leplastrier: blog

Instant global consciousness

2011-08-04T00:00:00-07:00

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’

– Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell

Dragons in the future

2011-05-14T00:00:00-07:00

It looks like you’re looking for dragons.. in the future.

About Our Hopes and Dreams

2011-02-02T00:00:00-08:00

This past weekend I participated in the Global Game Jam, an event to build a functioning game in 48 hours. This turned out to be as insane, enjoyable, intimidating and rewarding as it sounds. We ended up on a team of 4, and after spending a bit longer than expected finding our idea, we put our heads down and produced About Our Hopes and Dreams, which we built using Google App Engine.

From the introductory text:

We’re in a world increasingly characterized by Facebook and Twitter, where we participate in a lot of unidirectional shouting about what we’ve done, where we’ve gone, what we ate, what we thought. What if instead, we talked about other people? What if we found out not where they’ve been in life, but where they hope to go?

The screenshot above shows a typical session. You are asked for your first name, and then navigate through a series of prompts that ask you about your aspirations, such as what other job would you want to have, or where would you want to go in the world. You then start to chat with a stranger, and the game gives you some hint as to what questions you have both answered. From there, you attempt to discover the other person’s aspirations, with the wrinkle that they can’t use the word or words that describe their aspiration, similar to the game of Taboo).

The chat depicted in the screenshot above is in fact the first time I played the game with a stranger. After we had submitted the game and before catching up on sleep, I had this amazing chat with a perfect stranger, and the dialog unfolded almost exactly as we had hoped when we designed the game, which was a really surprising and wonderful moment. I wish Raul the best of luck in becoming a sociologist.

Thanks to my fellow collaborators on the game, Rob, Robin, and Sara, for making it such a great experience for me. I am really proud of what we were able to pull off. Winning the award for best potential for positive change was just icing on the cake.

You can view our Game Jam project page if you are interested in learning more or downloading the source code.

Repetition repetition

2011-01-10T00:00:00-08:00

She is known for being the criminal defense lawyers’ criminal defense lawyer,” said Norman L. Reimer, the executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

– Judy Clarke, Loughner’s Lawyer, Is Called a Master Strategist - NYTimes.com

The iPhoto face detection is getting pretty damn good

2010-12-12T00:00:00-08:00

The iPhoto face detection is getting pretty damn good.

Empire Mattresses

2010-10-13T00:00:00-07:00

When Darth Vader (David Prowse) revealed his secret to Luke, Hamill was hanging onto a pinnacle above mattresses placed on cardboard boxes about 30 feet off the ground.

On Set: Empire Strikes Back – Vanity Fair

Live my life upside down

2010-09-02T00:00:00-07:00

I know, I am upside down. Well… I live a lot of my life upside down.

During the September Apple keynote event, Steve Jobs deadpanned my new favorite line of his which he delivered when the new iPod Nano he was demoing did not rotate back to normal orientation on the projected image.

Download .mp3 file (0:07 184K)

FluxLists

2010-08-23T00:00:00-07:00

This weekend Sara and I finally got around to building FluxLists, which is a collection of lists, spanning a wide variety of fields and interests, served up one-at-a-time for your enjoyment and edification. We were partially inspired by our mutual love of the Schott’s Original Miscellany series of books. I have had this domain for many years and a few months ago we decided what we wanted to do with it and started generating lists. More lists are on the way, so I hope you will check back from time to time.

We hope you enjoy the site.

Familiar face on Louie

2010-08-08T00:00:00-07:00

Not the first time I’ve seen someone I went to high school with on TV, but it was the first time it happened when I didn’t know it was coming.

Louie is a pretty funny show by the way.

The Medina, Fes-al-Bali, Morocco

2010-08-03T00:00:00-07:00

Incredible. Like a massive jigsaw puzzle of humanity.

The destruction of all recorded information

2010-07-24T00:00:00-07:00

From a long essay Neal Stephenson wrote for Wired about laying a fiber optic cable in Southeast Asia:

Alexandria and Cairo are joined by two separate, roughly parallel highways called the Desert Road and the Agricultural Road. The latter runs through cultivated parts of the Nile Delta. The Desert Road is a rather new, four-lane highway with a tollbooth at each end - tollbooths in the middle not being necessary, because if you get off in the middle you will die. It is lined for its entire length with billboards advertising tires, sunglasses, tires, tires, tires, bottled water, sunglasses, tires, and tires.

…

In any event, this library was burned out by the Romans when they were adding Egypt to their empire. Or maybe it wasn’t. It’s inherently difficult to get reliable information about an event that consisted of the destruction of all recorded information.

(referring to the Library of Alexandria)

– Neal Stephenson “Mother Earth Mother Board” Wired 4.12

Re, re, re, re, re, re, re, re.

2010-07-05T00:00:00-07:00

I have a friend who does not like to use email subjects.

The picture runs over 100 minutes!

2010-06-20T00:00:00-07:00

The picture runs over 100 minutes!

From The Andromeda Strain (1971) trailer.

Leon Panetta

2009-01-05T00:00:00-08:00

Today the New York Times is reporting that President-elect Obama has selected Leon Panetta as his nominee for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. This reminded me that I had taken a course in college from Mr. Panetta on public policy. It was a fascinating class, the highlight of which was Mr. Panetta telling stories from when he managed the federal budget and served as White House Chief of Staff. I recall one class where he had to step out of the classroom briefly to be interviewed by CNN, which had parked a massive satellite truck on the street outside.

I dug through some old boxes and found my final paper from that class. The title was American Intelligence Community: (not an oxymoron) Combating terror. In the paper I describe in detail the organization of the US intelligence community as well as the role the then position of DCI entailed. If you are using that paper for reference Mr. Panetta, I do wish to make a correction which is that you now report to the Director of National Intelligence and not the President. Sorry about the demotion.

I go on in the paper to list changes in CIA policy since 9/11 and to raise concerns about those changes, such as an apparent repeal of the Presidential directive prohibiting assassination. Of course the interesting question is, what did Leon Panetta think about my paper?

Much like this post, it seems I tend to ramble a bit and could use better organization. B+.

Here he seems to be agreeing with my stance that having a President with a “hands off” approach to targeted assassination is disturbing. Though, his hand writing is cryptic and difficult to read, so he could just as easily be disagreeing with my position.

His only other mark on my paper is to underline my concluding sentence about order versus freedom. Certainly the kind of question he will be weighing if he gets the job.

After spending a few months listening to the man discuss public policy, the political process, and managing governments, I was left with the impression he was honorable and decent, with a studied and diligent approach to problem solving. Exactly the kind of person I would want for the job he has been nominated for.

Step away from the Robot

2009-01-02T00:00:00-08:00

To commemorate Denote shipping, I made this short video featuring my two favorite Christmas presents: Little Itch’s logo on a sweatshirt and a orange tripod robot, a.k.a. “My First Skynet Buddy”. The voice capture makes it all the more creepy.

My morning

2008-07-15T00:00:00-07:00

When I saw what they had to do to clear the bathroom sink, I felt less bad about my inability. I had taken the drain apart and, using a bent coat hanger, had fished out what was clearly years of backed up hair and filth the likes of which I hope to never see again. But this was merely the tip of the revolting iceberg, as the two handymen had to cut the drain pipe in half with a hacksaw and extract even more disgustingness. The hair was clearly not ours. It was very, very long. Like haunt my nightmares long. So that threw off my whole morning.

Rapunzel must have grown old in my apartment.

Powerhouse

2008-07-07T00:00:00-07:00

Remember that song they always played during construction in Warner Brothers cartoons? This is it:

Raymond Scott - Powerhouse

Also, a nice animation featuring the track on YouTube.

I’ve only explored a bit of his discography but it he clearly seems to be a predecessor to the jazz influenced electronic music of today.

The most amazing space photo I have ever seen

2008-05-26T00:00:00-07:00

I think this might be the most amazing space photo I have ever seen. Not only did we put a probe onto another planet, we had a satellite in orbit to take a photograph as it parachuted in for a landing.

The long red carpet of doom

2008-05-08T00:00:00-07:00

I saw this photo on the cover of the NYTimes walking down the street today. Immediately the Imperial March started playing in my head.

BrickArms

2008-03-31T00:00:00-07:00

I was looking at this pretty impressive Lego recreations of famous photographs, when I noticed one of the Lego characters holding a gun. There were “muskets” for the pirate set, but I don’t remember ever seeing modern weapons. That’s because there is a company called BrickArms that sells an entire arsenal of Lego compatible weaponry. That’s right, a Lego arms dealer. This is equal parts unbridled awesome and childhood destroying what the fuckness.

FREE Weapon in EVERY order!