Painted Leopard

Four weeks, 10,000 km, and 2400L of high-octane gas later...

2012-06-29T04:38:24Z

Who says a Subaru Forester can't tow a 3000 lb trailer? (Everyone from here to Alaska, apparently) But we proved them wrong!

Magnetic Levitation

2012-05-01T03:50:11Z

A magnetic levitation position control system I built for one of my grad courses.

Moar Electronics

2011-06-15T21:06:43Z

This is a PCB I designed to adapt an 80-pin surface-mount ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller to work with a standard breadboard. It will be used to prototype the ARM-based RC quadrocopter I'm building over the summer.

I'm an engineer now!

2011-03-20T01:59:36Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_ring

Tea Party America

2010-10-06T07:27:35Z

Colorado Springs Turns Out The Lights

Firefighters Let House Burn Over Unpaid $75 Fee

Even though I live in the most conservative region in Canada, life here is infinitely better than the best areas in the US.

Reason #438,319 not to use DHL

2010-09-22T23:47:37Z

I'm in the living room, reading, when I hear someone tapping on the window. An old East Indian guy is standing on the lawn and tapping on the window, while the cat watches him.

I open the front door. There's a DHL van parked diagonally across the street at the foot of our lot.

DHL: I have one like that.
Me: A cat? Okay.

DHL: Are you David?
Me: No, but I can sign for him.

DHL: What are you to David?
Me: I'm his husband.

DHL: <looking at me like I've grown a second head> Are you serious?
Me: Yeah.

DHL: Huh.

This is why I stopped programming for Windows.

2010-09-14T16:48:04Z

Former WPF/Silverlight Product Manager Says WPF/Silverlight Is Dead

I was pissed when they deprecated WinForms in favour of WPF for no particularly good reason, and I'm glad I quit them rather than waste time learning WPF. Whatever they replace WPF with isn't going to stick around any longer. Windows programming with .NET is like being trapped on a treadmill - you need to keep running just to stay in the same place.

Do tigers like catnip?

2010-08-07T05:14:29Z

Do not buy an iPhone 4...

2010-08-04T05:47:47Z

...the high-dpi screen will ruin you for lesser displays.

The effect is deceptively subtle until you put it next to a standard ~100 dpi screen. Apple's otherwise awesome IPS displays look like crap once you've been exposed to 300+ dpi. Characters a half-millimeter tall are legible on this screen. I had to put it under a 3x magnifier and, squinting, I can just make out the individual pixels.

Resolution-independent graphics just moved up to the top of my desktop OS priority list.

CSD Berlin 2010

2010-08-04T05:13:52Z

One of David's awesome photos from this year's Christopher Street Day parade in Berlin:

The rest start here.

Grüße aus Deutschland

2010-06-09T22:27:34Z

Regretfully, the Audi we rented tops out at a mere 200 kph...

Some perspective...

2010-03-27T00:25:45Z

When Tommy Douglas passed the first provincial Medicare bill in 1962, 90% of the doctors in Saskatchewan went on strike. Public opinion was split, and even though the strike was broken within the month the battle was so divisive that the NDP lost the next election.

Yet by the time the next government took office, Medicare was already so popular that they didn't dare repeal it. Several years later, even a majority of the striking doctors supported Medicare. Within ten years every province had adopted socialized medicine, and today many people see it as a core element of Canadian identity.

Russian Domesticated Silver Fox

2010-01-05T08:20:28Z

There are only a couple of dozen species that have been domesticated since the beginning of recorded history. One of the most recent are a breed of silver foxes, domesticated by a Russian scientist in the 1950s for the Siberian fur industry:

Belyaev's research continued after his death. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the breeding program was funded by selling foxes to the public as pets. Sibfox, a Nevada company, is now importing them into the US - just don't think about breeding them yourself, because they're all neutered before leaving Russia.

Hobbiton Movie Set

2009-09-16T04:35:04Z

David and I visited Australia and New Zealand earlier this year. It took a few months, but our photos from the trip are finally online, so I can post the pictures from our tour of the Hobbiton set from the Lord of the Rings:

Hobbiton was built on a massive sheep farm near the town of Matamata, about three hours south of Auckland on the North Island. Most of the hobbit holes were built into the side of a large hill built on contract by the New Zealand army. Bilbo and Frodo's house - Bag End - sits at the top of the hill.

According to the guides, Peter Jackson had two criteria for the Hobbiton location: a lake, and an impressive tree next to the lake they could use for Bilbo's birthday party in the Fellowship:

Unlike pretty much every other aspect of the set, the tree was left as-is for the shoot. The only additions were a pair of pegs to hold the banner seen in the birthday scenes. In contrast, the tree seen above Bag End in the film was taken from another site in New Zealand, cut into sections, transported to Matamata, bolted back together, and bulked up with thousands of fake plastic leaves. The remnants are still sitting at the top of the hill.

Today, Bag End is the only hobbit hole that can be entered.

The interior is a rough timber vault with just enough room to close the door. The rest of the hobbit holes were timber retaining walls, faced with plywood and styrofoam decoration. Only the plywood remains now, and many of the holes are deteriorating:

Since they were intended to be filmed using forced perspective, most of the hobbit holes would be too small for a child to enter, even if they had been excavated.

Gandalf's first scene in the Fellowship was shot between the two hills on the left of this photo. Sam Gamgee's hole was also here, but the path and all the hobbit holes along it were bulldozed a year after filming was complete. The rest of the set only survives because poor winter weather postponed demolition of Bag End, and in the interim the owners of the sheep farm arranged a deal with Weta and New Line to preserve the set.

These are probably some of the last photos that exist of the Hobbiton set as it was after the filming of the Lord of the Rings. Shortly after we visited, Weta inked a deal to film two movies based on The Hobbit. The Hobbit set is already under renovation, with shooting on the first film to begin in 2010.

gamble @ 2009-06-24T00:35:00

2009-06-24T06:35:08Z

The Gay Generation Gap

"There’s nothing duller than a young gay man who ornaments his ignorance with attitude and whose curiosity about the world doesn’t appear to extend past his iPod, certain that anything not already within his firsthand experience is by definition antiquated. But once we start blaming gay twentysomethings for not having gone through what we did, we turn into sour old reactionaries telling ourselves self-flattering lies about how misery builds character. Put simply, we talk too much, telling nightmare stories about AIDS and the Reagan administration when we should be listening—and then we get angry that they’re not listening to us."

iPhone 3GS Lineup

2009-06-20T00:23:56Z

The new iPhone came out today. This was the lineup at the WEM Apple store around 2pm this afternoon. Unlike the 3G launch, the Canadian Apple stores are selling the 3GS this time around. They'd closed down the WEM location to anyone who wasn't buying a phone, unless you wanted to wait in line.

And no, I'm not getting one. =)

gamble @ 2009-06-12T17:37:00

2009-06-12T23:37:44Z

What a difference a year makes! Love it or not, the iPhone 3G cracked open Canada's insular wireless industry when it came out a year ago. With the release of the iPhone 3GS, Android phones, and the Palm Pre this summer, Canadians are actually getting a better deal than Americans in some ways.

First, the updated iPhones will be sold at parity with American prices, albeit on a 3-year contract: $99/199/299 - a ten percent discount at current exchange rates.

Rogers is also bringing back the $30/6GB promotional plan from last summer, which can be used with any of their smartphones. Tethering will be free with any plan over 1GB, and available immediately - unlike AT&T in the US, which charges around $30 for tethering other phones and won't support iPhone tethering until later this year. Likewise, Rogers will support MMS out of the gate.

For the Apple-haters/Google fans out there, Rogers is now selling the Android-based HTC Dream (aka the T-Mobile G1 in the US) and the new, keyboard-less HTC Magic. The Magic won't be out in the US until August.

Finally, the Palm Pre will be available as a Bell exclusive later this summer. No word yet on pricing, but Bell already offers unlimited data plans with their Blackberries that cost the same as Rogers' promotional plans.

Dingos and devils and 'roos, oh my!

2009-05-07T13:16:57Z

From the Taronga Zoo in Sydney:

Dingo

Tasmanian Devil

Red Kangaroo

gamble @ 2009-04-22T17:41:00

2009-04-22T23:41:39Z

Finished my seventh year of university today - only two (to four) more to go!

Given that I spent most of my time between degrees in education, there's only been a couple of years since I was six that weren't structured around the school year. Ah well - I'm a lifer now. =)

Off to Australia and New Zealand next week!

gamble @ 2009-04-05T00:22:00

2009-04-05T06:22:56Z

Going out on a limb...

2009-03-28T00:02:05Z

Much as I try to ignore Apple rumors, I'm going to make a prediction that Apple will announce a multitouch "MacBook Touch" at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Three reasons:

First, a rumor from early March that Apple is ordering multitouch panels for an as-yet unannounced product.

Second, the suspiciously minimal plans for Snow Leopard. I don't believe that Apple would release a major OSX upgrade without significant user-facing features, yet they're still sticking to the line that Snow Leopard is all about architectural improvements. There have been some recent rumors suggesting that Apple will reveal a major UI overhaul at WWDC. I doubt Apple would introduce a touchscreen PC without a new version of OSX designed to support it, so a coordinated launch makes sense. The subterfuge surrounding Snow Leopard's release is also more plausible if meant to conceal the development of a multitouch-oriented UI.

Finally, Apple's advertising tagline for WWDC 2009 is "Make Your Mark Here". I'm reading between the lines, but it isn't a phrase that makes much sense applied to the iPhone.

Science!

2009-02-19T22:48:09Z

On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

gamble @ 2009-02-12T18:45:00

2009-02-13T01:45:36Z

George Bush's first stop on the paid lecture circuit?

Calgary

A conversation with George W. Bush
March 17, Telus Conversation Center

Attack of the Netbooks

2009-01-22T20:14:19Z

The 10-year anniversary of eMachines passed without much notice last September. The company itself is long gone, gobbled up by Gateway and then Acer. Today, the idea that a computer could cost less than $1000 should be a big deal seems quaint - after all, $1000 is a high-end PC now.

Microsoft announced the first set of massive layoffs in its history today, after revealing a 10% decrease in net income over the same period last year. Essentially, they have two problems. The PC market is mature today. In earlier years, any blips in the economy were smoothed out by sales to people who didn't own a computer yet. Now people can choose to delay upgrades, so Microsoft has to suffer the recession along with everyone else.

The other problem has been the rise of netbooks - small notebooks generally retailing under $500. When they first came on the market, something like 90% of them used Linux. Microsoft got scared and started selling low-cost licenses for XP. They succeeded in driving down Linux to ~10% market share, but the cost has been a greatly-reduced profit margin, layoffs, and the shattering of their image as a recession-proof stock.

The PC market has gone through several distinct stages. Before the IBM PC, most personal computers were essentially toys and sold under $2000: the Commodores, Apple IIs, etc. (link) Once the IBM PC hit, the PC market was dominated by white-box work machines retailing for between $2000 and $5000. However, the vast market opened by demand for Internet access drove down the average price below $2000 by 1998, and below $1000 by the early 2000s. It also drove the white-box industry out of business, since only large-scale companies like Dell and eMachines could achieve the economies of scale necessary to survive that price.

Today, we're seeing the culmination of this process in netbooks. $500 is about the maximum price you can charge for discretionary consumer electronics - even better if you can get it under $300. Netbooks have finally brought computers to the same level, and sales exploded - at the cost of more expensive models. In a few years, $300 is going to be the mainstream price-point. Many of the companies that prospered by selling $1000 computers are going to flounder at $300. Like the white-box manufacturers who disappeared ten years ago, today's PC makers will need to adjust quickly or face the same fate.

The change we need

2009-01-14T05:13:57Z

Farewell, President Gore...