http://lee.org/blog The coldest winter I ever spent Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:37:48 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en At the Subzero event I ran into Gaspo and his Chakratron. Man, I love that thing. Sitting on the table was his source-book. All the manuals for all the parts that went into the Chakratron. The part that intrigues me the most is the rotating electrical connector. That's the thing that ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/07/03/rotating-electrical-connectors/ Growing out front of Jessica's house in the Berkeley hills are the best artichokes. I've told people how it's almost an artichoke tree and people don't believe me. That highest artichoke in the picture is about 9 feet above the roots! They taste fantastic. The tips of the leaves don't have ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/07/03/artichokes/ If you're looking at signing up for Mozy, you might as well pay a little less for it. I'll split the referral fee I get from the Mozy people if you use my referral code. AND you'll get a 10% discount if you use the promotion code "JULY" when you ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/07/02/discount-on-mozy-for-july-2009/ I'm 5 lessons into a 400 lesson set from Video-Tutorials.net. And dang it if SolidWorks isn't totally cool. I like the lessons. It's a woman speaking with a live screen capture of her driving SolidWorks 2007. The presenter has a nice voice, she's mostly all about business but there are a few ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/29/solidworks-is-cool/ I have generally thought of  "Arse Elekronika" as just a humourous play on "Ars Electronica". Kind of a "heh" thing. But the call below is very curious indeed! (via, and) +++++++++++++ Call for Papers, Performances, Machines and Sponsors. +++++++++++++ Scottish SF author Iain Banks created a fictitious group-civilisation called "Culture" in his eponymous narrative. The ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/29/arse-elektronika-2009-call/ I Taught 2 classes at The Crucible, Extreme Gizmos (8-12 yrs old) and Radical Robots (12-14yrs old). Phew, it was a lot of work to get ready for the classes! And a lot of work and mental energy to run them. But it turned out great. Each class was 3 hrs/day ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/28/taught-2-classes-at-the-crucible/ Oop, I haven't updated my adoring public in a while. Here's what's been up recently, in no apparent order. Some of these items took up seconds of my time, some of them hundreds of hours. -------------------------------------------------- I was on the curatorial committee for the Robogames Art Competition with Marnia, Niladri and Corey. ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/28/doing/ Gave @rrmutt aluminum wrapped chocolate ball at Dorkbot. He ate it all and didn't notice or even tweet about it. Dorkbot is cool. # @rrmutt good thing it wasn't tuned to 110khz otherwise the tesla coil might have lit your stomach on fire. Burping Car Talk is better :-) in reply ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/28/twitter-weekly-updates-for-2009-06-28/ A Scanner Darkly 6-25-09 - cool... but sad and twisted. Stranger Than Fiction. I liked when Harold Crick ate his first home-made cookie 43:15--43:35. The Bucket List. Maybe I should have found it sappy, but I didn't. I enjoyed it greatly. http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/27/recent-movies/ I needed to download the reference section of the  Arduino website so I could teach a class without needing to have all the computers live on the internet. Here's how I did it: C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin>wget -r --convert-links --page-requisites --html-extension --no-parent -R '*action=diff*,*action=edit*' http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/HomePage Here's how that parses out: -r recursive --convert-links --page-requisites --html-extension --no-parent -R '*action=diff*,*action=edit*' ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/26/how-to-download-a-website-for-offline-use/ Gave @rrmutt aluminum wrapped chocolate ball. He ate it all and didn't notice or even tweet about it. Dorkbot is cool. # http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/21/twitter-weekly-updates-for-2009-06-21/ If you sign up for a 1 year Backblaze online backup with my referral link, I'll split what I get from Backblaze and send you $5 via Paypal. That's a 10% discount. And yes, you can try the service out for free before you commit to buying it :-) Here is how to ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/13/backblaze-discount/ New York DJ and remixing artist Steve Porter has made something cool. Watch Rap Chop, a remix of Vince Shlomi's Slap Chop infomercial. After you've watched the Rap Chop video, be sure to watch slap chop just to see how masterfully Steve Porter remixed it. Steve has made all of his source files available ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/08/rap-chop/ If you are a fire artist in California, you might be interested in this change to the fire regulations that is coming up. This message comes from Dave X on the Flaming Lotus Girls mailing list with his consent to republish: There has been concern among the Fire Arts community recently ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/07/its-not-a-flame-thrower-new-fire-art-regulations-in-california/ Thumbs down on this book. I got about 1/2 way through listening to the unabridged "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)". I couldn't finish it. Not enough science, too angry, too snarky, too jerk-like, too monochromatic, too... a lot of things. And the ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/06/traffic-why-we-drive-the-way-we-do-and-what-it-says-about-us/ If you are looking at getting the automatic online backup tool Mozy, you might as well get it for a couple dollars less. Sign up with my referral code and you'll get 10% off an annual or biannual subscription! Here's what to do: First, sign up for Mozy with my referral link ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/06/mozy-discount-for-june-2009/ That's Rodin's Gates of Hell at a garden museum at Stanford. I went there last Friday before going to SubZero. You can see The Thinker up top. Yes THAT "The Thinker". He was originally designed to sit atop this piece so that be could ponder the sorry souls that ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/05/the-gates-of-hell/ Pertaining to "Art"...   Aesthetic is perception. Perception is history. History is stereotype. Stereotype is a box. I imagine the front of the t-shirt looking like the above image. And of course the back of the t-shirt reads "Think outside the box" - Marnia Johnston and I came up with this when considering the possible criterion for an ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/02/todays-quote-art/ "You need to have Jules Verne before you can have the submarine." http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/01/todays-quote-jules-verne/ Massively Multiplayer Thumb Wrestling. http://lee.org/blog/2009/06/01/massively-multiplayer-thumb-wrestling/ @rrmutt don't read youtube comments. Just don't. Ever. in reply to rrmutt # http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/31/twitter-weekly-updates-for-2009-05-31/ I've been doing all manner of odd jobs recently. Due to the idiotic Swine Flu idiotic panic, Malcolm X Elementary School in Berkeley was closed for a few days. I babysat for Erin for a couple days. I'm still working on the Tap Pen idea. After a week, the first beta customer ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/29/work-2/ Do you want to know the secret to search engine optimization (SEO)? Create useful, unique content. That's it. There is no more to it. Now stop reading. And start clicking my ads! Muhahah! You are still reading! I have teh google juice and I control your mind! Now click! Click for all time! http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/29/the-secret-to-search-engine-optimization-seo/ Doing: * Sunday & Monday: repairing SWARM orbs for Google IO, finishing sound design, shelling etc. * Tuesday: Charlotte's office hard drive failed. Spent the afternoon and evening recovering * Wednesday: More hard drive recovery, finished sound design for Orbs. Performed at Google IO with SWARM! (you couldn't hear the music over the ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/29/recent-doings/ As part of a dumb class action lawsuit, I received a 1 month 3-DVD-at-a-time subscription to Netflix at no cost to me. I'm sure the lawyers were richly compensated. See section 1.2 of "Amended Settlement Agreement" below for the specifics of the lawsuit. (Frank Chavez v. Netflix, Inc. Class Action, San ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/29/movie-watching-mayhem-netflix-class-action-lawsuit/ Hello and welcome to a new feature of this blog... I'm calling it "Poor Design Workshop". In each segment, I'll show you some... well... something that I think is a poor design. We'll talk about it and then see if we can't make it Good Design.   Our first item up for ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/29/poor-design-workshop/ Micro-er than twitter, it's.... it's nano-blogging from Flutter! http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/29/flutter-the-new-twitter/ Batman: The Dark Knight on 2-27-09. Intense. Quite a ride V For Vendetta 3-28-09. I came out of the movie thinking it was completely excellent. After a few minutes of mulling I can think of many plot holes and unexplained bits. So I'll just say that the theme and visual elements ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/29/movies-seen-batmanthe-dark-knight-and-v-for-vendetta/ I use Dragon Naturally Speaking version 8.0. It's useful when writing long items... a few paragraphs or more. Here is a list of phrases you can tell DNS to do good things: select that/ correct that - correct the last thing you said correct [word] through [word] - correct a string of ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/29/useful-things-to-say-to-dragon-naturally-speaking/ This post was originally named "Phoey on Atmel" because I had emailed and submitted sample parts requests from Atmel and got no response for over a week. And Digikey was unable to help (see below) but I just (2pm 5-26-09) got a call back from Mac Wilson at Centaur Corporation. ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/26/getting-atmel-samples/ The Box Shop, the space SWARM and the Flaming Lotus Girls work out of, has a new pretty website. :-) http://boxshopsf.org/ If you need space in San Francisco to make large metal art, consider the Box Shop :-) http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/26/new-website-for-the-box-shop/ @ShamelessHeatha my favorite! in reply to ShamelessHeatha # in your polls working ur election # http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/24/twitter-weekly-updates-for-2009-05-24-2/ I am seriously skeptical about this whole 140 character revolution. That said, my friend Marah is going to be a presenter at the 140 Characters Conference in New York City June 16 and 17. http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/23/the-140-character-revolution/ I just got done with another Etherpad collaboration. Gosh darn, Etherpad works well. Marnia and I were making a shopping list for some robots we are building this weekend. She's in San Mateo, I'm in San Francisco. Over the phone (with headsets) and with Etherpad, we hacked out a list, exchanged ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/22/etherpad-works/ Primer at the recomendation of Warren Lynch (film maker). It was really good and entertaining. X Men 2 and X Men 3 - Jeez, they are scary violent. I mean, when you go up against Wolverine, he doesn't knock you out or paralyse you or anything; he puts 6 long metal ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/17/recent-movies-x-men-2-xmen-3-star-trek/ Play some games. Relax http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/ http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/17/todays-relaxation-orisinal/ I'll split my "Refer a Friend" rebate with you. I've been using the Mozy online backup tool for several years and I like it very much. Just go to my Mozy Discount page and we'll both do well and get an excellent backup product. http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/16/mozy-refer-a-friend-discount/ Our very nice server at... argh, I don't remember the name! it's 1/2 north of  Javalencia on Valencia... she made these for us. I requested a unicorn with a rainbow and Michael Shiloh requested a dog :-)   She was cool. http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/14/latte-animals/ Charlotte and I had a bad pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream a little while back. From my letter: On about 4-15-09 my girlfriend and I bought a pint of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough at the convenience store at... We found that it had less chocolate chips and cookie dough than ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/14/fantastic-customer-service-ben-and-jerrys/ Laughing Squid recently had an article highlighting San Francisco Street Art & Graffiti Photographer Steve Rotman. Here are some large excerpts and then my comment: Plug1: San Francisco City officials claim graffiti complaints are way up this year. They claim The City is overwhelmed with graffiti removal requests from private citizens and ... http://lee.org/blog/2009/05/14/san-francisco-graffiti/