bpope’s blog

I think the Polar Clock is one of the more interesting, and clever, screensavers I’ve come across.  Each ring represents a different scale of time (seconds, minutes, hours, days of the week, day of the month, and month of the year), and the rings sweep around their circumference as time marches on.  Additionally, the rings are slowly, but constantly, shifting colors.

It’s available for both Mac and Windows, and also as a widget and iPhone app.  Find out more here.

Update: while gazing into space looking for inspiration at work, I noticed that the color of each arc is actually dependent upon its sweep, it’s not just a random transition of colors (for example, you’ll notice that as the second “hand” passes the minuted “hand” they’ll take on the same color.  the same happens as it passes each of the other “hands”).

I subscribe to Steep and Cheap’s (like a Woot! for outdoor gear) daily advertisement e-mail, The Daily Dose.  Alongside information about products on sale that day is a paragraph, a pretty much entirely random paragraph, but always entertaining.  Yesterday’s installment:

“I had mono for my first few months in college and didn’t find out until the virus had almost run its course. I was afraid that I was just really lazy. Finding out that my sloth was virus induced was nice. That one experience ruined me for life. Honestly, I keep waiting to find out that I’m at the end of some other mild disease that’s made me not stress out about not having a job or owning a car and house.”

I rarely, if ever, find out any useful product information, or buy anything because of the e-mails (I’ve got Growl notifications to take care of that), but they’re still funny.  So, I guess I’m recommending signing up for The Daily Dose, if you don’t mind one more e-mail in your inbox each day.

What can I say?  Life has been busy…the academic year has come to a close, and my summer employment is well underway.   Since last I wrote, Ive been able to get back into climbing (at PlanetGranite in Sunnyvale), the Ultimate team placed highly in Sectionals and did slightly better than seeded at Regionals, and I’m back at Apple, with the same group as last time around.  This year, once again, I’m working on more phone things, specifically…things that I am under contractual obligation to not talk about.  The hours are long but I’m having a great time since the problems are difficult and interesting.

I’m looking forward to a summer of busy weeks at work, and exciting adventures in the Sierra on the weekends, with maybe a trip to Seattle or LA sprinkled in.  I might even have time to keep the blog updated with trip reports (this weekend…Half Dome night hike) or at least fill in old galleries of trips, ultimate, and projects for my ‘portfolio.’

Last night Jack and I were doing what we do as often as possible: watching the Red Sox. This, somehow naturally, led us to wonder what exactly Trot Nixon’s facial hair would be called.  We still don’t know exactly what that would be, but did learn this interesting tidbit about facial hair:

That is taken directly from the Wikipedia page on goatees.  I’m glad I learned something interesting today.

I haven’t posted in a really long time, and there’s probably plenty of stuff worth posting (Red Rocks, Ultimate Sectionals…) but this is BIG! We’re going to the World Cup (we being me, Jack, Joe, and Campo.)

There’s another round or two of ticket-buying that we might be able to get some more games with, but I’m psyched either way. South Africa, here we come!

Skype is really a pretty amazing technology.  Since my two brothers and I are now spread out over three continents, it’s great to be able to talk to them face to face every once in a while.  (My grandmothers definitely appreciate greetings from afar, too.) More than that, though, Skype’s technology is growing by leaps and bounds. It allows people around the world to connect and relate as never before.   Let me tell a story in pictures…

I was talking to Allen last week, catching up on the most recent news from the other Cambridge.  As usual, actual updates turned into bickering and mocking each other.  He started telling me stuff like “look…my glasses are awesome, and I look a bit like an alien when I hold them like this.”  (Notice: Allen and alien are very close in spelling.  Coincidence?  I think not.)

That was funny and all, but then he was all like “So, I’ve decided the Queen is awesome.  See?”

So, he held up the Queen to show me how awesome she is.  As her head aligned to where his should have been, I realized I needed to take action.  And this is where Skype’s new technology is really, really cool.  I was actually able to beat Allen senseless from thousands of miles away.

Eventually Allen decided to run away.  Probably he went to be comforted by the Queen for a while.  I was victorious!  America 2, England 0 (We went up 1-0 after the Revolution.  I think this is up there.)

Didn’t like that story?  It gets better…I got $20. (Yeah, Skype.)

From the “In Short” section on the front of today’s issue of The Tech:

“Institute Professor John M. Deutch ‘61 was appointed to a federal intelligence panel on spy satellites, though the appointment was questioned by members of Congress.  Deutch had served as Director of Central Intelligence from 1995-1996, and afterwards was found to have wrongly stored classified information on his unclassified computer systems, a serious security breach for which he ultimately received a presidential pardon.”

Is it me, or is it me, or is there a lot of kind of awesome stuff in that short paragraph? (I didn’t know that I had taken a class from the former Director of Central Intelligence!)  To me, that was probably the most interesting article in today’s entire paper.

Since I’ve been helping teach Toy Product Design, I’ve been on the lookout for toys.  Last weekend, when I was at my grandmother’s house collecting my father’s things from the attic, I spied this awesome Electrical Engineering kit…

I’m not sure that they make kits like this (whether it’s engineering, chemistry, or any other ‘technical’ field) anymore, but I think it’s awesome that it’s advertised as “Safe! Uses harmless low-voltage battery power”  Maybe there was a “For experienced users only” edition running 120 VAC?

It’s not often that I get to go on field trips anymore.  All through college I’ve been jealous of my brothers’ Earth Science field trips to places like Hawaii.  Well, it’s no Hawaii, but for the Toy Product Design class that I’m helping to teach, we did get to go to the second largest toy company in the world:

During our tour, the class got to learn all about their design, engineering and marketing processes directly from the toy designers themselves.  We got to see the insides of nerf blasters (they can’t call them guns) that shoots 3.5 darts per second, and the prototypes of Butterscotch the animatronic pony.  I think the coolest thing I learned was where they get some of their ideas for manufacturing.  For example, the cutting edge of plastics and foam forming is in the shoe industry.  Apparently, Hasbro and other toy manufacturers often get their inspiration from shoe designs.  I don’t know that I would’ve guessed at that connection, but in retrospect it makes lots of sense.

The description wouldn’t be complete without mentioning “Memory Lane,” a showcase of the Hasbro toys from past and present, complete with original Lincoln Logs sets and a sterling silver My Little Pony.  But, the coolest part, I thought, was the life size Monopoly car, filled with Monopoloy money…can I get one of those?

Get excited, it’s almost time for the MIT Climbing Competition! (Okay, it’s not almost time, but the dates were just announced, so I thought I’d spread the word a bit.)  It doesn’t matter whether you’ve climbed a little, a lot, or not at all. Good food, good music, good times, and great prizes will all be provided. So, April 11th and 12th, clear your calendars and I’ll see you there!