Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Creepy.

I was getting my email when I saw this ad on the side:


The message text is copied here:



Sponsored Links

Stop Thought Crimes

Thought criminals like Adrian Lamo are under our thumb. Think safe!
www.dhs.gov





How weird is this?

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Convergence, or I Google, therfore I am.

So now that ASU has switched its email system to Google, YouTube is owned by Google AND Blogger is Google-based, most of my internet activities are in some way connected to Google. Makes me wish I got in on the IPO, but I digress. Anyway, on the topic of Google I uploaded some of my videos to Google Video. Check it out:

Life of Elephant, a movie I made with the amazing Sammy and Kate. Frequent reformatting has crippled the video, which, since it was made with an analog videocamera, wasn't that good to begin with.





My trebuchet in actionl. This was filmed by my brother, who buit this treb with me. It fired grapefruit about 50 yards. Not bad for a total cost of $0 for the scrap lumber and hardly any math.





3-Act Nonsense, which I was able to clean up in post-production but, since it was reformatted a dozen times comes out looking like camera poo. At least the music is catchy. Can you spot the cameo of my dog? It goes by fast.

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Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Hmmm.

I haven't been here in a while. Lots of catching up to do.

First, I have the next in the list of ASU hot spots:

ASU Hotspot 2:
ASU Art Museum: Ceramics Research Center

This unassuming building, located on Mill Avenue immediately north of the ASU Art Museum, is home to the Ceramics collection. Though small, it provides up to an hour of entertainment. The permanent collection has a fantastic number of teapots, and while that sounds boring, many of them are built in all manner of unusual shapes. Other highlights include my personal favorite, the aptly-named "Food Descending a Staircase." Kind of has an art-mocks-art attitude. Lots o' fun.

BONUS!

ASU Hotspot 3:
The Life Sciences Tower

The tallest building on campus sports a view all the way to South Mountain and the best sunset on campus. You ought to be a student, professor, or accompanied by either so that the Campus Police don't bother you. If it's after 5 but before 7 on a weekday, the elevator might not take you up. You can take the elevator in the adjacent life sciences building to the fifth floor and use the sky bridge to enter. From there it's only three flights up to the top.

Now, for the rest.

This week I called building maintenance to get a new bulb for my built-in desk lamp. The guy came by with a bulb and installed it, and guess what, it didn't work. He replaced the starter (the little round thing behind the bulb) and it still didn't work. Finally he took it apart, poked around, and found a loose connection. He fixed that, and the lamp worked, but when he put it back together it stopped working. The maintenance guy, without losing his composure, took it apart a second time, and checked everything with a multitester. He replaced the switch and reassambled the lamp, and it worked.

I just wonder, though. After the cost of his time and the replacement parts, would it have been cheaper to replace the whole fixture?