Forgive me for slapping myself on the back a little more vigorously than usual. I called it!

100 million cores by 2018, just like I said. And check my post referenced by that one where I propose a model for parallel programming such hardware (admittedly, not new...though, in my defense, there's no much new when it comes to programming since Turing).

mood: vindicated

"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and The Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children."

Just in case you forgot [warning: a/v, sfw].

mood: amused

ii & I dined at Fleur de Lys (FdL from here on) on Sat 8/29, courtesy of our most awesome friends gaminol & kyrie3k. (One quick aside about their website...you go to fleurdelyssf.com, and a mere 20 clicks later, you can actually get to the SF restaurant! And I can't link you directly to the SF one either. Do I hate Flash? Yes.)

( The best Saturday night reservation we could get in short order was for 8:45p... )

Overall, quite an amazing meal. For me, I put it in the same league as Plumpjack Cafe and Gary Danko's. Though I didn't enjoy the meal as a whole quite as much as either of these two places, FdL holds the most enjoyable course I've ever consumed in its cheese plate. I suspect FdL rates one spot lower on ii's list, but only because she's been to French Laundry (which is totally unfair, for the record :-) ).

mood: well satisfied

Just a few notes on reading up on the Canon 7D ($1699 MSRP)...

• It's a 1.6x crop factor (APS-C) format sensor, and it's sure the be the flagship of the crop sensor lineup for a long time to come.


• 8fps on continuous shooting mode. In the words of Neo: woah


• AI servo autofocus tracking is supposed to be so good that, when shooting macro, it can keep your subject in focus as you wave forward and back tiny amounts while handholding. It's like the third dimension has been added to image stabilization (IS).


• Orientation-oriented AF point selection. So I pick the AF point in the upper left corner, I can tell the 7D to keep the AF point in the upper left corner chosen. As in, when I change camera orientation between landscape and portrait, it changes the selected point to remain in the upper left.


• 19 cross-type AF points based on a polymer network internal LCD screen—no need to mess with changing out matte-focusing screens anymore to get grid lines, a la Nikon.


• ±5 stops of exposure compensation...finally. Still ±3 stops FEC in ½ stop increments, though.


• Built-in level indicator in the viewfinder. Nice—no more tilted horizons! I like this a lot.


• Max x-sync speed is still 1/250...maybe the 5D-MkIII will be 1/500?


• Where's the love for SDHC guys? Come on!


• Two-layer sensor that sets exposure based on color information instead of just luminosity. This is why, when my buddy shoots with his Nikon, he gets red to just pop brilliantly. Now the 7D will do the same...sweet.


• The 7D's built-in flash can control up to three groups of slave flashes wirelessly...finally! Combined with the 15mm coverage, that should do just fine. They heard the Strobist rumble and responded.

mood: awed

We've seen media targeting the Internet as its primary platform already, mostly indie short films and other nonsense (enjoyable nonsense, some of it).

Then we saw the Internet support mainstream vehicles and keep the buzz going in between long periods...I'm talking about SNL Digital Shorts [warning: a/v for all following, not necessarily sfw]: Lazy Sunday, A Day in the Life of Natalie Portman, I'm on a Boat, etc.

Then we saw the birth of Revision 3, an Internet-focused production company & home to one of my fave Photoshop geek-out shows, PixelPerfect with Bert Monroy.

Then we saw the Internet serial, The Guild, written by and starring Felicia Day.

Then we saw the Internet mini-series, Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog, which was pure awesome (starring NPH, Nathan Fillion—Mal from Firefly/Serenity, currently on Castle—& the aforementioned Felicia Day).

And now we see the first generation of secondary media supporting this first generation, in the form of more Felicia Day hawtness: (Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar [warning: a/v, sfw].

FD is pioneering the next-gen media peoples. I'm pretty sure 20 years from now she's going to own a significant fraction of the known universe.

mood: ogle-y

I love this URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2009/07/google-apps-status-updates-now-in-your.html.

Google apps status updates now in my what? I like information delivery as much as the next guy, but I saw this and wondered, Just where are they planning on jamming this information? Have they finally gone too far?!

(The end of the sentence is "...RSS feed reader," for those of you too busy to click.)

mood: one of levity

Ok, in my last post when I wrote that sarcastic bit about also furnishing bank info, deepest darkest thoughts, and results of your last colonoscopy, I later realized that with a Google password Bozeman could check your Google Finance portfolios, your email (containing deep dark thoughts to your closest friends), and...Google Health could indeed have the results of your last colonoscopy.

I was trying to engage in hyperbole to make the point...but it ended up being less hyperbolic than I'd intended.

So let's see...how might one rectify this situation? I've got it! Why not post a bunch of information about your religious beliefs, ethnic background, health history in a private, my-eyes-only post at the top of your blog? Then, when you get rejected for the job, one might wonder: is it because of my religious beliefs? My ethnic background? Or because I would cost too much to insure? And why was I illegally compelled to disclose this information in the first place, just because I happened to put it in a blog entry?

Yes, that should make someone in this world quite a nice windfall from the city of Bozeman, MT, methinks.

mood: annoyed

Applicants for jobs working for the city of Bozeman, MT are required to furnish URLs, usernames, and passwords for "any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc."

Also—I notice there's no section for it—so is it ok if I just go ahead and attach a sheet with my bank account info, a diary containing all my deepest and darkest thoughts, and the results of my last colonoscopy?

mood: unnerved

A whole lot of unsettling weirdness and low-key disturbia brought together in one place, just for you.

Enjoy: Martin Schoeller, Jill Greenberg, Loretta Lux, Keane Eyes

[UPDATE] and this thing...

mood: okay

If you're a Whedon fan, you should change your lingo. Whenever the urge strikes to describe something as "shiny" you should use "wavy" instead. Because waves are cool.

(If you missed it, go watch Firefly and Serenity. Go now!)

( What is Google Wave? )

mood: awake

I'm not really bloggin' much anymore. Most of my updates lately have been short, so I've just been tweeting them. I can't decide if that's good or bad, but it is what it is...follow me there for the latest on my boring life.

mood: calm

Ran 2.5mi/20' on Wednesday. What will I do tonight?

mood: calm

2.5mi/20'. Clocked in the lowest heart rate yet after finishing a >2mi run—just 145bpm.

mood: blah

For a while all my posts were one-liners around here. Twitter is just so low impact to post to for a one-liner w/link it just got all my traffic for a bit.

Last week a ran a 2.5mi/20'. Yesterday I suffered the indignity of a giant blister on my li'l toe, so I skipped the run and did weights. Go me.

mood: accomplished kinda

I realize I might have made this game a bit too complicated to digest properly since no geeks I know commented on it.

The core of it is simple. A ref chooses any number greater than or equal to zero. You and an opponent bet on who can lock in a guess that is closest to the ref's number(and you're both allowed to go back and forth as many times as you like).

Simple rules...but what is the best strategy?

mood: awake

It's been awhile since we've been to the gym. Couple of weeks ago we went to NY, then we were sick last week...so I was expecting yesterday's run to be punishing. Actually, it wasn't that bad...I didn't even lose my wind, 2.5mi/20'. Legs a bit stiff afterwards, not too bad a recovery today.

I didn't sign up for r-ball this season. My shoulder's been bugging me a bit, and it was time for me to move up to the B level. Injury + harder competition is not a recipe for a body that's going to be working in 10 years. Besides, late last season I lost my (expensive) racquet and gloves. That might be the universe telling me it's time to take a break.

mood: bored

Here is a question I thought of today. I want to say that it's pieced together from some half-remembered problem I encountered ages ago, and for some reason it popped to the fore of my attention and I find it interesting now, and I think some of you will too.

( I need a name for this game... )

mood: geeky

I wonder how long it will take until CADIE's takeover of Google is complete. Maps & Earth are already down. Blogspot too. Watch her stomping down the road godzilla-like on the Google Campus as all the humans are forced to pay tribute.

[UPDATE] Now docs, with subliminal features. Andtheint3rp1pesis3dnow. Auto red eye. Brain search.

mood: anxious

Every morning when I come in lately, the position of the sun is such that it bounces off a window sill clear across the office, sneaking under the bar along the bottom of the blinds. (We keep those blinds closed in the morning, otherwise it would be the visual equivalent of a photon enema.) Our cubicles are primarily constructed of 3/4 height and 1/2 height sections, and on top of the 1/2 height sections we have diffusion panels to block light (and a little sound) because they are opposite the monitor the way the cubes are all set up, so that knocks out a good deal of reflections for us, not to mention provide a bit of privacy, etc.

The rays bouncing off the window sill not only clear the bottom of the blinds, but every morning between 8:30-9a, they happen to line up with the crack between the top of my 1/2 height cubicle wall and diffusion panel too. So every morning, there's a 1" wide strip of light across my entire monitor.

I've noticed that it changes slightly every day in position and intensity, depending on the sun's path that day relative to the earth's tilt and where we are in the annual orbit. This setup seems to amplify small position changes of the sun's path into an easily observable phenomenon. And annoy me.

mood: chipper

Yeah? Well, here's some more.

mood: scared