Archive for Blog
Watched: Bender's Big Score
Watched: Bender’s Big Score
Review: 5/5
Futurama is back and better than ever! This feature length movie is full of everything wonderful that makes Futurama, Futurama. Funny, clever, poignant, and utterly wacky. The only downside is that it’s only an hour and a half long.
Instructional Design Resources: Museums do it Better
Instructional Design Resources- Library web design: museums do it better
Site changes: quicklinks, recently
If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been tweaking the site a bit. Why don’t you look around and see what you can find. … Done? Good.
I’ve gotten what seems to be a good solution for a ‘quicklinks’ list (over there on the right, under ‘quicklinks’). It’s a sub-section blog that until tonight actually used the same layout as the main blog. If you move your mouse over and click that More… button after the quicklinks shortlist then you’ll see the new link oriented design I’ve quickly whipped up. For now you’ll still see the “full” article for a quicklink while you’re browsing through tags but that’s on the list to fix. For the small list on the main page I simply tell my layout to grab the six most recent articles in that section and display the body text for each. If you see a new tag in the cloud without a blog post to go with it then it’s almost certainly coming from a qucklink.
I also added a ‘Recently’ category to keep a running list of things that I’ve done recently. I’m not doing as good a job of keeping up with that one but I like it. It gives me a space to do quick reviews and talk about movies, videogames, books, etc. without devoting a full blog post to them. I haven’t created a custom layout for this section yet, but that’s coming as well.
I’ve also tweaked the tagcloud yet more. I squashed a couple bugs and think I’ve got it about to where I like it.
Lastly, I fixed a glaring error in the CSS that prevented the site from rendering properly at small widths. Now Wii compatible!
No ultrasound
Oh well. But we did get to hear the baby’s heartbeat with a doppler instrument. Well, not so much hear the heartbeat directly but static-like pulses emitted from the devices as it received sound waves distorted by the baby’s heartbeat. Apparently at twenty week we’ll be able to hear the heartbeat directly with a stethoscope. That’s also around the time that we’ll get a second look at the wee one.
Thanksgiving Update
It was a great Thanksgiving! A mountain of tasty food, perfect OBX weather, and fun time with family.
Did I mention the perfect weather? We had really nice warm sunny days and then a cold front came blowing through the house (literally, it slammed doors) on Thanksgiving night leaving the days crisp and cool with a strong breeze blowing in off the bay.
Andrew, Jenn, Lewis, Sarah, and I (and briefly Jess) relaxed, played videogames, card games, caught a repeat of the final game (UNC vs. FSU) of the women’s ACC tournament, and played with Mom and Dad’s two new kittens.
The women’s soccer game was good, especially since we already knew the outcome (a UNC win of course). We just had a loss in the 3rd round of the NCAA tournament on Saturday. They played a decent game, we played a bad game, and the calls were not exactly accurate. Our team will be amazing next year.
The kittens were extremely cute, as curious and playful as can be. Since they were sequestered away in Lewis’ room to keep dander as isolated from Sarah as possible we would see tiny paws darting out from under the door trying to get some attention. Aww.
The videogame sessions were great. Some Assassin’s Creed and Guitar Hero III on the XBox 360, plus some old school action with The Lost Vikings and Super Bomberman on an old Super Nintendo. They both held up quite well. Well enough that when I got home I browsed around the Wii virtual console and found Super Mario Bros III and Castlevania II, although Assassin’s Creed continues to hold my rapt attention. I bring death to those that deserve it, but something connects these men that perish by my blade….
Baby update soon, Sarah and I get to see it again at the ultrasound tomorrow.
Halo voice actors
the voice actors behind Halo with screenshots of their game characters. I’m surprised at how much Sergeant Reynolds looks like Nathan Fillion.
Seth MacFarlane speaking at the writers' strike
China's Underwater Museum
China is building an underwater museum to house a shipwreck from the 13th century
Pilot vs. Passenger with iPhone
hilarious smackdown from an airliner pilot to a passenger with an iPhone doubting the weather delay
Finished: Bioshock
Finished: Bioshock
Review: 4/5
Great graphics, good story with a couple of great twists, interesting environment, chilling atmosphere. There were even a couple of genuinely scary moments in the game.
Watched: 30 Days of Night
Watched: 30 Days of Night
Review: good stuff if you like a vampire movie. Set in Barrow, which is a great bonus for those of us obsessed with Alaska.
Finished: Half-Life 2: Episode One
Finished: Half-Life 2: Episode One
Review: 4/5
This would have been a 3/5 for length and from feeling like Half-Life 2-lite except for the absolutely amazing inclusion of Alyx. A non-player character (NPC) who is with you for practically the entire length of the game and actually feels like an equal fighting alongside you. You are never burdened by her, but she isn’t an unstoppable, mindless killing machine either. She really comes across as a thinking, feeling, and genuinely emotional character who amplifies the game instead of weakening it. There are literally dozens of little touches that make her a great and endearing character. That’s saying something because I’ve always been one to hate escorting NPCs in games.
City Data
Tons of graphed and google mapped data on US cities. Colorado is a hotbed of conflicting politics.
Finished: Half-Life 2
Finished: Half-Life 2
Review: 4/5
Excellent action, atmosphere, level design, characters, and story.
Finished: Portal
Finished: Portal
Review: 5/5
Amazing in all respects. Superbly funny, wonderfully concieved and executed, a script and story that are both chilling and hilarious, a genuinely unique game mechanic.
Car of the future
Aptera – a plugin electric hybrid car. For short distances the car will be driven off of the stored energy in its batteries and essentially get a huge number for miles per gallon (think 1000+). The further the car is driven the batteries deplete and it gradually switches over to gasoline power and eventually reaches 130 miles per gallon after 300 miles per gallon.
Prime Number Patterns
When graphed a certain way, there are remarkable patterns within the sequence of prime numbers.