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A Full Nights Sleep

We've had four full nights in a row of Nollie sleeping in her crib with no waking up. She never did sleep through the night from the time she was born but lately it seemed to be getting worse. She was waking up more often and wanting to eat for longer. As much as I wanted to avoid formula I started giving her a bottle at night before bed and it seems to be doing the trick.

Quinn has been down visiting us for the week. It's good to get a chance to visit with him. Nollie has a good time playing with him and makes the sign for puppy when she see's him, maybe it's his hair. There has been lots of Nintendo Wii playing and of course I have to get in a board game or two.

Nollie is crawling all over, following me from room to room and pulling herself up to walk along the furniture. She plays really well by herself and can sit for an hour playing with her toy or looking at her books. She is such a happy little girl, always smiling and laughing. I must say we got off pretty easy so far with her. What will the next one bring???

Here's a new video to check out

Anonymous said...

what a cutie! i LOVE video - we're so lucky to live in this techno-age. jess d.

michelle said...

ahhh a full nights sleep.... i've had a few of those in the last six years... It always feels a bit odd in the morning like I forgot to do something or missed something... well sleep with continue to be elusive with a fourth bundle of joy on the way... looks like the Buchan Christmas will be babylicious x 3 this year.... happy april marci

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Saturday, July 7, 2012

Heartbeat Rev. 2 Assembled

In the previous post I talked about the redesign of my Heartbeat board. I used Fritzing to design and fabricate the second revision of the Heartbeat board, Heartbeat Rev. 2.

Heartbeat Rev. 2 Circuit Diagram

Heartbeat Rev. 2 PCB

The custom shaped redesign was inspired by André Knörig from the Fritzing team who told me that they could fabricate PCBs in custom shapes. I decided to design the board in a custom heart shape with a hole at the top so that it even could be worn as jewelry.

It took approximately a week to fabricate and ship and I'm not going to lie to you, fabricating it with Fritzing Fab wasn't particularly cheap. It came down to 26€ after taxes and shipping. It seems a bit much for such a small board but you have to consider that you get an attractive silky white PCB board with a black finish in a custom shape. The circuit layout is double sided and the PCB is RoHS compliant and made in Germany. You also support the Fritzing project in general. Of course, if you order more units the price gets cheaper.
I could have had the board manufactured in China or somewhere else for a fraction of the price but I liked the fact that I could support the local economy. The easy fabrication service and order process was also a big plus.

The manufactured board looked really awesome as you can see here.

Heartbeat Rev.2 Bare PCB

After assembly, the finished Heartbeat Rev.2 board looks like that.

Heartbeat Rev. 2 Assembled

I thought about providing a complete kit so that anyone could recreate this project but I think it might just be easier to publish the project files and let you guys decide if you want to order and assemble a board on your own. Please respect the license though when you are using the design files. The project is licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0. In short it means that if you build upon this work you will have to attribute me in any way and share your project designs with the community.

Here you can find the Fritzing project file for the Heartbeat Rev. 2:

The board design is pretty self explanatory so I won't provide detailed assembly instructions at that point.

Here are the parts needed to assemble the project:

  • Heartbeat PCB
  • 2 x red LEDs (or any other color you like)
  • 2 x 470 Resistors
  • 2 x 100k Resistors
  • 2 x 100 F Capacitors
  • 2 x NPN Transistors (BC547)
  • Coin Cell Battery Holder
  • 3V Coin Cell Battery
  • Wires to connect Battery Holder to PCB

As I said, there is no plan to provide a complete project kit with detailed instructions right now, but that might change if there is a high demand for it.


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Hydrangeas, beautiful full-blossomed, blue and purple-hued, was the likely unintentional theme of the day during St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church’s annual “Gardens by the Sea” tour of some of Marion’s most lovely and exclusive private gardens.

Hydrangeas, beautiful full-blossomed, blue and purple-hued, was the likely unintentional theme of the day during St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church’s annual “Gardens by the Sea” tour of some of Marion’s most lovely and exclusive private gardens.

The July 12 sold out event was held on a hot, humid Friday, but among its seven stops, including a fabulous buffet lunch at the Kittansett Club on Kittansett Point for those who paid an additional fee, were several properties that were on the water, where it seemed considerably cooler.

More than 200 people bought tickets to this year’s “Gardens by the Sea” tour and they were likely not disappointed as they toured everything from a well-maintained community vegetable and herb garden at the Sippican School to opulent properties containing many professionally and personally maintained gardens.

The five residences – two in the village and three along Point Road in the Wings Cove area – each had their remarkable features, some of which included the exteriors of the homes themselves, but almost all with accented with vibrantly color hydrangea bushes. But one home in particular, that of Dr. Bradford and Barbara Shingleton, of 418 Point Road, capitalized on the theme and accented a charming outdoor dining area with the motif and colors of the abundant surrounding hydrangea bushes.

The Shingleton’s large, mostly wood constructed home, was constructed in 1912. Three families have owned it since then. The Shingleton’s purchased it in 2000 and in addition to renovations to the house, they made several changes to it landscape.

The three stone retaining walls were added to help with water run off issues and to create distinct garden areas. The first retaining wall creates a patio area at the entrance of the house. There is a small herb garden next to the kitchen door that provides fresh herbs for the household.

The second retaining wall is in front of the enclosed porch facing the water. An oval garden was created there, with two cupolas anchoring either side. The owners say this creates more formal space that is complimented by blue hydrangeas that define the oval space.

From the oval garden, stone steps lead to the grill area and transitions to a less formal space bordering the meadow with a walkway to the dock and water.

The third retaining wall was built to provide a level area in order to add a swimming pool, the owners said. The fencing around the pool combines local stone and iron to create a safe, but esthetically pleasing enclosure. The climbing hydrangea provided a softened green addition.

The home at 36 Cottage St. also featured hydrangea among its many landscape design features, which were accomplished personally by the homeowners with some professional input.

Michael and Margherita Baldwin’s Cottage Street home was a down sizing for the couple, who owned a much larger property on Water Street. When they purchased their new home on Cottage Street they had to start of scratch. Luckily they had considerable experience.

“Michael and I had 28 years practicing gardening at our old property on Water Street, starting as complete novices,” Margherita wrote in the tour guide map notes. “Michael knew something about trees and shrubs.

“From the get-go we were persuaded by a favorite and knowledgeable aunt of Michael’s to avoid the same out approach, which is so often geared to spring-time blooming, and instead always attempted to make our gardens bloom from spring through October.”

When they moved in several years ago, their Cottage Street property had little to go on as far as gardens. There was one holly tree behind the pool shed that was salvageable. Others were in poor condition and were removed.

“With the extremely talented (landscape designer) Susannah Davis, we were able to figure out what we wanted, with us using the trees and shrubs we wished to have and Susannah filling in a great many blanks with superb choices,” Margherita said.

The Baldwin’s also hired Tim Crowley for the artistic terrace and rock garden, using Goshen stone, which is a gray metallic natural stone with iron in it, for the walkway, and making the most of small and difficult places to successfully garden.

The gardens at the home of Robert and Adele Duncan, of 128 Register Road, were both lovely and practical. The property, which slopes down to Wings Cove, boasts practically vegetable gardens and some grape vines. The Duncan family has owned the property since 1966, and its grounds have been maintained by every generation since then. The secluded property has several lovely floral gardens, but emphasis seemed to be on the family’s well-managed and manicured vegetables gardens, which likely will be bountiful by season’s end.

All of the properties on the Sea Gardens tour were magnificent on several levels, but the two that likely jumped out at garden tourists were likely the largest of properties, which included the home of Dr. Jeremy and Dr. Wendy Stern, of 93B Piney Point Road on Wings Cove, and home of Neil and Jane Pappalardo, of 90 Moorings Road on Converse Point.

The Stern’s home was a rolling expanse of wood and glass that boasted many water gardens. Wendy, whose love of gardens is acknowledged everywhere, told a story about her gardens.

“My daughter made me a piece of garden art,” she wrote in the tour guide map notes. “It is a ceramic sign that lies on the ground next to one of my water gardens, which says “Napoleonic Gardens”. She explained, ‘Mom, you are short little person who is trying to conquer the world one garden at a time!”

“I think this may be true,” Wendy said. “Gardening is a passion that is driven by both my love of nature and the desire to manipulate it. I have lived in my house for the past 20 years and over that period I have expanded my gardens. Sustenance is central.

“I have learned through trial and error to grow my own vegetables from seeds that I harvested from previous seasons.”

The Sterns take pride in the fact that they many vegetable and water gardens are of their own making.

“My gardens do not contain any rare plants. They are not designed. They are simply an expression of the pleasure one finds in working the earth to create a personal space,” Wendy said.

The home of Neil and Jane Pappalardo, in The Moorings, is both beautiful for its location, landscape and architecture.

The home itself, a sturdy mixture of stone, steel and wood, is central to the many gardens that surround the modern home that sits on a corner of Converse Point.

“We bought our home 18 years ago. Private barriers surrounded the gardens to protect the plants from the elements, some were removed so that we could enjoy the view of the garden from the house,” Jane Pappalardo wrote in the tour guide map notes.

“Several people have helped us over the years designing our property,” she said. “Hawk Design did the most recent formal landscaping around the big house, and our local landscape expert, Susannah Davis, created the gardens around the cottage and the Tower House.

“Our daughter, Sheila, is our architect and she designed the Garden House. It was designed to incorporate some elements from our previous home,” Jane said.

Jane notes that the sculpture in the front of the big house, two finials on the big house and a finial on the Tower house, as well as a sculpture garden done by their son-in-law, Chris Frost.

One of the most interesting features lays just off the beach at the rear of their home on a large rock. It is a meticulously constructed stone cairn, which gives an ancient look to a rather modern place. It was a fabulous property, lovingly maintained.


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Good Night, and Good Luck.

19.04.12 - Mark

I just got back from seeing Good Night, and Good Luck. and I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

It is unquestionably well written and edited, and it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between the archival footage and the freshly filmed material, and it flows wonderfully. Its not a typical story archetype, with introduction, conflict, more conflict, climax and resolution, it felt more like a debate in a way, point after point with slight transistions between them and a slow fading of the characters.

That might be a problem from some people, and I'm not quite sure why Clooney insists on staring in everything he works on. Its not that his performance was bad per say, but he's developing a case of Tom Cruise Syndrome (the apperaing in every film whether he needs to or not variety, not the jumping on the couch ranting lunitic variety)

I'm fairly confident I liked it, but I'm not sure what's hooked me more about the film, the ideas Murrow had about Journalism and Television as a medium, or the politicians he challeneged while on the air. In both cases its as relevent now as it was then, if not more. All of us seem to have a tendency towards treating televisions and computers as entertainment, and not to their full potential as social catalysts.

...those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful. --Edward R. Murrow at the RTNDA Convention, October 15, 1958

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No Shows

13.53.10 - Mark

I've been watching MacRumors Live feed of the todays Apple announcement, and unfortunatly they didn't mention anything of laptops. Mac Mini has a boost and some sort of iPod stero, but nothing that benifits me today. Like most Apple products they sound cool, and I've been wanting to get my hands on a Mac Mini for almost as long as they've been out, but there was certainly nothing in the event that helps me make a decision about fixing/replacing my iBook, and I need a mobile system.

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Cello, Cello, and More Cello

23.14.36 - Mark

I love the sound a cello produces, and it can produce a wide variety of sounds, as this video demonstraits.

37 parts, all played with a single cello then mixed together to create a neat song and an even neater video.

Almost makes me wish I had put some more effort into learning to play the Cello well.

via digg.com

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Spam Pizza?

14.53.53 - Mark

Shoot. I was partially hoping that my not using a standard blog engine would keep the spammers at bay. Maybe that's true of some scripts, but not all. Two months without spam isn't bad I suppose, considering how high I've been placed in Google anymore

Looks like I'll need to work out some way to manage spam. Probably needed to do that anyways, considering I'm recycling my blog engine's code base on a couple other sites.

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23.26.37 - Mark

I took the iBook down to the my nearest Apple Store, Unfortunatly they pretty much confirmed what I already knew - dead logic board. The Genius at the Charlotte Apple Store was nice enough, but he ran mostly useless tests then explained to me how I managed to still liquid into my laptop (here's a hint, I haven't spilled any liquid onto my iBook, ever, period) He went ahead and priced a new logic board from Apple for me, something like $700 to $800. Shopping around eBay I can beat that by at least 50%, but I was already seriously cramped on it anyways SO right now I'm at a crossroads.

I'm either going to get the replacement parts, or I'll be upgrading to a new laptop. Not sure which yet, Apple is supposedly making an announcement on Tuesday and the Intel iBooks are supposed to be coming up soon...

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18.03.00 - Mark

I've often joked about how my computers are an extention of my body, until now I've never realized just how addictied I am. Last night when I posted the Doctor Who thing, my first thought was to grap my iBook and make the post, never mind the fact that I had the wireless keyboard for the linux box sitting in my lap. Today when I woke up, the first thing I wanted to do was check the time on my iBook and get my email, despite the fact there's a perfectly functional clock next to my bed.

I doubt it would be this bad if it was a desktop failure, but having a laptop really made it easy to take a computer with me everywhere.

Here's hoping for a quick repair...

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22.25.54 - Mark

Doctor Who 2005 which originally wasn't going to get distributed in the US, now is. SciFi finally had the insight to pick it up. I may or may not have already seen this series, but I'm glad its getting distributed in the US.

I'm happy, noting is going to be able to make March 17th suck (St. Patrick's Day and the US airing of the New Doctor Who) Hopefully Scifi will be enlightened enought to pick up the second season when it starts airing this fall rather that wait a few months.

As a side note, I'm starting to go though iBook widthdrawl. I miss my laptop and its barely been 12 hours... :'(

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Backup, Backup, Backup

15.00.07 - Mark

Majority of my important files are backed up, An advantage of using networked storage. However its been a while since my last comprehensive backup from my laptop. And with it not booting at all, that maent taking it apart and pulling the hard rive. Just a note for iBook owners out there, its not a fun task. If you can afford to have your tech guy make the backup in his shop, do it. For me, I wasn't about to pay $150 for a backup I was just as capable of making (I had a laptop drive enclousre, the right tools, and some degree of comfort with taking apart delicate electronics).

I'm actually in the middle of the process. I've got a disassembled iBook on the kitchen table and I'm waiting as my linux box is zipping the whole drive. Once thats done I'll copy over my documents then go off and reassemble it so I can take it to some shop and it repaired, or at least be told whats wrong with it Unfortunatly I've got a nasty suspission that its the logic board, nothing looked loose as I was taking it apart, but hope strings eternal - or something like that.

This really is a misserable day for me, and its not just this iBook breakdown...

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Pissing off the electron gods again

13.15.27 - Mark

My iPod is without functional hard drive after 3 months, my Cell phone (Motorola v551) is a piece of shit with some of the worsst design and contruction ever put into production, my brothers Laptop, which was "fixed" last week wasn't, and was taken back to the shop Monday, which means its going into its 5th week of repairs, not to mention the extremely wonky car stereo I've got that may or may not produce sound while you are occupying the vehicle.

All that, I can handle.

But today is the last straw. The electron gods do not need to be screwing up my iBook.

We're nottlking softwae screw ups, or even a flaky drive. No the electron gods have felt the need to smite me by making the system not boot up at all. Too far!

I'm about to go into surgery with it to pull the hard drive and make a backup, then see about taking it in for repairs.

Don't woory about me I'm FINE (Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional)

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CVS Not So Disposable Camcorders

21.52.26 - Mark

While I'm not using it as much as my Canon SD300, I do like the CVS "Disposable" Camcorders, and have shot a few videos with it. Part of my facination with it is the sheer number of hacks being done to them, and I'm really tempted to grab another and do the night vision hack. I also might pick mine up a little more often since someone made an easy installer for the CVS Cam USB drive driver, as opposed to the original pureread app I have been using - I never could figure out how to install Ops for linux (which lets you have some more control over camera settings)

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LED Throwies

20.27.31 - Mark

I just put together an LED throwie. Ever since I first saw them last week I've been thinking about ordering up the parts and making myself a pile. Unfortunately I've got that student budget thing. However I'm a resourceful geek and managed to make one based on the things I had floating around the house (magnet from an old 40MB hard drive, backup battery from my graphing calculator, LEDs from a bulk lot of blue LEDs I got a while ago ) They are amazingly fun things, and pricing them I was able to beat the suggested price of $1 a throwie ($.80 for single LED, $1 for 2 LEDs) eBay is amazing. Even $80 is a little more than I really want to do on my own, but I'm letting one of my brothers take one to school. I might do it if I can get my final cost for tossable throwies under $.50 each.

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Backyard Biowar

00.46.16 - Mark

Every time I see an article on how the basement geneticist is on the horizon or I see something about biowar I think back to one of my favorite short stories, Gene Wars by Paul J. McAuley. It was written back in 1991, and I probably read it around 1996 in Hackers an anthology of cyberpunk and hard science scifi.

The reason I bring it up again is this really neat piece on Biowar for Dummies. I'm not going to say scary, I'm not terrorized by this, but its something to chew on.

Link | 1 Comments |

So what's in it?

22.04.05 - Mark

There's a Google hack out there called "Google Cooking" where you punch in everything you've got to cook with, and Google spits out a recipe. As a mild food geek in a house where there's never everything I need to make what I want, I've resorted to Google cooking more than once, and usually to decent results.

Recently I've been thinking about a way to document recipes that I like while being able to use the idea of Google Cooking. A quick easy way to sort recipes I like by what I have.

Like all good ideas, it seems like I'm not the only one thinking along these lines. Dave Slusher tossed out essentially the same idea for discussion on the uplifter blog, but for MAKE and DIY projects.

Coding a single user blog engine is one thing, Building a community driven site is another, but then again, I didn't know anything more than some elementary BASIC 9 months ago...

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Fuck This

00.46.57 - Mark

Fuck this Book is fucking hilarious, especially as you give the images a closer look. There's one photo about 3/4th the way though of a gas pump that is absolutely genius.

Fuck can be a beautiful word sometimes...

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Good Day, Good Day

00.24.06 - Mark

Despite it looking like today was going to be miserable its turned out well. I had been expecting to get swamped with homework, and while repetitive text entry is No Fun(tm) some of the MySQL tools and experience I've acquired from building this blog made the commands easy enough to rattle off in Terminal (still like GUI front ends tho', but I needed to log everything)

Thanks to that delightfully easy assignment I was able to meet up with Bucket, an Author client/friend who's trying real hard to make the adult world child digestible in fiction form (his first work is online). I signed on last year just so I could bang out code, but I stayed on to expand my horizons and I probably know a bit more about the book industry than I really care to. Anyways, despite some of his bad luck he's managed to compensate me for some of my expenses plus some. Something to help keep the server on at night, plus some to do a small spending spree over at Geeks.com, some assorted electronics and a bit of dirt cheap audio gear. Should let me do a little hacking and MAKEing.

Wrapped it up with a good vegetable stir fry (metal chop sticks seem like a better idea than they really are) and a cold drink. Today hasn't been so bad, and hopefully tomorrow will be even better (crosses fingers for a good inexpensive laptop hard drive).

Link | 0 Comments |

23.18.50 - Mark

This story just makes you feel all warm and cuddly about human nature. Kid finds camera, parents find owner, owner gives them money for its return, parents can't bear to part kid from camera and therefore screw the owner. The 336+ comments the own has received from don't help. Everything from calls for mobs of people to harass the parents and kid, to cries of public humiliation, to calling the owner a liar, to offering to donate cameras to the kid and or former owner. There's an up and a down to being internet famous on any level. Up is it gets things done. The down is that more often than not its not the thing that needs to be done.

The other link is to guidelines for podcasters and is a few days old. I agree with nearly everything the author says, although like everything else in life there are plenty of exceptions. The one I disagree with the most has got to be the get a buddy / "couplecast". While there's a support staff behind a few of my favorites, most of my favorite podcasts have a single host. I'm also willing to more that time limit up. To me 40 minutes per feed per week is workable (not that I want all my shows to be eating that much time). More than that and you've got to be offering something really compelling to avoid slipping down my playlists.

Fortunately podcasts are flexible and I get to be my own network programmer.

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Two steps taken

22.44.27 - Mark

Going offline for the evening wasn't so bad. I got someone tolerable at the CompUSA tech desk (can't really say the same for the customer service) and snagged one of those $30AR 200 GB seagate drives. Guess we're honoring George and his fellow Commanders by making their green tinted portraits go a little farther than usual. Gotta love this consumer culture of ours. Not that I'm complaining about a $30 hard drive. This pushes me up past .75 TBs in my primary computers. I think this is when I'm usually supposed to date my inner geek by making some comment about how I never thought I would fill a 160MB hard drive, let alone contemplate measuring my network's storage capacity in terabytes

Also stumbled across Stainless Steel Chopsticks at another store. Part of them is for the sake of having decent chopsticks around the house for when I eat Asian cuisine, part of me likes the idea of being able to toss a pair or two into my camping kits and not need to worry about them breaking or finding whatever silverware I need. Kind of like my brothers obsession with metal sporks

Too bad tomorrow isn't looking that enjoyable...

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15.13.26 - Mark

This is not my day.

I've been stupefied on my blog. I'm actually starting to get a handful of hits from High School University's Network too, and its being passed around on the school email network, which annoys me a bit more more than the above comment. My last round of HSU readership let to some unwanted visitors.

And I still need to go and deal with CompUSA today too.

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Dear Web,

01.27.20 - Mark

Please don't repeat to me the latest blathering of John Dovorak. He started writing about Apple's impending death, or Apple's adoption of Windows, or the impending buy of of Apple by XYZ Corp since the mid 90's. Hasn't happened yet.

Similarly, please stop hyping about the "First Mac Worm". First, this happens every 6 months. Some bored Media outlet finds some post by some dunce who thinks that file he may or may not have downloaded (he pleaded the 5th) may have caused his warez drive to magically loose its magic smoke. It is a) non-propagating, b) benign, and c) nothing new. So unless you are a real, honest to goodness Mac Programmer, or someone who has a bunch of mac programmers on your speed dial don't try and tell me its dangerous, or new.

About the stupidest comment I've seen about this Mac Worm is that "its much more completed that an Apple Script," one would hope thats a new user or at worse a clueless news agency, but that one was a a self claimed Mac journalist. Guess he didn't do that much fact checking since Applescript can be insanely powerful, so much so it used to be the most common code base for Mac viruses.

All you need to do is practice safe computing. Don't open attactments, trusted or otherwise, unless you are expecting it and verify it, and DON'T TELL ME TO RUN NORTON ANTIVIRUS, or any of its kin, except maybe ClamAV. If I wanted to run computers as slow and buggy as Windows, I would run Windows.

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Quasi Zombie States of Being

12.48.43 - Mark

I'm slowly returning to the land of the living from the near death state I've been in since Monday. I'm not 100%, I'm probably not 66%, but I managed to drag my non corpse-ified body into class today. Didn't accomplish much. Didn't accomplish anything other than keeping some of my attendance numbers up. While I don't skip classes, its something schools mange to force you to worry about. I've been out since Tuesday (and should have stayed home Monday) but I've been telling myself I "need" to go to class since Wednesday for one reason or another. I "need" to take the test, or I "need" to make that lecture. It's really a sad comment on schools, and society as a whole.

You might be sick, you could give the entire class/office the flu, we might even manage to make you sicker, but take your pills and show up so we know you're not having fun.

I can't help but wonder how much that mentality contributes to the health and well-being problems around the world.

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Hell just got a bit colder

19.10.54 - Mark

Who would have guessed it - Garfield can actually be funny. Just remove Garfield and/or his thoughts

Original thread
More at Something Awful

Not all of the remixed strips are funny, many just point out how sad Garfield strips really are, but the fact that I'm laughing at comics that were created by a group-think brand-oriented committee is amazing. Hurray for remix culture!

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Cheney's got a gun?

22.24.17 - Mark

Just about everyone knows about Cheney's shotgun incident over the weekend, the horrible handling of the situation by the White House (in terms of transparency), and the zillion jokes about it circulating the interwebs, but Steve Berlin Johnson posted a thoughtful note on his blog, asking what the Secret Service's stance on hunting is. It's a really good question. Anymore if you simply mention the President or VP and a weapon in the same sentence you're probably tripping some secret service filter, but we're letting them go out in the wild with guns? I mean, how many gun and hunting related accidents happen in this country annually?

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In John They Trust

22.09.55 - Mark

Smithsonian Magazine has a really nice article on South Pacific Cargo Cults. Its a different perspective on life, and makes one wonder about how much harm American consumerism is doing, both home and abroad.

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Curling over in pain

19.16.01 - Mark

I'm getting pretty interested in curling, for an olympic sport it seems the most geek friendly - i.e. not overly athletic and very reliant on physics and strategy - kind of like pool on ice. Unlike some of the events, I could see myself trying curling (and kind of want to), but NBC's coverage of the Curling matches is abysmal.

Fred Roggin, NBC's curling anchorperson is almost spending more time talking about food and making bad puns than talking about the sport, not that he seems to have any clue about the sport. One night when he was talking to the president of one of the larger Curling clubs he threw out a handful of bad dates, contradicting his expert guest as well as verifiable sources, then after the very brief discussion on curling, he proceeded to hand his guest a ridiculously stupid loaf of bread with a crescent roll jammed into it (hee hee hee, it looks like a curling stone, hee hee hee) Then went into some segment on how those loafs of bread were being made. If I want to watch food TV, I'll watch food TV, if I want to watch Curling, I want to watch Curling.

Other times Fred has talked about pizza, and how the American men's skip (captain) is using his free time in Italy to eat as "research" (because he owns a small pizzera - which is getting so much free advertising from these clip its not funny)

And his puns are terrible. In the brief moments when Fred makes a sad attempt at explaining the sport he resorts to really, really bad jokes. When he talked about the brooms used, he mentioned hog hair pads as a type of pad many curlers like, "although" Fred quiped, "the Hogs feel differently". When talking about the modern brooms being used at the olympics, he talked about the synthetic pads and the carbon fiber handles, reminding his audience that "we can all use more Carbon Fiber in our diets".

Having seen some of his interviews with Curlers, and him giving them those stupid loafs of bread, its a wonder that no one has forced one of those Carbon Fiber rods down his throat.

Overall NBC has been doing a great job with their olympic coverage. The anchors they have for most events have been lively, energetic, and informative, even entertaining. I've even willing to give the Curling anchors a little bit of slack because Curling isn't exactly the most active and energizing, but there are zombies that could provide better Curling coverage than Fred.

As proof that you can derive entertainment from curling, check out Jonathan Coulton's 20th Thing - Curl, and to help gain some understanding of the sport , see Wikipedia's Curling article

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Two things

23.26.58 - Mark

1) I hate being sick
2) I have got to get my hands on some Mexican Coke

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Big, Dumb, and Lazy

16.07.04 - Mark

C|Net is buzzing about the 60th anniversary of ENIAC's first public demonstration, the big chunk of iron most people associate with being the first digital computer. There's a whole lot wrong with the article, like the hand waving gives towards the Atanasoff-Berry Computer.

Of course there's also the table comparing ENIAC to a modern Intel chip

I didn't know that square millimeters was a measure of weight...

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22.55.18 - Mark

I'm passively watching NBC's coverage of the Opening Ceremonies of the Torino Olympics, and the commentary by NBC is a real nasty reflection of American culture. I mean there's stuff about hoping xyz Middle Eastern City isn't destroyed, mentions of the perceived tensions in the far east. China's politics, Hong Kong's independent march, The Koreas walking together - and how they might be competing together in 2008. Then there's the stuff about the Political cartoons and extra security for Denmark.

What ever happened to the Ancient Greek idea of calling for a peace for the duration of the Olympics? Every country in the world is represented in Torino, then some, and some of the best citizens each can offer as well. So why do we need to being petty politics and squabbles into something that tries to focus on human excellence and cooperation as the Olympics?

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In Awe

18.06.33 - Mark

I'm simply amazed by some of the stuff people are building, like this guy, who built an autonomous robot, or that anyone can describe installing MythTV as "easy" (I'm fighting with MythTV again, I'm still loosing).

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Capstone, try headstone

13.28.41 - Mark

I've spent 4.5 semesters at HSU, taking classes in an internet technology curriculum, studying things like XHTML standards, CSS, design, PHP and Javascript, even sever configuration and network security. And the capstone for this work, the zenith of my studies.

Reduced to using some shitty predesigned commercial templates and non-compliant html files exported from Microsoft Publisher to be hosted on a flaky Windows server.

Staring blankly at a ceiling fan feels more productive.

I'm glad its Friday. I won't have anything fresh to complain about for at least 2 days. Maybe more if we get the snow thats being forecast for this weekend.

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Oooh Oooh, I'm a Podfader, give me some attention!

01.10.26 - Mark

The idea of "podfading" is freaking ridiculous, and the article Wired cooked up for the term just adds to some insane notion that you can add "pod" as a prefix to any other word and start making money from it. Its iNaming all over again.

I mean I could probably claim that I'm a "podfader" since I did a podcast or two and dropped out. Of course now that I'm titling myself a podfader I'm sure someone will probably go digging around my archives trying to find it. Please don't, as its a horribly uncompelling audio file where I was doing a really bad job of mimicking Adam Curry.

The idea that podcasters stopping (gasp) their shows is to be expected. Its not even that big a deal since a number of shows I liked dropped off the web, Speechless is one (still worth checking out his archives, regardless of the potential for new shows). Besides with 50 gazillion podcasters out there I can always find something similar, or I could move onto some thing else entirely. Its not the end of the world, it's just a prefix.

Podcasting, Podjacking, Podcatching, Podfading, Podwhatever. I still think that podcasting is something that should be recognized as something entirely different from traditional media, I'm starting to agree with the said that says we don't need to rework the entire English language to do so, because frankly, we don't.

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Down a Pint

16.16.13 - Mark

I donated blood today. If you haven't donated recently (and can), go and do it. There are too many good reasons to donate blood to not to. It saves lives, doesn't take that much time, and it makes you feel good.

Go donate.

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Lousy good for nothing server

09.26.49 - Mark

Last summer my PHP/MySQL class used a cruddy student server to host our scripts. Except it didn't work, and I ended up using a sandbox site on my server to test everything, then loaded it on to the always malfunctioning school server (because I wasn't allowed to use my iBook in there, something about it being an "unfair advange")

Anyways in this project class I'm being told to use the same flaky server. I'm objecting of course. I'm to the point where I consider the school network hostile, but despite that I'm making a bunch of points against its use, and am being told in effect, "You fix it".

That's infuriating in so many different ways. 1) I'm paying for this "education". I am not wrong in expecting that the tools the school provides are in working order (thats not true anywhere else on campus, but I'm not wrong in expecting it) 2) I charge for server work. I'll do some free work, but not for organiztions that have caused me as much grief as this place. Besides this school is broke, and more than likely bleeding money at an unacceptable rate. 3) They have techies, allegedly at least one competent one, and they have student techies who are working for a grade. I am not one of them. 4) I really don't have an interest in the school's server. I'm just being told to use it. 5) Last time I started pointing out problems with the school and offering solutions I got an unexpected and unwanted visitor.

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Ouch, stupid overhead

00.52.30 - Mark

I'm really growing attached to Fireant, and can see why the vlogging community has latched onto it. Like any software there's a learning curve to it (something I keep forgetting), and while there are a couple things I'm still getting used to, like some of the playback controls and the lack of an easy way to go to the site in a real browser, most of the time its quick, easy to use, and extremely easy to manage files (iTunes Delete file functions leave something to be desired).

Recently I've been watching clips from Apollo Pony ("Rocketboom's Newsroom"). I had it in my subscriptions, but I accidentally downloaded all of the clips (which happened to me with RB as well). I hate to waste that bandwidth so I've been watching what I download, and there are some real gems in there. No regrets.

Since my post (and correction) on pod-catcher clients, I've also been playing with iPodderX Lite, and I'm starting to get the religion. There's a whole lot to be said for set it and forget it downloading but one things iPodder Lemon had going for it was that it was extremely easy to see download queues, progress, and failures. So far I haven't seen that type of functionality in there, but that could be pro, or something coming out in Transistr. Furthermore its only ever a problem when I max out my iBooks HD (which unfortunately I do a lot, especially when I'm collecting video)

Between the two clients there are a few problems, nothing serious, and nothing on the scale of my iPodder pains. More like transition pains (which are always unpleasant)

Anyways, back to watching, deleting, and downloading.

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Inane Unsanity

09.51.31 - Mark

I am in what I hope will be my last semester at High School Univesity (name changed to protect the guilty) and one of my classes to finish this 2 bit internet tech degree is a projects class.

The main project is to create a website for a student organization on campus, and make it easy for non-technical students to edit. To me that means "no more complicated than email". Not "no more complicated than raw xhtml in a text editor".

Supposedly we are allowed to use everything that has been covered in past classes which in terms of page creation include XHTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, scraps of Perl, and an almost useless ammount of Javascript.

Except we're not. I'm now being told that using PHP and MySQL would make the site incompatible with the (school) server that the site is to be hosted on.

I could go in a number of directions here, but the vast majority of sites out there (70%) uses a Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python configuration. That 70% also includes majority of the major sites out there, like Amazon and Google.

The minority use the Windows, IIS, ??? setup the school uses.

If they didn't want me using it, they shouldn't be teaching it. Then again, they haven't been teaching it that effectivly, so maybe I'm missing some subtle hints...

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Where's the Boardband?

00.10.06 - Mark

A book review of The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal, a book that takes a look into where the promise of true broadband in America went.

I hate to go on and on about bandwidth, and in terms of global perspective bandwidth issues are fairly trivial, but its a topic thats important to me. Not only do I want to be able to get more information, I think everyone will benefit from widely available, low cost, high speed broadband. Anything to narrow the digital divide.

Some people give me flack for thinking DSL is slow, but I remember dial-up, hell I remember dial-up when 14.4kbps over a long distance connection was high end consumer technology. I didn't like those connections either.

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Ego Boost

01.17.12 - Mark

It's been a while since I've indulged myself with an ego surf, so I punched my name into google and for the first time ever my name popped up on top. I've been in the top 5 for a year or two, but I've always been below a Wake Forest Chemistry professor or a Linux Geek in Ohio (usually in battle with him for second)

Oh, and while writing this post I came across a web2.0 ego-surfing site, EgoSurf.org Here's my ego's history, looks like I'm a bland 1990 on Google I'm not too bad on the other search engines, except del.icio.us, no one seems to think I'm tasty ;)

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Space Suit Satellites

00.55.30 - Mark

A few weeks ago I heard about a project called suitsat which was repurposing an old Russian Space suit for use as a satellite. They stuck in a Ham radio and a few extra batteries and shoved it out the airlock door sometime Friday afternoon.

It's a neat project with a lot of potential for allowing us to repurpose some of the junk we've launched into space at a cost of millions of dollars. Plus there was a secret message, and secret messages are always fun.

I had been hoping to listen but unfortunately after a couple orbits, both before it made any decent passes near NC, suitsat failed, which is a shame. NASA thinks the batteries froze, so I'm sure they'll cook up a solution and make another disposable satellite. I really wanted to try and listen in some time this weekend and make an attempt at decoding the picture. Of course I though I was magically going to listen on a radio set that didn't support the transmission, but failed hardware on their part means I don't have to admit my brain fart, wait a minute....

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Podcast Woes

00.18.43 - Mark

I'm officially fed up with iPodder Lemon / Juice/ whatever they hell they're calling it, and NetNewsWire, while its a great RSS read is barely a solution for podcasts (at least to me), don't even think of suggesting I use iTunes, and who the hell knows where iPodderX/Transistr is (or if the new release will have bittorrent support?*). I originally didn't like FireAnt, but now that I'm subscribed to a few video blogs I'm going to see about using it some. It seems to have a much better interface for video than the iPodder / iTunes solution I'd using now, but even then looks like its a little lacking.

But that still leave me struggling for a decent pod-catcher. I'll willing to set up plenty of half baked, gum and bailing wire solutions, but enough is enough. After a year and a half someone should have come up with a solid solution, and even with as much praise as I've heard for the iPodderX/Transistr, I have a preference for shipping software (which throughout this name change, isn't)

I might be shooting my mouth off a little soon, but with the exception of iPodderX, I'm using all of the clients I mentioned (even if fireant is relatively new to my software heap)

*Edit : Oops. I guess iPodderX/Transistr has bittorrent support. I'm not sure where I got the idea that it doesn't, since it looks like its been in there since before I even started listening to podcasts. I'm going to take a better look at it, but I should probably buy a copy just because Ray took the time to correct me. Small developers rock, and I feel bad about my college student budget not allowing me to support more of them.

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And now for a commercial break

20.20.09 - Mark

Last week one of my brothers was assigned to do some form of commercial for a book (The Kite Runner) for a class. Somehow he got it in his head to do an animated commercial and drop it to tape. Well with his laptops screwed, and a lack of A/V abilities on it anyways, he borrowed me and my iBook to help him do his video. I helped him figure out how to use photoshop, iMovie and Garageband, and did some of the editing, but it's mostly his work. However he did trick me into pulling a technically unnecessary all-nighters to finish it, and cause me a bit of pain when dropping it to VHS, so I'm taking out revenge by posting it onto the interweb.

The Kite Runner Commercial (9.3MB, 320x240 Quicktime, 2 minutes 11 seconds)

This is the same project that the photoshop doodles came from.

Don't mistake this for an endorsement. I haven't read it and his tastes are usually significantly different from mine. I'm only posting it because 1) revenge, and 2) I think I remember laughing the first time he pitched it. That was many many hours of work ago so who knows I still laugh at bits and pieces of it, but those could be memories from recording parts at 3 AM on a Sunday Morning...

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Twisted Video

00.19.09 - Mark

A few months ago I was in an Art Appreciation class with a not so great teacher (too much lecture and exceptionally bad powerpoint presentations, not enough discussion), and a worse than usual class (single camera /room teleconferencing on low bandwidth connections run by technophobes does not make for a good classroom discussion) Towards the end of the semester we were each assigned an Artist to do a presentation on. With a last name starting with W I got last pick of artists, and ended up with Nam Juke Paik.

Turns out it was a really good pick for me because I love electronics and I've been dinking around in computers forever, and I've got a long standing side interest in video. The main part of the project was research and write a report, but we had at one point been told to prepare a presentation, and after researching Paik some I though it would be neat to make a video rather than to put slides (did I mention we sat though a lot of bad powerpoint presentations in that class?)

Nothing came of it at the time, because his slow repeating lectures and technical inability to control the teleconference gear (did I mention technophobe?) and teach he had to commandeer the time he had set aside for presentations so he could finish the curriculum.

Anyways, Paik died a few days ago, and considering he predicted a freely distributed video market in the 60's I'm reinvestigating the idea of making a Paik mini-documentry. I've already got a report, and I saved most of my presentation materials, so the big thing becomes making a movie that looks good. I'll see about serious editing later, but I've been looking at iMovie plug-ins.

Wow. There are some amazing looking plugins out there that are either free or cheap (most are under $5 a piece, some more complex ones like video stabilization are more)

Part of me wants to go out and binge, the rest of me knows I've got that money earmarked for other purposes, but one thing I'm noticing is that the plug-in developers are very cool about providing product demos, both preprocessed videos as well as installable and usable plugins.

Maybe I won't go on a shopping spree, but I might have a lot of watermarked video on my hard drive...

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text:
Aug 21, 2007

In Memoriam

I'm just back from Regina again, where I attended my father's wake. A sad occasion, but I did learn a lot more about my dad from his friends... Apparently he wasn't adverse to the occasional joint!

In MemoriamBRUCE VERNON LAWSON. Born on November 4, 1933, in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, died of complications arising from melanoma on August 7, 2007, in Regina, Saskatchewan. A graduate of the University of Western Australia, he immigrated to Canada in the early 1960's, where he became a Globe and Mail reporter, theatre critic, and entertainment editor, as well as a television journalist for the CBC. An accomplished writer and documentary filmmaker, he devoted much of his life to the causes of socialism and social justice which lay close to his heart. During the 1968 federal elections, he was press secretary to legendary NDP leader Tommy Douglas. Bruce then moved to Saskatchewan to be a senior advisor to Premier Alan Blakeney. In the mid-seventies, he turned to writing full-time and his hit satirical musical revue, Left Turns, played in cabarets and union halls across Canada. In 1980 he moved back to Perth to be director of the West Australian Arts Council. For his remaining years he lived in Perth, in recent times returning to the prairies for the Canadian summer, and finding great pleasure in exploring the worlds between his two homelands. His former wives are Mary Wood of Cobourg, Ontario, and Pamela Lawson of Perth. His final partner was Lee Anne Schienbein of Regina. He is survived by children Ben and Liza of Toronto, Guy of Woodstock, New York, Hugh of Perth, and brothers Robert and Michael. His grandchildren, whom he loved dearly, are Christopher, Sophia and Olivia, and twins Anna and Lucy. Wakes to celebrate Bruce's life will be held in Regina, and on Cottesloe beach in Perth. [Links added by me]

Listening to: I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General by Gilbert and Sullivan from The Pirates of Penzance.

1 comment:

  1. haha. I have to say that's pretty funny to find out. Hope you're doing well. *hug*


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02 June 2016

core | bike commute

I finally felt up for commuting on my bike. I'm a bit tired but it was not too bad.

Hit the gym for my second core workout, it's good to be back at this. I can tell my back needs it.

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Monday, December 29, 2008

Christmas Time

On Christmas Eve eve, we had a little celebratory dinner of our own at home. Note to parents:  if a celebratory dinner is what you're after, don't sit down hungry at the table with a bowl of smallish Dungeness crabs and two hungry young children.  Let's just say the champagne had done its work by the time I actually got anything to eat.

It wasn't until the day of Christmas Eve that we found out if our plans would be thwarted by the weather.  Though other flights were delayed and canceled, Shaun's sister and her family made it in to PDX.  And the road to Shaun's parents house, which had been closed off and on for a few days preceding, was open.  Behold Highway 26:

The packed snow above was fine.  I had a few white-knuckle moments on areas of the road that had some ruts and more of a mix of things on the ground, but we all made it safe and sound.

I think you'll agree when you see our destination, that a more Christmas-y place could not be found in all the land:

Did I mention there was a LOT OF SNOW?

The power was out at our House o' Christmas, and that made things a little more adventurous (and a lot more work for my father-in-law) than they would have been otherwise. The rumble of a generator is not my favorite winter noise, but it sure beats the alternative. Shaun's mom managed to work around the inconvenience of only getting to use one major energy-gobbler at a time (water heater, oven, cooktop) and prepared us many delicious and festive meals. Adding to the element of adventure was the periodic dumping of snow off the roof.  It would come down at odd moments with a big crashing noise and shake the house.  Made me a little jumpy.

Shaun's folks were planning to host a big family get-together on Saturday, but that was relocated to his aunt and uncle's house in Salem because the power still wasn't back on.  Much of Shaun's extended family was there, and that was fun as always.  Shaun's cousins and their spouses are all fun to be with, and the kids all love running wild together.

I got to hold the happiest little baby Nora.

As our kids change and grow, they create fun new Christmas memories.  It will be a long time before I forget the sight of my almost three year-old nephew sitting on his dad's lap, perusing the ceiling fan section of the Lamps Plus catalog he received in his stocking.  And Nels's joy at opening the Wall-E and Eve figures I got for him and Willem was something.  Later in the day he told me that his "dream really came true," and that it made him feel like he had to hug me.

Yesterday Shaun's family came out our way.  We had a nice visit and a salmon dinner.  The boys ran their laps through the kitchen/living/dining room, and we had the obligatory family photo:

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!  New Year's, here we come!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

When Boys Play With Stuffed Animals

As I was doing some chores this evening, I noticed both boys were snuggled in Nels's bed, reading books with the lights out.

About twenty minutes later, they reported back to me.

"Mom, we put our stuffed animals to bed!"

They read to them.
They sang to them (quickly, because one of the animals kept sneezing.)
They said prayers with them.
Then the bear ate the dog.

Sweet dreams!

Monday, December 22, 2008

Winter Days

As surely everyone knows by now, it is unusually snowy in the Pacific Northwest. NOW we have the kind of weather that's worth canceling school for.

People are making the most of it, and while I find it hard to relate to the excitement after several snow-filled high desert winters, I do find it enjoyable to watch a girl on a sled go whizzing by my kitchen window as I wash the dishes.  The neighbor boys piled up some snow for a snowboard jump, and I even saw a few snowmobiles out and about.

Of course our kids are loving it.  They're happy just to tromp around on our deck, making snow piles and trying to eat large shards of ice.

Our neighbors are very neighborly, and I am wishing that I had made the time to do some Christmas baking.  At some point I'm going to have to stop using Willem's surgery as an excuse for not doing more, but I guess we're still good for now.

One neighbor sent her son over with some ginger spice cake, and another gave us a giant tub of popcorn.  You know the kind.  It's divided into regular, caramel, and toxic-looking cheese, and it looks totally unappealing in the store, only to become irresistible once it enters your house. Today, our next door neighbors sent their son over to shovel our driveway.  It's rather uncomfortable to accept a kind deed from a middle-school boy who would rather be doing something else.  Character building all around, I'm sure.

Of course the weather is making me want to fix all sorts of hearty meals.  That doesn't mean I do, but one does make an occasional appearance at our dinner table.  I had to share this meal from a few weeks ago with you because of its spectacular color. It's red cabbage with kielbasa, onions, and apples, with roasted potatoes on the side.  I was the only real fan of the dish.  The boys didn't like the vinegar in the cabbage, and Shaun, expecting it to taste like sauerkraut, found it a little bland.  I liked it.

Tonight, though, we'll have crowd-pleasing lentil and kielbasa soup.  I think it's the four cups of leeks (in addition to the four cups of onions) that make it extra tasty.  (No, I don't feed turkey kielbasa to my family every night, it just sometimes seems that way.  I know it's full of awful stuff.)

Of course winter hasn't been all kielbasa-eating and frolicking in the snow.   Because of the weather, lots of fun events like Nels's school Christmas program were canceled or postponed. I even saw on the news that one college had to cancel its winter commencement.  And my mom and grandpa were supposed to drive out from Bend, but the weather is keeping them home.

Right now we're just thankful that our Christmas plans didn't require flying out of PDX this week, and we're looking forward to letting the boys loose in the two feet of snow at their Grandma and Grandpa's house.  If only we can get there.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

That's My Boy

You know how it is, parents; you fear that your child will inherit all the character flaws that trouble you most about yourself.

Now that Nels is getting older, I am starting to notice some of the less desirable traits that we share.  He is easily frustrated and ready to give up when faced with the challenge of learning something new.  He has a hard time falling asleep at night because his mind is too busy "thinking sad things."  A few weeks ago, I saw tears streaming down his face as he ate a sucker.  I had asked him to try to finish it before his brother noticed he had it, since Willem wasn't getting one.

"What on earth is the matter?"  I asked.  "You HAVE a sucker."

The corners of  his mouth twisted down as he sobbed, "I can't stop thinking about throwing it away!"

Oh, man.

With all of this worry that I am raising a young human who will be as much of a mess as I am, and in the same ways, it is always a tremendous relief when he does something that I would NEVER do.

Behold the thing Nels made out of Legos "for R2-D2 to ride in."  Note the shade-providing canopy and the little stoppers on the platform in front of the robot's feet.  Look how perfectly it fits.  Never in a million years would I do this.  Never in a million years COULD I do this.

Yes, he's my boy.  But he's also his own little fella, thanks be to God.

Monday, December 15, 2008

The Camas School District canceled school today due to "inclement weather."

It was a total set-up.

Last Friday, Nels's preschool handed out notices mentioning that snowstorms were being forecast for early in the following week, and that his school would be observing any district closures.

Well, it snowed on Sunday as predicted.  But instead of continuing to snow that night, it was just really windy. No snow on Monday.  Clear skies.  Clear roads. No ice.  I didn't even bother checking for closures.  Who cancels school just because it's winter?

My first clue that something was up came when we stepped out the door and I realized that I hadn't seen the school bus go by our house this morning.  (It stops right next door to us.)  My second clue came when Willem reached the edge of our porch stairs and refused to take another step.  He just stood there in the frigid air and wailed.  Of course I couldn't really hear his cries all that well. They were carried off by the wind.

I made my way through the empty (and COMPLETELY CLEAR) streets to the school. It was deserted. My theory is that all the teachers in Camas had been counting on taking Monday off and, when the snow failed to materialize, decided to go ahead and do it anyway.  (OK, yes, it was MISERABLY cold.  And I did hit one small patch of ice on the drive home.  Still.)

Nels summed up the sadness of the morning in a poignant moment of self-awareness as we pulled out of the empty parking lot:

"I like BEING at school, but I don't like GETTING there."

Amen, Nels.  Amen.

The Weekend I Needed

The Weather has arrived.  With the windchill it feels like 7 degrees outside.  That sassy wind has twice blown out the pilot light on our gas fireplace.  We've thwarted its evil machinations by switching to the electric baseboard heat.  Blow away, wind.  I just hope nobody needed whatever that metal thing was that just blew clanking past our house and on down the hill.

A better than average weekend should definitely end with a snowstorm.  On Friday night we went to Shaun's work Christmas party.  As usual, it was our only Christmas party of the year.  That put a lot of pressure on it to be fun, but any occasion that involves free prime rib and a chipper duo on drums and keyboard in a ballroom is all right by me.  I even got to wear a skirt (which Nels wanted me to twirl in ad infinitum before I left the house.)

On Saturday Shaun took the boys to see a steam engine (see his infinitely more popular blog for photos) and I did some Christmas shopping.  That evening we watched Jungle Book for the first time, and boy, howdy, was THAT something.

Nels was BESIDE himself with delight.  He stood bolt upright, he cowered in the sofa cushions, he yelped, he arched his back, he made cartoon noises himself; he laughed so hard that I thought he might choke.  It was the most amazing display I have ever seen.  At one point when the elephants were marching he stood up and yelled, "I'M TURNING INTO ONE OF THEM! I'M TURNING INTO A DISNEY CHARACTER!" with total abandon.  So fun.

Today, Shaun (though sick) was kind enough to drive us into Portland so we could see our friends Heather and Joy, who were selling Heather's wares at Crafty Wonderland.  Yes, I was a wuss for not wanting to drive myself, but I felt that encountering "Chains Required in Portland Metro Area" signs on the freeway somewhat justified my anxiety.  We had a nice visit, and I enjoyed ogling the artsy Portland crowd.  We're a little more country here in Camas.  I would never be able to pass myself off as a cool Portlander; I've never mastered the necessary layering skills.

Now we're home and cozy after our adventures.  But I've been out of the house, people.  I've spoken with adults.  I therefore declare this weekend a success.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

We Got A New Camera and Now Shaun Has A Blog

That's right, Shaun has started a blog.  You will all appreciate, I'm sure, that his approach is less verbose than mine.

He has built up a bit of a back-log, so be sure to click the "Previous" button at the bottom to see everything.

Now hie thee to and enjoy!

Monday, December 8, 2008

Want In? Want Out?

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed that I made a few changes, among them adding links to several more friends' blogs.  If you know me and I didn't include your blog, it's not a commentary on my opinion of your blog, merely an oversight.  If you'd like to be included, please let me know in the comments.

Conversely, if I've linked to your blog but you prefer to not to be associated with the likes of me, let me know and I'll remove the link.

And now, I leave you with a seasonal lolcat:  (You'll have to click on it, though, to read the entire caption)

funny pictures of cats with captions
more animals

I'm sorry.  I just can't help myself.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Beware the Free Samples

That crafty Whole Foods Market has me totally hooked on 17.99/lb Uniekaas Reserve Gouda.  It may be one of my favorite cheeses ever.

The next round of the crud is making its way through our family. Incredibly, Nels caught a cold about two days after Willem's two-week window of "do NOT get sick!" was up.  Willem got it a few days later.  A mere week earlier, sneezing was very uncomfortable for him, so I was really thankful it waited.  Shaun woke up with a full-blown case this morning, and I have that "I'm coming for you next" soreness in the back of my throat.  I usually manage to avoid getting really sick when everybody else is.  I'm counting on that.

We were to have gone to a birthday party featuring Indian food tonight, but we will keep our germs at home.  Other nice couples with kids will be there.  How sad I am to miss it.
Today we will decorate our Christmas tree.  Nels made his enquiries:  "Are there more fragile ornaments or more toy ones?" (Meaning ornaments they would be allowed to handle.)  He cried at the answer.  That's right; I selfishly gave no thought to my future children when I collected my ornaments, so they are mostly fragile.  Ah, tree decorating.  Surprisingly less fun in practice than in theory.

We've been chipping away at the furnishing of our new house.  Behold our new table lamps.  We settled on these from CB2 after viewing thousands of lamps online.  The next big project is choosing the art for the wall over the couch.  We're getting there.

Well, cue the Christmas music.  That tree isn't going to decorate itself.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and The Fan-freakin-tastic

This year we did something different and drove up to my dad and stepmom's in Bellingham to spend Thanksgiving with them.  It's the first time I've lived so close to them (about 270 miles away), so it was fun to be able to do that.

We drove on Thanksgiving day and had our feast on Friday.  I can now add "single-handedly putting out an entire Thanksgiving spread (with 'help' from her mom)" to my stepmom Juli's long list of talents.  Of course the boys were more impressed with her video game skills.  Of their three grandmothers, she's the only one who plays Lego Batman.

On Saturday my dad took us to the children's museum, which was refreshingly low-tech. The current exhibition had a nautical theme.  Nels liked the "submarine" most.

Willem was pretty good on Thursday, but he got naughtier and naughtier as the days went by.  We usually see a "grandparent effect" with the boys--they tend to get cranky and more disobedient than usual when they're out of their normal routine.  Plus we haven't stayed on top of Willem's three-year-old orneriness as well as we should.  Add a recent open-heart surgery to all that and you've got yourself a recipe for a good old fashioned tantrum.  Or ten.  Shaun and I had to tag-team bedtime duties because it was so difficult to deal with him.  Most of the problems were in the evening though, and it wasn't enough to keep us from having a very nice visit.  Thanks, Dad and Juli!

So, what better to do the morning after arriving home than take the aforementioned willful three year-old to the doctor?  No, Willem won't stand on the scale.  A chest x-ray?  Are you kidding me?  After 10 minutes of useless cajoling, I finally broke it to the technicians that they were wasting their time.  I told them I'd be happy to hold Willem in place if they thought they could get a good picture that way.

He screamed, he ran, he writhed.  Another girl and I had to hold him still, hold his arms back, and hold the radiation shield over his vulnerable bits.  And not just once, because the machine wasn't working properly.  We'd let him go, he'd run screaming for the door, and then I'd go fetch him again.  You know that move where they go stiff as a board and won't bend in the middle when you're trying to sit them down?  Very effective.  But we held him down and they got their pictures.

On to the next office.  Turns out that if a three year-old doesn't want an electrocardiogram, he's not going to have one.  Because it requires the patient to be still.  At this point, I was the one crying.  And when he tore the oxygen reader off his finger and threw it across the room, well, I needed a tissue.  By the time the cardiologist finally arrived I was feeling 1. like a total failure as a parent and 2. mad, mad, mad at Willem.

Everything looks good, though.  The doctor can still hear the valve leaking, which is to be expected since they didn't do anything to it; they just fixed the other things to keep it from getting worse.  They'll do an echocardiogram in six months from now, and at that time I figure we'll ask all our questions about the likelihood of the valve function deteriorating.  My guess is that it will just require long-term monitoring.  Back to that again.

Did you know that November was National Adoption Month?  Well, it was.  And that's why it is incredibly fitting that just last week Shaun's cousin Jared and his wife Amy brought home their adopted daughter Sunita from India.  And Jana, my best friend from second grade, and her husband Rob brought home their adopted son Elias from Ethiopia.  I could never tell it as well as they do; please visit Amy's and Jana's blogs and celebrate this affirmation of the priceless worth of each human life.


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Hello everyone! I'm a Software-Engineer passionate about technology and media of all kinds. Since recently, I am working for Adobe as a Cloud Software Quality Engineer, after transferring over from mytaxi where I was working on interesting (server) projects involving all kinds of technologies.

The Master program I attended is called Computer Science and Media. It is an Information Technology degree program with some extra focus on Management and modern Media.

latest posts
  • Latest Instagram

    After it got a little bit silent around my website lately, I added a nice little new section to the Home page today. As you probably saw when clicking in, the latest picture of my Instagram account will now be loaded and displayed, right next to my latest tweet. Of course feel free to check out the rest of my pictures via the link as well.

  • Droplings for Mac

    If you like the comfort of CloudApp, with its possibility to drop files right on top of the Menubar-Icon, but you don't like the idea of installing an additional Cloud storage app, then Droplings might come in handy. It adds the exact same feature to your Dropbox. Plus, you can customize the webpage for your shared file, by creating your own template.

    Read more »

  • GoogleDrive

    Yesterday evening I got an email from Google, informing me, that I can use GoogleDrive with my Account now. Today I downloaded the Mac client and startet to play around with it a little bit. I wrote down some of my experiences and took some screenshots to share them with you. If you consider to sign up for the program, fell free to read my thoughts first.

    Read more »

latest projects
  • ToiletFinder

    During the SummerSchool course I took in July, we worked in a group of four students on a small project that we called the ToiletFinder. It was the first mobile app I put my hands on and it was fun. It is an Android App that allows users to find Toilets close to their current or a specific location. Pretty simple, pretty awesome!

    Read more »

  • GlusterFS

    During the last month, two fellow students and me worked on a project for our lecture "System-Engineering and Management". We decided to investigate on the GlusterFS project, which was acquired by Red Hat some time ago. It is an open source file system, designed for cloud systems that have to scale and perform on a high level.

    Read more »

  • Facebook Campaign Creator

    During my summer holidays in 2011 and in the time from december 2011 to february 2012 I worked for the Online & Performance Marketing Agency uniquedigital from Hamburg, Germany. I developed a module for their Media Management Suite Darwin that can be used to upload multiple Facebook Ad-Campaigns at once.

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Art by Andrew Ferez
Artwork by Andrew Ferez

Currently seeking in both Adult and Young Adult categories:

  • Fantasy
  • Science fiction
  • Upmarket “book club” fiction
  • Romance
  • Thrillers with female protagonists
  • Stories by marginalized voices

Please no urban/paranormal or dystopian as the current market demand is low for these genres.

I will consider middle-grade if it’s fantasy or science fiction.

I do not represent memoir, picture books, or non-fiction.

I do not represent self-published books, read why here.

To submit, click here. To dive further into my wish list check out my profile on It’s a great resource to research agents’ tastes.

For submission response times check here.

If I do not represent your genre, you may wish to query one of the other agents at Kimberley Cameron & Associates. Find their submission guidelines on the KC&A site. Please do not query two of us at the same time and no more than one submission at a time.

  • Alexis Daria

    February 1, 2017 at 5:56 pm Reply

    Hi Mary. I emailed my query and first 10 to you using your tweeted DVpit guidelines, but now I’m worried I should have submitted using your form. Should I submit again, via form? Thanks!

    • Mary C. Moore

      February 1, 2017 at 6:06 pm Reply

      Hi Alexis, I just checked and I have your submission. Apologies it may take awhile for a response, I’m swamped!

  • Nicholas Binge

    January 17, 2017 at 9:02 pm Reply

    Hi Mary

    I sent you a query a couple of weeks ago through your submissions form. I was just wondering what your process was in replying and whether or not I should assume that you are declining to ask for further material if you do not reply within a certain time frame?

    Either way, thanks for taking the time to consider me.

    Kind regards

    Nick Binge

  • James G Kelly

    January 3, 2017 at 3:42 pm Reply

    Hello, Mary, I hope you are well. I’ll be pitching you in a workshop next Sunday and have a question if you don’t mind. I’m a life-long reporter and disabled Marine veteran writing an historical novel (trilogy) on my generation with a Navy nurse who served aboard the Hospital Ship Repose. My question is, should I bring the first couple of chapters to the workshop.

    Kindest regards,

    Jim Kelly

    • Mary C. Moore

      January 4, 2017 at 2:54 pm Reply

      Hi Jim,

      Don’t bring them for me. If I like your pitch, I will request you to email me your submission and give you instructions on how to. However if the workshop has other classes where you can get feedback, then perhaps they could use the pages.
      In general agents don’t want any material when they are being pitched at conferences, it ends up in the recycle bin.

  • Jack Marshall

    January 3, 2017 at 10:12 am Reply

    Hi Mary,

    I think I have something that would interest you, but do you accept submissions from non U.S. writers? I am based in the UK.

    Kind Regards,

    • Mary C. Moore

      January 3, 2017 at 3:25 pm Reply

      Hi Jack, as long as it’s in English I will consider it. Cheers.

  • Kashya Smith

    November 2, 2016 at 6:46 am Reply

    Are you okay with post-apocalyptic? I know it says no dystopia, but would you consider those the same?

    • Mary C. Moore

      November 2, 2016 at 11:06 am Reply

      They are pretty close. I already have 3 clients who write post-apocalyptic/dystopian, so either is hard sell with me.

  • Roshoud Brown

    October 26, 2016 at 3:52 pm Reply

    Hello Mary,

    I was very much surprised by your blog, more so when I discovered, without intending to, that I had read through every article in a single sitting.

    Thanks for sharing,

    • Mary C. Moore

      November 2, 2016 at 11:07 am Reply

      Thank you for your lovely compliment.

  • Keith Chatterton

    September 1, 2016 at 11:45 am Reply

    Mary, I filled out your submission sheet, but was unable to get pass the “Author Website” field. I used my company’s, I own, website with no success.

    • Mary C. Moore

      September 1, 2016 at 10:32 pm Reply

      The author website field is not required, so you can leave it blank.

  • Jeffrey G. Roberts

    June 5, 2016 at 11:28 pm Reply

    Hello, Ms. Moore;
    I have 2 questions: One of your pages says you will be open to submissions on August 1st, and another one says September 1st. I want to do the right thing, but do not know which is the correct date?
    Also, will your submission form be back up, when submissions open? Because I could not find it.

    • Mary C. Moore

      June 5, 2016 at 11:31 pm Reply

      Hi, originally it was August 1st, but I realized I would be traveling out of the country for most of August, so I moved it back to September 1st. Sorry for the confusion.

      Yes the form will be available when I open again.

  • Christian

    February 17, 2016 at 7:47 pm Reply

    Do you only accept stories with female leads in them? And what if my story is a combination of genres you are looking for and a bit of some you are not interested in

    • Mary C. Moore

      February 17, 2016 at 8:38 pm Reply

      I do accept any gender leads. I simply tend to prefer female leads, but if the writing is solid, it doesn’t matter.

      As for your genre question, as long as the major genre is within what I represent I’m happy to consider.

      • David Mark Dannov

        April 26, 2016 at 4:21 pm Reply

        Mary, I’ve tried to find a way to email you my submission. I do not have a Twitter account so hopefully you have a regular email. email me your email if you feel more comfortable with this.

        • Mary C. Moore

          April 26, 2016 at 6:05 pm Reply

          Hi David, I am currently closed to submissions. When I am open, I don’t use email but rather a submission form. Please check back in September! Visit here for more information.

  • giora

    February 11, 2016 at 12:53 am Reply

    I submitted the one with the magical realism (mermaid) which fits better with your MSWL. The other one has a more realistic story and very different plot. Thanks for reading.

  • Giora

    February 10, 2016 at 9:50 pm Reply

    I write to you because your recent MSWL calls for Latino magical realism, by Latino author. Classic but Modern. And you prefer indigenous cultures and writing that glows. Sadly, I don;t have all of the above. What I have is two complete contemporary commercial YA novels set mostly in Mexico, where the main character is a 17-year-old chubby brown-skinned girl from the Maya indigenous people of Chiapas. One have magical realism with a story about a mermaid that joins the Mexican Police force to protect the main character. I’m not a Latino author. I can’t say that my writing glows. If that’s okay I can send you two queries with first pages about the two novels. Thanks for reading.

    • Mary C. Moore

      February 10, 2016 at 11:44 pm Reply

      Hi Giora, if you would like to submit, please fill out the submission form. And please only submit one at a time. Thanks!

Post a Comment


text:
Marzi Sinks Made In America

XB Square

O.D. 15 x 15

Technical specifications available as a PDF

This square sink is shown here in our #79 bright whie* gloss

To see all standard finishes available, please visit the FAQ section of website

XB square sink 15 x 15

*colors may be different than they appear on your monitor


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Social News App Pulse Lets Users Save Stories for Later

Pulse, a social news reader for iPad, iPhone and Android, is getting into the save-for-later article bookmarking arena with the release of, which goes live Thursday, allows app users to create an account and save stories they discover in any of Pulse's apps. By starring those stories, users save them for consumption later, and the stories can be viewed in any of the Pulse applications or online at, Pulse's first web component.

The product is intended for application users looking to sync their reading experience across web and mobile platforms. Those who star stories in Pulse applications are effectively collecting them in an article repository, denoted by the new ".me" icons in the apps, that they can revisit from their preferred Pulse access point.

The product release also includes Instapaper, Read It Later and Evernote integration. Users who star stories via Pulse can also choose to earmark them to be sent to any of those services.

Pulse's new product isn't a direct attack against Instapaper or Read It Later — favoring connection over competition for the time being. At launch, Pulse users won't be able to save stories from the web, but we have reason to believe that a way to save web stories to is in the works.

Pulse has 3 million users across all of its platforms.


text:
Could Game Mechanics Turn Work Into Play? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Somewhere between FarmVille and Office Space, there's a key to improving how we think about work and how we perform on the job.

Think about it: Game mechanics have made some really mundane tasks (farming virtual crops, killing virtual pigs, etc.) absolutely addictive to a huge population.

So why not apply some of the same incentives and psychological triggers to tasks that are actually productive in the real world?

This is a question posed by enterprise social software company Socialcast, which created this 8-bit inspired infographic of facts and figures about the gaming industry and the enterprise.

SEE ALSO: HOW TO: Use Game Mechanics to Power Your Business

What do you think: Would simple, game-like incentives around teamwork, innovation and performance inspire you to level up at work?

Click image to see full-size version.

Image courtesy of Socialcast


text:
Here's Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs

A new promo photo for the upcoming independent film about Steve Jobs shows Ashton Kutcher bearing an uncanny resemblance to the former Apple CEO, who passed away from pancreatic cancer in October 2011.

The Sundance Institute released the image and a deeper synopsis of the flick — titled jOBS — on Monday.

"The true story of one of the greatest entrepreneurs in American history, jOBS chronicles the defining 30 years of Steve Jobs' life," reads the synopsis. "jOBS is a candid, inspiring and personal portrait of the one who saw things differently."

jOBS will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival as the closing night film in January. The promo image is a play on this photograph of Jobs on desk during his early Apple days:

SEE ALSO: How Ashton Kutcher Will Look as Steve Jobs in Forthcoming Biopic

Kutcher, who stars in CBS's Two and a Half Men, previously played roles on Fox'sThat '70s Show and in films such as The Butterfly Effect, No Strings Attached, Valentine's Day and Dude, Where's My Car?

Do you think Kutcher makes a good Steve Jobs? If not, who else do you think should have played the role?

Photo via Sundance Institute


text:
Donald Trump Endorses Hillary Clinton In New Political Spot

"I think her history is far from being over." -Donald Trump

In November of 2008, Donald Trump was interviewed on a local NYC news station gushing about Hillary and Bill Clinton. Considering how personal the Republican nominee’s attacks have been on both Clintons in the in the ramp-up to the election, the segment from NY1 is deliciously ironic. It’s also perfect fodder for a Hillary Clinton ad, like the one we just cut, for the good of the republic.

Related Articles

Donald Trump Merchants Explain Why They’re Selling Donald Trump Merch

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Anonymous Declares ‘Total War’ on Donald Trump

Donald Trump Liable for Running Unlicensed “Trump University”

Hilarious Arabic Billboard In Michigan Perfectly Trolls Donald Trump

Donald Trump Depicted As A Suicidal, Grenade-Wielding Joker On New Billboard


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Math Forum » Discussions » Inactive » comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica

Topic: Cyclic generator of a cyclic expression
Replies: 1   Last Post: Sep 27, 2013 2:28 AM

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Francisco Javier

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Cyclic generator of a cyclic expression
Posted: Sep 26, 2013 3:41 AM
  Click to see the message monospaced in plain text Plain Text   Click to reply to this topic Reply

Dear friends,

Given a cyclic expression say in x,y,z like

x^4 + y^4 + z^4 - y^2 z^2 - z^2 x^2 - x^2 y^2

what is your more or less elegant way to get a cyclic generator, like

x^4 - y^2 z^2 ?

Thank you very much.

Francisco Javier Garc=EDa Capit=E1n

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Master Teacher – Professor Hung-Hsi Wu

We are chronicling some major events in the history of mathematics education in America.  We do this  to understnad the historical context behind our current failure in public school math education, particularly in middle school.

In the past decade one of the chief contributors to advocate reform in middle school math teaching is Professor Hung-Hsi Wu, Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley; Member, National Mathematics Advisory Panel and Conceptual Knowledge and Skills and Teachers and Teacher Education Task Groups.

Dr. Wu discusses the topics of school algebra and their importance for student learning. He explains each of these foundational topics and provides examples, describes the connections across topics, and talks about some common difficulties that teachers have in learning and teaching algebra. (9:54 min)    TRANSCRIPT & DETAILS | PDF | 182 KB

  • What needs to be emphasized in algebra instruction
  • Importance of the concept of functions in learning mathematics
  • Example of using a function
  • Need for flexibility in sequencing the topics of school algebra
  • Why algebra should not be taught as a sequence of disjointed, isolated topics

We will feature many of Pofessor Wu’s other contributions to the reform of math education in America.


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Welcome to Missouri Department of Conservation Wildfire Data Search.

Fire Departments may login to enter/edit/view Fire Field Reports to the left.

Anyone may search Wildfire Data by clicking on the link under the Reports section. Once criteria is entered as desired in the report, "Preview " will display the resulting data in a formatted report with running totals, "Export to Excel" will open the resulting raw data in Microsoft Excel.

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Next Article in Journal
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Sensors 2007, 7(6), 797-859; doi:10.3390/s7060797

Recent Development in Optical Fiber Biosensors

Department of Pharmacy, General Hospital, University Hospital Virgen del Rocío, Manuel Siurot s/n, 41013, Sevilla, Spain
epartment of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Málaga, Campus Teatinos s/n, 29071, Málaga, Spain
Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Málaga, Campus Teatinos s/n, 29071, Málaga, Spain
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 21 May 2007 / Accepted: 1 June 2007 / Published: 4 June 2007
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Optical Biosensors)
View Full-Text   |   Download PDF [749 KB, uploaded 21 June 2014]

Remarkable developments can be seen in the field of optical fibre biosensors in the last decade. More sensors for specific analytes have been reported, novel sensing chemistries or transduction principles have been introduced, and applications in various analytical fields have been realised. This review consists of papers mainly reported in the last decade and presents about applications of optical fiber biosensors. Discussions on the trends in optical fiber biosensor applications in real samples are enumerated. View Full-Text
Keywords: Optical fiber; biosensor; applications; review Optical fiber; biosensor; applications; review
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0).

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Chevrolet Camaro and Colorado Win Motor Trend 2016 Car and Truck of the Year

Midsize pickup rides new Duramax diesel engine to second consecutive award

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LOS ANGELES – The all-new Gen Six Chevrolet Camaro and the Chevrolet Colorado with its all-new 2.8L Duramax turbo-diesel engine won the 2016 Motor Trend Car and Truck of the Year awards on Monday night.

It is the second consecutive Truck of the Year award for Colorado, the mid-size pickup introduced as a 2015 model.

Motor Trend editors praised the Camaro for its lighter weight, which contributes to “world-class sports car performance and dynamics.”

The Colorado diesel offers the best fuel economy for a pickup truck in the United States, with an Environmental Protection Agency-estimated 31 mpg on the highway for two-wheel drive models, and the highest trailering capability in the midsize truck segment: up to 7,700 pounds (2WD) when equipped with the available trailering package.

Colorado is available in four-door extended or crew cab models with Work Truck, LT and Z71 trim levels. The diesel engine is offered in LT and Z71 Crew Cab models with 2WD or four-wheel drive. It features a variable-geometry turbocharger for optimal power and efficiency, and is SAE-certified at 181 horsepower and 369 lb-ft of torque at 2,000 rpm.

Six all-new powertrain combinations are offered on the 2016 Camaro, including a standard 2.0L Turbo and an available, all-new 3.6L V-6 in LT models, and the 455-hp LT1 6.2L V-8 in the SS – making it the most powerful Camaro SS ever. Each engine is available with a six-speed manual or eight-speed automatic transmission.

Vehicle mass has been reduced between 223 and 390 pounds, depending on the model, creating a more nimble, responsive driving experience. A dramatic, sculpted exterior accentuates the leaner, stiffer platform and slightly smaller dimensions. Meticulously tuned in the wind tunnel, the new Camaro’s exterior contributes to performance through reduced aerodynamic lift for better handling while enhancing efficiency.

Both the Camaro, which won Motor Trend Car of the year in 1982, and Colorado are well-connected, offering Chevrolet MyLink with phone integration capability for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as OnStar 4G LTE connectivity and a Wi-Fi hotspot.

MOTOR TREND®, a media brand of TEN: The Enthusiast Network, was founded in 1949 and is internationally recognized as one of the leading brands in the automotive category. The MOTOR TREND brand is comprised of  Motor Trend Magazine; the award-winning website; MOTOR TREND Auto Shows; MOTOR TREND Audio; MOTOR TREND en Espanol; MOTOR TREND India; and the renowned MOTOR TREND Car of the Year, SUV of the Year, Truck of the Year, and Best Driver’s Car awards programs.

About Chevrolet:

Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world's largest car brands, doing business in more than 115 countries and selling around 4.8 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at

2016 Chevrolet Colorado Diesel

The Chevrolet Colorado with its new 2.8L turbodiesel engine and the all-new 2016 Chevrolet Camaro won the Motor Trend Truck and Car of the Year awards respectively on Monday evening in Los Angeles. It was the second consecutive win for the Colorado, which won the 2015 award in its first year on the market.

2016 Colorado Photos

2016 Chevrolet Camaro SS

The all-new Gen Six Chevrolet Camaro is the 2016 Motor Trend Car of the Year. Motor Trend editors praised the Camaro for its lighter weight, which contributes to “world-class sports car performance and dynamics.”

2016 Camaro Photos


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