn’t quite make the on ramp. The second wheelchair driver (operator?) isn’t paying close attention to what has just unfolded and does not have enough time stop.  Wheelchair 2 proceeds to slam into the back of wheelchair 1 causing a crash that startled everyone within earshot! The driver of the first chair is now yelling at the one that hit him and pinned him to the curb.

At this point, funny quips rush to my mind.  Choosing the one I think is best, I say to Eric, “Wouldn’t it be funny if the guy started yelling, OH MY GOD, I CANT FEEL MY LEGS!”