Legatissimo.info - Computers

Just bought a new server from LayeredTech.com

kyle — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 18:18:04 -0500

I'm pretty excited. Gullible.info is getting the kind of sustained traffic to warrant the move from shared hosting, to dedicated hosting. So we ponied up and now as soon as it gets configured we'll have the new box up and running. Hopefully by the end of the month, we'll have the site fully migrated, and then we'll be able to add on some pretty rockin features. Stay tuned.

Multi-touch screen display is incredible

kyle — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 12:49:27 -0500

If I had a tag for "awesome" I would use it right now. Alas, I don't -- you'll just have to buck up and deal with that. Some fine folks at MIT have put together something that looks like it's straight out of the future. It's a touch screen display that takes multiple inputs and uses them to navigate around a wonderfully designed interface. See the demo real here (mirror).

Found this via Eyes on Creativity.

Mr. Portland is back from the shop

kyle — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:47:39 -0500

After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, my computer has returned from it's little stint out in California. A big thank you to the fine folks at MacService for doing a wonderful job replacing both hinges. It was a little bit pricey, but they were prompt and accessible, and I opted for the overnight shipping, too -- so that added a bit to the cost.

The Shark Spaceship

kyle — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 21:37:44 -0500

I just launched a site for my friend's band. It's a pretty awesome group, so check them out.

They're called the Shark Spaceship, which meant I got to use a really awesome mix of space and sea imagery. The nav icons were my favorite, although I readily acknowledge that they have no bearing with the text they are associated with. But they are pretty fun.

I found some splendid ads

kyle — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 00:09:36 -0500

As you may or may not know, I collect credit card ads. I have come across two wonderful ones: a ghost and a lion. Just thought you'd like to see them. To round things out, I've also put up a classic from my collection, the clown.

Thesis Update: 56/56

kyle — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 02:04:03 -0500

Heck yeah. I've already got my bibliography and cover page in there, too. Of course I did that when I didn't feel like writing. All said and done, each copy of this is going to set me back 61 pieces of paper. I did drop two pages from my outline. Actually, I dropped two from the introduction and two from the conclusion, but I just had so much to say about "technologies to watch" that I made up for my poor bookending of the subject matter.

Anyway, it's 2 AM and I've got a huge day tomorrow. I've decided to go to Psych--I think that it would be in poor form to skip the last day of class. The obvious downside of that decision is that I have to physically get out of bed to go to class. Hopefully I'll manage.

Then I'm going to whip up a little presentation before Computers in the Fine Arts about my project. I think I know how it's going to start:

Since the dawn of buckets, human kind have been miffed by one unending question, "What can be done with this bucket?" And while the languages have changed and the dialects shifted, the sentiment has not. However, through the collaborative, decentralized nature of the Internet, and the revolutionary values of "make culture" and the hyper-neo-progressive-retroactive-blogosphere-podcasting-revolution, we--the collective we: you, me, everyone throughout history, and everyone yet to be born--may finally have a single repository in which we may aggregate our wisdom.
No longer do traditional bucket uses die with the elder of a family. No longer do more exotic uses practiced by Amazonian tribes fall from the global consciousness when their native village is politely relocated. No longer do the buket-related innovations in less-connected Tibet redouble already produced bucket research in Central America. With a click of this mouse, I bequeath to the world, not a fountain of knowledge, rather, a ground-spring of truth, in its most pure, unaltered form. Hallelujah! Glory be. Today, we witness the end of the dark ages. Come with me, fellow students in FA 193 section 12, Computers in the Fine Arts. Under the tutelage of Professor Jeffery Stephanic, let us bask in the beautiful light of the future.

Then from there, I think I'll show them all the links and stuff that I put on the site.

Band's over for the semester, so I don't have that to worry about. But I have roped Maura into copy editing my paper. I'm paying her by the hour to do it, though. So it is very much in my economic interest to minimize mistakes before she has the ability to capitalize on my bad grammar. (This could be interpreted as a play on the fact that "capitalize" also refers to moving to an alternate letter form. However, this coincidence is purely accidental.)

With any luck, that should be done before midnight. And then? Then, I'm going to snuggle into bed and have anxiety nightmares about my thesis somehow getting destroyed.

Signing off in LJ style:

Music Bust a Bucket (Dan Reed Network)

Mood Tired and a little proud

Thesis status report.

kyle — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 21:52:10 -0500

I've told a lot of people to stop talking to me. If I have done this to you, I am sorry. But it is paying off. I just have to write the introduction and conclusion on my thesis. Then I'm ready for the process of revision, which is its own special kind of hell.

Comments are welcome. Moreover, they are probably the only reliable way to get ahold of me for the next 48 hours as I intend to cut off most other forms of contact.

Thesis Update 50/58 (Note: You might have noticed that the denominator is going up. This happens when I write more than my target page count for each section. Generally, I'd say it's a good thing when that happens.)

Power Law distributions at work

kyle — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 12:11:04 -0500

I'm in the throes of writing my senior thesis. It's all about how political campaigns can utilize the Internet and other emergent technology for better integrating volunteers into the campaign process.

One of the points I'm discussing is that long tail communication is now a very real possibility for campaign communication. Moreover, by warming up to decentralizing a bit more, campaigns can double the size of the audience they reach. Anyway, that's probably boring you.

While writing this paper, I've been listening to a lot of music. And thanks to a nifty little program called iScrobbler and Last.fm, I've got a handy little chart of the music I've been listening to over the course of my writing.

Fancy that, fancy cat! It's a nice little power law graph. Just another thing to distract me while I should be writing. Anyway, back to work. All of you!

Thesis Update: 36/53