Author archives: Mike

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Sure, it's easy to install, but 10 times? (Knoppix install goes poorly on messed up hardware...)


Knoppix, as many of the none of you will surely know, is a bootable Debian Linux CD. It is also one of the easier ways to install Debian, you boot into the full Linux environment off the CD and run a (rather primitive) script to install to the hard-disk.

A Safe Place to Explore Ideas (Playfulness in design as a mechanism to allow exploration of difficult topics)


Apropos to the question of play in design, particularly the effect described in my thesis of providing a safe environment for exploring ideas:

Arlo and Janis: Can I have a kiss?

What you see here is a fairly deep topic; getting caught up in trivialities and as a result losing the chance to demonstrate affection. It's something that's painful for many people, yet ...

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Robotics of electro-active polymers for space (Scatterthought ideas on the DARPA race)


Well, as everyone and their brother has been reporting, the DARPA race across the desert wound up with best showings of 7 miles (14km or so). Lots of coverage of the mechanical exoskeleton for soldiers as well.

Of course, coverage of Spirit and Opportunity has been phenomenal Still, they're expected to drive maybe a few ...

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Little things add up (UI issues all night...)


Got an email from customer' tech asking me to review the logs and see if there was a problem on our end during a given period. So, I check, which takes an hour or so of poking around in various log tables on various running instances, and then start drafting email to say basically "no, ...

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Metaclass lovin (Clarity seems to be infusing the presentation)


So either I'm getting too deep and forgetting the audience, or the whole of the presentation is starting to make sense. Still need the section discussing how to decide when to use them, and a review of how metaclasses fit into the goals of meta-programming. It's fairly clear IMO, however, so yay. It's a much ...

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