Flutterby™! From 2007-01-03 to 2007-01-31

Okay, I'm back. Got some fancy new toys, further reports as we use 'em, but the thing that sold me was watching someone doing a nice set of shelves, with access to both the saw/rail combo and a table saw, choose the saw/rail combo every time. Since tablesaws take up so much space and are so expensive (actually, you can pick up one pretty cheap, but given the experiences of my Dad and others I'm loathe to use one that's not a SawStop), this seemed like a deal.

I also learned some of the differences between low-end tools, including brands that I formerly thought were high end tools, and high end tools, many of which I've never heard of. The world is quite different when viewed through the eyes of people doing carpentry or finish work 200+ days a year rather than people cutting the occasional 2x4 in their driveway every few months.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Work, productivity and environment Furniture Festool ]

This one's for Meuon and any other cavers in the audience: Naica Caves. Amazing, awesome, and 100% humidity at 50°C (122°F). (thanks, Brad).

30 on the Wired Autism-Spectrum Quotient test. Via Genehack.

[ related topics: John S Jacobs-Anderson ]

The Bay Area Woodworker's Association has a resource list that'd be useful for finding hardwood lumber.

[ related topics: California Culture Woodworking ]

Furniture porn: building the ultimate blanket chest, discovered while looking for information on "double dovetails" after seeing the technique on the demo video for the Incra Universal Positioning Jig

[ related topics: Furniture Woodworking ]

20 miles northeast of Atlanta? That's where my parents live! Well, they're actually about midway between Atlanta and Duluth, where Penthouse Pet Nabbed in Brothel Case:

Two suburban women — including one who police identified as a former Penthouse Pet — have been arrested for prostitution in a case in which "dates" could cost as much as $10,000, authorities said.

Ya know, when you get into high-end prostitution, the only thing harmed is... well... never mind, anything that would have been harmed, like the institution of marriage, was already broken in the particular case.

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Sociology Law Current Events Marriage ]

Yeesh, what is it about you mid-Georgians today? I think this one's closer to Larry's haunts: Guy kills 1,100 lb boar just south of Atlanta.

[ related topics: Current Events ]

Giggle. Quote of the day from the Dallas Food message boards:

User KevinAndrewMurphy wrote:

As for comparisons to Tiffany's, if you're going to invoke that, I'd have to say I'd think of Joseph Schmidt as being a more likely contender for being the current Louis Tiffany of chocolatiers...

User davidBZ replied:

Plus, he found these chocolate plates that only he could read and translated them into the book of ... oh nevermind.

[ related topics: Religion Quotes Humor Chocolate ]

We've had Charlene's developmentally disabled brother with us this week, so this is one of those "makes me think on all sorts of practical levels" stories that's been floating around Parents keep mentally disabled daughter child-size for easier care. Girl has static encephalopathy, is never going to grow up to be functional, so they're stopping her growth at 4-foot-4 and 70 lbs and removing her uterus and such so she doesn't mature.

Which might bring up some interesting discussions about the value of life and humans as pets and what it means to be human... or we may all just stare at our shoes uncomfortably.

From an entry over at Sensible Erection, 'though Bill forwarded the NYT equivalent to the hiking list, too.

[ related topics: Philosophy Handicaps & Disabilities ]

Joe Woodworker on home shop vacuum veneering, including building your own vacuum pumps and bags...

[ related topics: Woodworking ]

While the hack requires some major surgery, it's still a cool hack on a CC swipe term to make it play tetris.

[ related topics: Health ]

Interesting, both from a business decision standpoint and a social one: Second Life client becomes open source (GPL v2).

[ related topics: Free Software ]

Some cool watermelon carvings.

A thread on tire boots on the Tandem@Hobbes list deteriorated into discussions of whether a Euro bill would be more effective than a dollar bill for emergency repairs, at which point Wyatt commented that "You have to factor in inflation!"

Sssssssss.

[ related topics: Currency Bicycling Economics ]

Seattle weekly magazine The Stranger regrets, among other things:

In The Stranger's August 31 endorsement of Stephanie Pure for 43rd District representative, we incorrectly identified Jamie Pedersen of Preston Gates & Ellis as a lobbyist, when in fact he is an attorney. And a weasel. We regret the error.

Via Jay, who linked to this shorter version.

[ related topics: Humor Journalism and Media Seattle ]

I have a soft-spot for serious wooden toys, the type that are large enough for kids to ride on. When I was growing up we had a crane and a tractor with a trailer from Community Playthings (which, alas, doesn't seem to be making toys at the same level of coolness any more, probably due to product liability issues) that were beefy enough that not only were they great for playing with as they were intended, we kids used them as dollies to move things that were too heavy for us to move alone, and repurposed them in other interesting ways. And my grandfather built me a beautiful wooden boat that I was able to row around our back pond, that lasted for many years despite the childhood neglect I heaped upon it.

With the recent acquisition of the new tools (and not to brag or anything, it's kind of tacky when a guy starts mouthing off about the capabilities of his tool, but I ripped a 2x6 along a straight-edge this weekend to put a good edge on both sides of it, two 8 foot rip cuts along a guide with a circular saw, no blade burn, and a surface I didn't have to finish) Charlene and I have bandied about some simple projects for next year's fundraiser auction for the San Geronimo Valley Community Center.

So here's a basic sandbox excavator that used this more complex excavator for inspiration.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Boats Toys Woodworking Festool ]

MacBeath hardwood has a store in berkeley, and it looks like they've got a big assortment of milled wood in assorted exotic varieties.

[ related topics: Bay Area Woodworking ]

I've been meaning to do this for years, but... Flutterby has taken advertising on various levels for quite a while. The domains Flutterby.com and Flutterby.net have value. Quite a few people draw a blank at "Dan Lyke", but say "Oh, that Dan" when I mention "Flutterby". And really, I've been using Flutterby as a trademark for quite a while.

So I've reworked a whole bunch of pages to explicitly reference Flutterby™ as a trademark. Nothing else changes, I just want to make sure that I've got an extra level of protection should slimeballs decide to come after my domain names (see, for example, Rogers Cadenhead's current struggles over his site which sells war games).

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Games History Consumerism and advertising Copyright/Trademark ]

Ack. Blogger comments seem to be screwed up, so I'll respond here: Dave Goodman points to a Sears computer controlled carving machine. Dave, if you're really into building stuff, next time you're down in the Bay Area with the ability to carry home some electronics give me a holler. I'm sure I've got double what I need to build such a beastie, and at this point I think I'm getting pretty good at figuring out how to configure carriages and jigs...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama California Culture Embedded Devices ]

Hey all you cycling buffs, Freddie Rodriguez will be chatting at the Mill Valley Community Center on Friday, February 2^nd. I think it's supposed to be free to Marin Cyclists members, $10 to the general public.

[ related topics: Bay Area Sports Bicycling ]

We finally became convinced that the Eureka vacuum that we inherited from the shutdown of the Coyote Grits was depositing more than it was picking up, so we tossed it. We have a Kirby G4 that we got from somewhere, I think from an acquaintance of Charlene in the hopes that the resale value here in upscale Marin would be better than wherever they were, but having looked at eBay and Craigslist, and having used the loud machine with poorly fitting components we're just hoping that the local thrift store will take it off our hands.

And last time I talked with my mom about her Electrolux she was rather neutral about a tool that should be awesome (and is certainly priced that way...).

Why can't anyone make a decent vacuum? Our Festool dust collector can double as a shop vac, and it's quiet enough that you can actually talk over the thing when it's running. However, it doesn't have a rug beater attachment. But given the relative performances of the various things I've tried, I think we'll shell out the outrageous bag costs and use it, because even though it's expensive, and even though the bags are moderately expensive, it still seems to be better and cheaper than any of the devices actually sold as home vacuums.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Festool ]

The Marin Cyclists need a solution for their user database. Passing around a spreadsheet isn't working. Filemaker has been bandied about as a solution, but I'm unclear as to whether you can point that at a MySQL database over ODBC or similar and have it just work, including relatively novice users saying "I want to add a field", as that would give us a reasonable shared solution that would also let my SQL stuff that I've used for coordinating volunteers run reasonably.

Anyone got experience with something that has a decent desktop front-end and talks to a real SQL database on the back-end?

[ related topics: Open Source Bay Area Databases ]

So Apple has this great feature on the new laptops: The power connector is held in with a small magnet. Jerk on the cord (or just look at it wrong) and the power cable falls out, with no permanent damage to the computer or the cord. Great, huh?

Until a small piece of something ferrous gets down in there and you have to get it out for the cable to seat properly...

[ related topics: Apple Computer Invention and Design ]

Yesterday Apple announced a new phone. So far it's vaporware, so I'll leave the pros and cons to other people, although the trademark dispute has been amusing. But the thing I wanted to comment on is that you can only get it through Cingular, which sucks. We have coverage from them because they were the only people with a tower anywhere near our house. However, over the year and change we've had these phones the coverage has gotten more spotty, not just here, but everywhere else. There are huge dead zones around San Anselmo, and the dropped calls have made this something we can only use when the car is stationary.

Had we known how bad this was going to get, we would have just stuck with our Sprint plan, which was cheaper and had fewer dropouts. So no matter what the feature set there'll be no "iPhone" in my future.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Wireless Bay Area iPhone ]

Hey, Nancy, an attempt to create an account on your weblog so that I can comment there asks me for a username and password before I can get to the account creation... Might wanna talk to your husband about that.

[ related topics: Weblogs ]

Robert Anton Wilson has died.

[ related topics: Robert Anton Wilson ]

Wardrobe? Please fetch me my brown trousers.

The Ladybug Letter #308 has some interesting musings on illegal immigration and borders.

On the other side of Club Frontera from the police station is El Pollero restaurant, a former drive-thru hamburger joint that now serves spit-roasted chicken. In Spanish El Pollero means “the chicken herder”. In street slang a “pollero” is also an ironic term for a smuggler who brings undocumented workers, or “pollo,” across the border, which makes the name of the chicken shack on lower Main a “fowl smelling pun”. Anyone walking down the Main Street of my town, seeing a Pollero next to a Frontera can hardly have any illusions about where our most important border is.

[ related topics: Politics Food Law Enforcement ]

Tom Plamann, woodworker. Among other things, check out his airplane cabinets (404, was at /sys-tmpl/airplanecabinets/), curved wood built lightweight for corporate jets, but there's a lot there, and he shows some good construction photos. Note the "Show All" button on his pages, it's your friend.

Matthias Wandel's woodworking page has a fingerjointing jig for a tablesaw that has some ideas to pull off of, and a computer controlled version of same, along with a bunch of other cool and wacky projects.

Pat Warner is a router god taken to the next level.

Kevin Brady is a lawyer from Minneapolis who does woodworking. He's also got some good notes on DIY dust control.

Speaking of dust control, Bill's Cyclone and Dust Collection Research - Cyclone Building Instructions looks totally worthwhile if you've got a large enough shop to need a stationary dust collection system but not so big that you can justify a commercial cyclone for parts extraction. However, if you can afford the commercial cyclone, Clear Vue Cyclones are his cyclone design done in clear acrylic, so you can see the sawdust swirling as it's separated out from the vacuum feed.

Joe Woodworker has a bunch of neat notes, along with selling some really pretty veneers and providing information on doing your own vacuum forming and veneering, so you can get the same quality that the big commercial cabinet shops do. Might also be a useful resource if you plan on playing with carbon fiber, fiberglass, or other molding materials.

[ related topics: Photography Aviation Machinery Fabrication Woodworking Matthias Wandel ]

Places I want to visit some day: Plitvice Lakes, Croatia.

[ related topics: Nature and environment ]

You heard the phrase here first, from me. It's what you call code you show your 'boss' major system changes 30 minutes before he's supposed to show them to a big customer, hadn't tested them much when he says "make them live". So you copy them from development servers to production servers. During the conference call itself.,you are making minor cosmetic adjustments, just as has says: "now click on.." - And it all works flawlessly for the end users. It not just for manufacturing anymore, it's for programing as well. (and the geek runs off.. screaming..)

[ related topics: Theater & Plays Work, productivity and environment Conferences ]

What does Niagara Falls look like from the back side? Three guys don their caving gear to go find out.

[ related topics: Nature and environment ]

The bad thing about 14 year old male visitors is way too much conversation about video games. Some is fine, too much is too much. The good part is that they goad you to get off your lazy butt and blow chunks out of a cliff with high velocity potatoes.

[ related topics: Games Dan's Life Pyrotechnics ]

Sci-Fi Channel is developing a miniseries based on Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, with George Clooney as executive producer. The story of a fully nanotechnologized future with social and philosophic tribes replacing most governments is intriguing. I also want to see the disposable chopsticks with advertising scrolls.

[ related topics: New Economy Consumerism and advertising Art & Culture ]

For those of us who are constantly checking George R.R. Martin's website for news of the next book in the "Song of Ice and Fire" series: HBO acquires rights to the series.

[ related topics: Books Current Events ]

Hey, Apple, hire Dori!

I have to confess that I still don't get "Dashboard", it's that annoying thing that pops up when I overshoot the delete key, and it uses resources and I haven't figured out how to turn it off, but I'm fairly sure that's just because I haven't been shown why I should care. If someone smart had more incentive to sing the praises of the product, and not just be pushing it because she thinks it's a really cool thing, I might think of it as an asset rather than a liability.

[ related topics: Apple Computer ]

Does the web really need another 'blog? Well, I don't know if the web does but I've been needing a place to vent (and occasionally recall those vents). Much of this venting is outside the scope of Flutterby. The posts will involve issues specific to PhD students, GIS, and programming. But much of the content with just be me ranting... As if anyone cares...

[ related topics: Weblogs Eric's Life ]

A walk on the steep side - supposedly in a Chinese National Park comparable to Zion in the US.

[ related topics: Nature and environment ]

I don't know what it is about snow in Portland Oregon, but... Mark, of Brainwagon, and I unknowingly dodged the same snowstorm in Portland about a year ago. I was on the way to the airport and my family decided that continuing on would be beyond foolish, so they left me to catch a train (which took forever), but I remember the roads being bizarrely slippery.

Mark has a link and some commentary (with video embedded) to a YouTube video of cars sliding and spinning and crashing at slow speeds in a Portland snow storm. Sometimes you've gotta park and walk, and the smart ones make that decision early.

[ related topics: moron Automobiles Video ]

Jay pointed to Cathy Salustri: I am a heartless bitch, which talks a little bit about homelessness issues in the context of a particular camp near St. Petersburg, Florida, but I think most of what she says applies to anywhere.

[ related topics: Sociology ]

John over at Genehack did exactly the same thing to his Mac that I did. In my most recent OS X installation I was smart and copied /usr/bin/head before installing basic Perl modules. Yeah, case insensitive filesystems are braindead, case insensitive filesystems which pretend to be Un*x like are even worse.

Just wait 'til you discover that umount appears to work like you'd expect it would, except that it doesn't. No, on the Mac, it's diskutil unmount /dev/..., except that umount will just silently do nothing while telling you that it did everything, thereby making it far easier to corrupt external media.

There's so much that Apple could have done right with this platform, alas it's amazing at how much ductape and bailing wire appears to be holding it together once you look behind the curtain.

[ related topics: Apple Computer John S Jacobs-Anderson moron Macintosh ]

With a nod to Mike and the Slug Page, porn in HD may not be a good thing.

Ms. Daniels is also a skeptic. “I’m not 100 percent sure why anyone would want to see their porn in HD,” she said.

“The biggest problem is razor burn,” said Stormy Daniels, an actress, writer and director.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Movies Journalism and Media ]

Okay, so everyone else is doing it:

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!



Ultimate Bible Quiz

Create MySpace Quizzes

And that, friends, is why I'm an atheist.

(Apologies for the lousy formatting, their cut-and-paste included stuff my parser won't allow for security reasons)

[ related topics: Religion Books Invention and Design Typography Graphic Design Race ]

A month ago I linked to DB Fletcher Furniture Design because of their expanding round tables. It turns out that that style of table has been around since 1835, and is common enough to be called a "Jupe Table", after its designer, Robert Jupe. In searching around, half the woodworkers who build them are claiming patents on one aspect or another of their construction, usually around how the leaves get stowed. This MeFi comment has a few notes on the patents, including this 1888 patent with a leaf extension system similar to DB Fletcher's, and a 2003 patent that seems to be different only in that it specifies modern materials for the cam mechanism.

The proprietor of Waterfront Woods is keeping a log of his experiences building a Jupe Table. I got there via a comment by Rick Christopherson about using the new "Festool Domino" tool over at the new Festool Owner's Group.

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Invention and Design Machinery Fabrication Furniture Woodworking Festool ]

What happens when an atheist kid writes a "What I want for Christmas" essay:

What do I want for Christmas, I want a less assuming teacher. I want a teacher who thinks past the standard "What I want for Christmas..." assignment when she's aware that three out of her twenty students probably don't celebrate Christmas.

[ related topics: Religion Children and growing up Writing ]

A while back here, Ziffle praised House. I've still not gotten around to seeing it, and, realistically, I probably won't, but I've heard about it from enough people now that it's on my radar. So today I saw Henry Jenkins: The Merits of Nitpicking: A Doctor Diagnoses House, which looks at Medical Reviews of House. Interesting...

[ related topics: Ziffle Health Television ]

Elf said "Cute. Weird, but cute. Not Safe for Work" of this "how to" tie a rope harness, with an addendum to this larger version. If you're into knots or bondage (or both!), or if you've ever gotten confused while tying someone up, these instructions are worth a gander.

[ related topics: Erotic ]

Holy crap: Alberto Gonzales says the Constitution doesn't require habeas corpus:

"The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas,'' Gonzales told Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Jan. 17.

Gonzales acknowledged that the Constitution declares "habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless ... in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.'' But he insisted that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.''

[ related topics: Politics Law Civil Liberties ]

Cat rambles about community:

There is an alpha, aging and losing ground but whose vision is still the main focus of the group. That alpha is stepping back and allowing others to slowly try out the role. I see one very strong alpha moving forward that maintains a similar vision so everyone still has the sense of contiguous community but different enough to already bring some changes forward.

[ related topics: Community ]

Occasionally I run across things which I like on one level, but am not so sure about on another. Thus it was with the short (still 17 minute) version of the film Cashback on YouTube, a tale of an art student working the night shift in a grocery store who imagines that he can stop time for others, and in that stopped time admire the female form. There's a feature length version of the film (in French) that's getting (very) mixed reviews on IMDB.

[ related topics: Erotic Movies Art & Culture ]

Michigan appeals judge says state law may mean life sentence for adultery.

[ related topics: Law Marriage ]

MPAA Wants NC-17 back:

MPAA chairman-CEO Dan Glickman met with indie filmmakers and studio specialty execs Monday at Sundance, declaring he wants the movie biz to embrace the NC-17 rating and thereby provide a place for edgier fare.

Maybe if this gets played right we could start to see more movies for adults, rather than just the glut of mindless action thrillers?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Movies Graphic Design ]

On the Festool Owner's Group forums someone mentioned the FoxIt PDF reader for Windows, if you're sick of all of the cruft and grossness that is Acrobat Reader. I don't use the Windows box all that often, but that looks like a promising tool.

The challenge will be to see if one can actually uninstall the Adobe monstrosity, or if its tentacles are so firmly entrenched in the system that any attempt will cause further instabilities.

Occasionally I pop over to Robert Scoble's website. Last time I did I found it horrendously unusable, with huge images of the page the link pointed to popping up and obscuring things any time I let my mouse drift over the document. Rafe has been having similar problems, and in the comments it was noted that you can turn those annoying preview images off. Rafe also pointed out that for Firefox users there's NoScript to turn off JavaScript for specific pages.

While we're on the topic, can people please stop using those stupid JavaScript "zoom this image over the current page while breaking the back button and all the usual browser navigation tools" things? Thanks.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Here's a tutorial on using SketchUp for woodworking design. You can download Google SketchUp free. It's got some great initial "wow" usability, but as I've played with it a little bit I'm thinking that I may be better served by just using Blender and a dimensioning script.

[ related topics: Graphic Design Woodworking ]

Next time I care about computer games, Armadillo Run looks cool. Don't anticipate caring about computer games any time in the near future, though, too many things in my first life to want to spend more time in front of a screen.

[ related topics: Games ]

My router table is almost complete, it plugs into the Festool multi-function table. I haven't built the indexing fence for it yet, just a regular one, and I'm going to do something else before I build the new indexer, because I'm realizing that there are things I need to learn.

However, I did have a moment of "very cool" yesterday when I pulled out the DeWalt biscuit jointer I've got on long-term loan from Phil and discovered that not only does it have a dust collection port which fits our dust collector perfectly, that sucker is amazingly dust free when hooked up to good suction.

On other fronts, Topspin put a link to SexyFurniture.nl, which seems to have some MIME type issues, so he also provided an alternate link to the Sexy Furniture content, in the comments to my "woodworking resources" post...

...aaand...

The Jeff Greef Woodworking Oriental Box of Drawers looks cool, not monstrously difficult, but using some techniques that I haven't used yet and that would be fun to explore. And pinned and wedged construction always makes me perk up.

[ related topics: Erotic Fabrication Furniture Woodworking Festool ]

While I have found some "Data Safe" and Faraday Cage Apparel wallets, Their websites do not make me feel safe. I've got a couple of RFID based cards in my wallet now, I think it's time to make them, and my next US Passport, disappear from snarfers. Still, I fear, an IDea whose time has come.

[ related topics: Bay Area RFID ]

Maine rejects Real ID act:

Both chambers of the Maine legislature approved a resolution saying the state flatly "refuses" to force its citizens to use driver's licenses that comply with digital ID standards, which were established under the 2005 Real ID Act. It asks the U.S. Congress to repeal the law.

Hell yeah. Call your own state legislators. I just sent mine email, but I'm going to call offices once they open.

[ related topics: Politics Current Events Civil Liberties ]

Remember when a Flutterby entry was the second Google result for "french military victories"? Wanna know why I haven't gone out of my way to grow the visitor baase for Flutterby? It looks like other sites are learning the lesson all over again: Violet blue pointed to Not All Traffic Is Created Equal, which gives even more reasons that you might not want to be popular.

[ related topics: Net Culture ]

Over at the oddly named Boston Diaries, Sean has some interesting musings on small languages. I've been working in C++ a lot recently, and immersing myself in the language and templates and some of the "generic programming" notions that people, especially the "software patterns" folks, are pushing.

I'm a fan of using the language which best lets me express the idioms that I'm trying to express, and I'm not averse to writing the occasional preprocessor that takes some higher level construct and turns it into code, and however its perhaps for just this reason that I'm not a fan of language toolkits.

The problem is that a toolkit isn't a domain specific language, it's an attempt to be yet another generic language. It tends to derive not from the need to solve a problem, but the desire for some sort of mental masturbation, frobbing some neurons which need to be frobbed.

Does replacing a for(...) loop with some sort of genericized object and an instantiation of the transform(...) template make anything more readonable? Not in any application I've seen yet, and I have been known to use that latter form.

So new languages are fine, but let them, like Perl, evolve to the task, rather than writing them with the hopes that a task will find them. Because that way lies grossness, and I'm inundated in way too much gross code as it is.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source Invention and Design Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment ]

Some ramblings On Identity I made on the Chugalug mailing list. Nothing I haven't expressed before, but maybe it's expressed better this iteration.

[ related topics: Net Culture Bicycling ]

Chattacon was this weekend, and I took Nancy. I was originally excited about taking her to her first 'Con. Now I'm apologizing. Let's start with Registration. It's a Sci-Fi con, you'd think registration would be high-tech and automated. I got off work early, thought I'd pop over and get registered early Friday afternoon, check out the dealers room, etc.. say Hi to a few friends, then pick up Nancy at work, go home, change and do the 'Con thing. Nope. Not possible, because they are using an Access database on an SMB share, and for some reason, it wasn't sharing.. so they only had 1 PC that could read the database and print a badge, and it was being M$-Flakey^(tm) at it. It took 3 hours to stand in line and register. At least, like much of the con, the line became a social event and I ran into a lot of old friends. It also made a lot of other people not register, not attend, and was a good indicator of things to come.

Cost, at $50/head or $100. Nancy and I ingested 1 beer, 1 hot cocoa, 1 peanut and butter sandwich, 1/2 baloney sandwich. Yea, I drank a bit, but from room parties (tipped well) and from what I brought. It's time to stop subsidizing cheap drunks, lets cut the fee, and BYOB, which is what most people do anyway. And if other things at the 'Con had gone well, the cost would have been worth it. Which brings out:

Schedule/Staffing/Organization. Why print a schedule out when it is not even loosely followed, staff and operations were a disorganized mess. The minor schedule there was was un-intelligible, the panels/events un-findable.. and actually happened hours later than scheduled, overlapping with things they should not have.

Facilities. I can't complain enough about doing Chattacon at the Choo Choo. It was incredibly spread out, impossible to generate critical mass of people at an event, room, area, region. The Consuite was.. well Consuite (smelling of spilled beer) adjacent to next to it, with a poor PA system and bright florescent lights was the dance area and gaming area combined. No one dancing, not even us. No one gaming either. Worse, the bad loud music made it hard to talk or game in the ConSuite. Only sheet plastic seperated them. To get to room parties, someone had to have a room key to get into the buildings (Hah!). Everything was, somewhere else.. far away, hidden in a corner. The Read House and the Clarion (Other venues) concentrate everything into a small enough area you -feel- the buzz, know what's going on, bump into everyone/thing/alien and makes things happen.

There were room parties with a cover charge. WTF? There was at least one we saw, heard of others. Few were inside, Hmm.. wonder why?

Discussions: Didn't find any hard core science fiction people. Into dragons, fairies, pirates? No problem. Stargate 1 was huge, its about dressing up like a National Guardsman and killing aliens. Hmm, very American right now. Saw 2 decent Klingon outfits, a couple of Trekers, 1 incredible alien outfit, lots of fetish wear.

There was some good things: Some decent room parties, Fan's in great costumes and sometimes even in character. And the shuttle bus drivers at night were timely, cheerful, friendly and very helpful. They should be: scantily clad cute girls asking for rides would put any guy in a good mood.

I've worked Chattacon and other 'cons before.. taken a crappy Elevator Security/Doorman role from 6pm to midnight, met everyone, missed the "events", and hit the room parties after midnight. Maybe that's why I liked Chattacon. That was the best part.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Space & Astronomy Heinlein Beer Architecture Databases Public Transportation Real Estate ]

Cool hack of the moment: A skeleton riding in the stoker position of a tandem on the Death Ride. A closer picture off of this page, some video of a test ride, and an email describing the hack.

There are some unconfirmed reports that later versions had a head that could turn under control of the chase rider.

[ related topics: Humor Video Bicycling Bicycling - Tandem ]

Must-read: Letter from Soledad prison.

[ related topics: Politics Law Enforcement ]

The Cyclist's Apocrypha (thanks to Cat's Cycling Blog).

[ related topics: Weblogs Sports Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Built a Poor Man's version of the Festool MFS. Actually, that's quite an overstatement, but it's a simple adjustable rectangle jig for routing and clamping.

[ related topics: Woodworking Festool ]

Vision Research presents the Phantom High Speed Movie Gallery, lots of pictures of things shot at high frame rates and replayed slowly. Being able to see the spherical shockwave with the exploding car was cool, and... well... lots of goodness there. (via MeFi)

[ related topics: Photography Movies Automobiles ]

This one's for Topspin: Fisher v. Lowe et al, Docket No. 60732, Court of Appeals of Michigan. A court decision rendered in verse.

I saw a program on Science Channel the other night about our world in 2057, and flying cars were mentioned. However, some folks have already made the move.

[ related topics: Aviation Community Architecture ]

Last night I was talking to the proprietor of Outer Geek. He doesn't have his pictures linked in any way that'd make them easy to link to aside from linking to the front page, but he's got an interesting setup for mounting a laptop with an external keyboard on his bike so that he can look for WiFi during his commute.

I pointed him towards Nomadic Research Labs.

[ related topics: Bicycling ]