Bill Mumy on the special effects for Babylon 5

"It was unpleasant."

Think Different

I heard about this different version of the think different ad in the Steve Jobs Book by Walter Isaacson

Think Different - Steve Jobs's voice

Think Different - Richard Dreyfuss's voice

Stanford Commencement Address - one of the best motivational speeches ever.

1980 - removing the obstacles - Macintosh foreshadowing

Billion dollar hippie (BBC)

One Last Thing

Next Meetings

Next Demo

Willow River Lake to be Drained

According to the River Falls Journal, the lake we love to go Kayaking on as a family is going to go away for the next two years.

ISS PC Games

It's amazing how large the ISS has grown. I can remember playing PC-AT games back in CGA that simulated building a profitable space station.

My favorite Space Station games from the 1980s:

• Project Space Station by Larry Holland was the first such game I can remember. You had to purchase, launch and position the station elements. You had to pick compatible crews and insure that you had enough power and radiation to handle everything. Like many of these builder simulation games, keeping the balance in the black was tricky.
  
• Space MAX or Space M+A+X was less of a graphical game, it seemed to go into a DOS-like screen at certain points in the game. Yet I seem to recall the ability to assemble modules.
  

Stopping long running task in Oracle SQL Developer

Trying to stop a report query that was taking forever (the stop for query result does not work for export). Found the answer on thatjeffsmith.com.

The Ninth Gate

I admit I like this movie. There are three semi-identical books, with half forgeries and half magical illustrations. The sets of three are interesting mathematically. I happened to catch the film for the first time during one of the Lawson Conferences, late at night I couldn't rest and took in a late showing, and got hooked. It's a more cerebral film than a lot of Johnny Depps' recent work (Trancendence excepted). Johnny Depp tries a lot of interesting roles. In his role as Corso, I find it interesting that someone could make a full career out of pursuing, and trading antique books. Not to just have a walking history memorized of the book contents, but to be cognizant of the various printings and methods of manufacture, and current whereabouts of different copies.

To those looking for the illustrations on the web, here is a link. Symbolism in the Ninth Gate. To their list I would add: the four towers represent the fourth drawing, the forgery.

It's also meaningful regarding traveling. Supposedly the book, which I've yet to read but ordered, has more relations with Dumas and Cervantes' Don Quixote, to which the movie only makes some initial reference. Because he followed the journey prescribed, even though he was not managing it, he ended up at the end in a destination he neither planned for or believed he could see. It's also not clear if it's really a reward or a damning punishment that he will achieve.

Delving further into analysis of the cultists leads some to describe them as Catharsists, which I had to research as well to understand more. In France they were dualists, and they at one point resided in Carcassone (the boardgame our family loves to play). I appreciate when games tie into history without being blatant. (Also see backgammon or Nardi - there is some that see a relationship, including my Central Asian Studies professor at the U of MN Wuzirgmir.

The solving of the book puzzle is also a kind of game - with a cheat, one of the pages is not actually in any of the books, but was stolen and a forgery introduced by the Ceniza brothers. In yet another fortunate arrival of time and space he finds the last piece and completes his journey.

Soundwise, the movie is ideal. The musical theme keeps repeating itself throughout the film. The sounds I especially like are the tactile, ASMR-level turning of the pages. It's such a sensory invitation that to someone who has spent their life around different books, its almost like you can get an olifactory component to the locations and props.

Design - scrolling context images

I really like the way the pictures stay in sync on wired when scrolling on the right side.

Hex maps

Hexagon

• Phaser
• Raphael library, how to create in html5 and discussion of hexagon math.
• Interesting discussion of vertical versus horizontal.
  • Vertical: Star Fleet Battles
  • Horizontal: Mayday and beehives in gravity.
• Added 01/11/2017: red blob games

The Dress Live

Ray Kurzweil

Ray Kurzweil's predictions for the next 25 years

Taste of Armageddon - SFB scenario

Doing a Classic Trek marathon - came up with an idea for a Star Fleet Battles scenario A Taste of Armageddon, where like the episode, the ship is targeted by a computer wargame. However in this instance, the captain has one or two Federation destroyers. The scenario is like the show where the computers decide the fate of the battle. However instead of stepping into a disintegration station, the planets battling each other but the player can decide to change the course of the battle. The decision, is how to they deal with the situation and in the context of the prime directive.

1. Follow the prime directive and execute the battle according to plan (losing the ship(s).
2. Forget the prime directive and battle the planet from orbit.
3. Forget the prime directive and use the planned strategy knowledge to win the battle.