More is Less

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger I suppose. And if I have to do another software update I'm going to be the strongest man alive. I recently upgraded to OSX 10.6. I had a single reason for doing so: a bug in apple's openGL implementation meant my favorite program, blender, didn't work. It would crash after just a few minutes of use- every time.

10.6 fixed that error, and I must say Blender's been working excellently for me. I just can't believe it took an entire system software upgrade to fix that one little but.

I'm happy about that, but a little upset that exposé now shows me windows scaled to funny proportions. I liked this better before. A lot of people are complaining about the blue glow, that doesn't bother me in the slightest, but the weird scaling for windows in exposé greatly reduces its usefulness, for me at least. David Trang seems to have summed up most of my thoughts on the matter, so if you want to know what I honestly think of the new exposé size, see his thoughts.

The upgrade did inspire me to go hunting again for a solution to one of the worst things about the new macbooks. Namely, the absence of a numpad on the uio-jkl keys. For a lot of people it didn't matter, but for those of us who used it, that was a major cripple.

Reflexive Haiku

Reflexive Haiku
Syllable has too many
To even begin

Looking for a Decent Camera

I'll have to travel through time for this one. The camera I want is almost in my budget, I just have to wait until about 2014 when others have blown its features out of the water. Unfortunately, I don't have any non-traditional method for time travel, so I'll just have to wait it out at the standard rate of one year per year.

I know what I want. I want the full set of SLR features, including interchangeable lenses, and I want 1080p video. A great added bonus would be over-cranking at lower resolution, but that'd be just for thrills. The problem is, any camera that supports it seems like it's priced at about twice what I'm willing to pay for the thing. I've no specific budget, I'm just looking for value. I'm also quite sure that this will keep me happy for a while, even when newer, better things come out. Sometimes I just want the latest, but in this case I think I really know what I need.

I suppose I have 2 options: suck it up and shell out for a new camera now, or wait for some time to tick on by for what I want to drop in price a little. There are some alternatives (buy something reasonable now with the plan to sell and upgrade) but those aren't really appealing to me in this case.

I'd take suggestions here. I really just want a good quality camera that will last me a long time, and I want it at a value price. Are my expectations too high? I guess there's nothing to do but wait and see...

2001 Websites

As you probably know, I'm into electronics. I'm fascinated by every new thing, from the ingeniously simple to the awesomely complex. There's a lot out there, it's a good time to be alive.

I was searching for some information on a hobby of mine though, and I was incredibly disappointed at the results I found. I did a search for BEAM robotics, and it seems there hasn't been any progress made, not a single noteworthy thing, since 2003. Google's top search results don't include anything recent, apparently the most relevant links are nearly a decade old.

It's not like I'm searching for Hammer Pants here, this is robotics! I think it's reasonable to expect some recent news, developments, and articles. But apparently that's too much to ask. It's clear that BEAM was very popular from the late 90s-the early 2000s, but then it must have fallen off the face of the earth, because no one on the internet seems to be talking about the subject.

I'm going to do my part. I've got a little blog going dedicated to the art of BEAM robotics. It's a fascinating realm, full of hard hacks, clever design, optimization, and (generally) analog electronics. Beam bots meet the expansion of their acronym, including bionics, electronics, aesthetics, and mechanics. I created the beambots blog (name subject to change) to cover what's new in the field, even if I'm the only one doing any beam work and posting it to the internet.

I'll keep you updated if I find any post '01 BEAM resources. I'd love to find some myself. I hope everybody hasn't just moved on without me, and if you have... where are you? I want to know!

Whatever the case may be, I hope BEAM can hold on, if not online then off. It truly is an art practiced by masters.