Below are the most recent 14 friends' journal entries.

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
the_s_guy	4:08p	*grumble* Another contact regarding the build-a-thing project. Sure, take my idea and strip the useful bits off it. Whatever. Just see if you can get the damn component built, first, and THEN I'll start pushing to have the 'accessories' - ie, the parts which actually make it a sellable product - produced as well. Bloody hell, it's like trying to sell the concept of peanut-butter sandwiches and being told "rather than concentrating on inventing bread or peanut butter, we're going to argue about the shape of the peanut butter container". Sure, it's something that will be peripherally involved with the process of sandwich-making, but it's kind of missing the point of the exercise. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
the_s_guy	6:52p	Minor toy design notes Screwed my courage to the sticking place and made a first stab at the robot face design for the toy. Very much NOT my forte - while I can create all kinds of complicated mechanical designs, they're largely from the "form follows function" school, so I always have a mental drive pushing me towards certain shapes and refinements. With a robot head and face, there's just far too much leeway and I'm not at all familiar with face designing conventions - how to draw/design something which matches a particular personality. Not to mention that robot toy helmets these days tend to sport a LOT of detail, and my approach only gets me as far as "OK, it has to be smaller than a cuboid of such and such dimensions in order to work." There's an ocean of possibilities in that volume, and I'm here without navigator or map. Eventually, I cheated a bit and surfed the net for portrait shots of people who had roughly the "look" I was after, then used a graphics program to roboticise their faces and play around with different shapes and sizes for the various features. Luckily, I already know what most of the side and back of the head is going to look like because it has actual functions on the toy and I could extrapolate from there. But it took ages to tweak the eye shapes and brow ridge and cheek lines and so forth in order to convey the appropriate mien. So now I have a rough image of sort-of-kind-of what I want. Next step - turning it into a 3D model. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 4th, 2010
the_s_guy	10:16a	So what will the next big thing be? My guess - industrial-grade medical data crunching. I can easily see smartphones having little biomonitors added so people can track/check their health and fitness. Rivers of near-real-time continuous multisourced health data, eventually meeting up with stupendous numbercrunching power and analytical algorithms, resulting in thousands and thousands of micro-correlations relating to human biology, thereby crowbarring open millions of new research directions. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
the_s_guy	9:52p	Just a thought. Back in 2000, we looked back over the previous century and said "This century changed the world so much more than any other." I wonder if there had ever been a turn-of-the-century retrospective which didn't come to that conclusion. And it makes me wonder what we'll have to do in this century to top the last one. We'll have to do better than: - powered, manned flight, the jet engine, and hovercraft - space travel (OK, cislunar travel) - radio, TV, and movies - aircon, cellphones, microwaves, credit cards, solar cells, and ATMs - solid state electronics - plastics and synthetics - the bra and the zipper - radar and sonar - robots, nuclear technology, lasers, and superconductors - electronic computers and magnetic storage - penicillin, oral contraceptives, pacemakers, artificial hearts, gene splicing, AND - the internet That last one may be the most important, as it now means that a large chunk of the world's scientists, engineers, and back-yard tinkerers are pretty much directly linked to each other and to huge databases, massive data-crunching power, and global sensor nets. We've just been accelerated to 88 miles an hour. We are going to see some serious shit. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
particle_man	1:01p	Wonderful, simply wonderful I get to start 2010 feeling like absolute and complete shit. I've picked up some virus somewhere and have spent the last two days having cramps that are making me consider getting higher than a kite (legally of course) for the next three days and staying in bed. Currently watching 12 Monkeys. My favorite time travel film second to T2. I think 12 Monkeys is actually a better written and in some cases acted film but I've seen T2 over 250 times and 12 Monkeys about 25 times. Kinda makes it clear as to which one I prefer. (Comment on this)
the_s_guy	7:53a	K'nex There's boring constructions. And then there's this. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
the_s_guy	3:32p	Oh, and one for the new year. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
the_s_guy	3:11p	Nutshell movie reviews: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Princess and the Frog Cloudy, With a Chance of Meatballs - gloriously silly, slapstick all around, and notable for the heroine's "reverse makeover" from perky glamour girl to serious scientist. Bonus fun scene for anyone who's had to walk a non-technological parent through a computer process over the phone. Plus, of course, it has Bruce Campbell as the mayor. Disney's The Princess and the Frog - oh so very, very Disney. Has some nice twists on the original tale, swathed in a rather gentle/saccharine look at the stereotypes of New Orleans. I have to wonder what the talking dog bit was all about, as it was never resolved (unless after the credits - I didn't stick around). If you're a fan of Disney cel-animated movies and have been missing them in this era of 3D CGI, this one's for you. The backgrounds often use CGI, but it's toned way down - barely noticeable except that the detail is higher than expected and the perspective remains perfect as the camera shifts. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
the_s_guy	9:08a	Nutshell movie reviews: Fantastic Mr Fox and Sherlock Holmes Fantastic Mr Fox is great kiddie fare. It's the sort of thing children love to watch over and over and over on DVD. Despite certain reviews, however, there is pretty much nothing in it for adults. Sherlock Holmes was notable for two things. Firstly, counter to all the advertising material, the character of Irene Adams is actually played not as obligatory love-interest, but as an ass-kicking, bomb-defusing, highly intelligent and capable person whose relationship with Holmes falls into "it's complicated" territory. They play some lovely cat-and-mouse games with each other. Secondly, the dialogue must have been deliberately fine-tuned for slashiness and the amount of seminaked Downey Jr that can be crammed into the plot. Holmes is presented almost as a high-functioning autistic, or at least prone to easily falling into hyperfocus and forgetting things like hygiene and social convention. Watson is the very capable ex-military doctor here; the two are presented as equal experts in their own areas rather than the more lopsided relationship lighter interpretations tend to take. Reviews aside, there's an interesting moment where Holmes has arrived early at a restaurant for dinner with Watson and Watson's fiancee, and the details and noise of the scene build up and up until he's snapped out of it by Watson's arrival. Classic hyperfocus/introversion moment. He moves through the world, observing every aspect of it, but not living in it himself. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 1st, 2010
the_s_guy	7:10p	Small-minded fools! *chews scenery* Ugh. Another missive from part of the team working on making one of my concepts reality. This particular part of the team is... how should I put it? Apt to overfocus on specific components, even at the pre-conceptual stage. I, on the other hand, am very good (if I do say so myself) of being able to see the entire picture, particularly when it comes to what's sellable. I'm not really a fan of having my contributions dismissed as "future speculation" or "not focusing on the core concept" when I'm saying the equivalent of "Your proposed car design will need external panelling and wheels if you want to be able to sell it to Joe Blow." Particularly when it's MY. FUCKING. CONCEPT. in the first place, thank you oh so very much. Pls to stop crippling my ideas by removing low-cost parts/capacity and therefore making them unsellable to 98% of potential customers. I swear, it's like someone looked at the idea for Lego bricks and said "Great! But we'll start with just one stud on the top of each piece; more than one is a blue-sky future enhancement." Complete inability to grasp the actual point of the concept. (Comment on this)
the_s_guy	6:11p	2009 roundup December: Moved house, LAN hassles, 1 year of Sketchup modelling November: Too fast for my own good October: Tentacle shower! September: Jury duty, cheap chairs, and sneaky homework answers August: Lots of nothing much July: Wrote _The Patterner_ June: Installed a 30-inch monitor, upgraded the parents' PC, and reaffirmed that I can get really annoyed with sloppy thinking May: Started writing internet articles, worked out how to fix national education systems, great-aunt E died April: Brother got his doctorate and married on the same day March: First metaconcert February: LJ religious drama - Oh, Teh Drama!, modelled a triplechanger in Sketchup January: GenghisCon, antitelemarketing (Comment on this)
particle_man	3:08a	Looking Back It's already 2 hours into 2010 here but I wanted to take a look back at 2009 for a moment. As I look at 2009 I can't see a lot that I've accomplished that shows to others but I've had a whirlwind year on a personal level. The most significant thing to happen in 2009 was that I came out of a moderate depression that I'd been in for about the last three years. I'd been getting more and more down on myself for events that were completely out of my control and eventually it led to me being completely listless and mostly hating everything in life besides my wonderful wife. She's been a complete saint and extremely helpful as I work to crawl my way out of this pit I've been in. Most of the other important things in 2009 have happened in the last few months. I've joined a program to get me back to work. I've lost about 25 pounds in the last couple months. I'm getting more exercise and trying to get out of the house at least twice a week. The most interesting thing about the whole thing is that I'm once again making real plans for the future and looking forward to things. I'm not yet the happy, go lucky person I used to be but I'm hoping to get back there. Saw a LOT of good movies this year. The ones that really stand out in my mind though are: 1. Avatar 2. Star Trek 3. Watchmen 4. Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince 5. Taken 6. Inglorious Basterds 7. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 8. Fanboys 9. A Christmas Carol 10. Angels & Demons The worst of the bunch would include: 1. Twilight: New Moon 2. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 3. Wolverine 4. G.I. Joe 5. Year One Overall 2009 was a good year and 2010 is looking to be even better as I work towards going back to work full time and continue to lose weight and get healthier. May the next year be good for all of you as well. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
the_s_guy	3:52a	Let's table that. (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
andrew52	7:54p	Memories had a rather long christmas post, but decided it was irrelevant. hope you all have a great day. well more than just a day. a great life, but a really great day in a great life if you understand the logic. (4 Comments |Comment on this)