Adventures in Software

instant furniture ... rental?

2005-05-13T12:05:00.000-07:00

instant furniture ... rental?
Originally uploaded by mysticbob.

i saw this while biking home. i had to grab a picture. looks like an instant furniture purchase to me. hehe.

2005-05-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

And two years later, he posts again! I've been running my own consulting and custom software business for the last two years, and have been really enjoying many aspects of it. Getting to work on exciting projects, work with good people, different industries, and really see and understand a spectrum of how various graphics technologies are being used by customers outside of my former client base at SGI. The problems in graphics are still interesting, but in many cases simply boil down to plumbing - how do you create code that works on a variety of customer platforms, not break, degrade gracefully, yet let your bleeding-edge customers use all that fancy hardware they paid for. Challenging but fun!

And so now, two years later, XBox is being reintroduced, new, better, faster, and the component manufacturers change again. It's really interesting to see Microsoft of all people going with 3 dual-core PowerPC as the compute core of this box. It reminds me both how serious they are about creating the best platform they can, and about how they're serious in a big way, about dominating this home media-center thing. It's a compelling vision - a box that seamlessly integrates all forms of media. But I think there are better options out there, and I suspect Apple's got a video store on the way, and with the mac mini, also a compelling box to toss next to your tv. It should be interesting to see how this all pans out. But more on game boxes some other time, and on media centers. I really must go work on one of those dozen applications I'm doing in my spare time...

Keeping Me Distracted

2005-05-13T06:58:00.000-07:00

IMG_4818.JPG
Originally uploaded by mysticbob.

Oh, just as a way of letting me off the hook for not writing as much as I should, we're also destroying, the house at the same time that I'm trying to create and roll-out a few projects. As you can see, home remodeling, especially one that's 145 years old, is not without some improvisation. And that keeps me busy, distracted, and worried. But it's proceeding well and I'll keep posting pictures on my flickr account. Anyhoo. dig.

2002-12-22T14:02:00.000-08:00

I'm trying this blog thing - finally. A friend hooked me on NetNewsWire a few weeks ago, and the net hasn't been the same. My pre-RSS web-life included a daily dosage of about 12-15 different aggregator websites, trolling for goodies. I used that MO for several years, quite successfully, happily, etc. But! After discovering the joys of RSS, I couldn't possibly change! Now, I'm not so sure that the blog thing Changes Everything or that the ideas behind the web are somehow enabled through these things - in fact, publishing one of these seems kinda painful. But it's definitely Cool and New and it's opened up my eyes to a whole new set of sites, after the web had been getting stale for me, and for that, I'm digging it. All for now. Have a great Christmas*!

* - or have a great other holiday - Christmas is the one i celebrate secularly. Ciao!