Cord Holder

A simple little cord holder I made to keep our charging cables from falling off the table.

Stephen Wolfram Blog : Data Science of the Facebook World
source:

Interesting data analysis.

Nice Marvel/DC mashup shirt.
source: dean trippe | moonbase a

The Game of Thrones theme, as played on a bell tower
source: io9

Neat.

FocusTwist: The Closest to a Lytro Camera Your iPhone Can Get
source: Gizmodo

Neat app.

Tiny Responsive jQuery Slider without Fancy Effects
source: WebAppers

Nice.

CommaFeed cool open source Google Reader replacement is a solid option
source: The Red Ferret Journal - gadgets, cool sites, freeware and tech trivia

Looks nice, the hard thing now is finding something that's going to have some legs and not just close up shop in 6 months.

Wakey: Stop Android From Turning Off Your Screen
source: MakeUseOf.com

Video: This Is What Water Will Look Like in Games of the Future
source: Mashable!

Zach Braff Has Raised $1.65 Million For A Film On Kickstarter
source: ReadWriteWeb

See this is the thing. These sort of "disruptions" and "grassroots" technologies start small, but once their utility is agreed on, then those that are better organized will "take them over".

Samsung Debuts New Best Buy Micro-Stores Across the US
source: Tablet News

Every brand gets a micro store now.

How to Retire at 30 Without Winning the Lottery
source: Neatorama

Live close to work. Cook your own food. Take care of your own house, garden, hair and body. Don�t borrow money for cars, and don�t drive ridiculous ones. Embrace nature as the best source of recreation. Cancel your TV service. Use a prepaid cellphone. And of course, ride a bike!

Reeder for iPhone now supports standalone RSS and Feedbin, Google Reader no longer required
source: The Verge - All Posts

C2E2 Chicago Comic Convention 2013

Jenn and I went to C2E2 in Chicago this past weekend.

It was a fairly heavily attended convention.

No DC booth, and other than Marvel I thought most of the industry booths were very small. But there was a sizable sales floor and a fairly heavily populated artist alley.

We didn't see a lot of panels, but I did enjoy an hour long panel with JMS of Babylon 5 fame.

I personally did very little shopping. Most of my geek want-list is handled pretty well by internet stores and eBay these days but beyond the shopping, there were plenty of interesting costumed attendees to keep things interesting.

I spent almost an hour with my Looxcie headcam recording. Below is that video sped up 8X. Mostly its just a sea of people walking here and there down tight hallways, but if you can handle the fast pace of it, you'll get a feel for the space and crowd.

Pebble

I certainly thought that the Samsung Galaxy S4 was going to be pretty much my only tech acquisition this week. However when the mail game today, Jennifer made sure to grab it and then delivered unto me a surprise box. It was a very distinctive shape, and I recognized it instantly.

She had ordered me a Pebble watch.

Since Jenn has already had one for awhile, she walked me through pairing the Pebble with my new S4, and setting up all the notification options etc. It was a pretty simple set-up, and it was up and running in a couple minutes. It looks like I'll being wearing a watch again for the first time in 5 or 6 years (if not longer).

The Pebble's already been pretty cool, as I've gotten a few emails and texts on it so far just in the last half hour or so. Whereas earlier in my Samsung post below I mentioned that the S4 wasn't so much a "life altering" tech purchase as it is really more of a step up or two in tech over something I already had (the Evo 4G). The Pebble is life altering. I mean that in the most appropriate way and scale. A watch doesn't change your life in the way your first car, a home or even perhaps your first computer, cellphone, smartphone --depending on your age, did. But the Pebble does change your relationship to realtime alerts and information differently to how you experience them with a smartphone.

Jennifer has had her Pebble for almost 2 months now. I've watched first hand as it's changed her relationship to information. The watch vibrates gently and a new SMS, email or @tweet comes in. She glances down and groks the message instantly. When we're together over the last couple months, Jenn has pretty much always been aware of notifications faster than I have been. Which is something, since I see myself as pretty jacked in most of the time.

In anycase, it's a fun surprise, one I wasn't planning on getting anytime soon, and I look forward to playing with the Pebble over the coming months.

Samsung S4

Just got the Samsung S4 yesterday. The Verge has a review.

Coming off my previous HTC Evo 4G running Gingerbread, the S4 is a giant leap forward.

So far I'm really digging the 441ppi screen that at times seems "fake" in that it's just too clear and pixels are largely non-existent. It's a weird thing to get used to. It's even weirder using a screen this high-res and then switching back to a standard low dpi screen. Screens I was perfectly happy with previously, now seem fuzzy in comparison.

Google Play made short work of reinstalling all my apps. The Evo was terribly short of memory, so the roominess of the extra storage on the S4 has been a delight so far.

The other feature I'm most looking forward to is, hopefully, all day battery life. The Evo was notoriously bad on battery life. With the Evo you could leave the phone off all day and still need to charge it by 2 or 3 pm. While I don't have firsthand experience with the S4's battery life yet, anything is going to be an improvement.

Overall so far, the S4 is snappy, with little to no lag. Click, swipe, drag and things happen with speed. I don't know if there will particularly be any life altering features yet with it as with past phones. Mostly I'm just looking forward to smoother hardware and software experience with greater improvement to the battery life.

I got a haircut yesterday. Every now and then I forget to take a photo, but most of the time I do take one right in the car afterwards. Maybe someday I'll do some kind of video thing with them or something.

Shrubbery

Jenn and I planted 9 bushes along the front of the house today. They're mostly very tiny at the moment. You can't even really see the two red burburries in these pics.

Hopefully they grow well this year.

Free Museums and Disaster Tourism

This internet meme of Grand Rapids' Mayor Heartwell that's been going around the local net pretty much sums up Grand Rapids for Sunday April, 21 2013.

The four major art muesums in downtown Grand Rapids were free today. Jenn and I went to the GRAM and to the Gerald Ford Museums.

We got downtown early before most of the town likely was out of Church etc. So we breezed in and out of the museums pretty easily. Toward mid day there were lines , but not for the first few hours when we were downtown.

There were probably just as many people downtown looking at the overflowing Grand River as there were looking at the museums though.

At the Grand Rapids Art Museum.

At the GRAM, we took a look at this display by Josh Best, who happens to be the newest Art Director to join our team where I work.

Gerald Ford Statue.

Yes. Frequently.

Also while we were downtown, we took a tour of the river banks, the water is insanely high. You can't walk along it all, and many of the buildings along the river had to be evacuated and have their power shut down.

There should be land from those street lamps to the shore.

The lower walkway next to the Public Museum is completely under water. Not a little water, alot of water.

More stairs to nowhere and submerged street lights.

They expect the river to crest tonight. Let's hope it does.

Action Figures

Some misc pick-ups this week. Grifter, Red Lantern Guy Gardner and Chetarra.

3D Headset and Treadmill Combo Make Video Games Feel Real
source: Mashable!

Very cool. 360 degree treadmill, let's you walk in any direction.

Border Patrol: DC Universe Johnny and Jesse Quick, Madame Rouge, and Red Lantern Bleez
source: ActionFigurePics.com

Cool customs. Two figures that haven't been made yet.

Mockumentary from 2068 recalls the devastation caused by the Internet
source: io9

Facebook thinks you might like up to three video ads in your News Feed each day
source: The Verge - All Posts

Probably not.

Watch a Face Morph Eerily With Nothing But Lighting Shifts
source: Gizmodo

The Evolution of Music
source: Neatorama

Defiance is not as good as SyFy hoped it would yet
source: io9

Full run down of the pilot. Pretty good overview. The pilot wasn't great, but wasn't awful either. There's nothing here you haven't seen before, but it's set-up, where it goes from here is what will make the difference. At worst this will be a a more Farscape looking take on Terra Nova though, at it's best maybe it will be-- well I'm not sure... Babylon 5 mixed with Firefly maybe?

New �Man of Steel Teaser AND Trailer
source: Action Figure Insider - Best Toy News on the Web!

Best thing I saw was a youtube comment:

Superman has two fathers, both who were Robin Hood.

Mezco Releases Mega Scale Krampus Plush: Naughty Children On High Alert
source: Action Figure Insider - Best Toy News on the Web!

In stores in October.

Niice: An Easy To Use Search Engine For Designers
source: MakeUseOf.com

Niice

How To Show Off Your Records With Style
source: Unplggd

Greatest Catwoman fan-art ever?
source: io9

Cute.

Regularly: List Chores & Get Reminders For Them On Your Android Device
source: MakeUseOf.com

Twitter RSS
source: One Thing Well

Interesting.

Stilt-Man By The Wiley-Barja Project
source: Marvelous News - Daily News, Reviews, Action Figures and more

Very cool custom.

Where We Work: 10 Real World Home Offices Via Instagram
source: Unplggd

Interesting how laptops (and a smattering of all-in-ones) are taking over what's depicted in "home offices".

Star Trek Into Dumbness
source: Neatorama

Patton Oswalt is the perfect Penguin in Badman
source: Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources - Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

Ha!

Spectacle

A local and a regional story became a live reality tv action adventure wrapped in the legitimacy of news. Real-time reporting, already unstably connected to a real-time social network feedback loop, took another leap into the abyss. Like Ax-Men on the History Channel or Honey Boo Boo on The Learning Channel. 24 News turned into "Running Man".

It is their fault and it is our fault because they are giving us what we want.

The social desire of the moment was "take him alive and prosecute him under the law". But no thought was given to letting two 19 yearolds shut down a great metropolitan city and spend millions creating a live action televised drama of glorifying terror.

Wanna be a star? All it takes is a well placed backpack. No thanks, I'm not interested. Turn off the twitters, shut down the feeds. If you don't play by the basic rules of humanity, you don't deserve the attention of a nation.

I'll be interested to see after Google Reader shuts down in July, just how low my blog hits can go.

Doctors
source: dean trippe

21!

Portable high-res 3D scanner costs less than a tablet
source: DVICE

Create Responsive Side Menu with Sidr jQuery Plugin
source: WebAppers

The Newest Photo Meme: Vadering
source: Neatorama

I don't know, I'm not sure that even Darth Vader is evil enough to eat at Chick-Fil-A.

Google Glass and Surveillance Culture
source: Slashdot

I want one of these, but there are implications to turning 20 to 30 or more percent of the population into walking voice and audio recording nodes.

Mortal Instruments is like the sexy Harry Potter who kills with swords and hangs out at horrible clubs
source: io9

Fantastical world hidden within ours that most people can't see. Young girl who finds out her mother was part of the secret world and now she will take her inherited place in this new world and use her heretofore unknown magical powers to save us all. And everyone wears cool black leather outfits with cool tribal tattoos.

27 Fantastic Photos of Cosplay At WonderCon 2013
source: Neatorama

Cute.

The Doctor Who Animated Series That Never Was
source: Bleeding Cool

Nice art in the post.

This is what happens when you give a baby a lightsaber
source: io9

Well done.

Calvin and Hobbes parody trailer takes aim at Hollywood
source: Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources - Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

Interesting.

Khaleesi Has a Theme Song
source: io9

Cute.

KFC to Go Boneless
source: Neatorama

Apparently, this happens today.

Gartner May Be Too Scared To Say It, But the PC Is Dead
source: ReadWriteWeb

No. Not really. It just takes many many forms now.

Why Do We Keep Making Ebooks Like Paper Books?
source: Gizmodo

Because paper books are an amazing technology.

Wrist-straps for pocket-watches
source: Boing Boing

Neat idea.

Watch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme reenacted with ordinary turtles
source: io9

How to Make a Wooden Playset
source: Instructables: exploring - featured

Life on Other Planets
source: Neatorama

Cool illustrations.

DC Collectibles Solicitations For Items In Store Sept/Oct 2013
source: Action Figure Insider - Best Toy News on the Web!

DC Direct/Collectables of late has been more mainstream than DC Classics.

Facebook Home Review: Surrender Yourself Unto Zuck
source: Gizmodo

This looks good. But I don't want to live this deep in a Facebook world. The App is enough.

Windows 8 Killing PC Sales
source: Slashdot

If something is killing PC sales, it's probably that people already have them, and for most people PCs last alot longer than they used to, plus we have so many different computing devices now that can all do such similar things, that no single one of them is as important as it used to be.

All Movie Trailers Are the Same Freaking Thing
source: Gizmodo

Trailer And Images: Live Action Gatchaman Or Battle Of The Planets, Where I Come From
source: Bleeding Cool

Use These Fabric Patterns to Sew Your Own Apple iPillow Nancy Kers
source: Unplggd

The floppy disc one is cool.

GE gets lost in 'The Matrix' with new ad for connected hospitals starring Agent Smith
source: The Verge - All Posts

Iron Man meets the doomed Starship Enterprise in the best poster mashup of the day
source: io9

Ryan Kelly offers a glimpse of his ‘Star Wars arc
source: Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources - Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

Cool.

New photos and details from Man of Steel reveal two massive changes for Superman
source: io9

Why does a Kryptonian on earth need metal body armor?

Regret
source: Neatorama

Funny.

Grummel and Dorn Episode 1
source: Giancarlo Volpe

Cute.

MAKE MY MORT! DC Comics Ultra the Multi-Alien!
source: thefwoosh.com

Cool custom.

Stilt-Man By The Wiley-Barja Project
source: Marvelous News - Daily News, Reviews, Action Figures and more

Neat.

Pudding Camera

I downloaded a camera app on Android called: Pudding Camera. You can set it to shoot 3:2 aspect ratio photos by default.

Win!

Pudding Camera on Google Play

Forecast

Pretty meh forecast ahead. Michigan is really balancing out that early summer start we had last year with some serious summer start lag this year.

Today's temperature forecast of 59deg, above, looks ok except the fact it's not supposed to reach that high until maybe 7pm or so today and most of the afternoon they predict clouds and low to mid 40s.

As of a half hour ago, we had snow flurries. Sigh.

Bored

I'm kindof bored today.

In actuality, being bored really should be impossible. I have access to more movies, television, books and comics than I could ever possibly watch. I have creation tools on the computer -- art, design, code, and real tools in the garage --table saw, drill press, etc, with which I could be making any number of useful or interesting things. I have home chores I could be doing like working on organizing the basement or at the very least cleaning the house or doing a few loads of laundry.

I could even get a head start on some of next week's work projects or something.

But instead I'm choosing or allowing myself to be bored and do none of these things.

We did go grocery shopping earlier in the morning today. So add cook a good dinner or bake some cookies or brownies to the list of things I could be doing right now. Because I have the ingredients.

I could be doing all of these things. Yet I'm doing none of them.

It snowed this morning. It's cold and damp outside. Currently 38deg in mid April. The weather outside matches the current meh inside.

Maybe tomorrow will be less like today.

Reorg.

About a year ago they started talking about a reorg of my larger department area. That talk coincided with a lot of leadership changes that began happening at that time.

The reorg of the area I'm in finally happened today. Some good things, some bad things, some same things, some weird things. But it's out there. It's done-- for the moment and immediate future, more or less, I think.

I think over the last couple years, I've slowly if not fully adjusted to the idea that in a company the size of the one I work for, this two year roller coaster I've been on, might be more the norm now than the exception.

O brave new world.

Nice Weekend

Back on that unusually warm day in January I built some shelves for the office closet, to put my action figures on. This weekend it was finally warm enough to paint them.

I put some figures on the shelves using the stands I had in a small barrister bookcase that I had in the apartment. These new shelves are taller though, so I'll probably make all new stands for the figures later this year.

Sometime over the next month or so, I plan to make little sliding acrylic door panels on each shelf to seal them up and keep dust off the figures.

A smaller quicky project this weekend is this little thermostat stand. I took 3 pieces of wood and screwed them together to support a cheap thermostat I picked up. There wasn't really a good place that I wanted to mount one of these on the deck that I could see from the kitchen. This little wood stand should be heavy enough not to blow over in the wind, and it's easy enough to move off the patio table when we eat there too.

Speaking of the deck. While it wasn't really warm enough to eat outside, it was warm enough to grill. Jennifer made up some tasty steaks for the weekend.

I'm looking forward to the continuing to warm up weather.

We sent in our taxes this weekend too. So hooray for checking that off the todo list.

On TV, there was another new Doctor Who episode on Saturday. They almost tried to do too much in one episode this outing, but it was still a fun watch.

We've saved Orphan Black, the new sci-ish fi-ish show on after Who, to watch later tonight.

All in all, a nice weekend, which is a good thing, as next week will likely be another crazy one at work.

Five Hundred And Twenty-Five Free Digital Comics From ComiXology
source: Bleeding Cool

QuiteRSS A Clean & Effective Standalone RSS Reader
source: MakeUseOf.com

Ask Your Doctor about Tacos
source: Neatorama

OUYA available at retail on June 4 for $99
source: Engadget

Colorful & Cozy: Striking Series of Lofted Kids Bedroom Sets
source: WebUrbanist

I like this sortof vertical use of space.

Obsessed with the Now: Douglas Rushkoff and the threat of 'Present Shock'
source: The Verge - All Posts

Skip the text and scroll to the bottom of the article and play the full audio of their hour long conversation. Interesting.

The First Ever Honest Cable Company Ad
source: Mashable!

Funny.

Artwork From The Dark Horse Comic Adaptation Of George Lucas "The Star Wars"�
source: Bleeding Cool

Interesting.

Marvel Super Heroes: What The?! The Age Of ULTRON
source: Action Figure Insider - Best Toy News on the Web!

Upgrading to Ultron OS 5.1.