Diary of a Network Geek

I love design from the 60’s.

I’m also, oddly enough, a fan of architectural models, too.
There’s something weirdly science-fictional about the conjunction of those two things, too, that I really enjoy.  The kind of retro-future that they were trying to manufacture in the 60’s is just so, well, so quaint.  It’s not that they’re actually what I think the future would look like, but there’s something appealing about them in any case.  Something about clean lines and the long, smooth, “swoopy” feel to so much of the design just makes me long for that future that never was and never can be.  It’s a shame, really, that most of that world never actually existed.
Well, the best of those designs, combined with the possibility of an actual future that, well, actually did happen can be found at this site; NASA’s Most Adorable Model Spaceships.
They really are adorable, and, yes, the very finest that conceptual artists could put together at the height of our national pride and the space race.  They’re fantastic examples of the actual design that, as it turns out, very well may have created our future.

Besides, it’s Friday and if you had something better to do, you wouldn’t be reading my post about twee models of actual spacecraft, so you might as well click that link and look at them!

Another one for the photography geeks.

Some of you may have guessed that I enjoy photography just a little bit.  You may have deduced that from all the photography related links I share on Fridays.  Or possibly because I tell you am obsessed by it virtually every chance I get.  Either way, it’s true.  I find myself staring into portraits of people in magazines trying to figure out the lighting setup based on the reflections in their eyes.  When I see a photo I like on Flickr, I usually check the EXIF data, if it’s available, to get some idea about how the photographer made it.  The EXIF data is far from the whole story, but, at least, it gives me some idea how the photographer was setting the camera to get the light and depth-of-field that they did.

Well, recently, I was reading an entry on Chase Jarvis’ blog challenging his readers to reverse engineer one of his photos.
I kind of love those sorts of things, to be honest.  But, what was cool about this one was that someone in the comments pointed to a website that automagically pulled the EXIF information from the photo!  How cool is that!?
The site is called Jeffrey’s EXIF Viewer.  And you can use it to pull EXIF information from either a photo on your hard drive or that you find on-line somewhere.  I haven’t actually tried it on Flickr for people who don’t upload the EXIF data, but I’m sure I will be in the near future.  In any case, it’s free, outside of some advertising, and it’s pretty cool.  (Also, for the hard-core tech geeks like me, I’ll note that it looks like it was programmed in Perl, which is my favorite programming language.)

So, go forth, find photos and check them against the EXIF data to see if you can guess the photographer’s settings!
And, enjoy your Friday!

I love LEGOs.

There, I said it and I’m not the least bit sorry, either.
If I had more time, and money, I’d waste as much of both as I could on LEGOs.  Seriously.  Why?  Because I’m a big kid at heart and to make really cool LEGO stuff takes a lot of bricks.  Don’t believe me?  Just look at this gallery on TechRepublic from a recent BrickCon, a big convention for LEGO enthusiasts.  No, seriously, go look.  You wouldn’t believe the things that people create with those modular bricks we played with as kids!  For real!
And, if that wasn’t enough, check out this IO9 story about a guy who made an entire space habitat from LEGOs!  No, not life-size, of course, but to scale.  Now, this was just the kind of thing I would have done as a kid, if I’d had more gray bricks.

Well, anyway, it’s Friday, so you might as well scour those links and dream of a misspent youth!
Enjoy!

I likes me some games!

I would imagine many of my readers do, too.  Also, I suspect that you all are more than a little fond of words, as am I.  So, naturally, when I stole this link, er, saw this link on another site, I knew you’d love to see it, too.  The site is called Word Games and that pretty well sums up what that site is all about.

Hey, it’s Friday and if you were reading this, you obviously weren’t working anyway, so you might as well check it out!

Seems like I’ve been talking about increasingly grim things this month.

Well, I can promise you that I don’t feel as if the world was ending, even though that does seem to occupy my “fun” posts!  So, let’s see if we can lighten things up a bit this week with the Dystopian Future Quiz that helps you choose just which unbearable Dystopian future is for you!
Oh, I know it’s silly, but, what the heck, it’s Friday and you obviously don’t have anything better to do or you wouldn’t be reading this!  So, go ahead and take the quiz.  It’ll only take a few minutes and it really is sort of fun.

So, there’s a new poll up to gauge how you all feel about a regular, weekly review of ramen noodles.

Look, I’m embracing the fact that I’m probably going to be poor for a very long time, so I’m cutting back. I’ve eaten out a lot and I think that’s probably one place I can cut back easily. But, I got to thinking about it and, well, I probably spend a lot on fast, convenient food during the week, too. I started to think about all the things I did in college when I didn’t have any money and, naturally, I thought of ramen noodles. Who hasn’t slurped down their fair share of ramen noodles? Seriously!
As a college student, in particular, I ate my fair share of ramen. Hey, I’m sure we all did back in the days when we were starting out. I mean, they were fast and easy and didn’t require more than a spoon stolen from food service and a cup of hot water. What’s more, though, is that I found them not just filling but tasty, too! So, instead of reviewing the super-high-end food that so many upwardly mobile people get all goofy about, I thought I might review the cuisine of the financially challenged everywhere: ramen!!

Okay, so I know it’s not really the most original idea. At least one guy in Japan has done it already at a site called i-ramen.net. But, that’s all in Japanese, so it doesn’t do much good to those of us in the English-speaking world. (I read about him in an article from Boing Boing, incidentally.)  I don’t know that I’ll get to review as many as 4000 different versions of ramen, like he did, either, but, well, it does seem like the craziest low-budget adventure I can contemplate this week!
So, who’s with me?  If you think this crazy idea might be fun, vote in the poll on my sidebar and leave comments.
(Oh, yeah, if you don’t get the reference to “Ryumaou”, look at the address of the site you’re on.  I’ve used that romanization of a Japanese nickname since I first got on-line in the 90’s.  And, I liked the alliteration.)

I love science-fiction.

I don’t think that’s a big secret, either.  What you all may not realize is that I have attempted to write it on more than one occasion.  Usually, I fail miserably, for any of a number of reasons, but I still love to do the research.  I figure, it may eventually get used, so it’s worth doing, right?

Well, in my searches for interesting bits of thought on many, many things science-fiction, I came across Atomic Rockets; or So You Want To Build A Rocket? Wow!  What a site!  This guy has collected all kinds of ideas and research into possible future spacecraft and weapons and, well, just about anything you can think of that relates to the “crunchy” parts of science-fiction!  I mean, he references actual physicists and chemists and engineers who are actually trying to make the future happen on this site.  But, he doesn’t lose the fun that drew most geeks like me to sci-fi.

If you’re a fan, it’s well worth a look.  And, if you’re a BIG fan, make sure to check out the rest of his site, too!

Yeah, you read that right.

Frank Lloyd Wright LEGO sets.
Okay, they’re kind of limited, but I have to admit, the idea of owning a LEGO Falling Water sort of appeals to the geeky, little kid in me.
C’mon, it’s Friday!  Loosen up a little, okay?

Oddly enough, I’m not talking about physics here.

Thanks to my obsessive attention to Moleskine marketing, I found a link to the most interesting little looping vignettes.  And, yes, to those of you who are also rabid Moleskine fans, this won’t be anything new, but, you have to admit, it is still pretty cool.

Actually, with having recently lost my main Moleskine, which I carried everywhere with me, I’ve been thinking a lot about notebooks and where and how I use them.  So, while writing this post, and thinking about the title, it did occur to me that I might set up a Volant, which is the pretty, soft-cover line of Moleskines, as a sort of fictional encyclopedia with which to imagine a whole science-fiction or fantasy world.  I may do it, and occasionally share pages.  We’ll see.
Anyway, sorry for the tangent.  Now, go look at those loops!

Oh, and happy Friday!

Hey, look, it’s a new year!

First of all, let me apologize to my faithful readers for not posting more this week.  I had intended to get a couple of movie reviews up here, since I’ve got a bit of a backlog, but that didn’t quite happen.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  First, I’ve been busy helping people with their internet connections and doing some extra stuff for people at church.  Secondly, I was getting ready for last night’s little party at my house.  Thirdly, I’ve been sick.  In fact, I probably should have called off the party last night to get some rest, but, well, that’s just not how I roll.  Yo.

In any case, my laziness not withstanding, the new year is upon us!
Which means, it’s time to start figuring out what resolution you’re going to fail miserably at for the coming year.  Oh, c’mon, you don’t really think anyone believes that those resolutions are anything but an extended exercise in wishful thinking, do you?  Well, I suppose some people make resolutions they intend to keep, and a few people even manage to actually do it, but, mostly, I think they’re just good intentions.  So, given that, why not at least have some fun coming up with one?

That was my thought a couple years ago when I coded up my very own, home-made New Year’s Resolution Generator. You can choose whether or not to start something or stop something and leave the rest up to drunken, sexy chance! (Well, that sounds better than leaving it up to my feeble programming skills and a pseudo-random number generator, doesn’t it?)  Now, I will admit, this thing might be a little weighted toward kissing strangers and other mildly inappropriate behavior, but, again, that was mostly wishful thinking on my part.

Anyway, it’s free, and fun, and a number of years ago, Comedy Central picked it as a funny link of the month, or week, or day, or something, so you know it has to be sort of fun.  I know I enjoyed making it, at least!

So, no matter how you choose to start it, with or without the crazy suggestions from the New Year’s Resolution Generator, try to start the year with a little fun, a smile, and my best wishes.
Happy New Year, everyone!