Lee.org

Centered just a mile or so west of Ocean Beach at 7:47am.

I was in bed and barely awake. The building shook a bit more than a building should generally shake when maybe a strong wind blows on it. I was groggy but it felt like just about 3 seconds of shaking.

Wee! I haven’t felt an earthquake in a few years. It’s good to know the earth is still alive… I hope it doesn’t rain down an 8.5 tomorrow.

I went to New York a week ago and saw this poster in Baggage Claim at JFK.
Umm, if the bag made it this far, what do you think the odds are of it being a bomb?

Wow.

local version:

This happened at Lakehurst Naval Station, in the hangar that was the home of the Hindenberg et all.

An acquaintance of mine, Tito Jankowski has been working on an Open Source PCR machine with a friend. This is totally awesome stuff. It’s open source biotech! DIY Biology! When they’re done, you’ll be able to get an essential machine for examining and replicating DNA for $400 instead of the going price of such a machine, $4-10k.

Check out the video and description on their Kickstarter page.

At Maker Faire I caught the last bits of the OK Go show. The show wasn’t about the musical experience, it was about the awesome.

If you’re all about the awesome, watch the whole video.

If you have no patience, start watching at about 17:30

local version:

the byline:
h2oboy1 – May 23, 2010 – Behind the scenes at a live “underwater” OK GO concert from Maker Faire 2010, as seen through the eyes of the WaterBoy Performance Director, Marque Cornblatt. This is the first time the band has played music underwater, and they did it live at Maker Faire featuring “I Want You So Bad I Can’t Breathe” and “This Too Shall Pass.” Enjoy this frantic behind-the-scenes look at the making of a one-of-a-kind concert experience.

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And catch the Cracked.com Craption about Waterboy!

July 15-17 The Crucible is having a “Fire Cabaret”. I’ve been watching some of the dancing practice on my way to and from class. It looks like it’ll be pretty hot. And the other dance and such that’s lined up looks cool.

Check it out.
http://www.thecrucible.org/events/heat-a-fire-cabaret

I’m taking a trip to New Jersey shortly,  landing at JFK and spending the evening in NYC first. I was very frustrated that Google Maps didn’t point me the right way on public transit. I figured out what the issue is…

If you type “JFK” into Google Maps, it doesn’t show the right starting point. You need to type “JFK Airport” in.

If you just type in “JFK”, it thinks you are starting in the middle of the airfield and it figures you don’t want to take the Airtrain but walk 1.4 miles amid the planes to the nearest MTA bus stop. This trip understandably takes a little longer, especially when you’re hauling your bags down the runway.

I wrote a note to Google Maps asking if they couldn’t fix this.

I just installed the 2007 Burning Man Screen Saver and noticed a photo with me in it. I remember that moment well. For a long while (10 minutes? an hour? it’s hard to tell on the playa) I sat up there during this dust storm. For much of it, my perch was just a few feet above the tide of dust streaming by. Me lying in the sunshine on an ocean of flowing gray dust. It was pretty cool. Find me standing on the flower.

I own a Toshiba T135 laptop. I’m very happy with it except for one detail. Well 2 if you count that it runs Windows 7, but I digress. The speakers are so quiet that you can’t hear anything. But I found a fix. (via)

You can increase sound DRAMATICALLY if you follow this steps:

Go to Control Panel
Select SMART AUDIO
On the lower part, select SMART EQ/3D SETTINGS
Select CUSTOM
Pull the buttons up (i have them still at number 7, quite enough as you will see)

On my flight from San Francisco to India and back in February, I had a LOT of time to watch movies. And it did.

Gi Joe: Rise of Cobra – splosions! Lots of splosions!

The Invention of Lying – a totally awesome and fun one trick pony

Astro Boy – awful

Love Happens – I really enjoyed it! A bit disjointed but I saw through that

All About Steve – a mistake. Poor plot, direction, script. 25 minutes was wayyy enough of that

Imagine That – 30 seconds strongly suggested that it was a bad “hilarity ensues” movie

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs – slapstick comedy for the 5-12 set. Not for grown ups.

Management – I gave it 15 minutes. Feh, it’s another blandly plotted Jennifer aniston movie

District 9 – wholely incomplete :-(. Unhappily amoral. Filled with dumb humans and aliens, pretty much too dumb to be believable.

Terminator Salvation – the first 15 minutes demonstrated poor storytelling. 20 minutes in, they gave a magic skynet shutdown code to only O’Connor, wha??? It’s a total retread but it has enough explosions to make up for it