A long time ago I’d built a comic reader application in WPF.  Like many ideas it was put on the back-burner of my mind indefinitely.  When the iPad was announced I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that thought, “iPad = COMICS!!”

So I downloaded the beta SDK and spent an afternoon trying to figure out how hard it would be to build a decent comic book reader for the iPad.  Answer: Not very.

Here’s a video of what I came up with. I wish it wasn’t so jerky but that’s a result of screen capturing app I used.  Oh, and yes I know those buttons are dumb but they’re just to let you know how the interaction is happening.

I’d love to see how this runs on a real iPad.

I had so much fun building the NYTimes Article Garden…thingy…I decided to try my hand at 3D.  Trickier than I thought.  You can read about the details here or just watch the pretty video below.

Played with Processing this week.  Used the NYTimes TimesPeople Live Feed to grow trees.  You can read about the details here or just watch the pretty video below.

The other day I, like any grown adult, was relaxing on the couch with one of my Batman comics.  Allow me to quickly set the scene: Batman was in some villain’s hideout, where said villain had built some type of death machine/computer/doomsday device/whatever.  After a few pages of delicious dialogue, Batman deftly let  a batarang fly which, after skimming the baddie’s head, embedded itself in the death machine’s custom built-in, unlabeled keyboard.  This, of course, caused the machine to go into a self-destruct sequence which happened to take just long enough (barely) for our hero to make his escape as an entire mountain blew up.

Everyone has seen this type of thing in a movie or TV show.  But it got me thinking.  Maybe we–we being software developers, hardware engineers and death machine architects–maybe we can do better.  Personally speaking, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to restart a project because frustration got the better of me and I slammed my keyboard down, instantly incinerating everyone else on my team.  Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the hassle my boss ends up giving me.

Here’s a great example.  The image to the side is a recent project plan I’d been mapping out.  See if you can see where I went wrong.  (Click to enlarge the image.)

Does your inner nerd get all jazzed about the thought of building tools/apps for/with New York Times data?  Or maybe you’re just interested in what NYTimes developers have to say or share.  Well, we’re putting together a modest get-together where, to quote the site, "the Times Open event is a chance to learn, share ideas and collaborate with colleagues."

I for one am excited to talk with other devs to find out what they’d like to see come out of the Times.

If your interested keep an eye on:

http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/timesopen/index.html

There’s also this informal form to let us know you’re interested.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pFPCW-zUS_xki1gBhqMoWOA

And of course there’s always the Open Blog to find out what we’ve been and will be working on.

http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/

I’ve noticed facebook ads aren’t as funny and interesting as they used to be.  Half the fun of visiting facebook was the wonky ads.  Now facebook’s got me all profiled, targeted, or whatever.  So I spent a couple of minutes taking screenshots of ads to see who Facebook thinks I really am.

TOO OBVIOUS

This one is a no brainer.

I’M EXTREMELY HAIRY

I see a ton of these.  Part of me wonders if facebook used image recognition software on my photos or just targeted me because I’m a dude.

I’M FAT

And in case I want to stay fat:

Which in turn makes this ad just silly:

I’M AN ALCOHOLIC

Which of course was sitting right above:

I HAVE BAD CREDIT

And to stick with the obvious pattern.

MISC

These were the leftover oddities.  My all time favorite was the Microsoft ad in Spanish.

My buddy Chris sent me a link that shows how this was a real issue back in February and how CNN decided to rise above the rest and report on the matters most important to us.

As I watched Barack Obama give a history making speech tonight I found myself pondering a question I know weighs heavily on the mind of every citizen of this country.  Who’s going to play Obama on Saturday Night Live if he becomes the next President of the United States?

A quick search on YouTube shows that during spoofs of the primaries, Fred Armisen did a fairly decent job.  I just don’t think he has the chops.  If it were up to me, I’d have to go with Darrell Hammond.  He’s a veteran that’s shown us he has the experience and the know-how to get the job done.  I can’t believe we live in a country where we the people get to decide who’s the leader of the free world and yet we don’t have a choice of which actor plays the leader of the free world.  I feel so oppressed.

Hammond08!

Tip for those who are thinking of re-installing a fresh version of wordpress to a domain that’s already had a wordpress blog running on it.  Blog readers (like google reader) will have already cached past posts to your domain using a guid (unique id) generated by wordpress.  (For example, if you look at the url for this post you’ll see something like p=105 or post=105.  The 105 is the unique id for this post.)

So your new version of wordpress will most likely re-use the same guids, making the blog readers of the world think you haven’t posted anything new…and consequently your readers will never know of the ever insightful thoughts you’ve strived to impart upon the world.

To fix this I had to get all technical and manually update the values in the database.

Took me a long while to figure this out so I’m going to end the post with some of the queries I dropped into google.  Hopefully this will help future web searchers not have to go through the pains I did.

wordpress rss not updating

wordpress rss google reader don’t show up

wordpress google reader not working

wordpress pissing me off rss

wordpress &*^%$*&#$^%#*$&^#$ RSS!!!

google search moderator - if you exist I’ll give you a hundred dollars to find the answer to my frickin’ problem

Man, I totally want a cane.  I don’t understand why they’re not vogue or “in style”.  Seriously, just look at the Charlie Chaplins, Dr. Houses, Lucius Malfoys, and Grampa Smurfs of the world and then try to tell me canes aren’t hip. A quick search on eBay shows that there is a cane out there for any outfit or event.  Imagine how many people would look up from their laptops if you came strutting through Starbuck’s with a cane.  If those unemployed Liberal Arts majors had a watercooler, you’d be the talk around it.

And canes aren’t just for looks either.  They’re totally functional.  You can use them for things like scratching your back, picking things up without bending over, poking people, hooking people, tripping people, swatting at people, wailing away on a piñata, or any of your typical daily activities.  Picture yourself giving yet another boring, chart-filled presentation at work.  But this time you’re using a cane topped with a mini bust of Antonio Banderas as a pointer.  Can anyone say, “Promotioooooooon”?

The best thing about a cane is the ability to trick it out with a secondary function.  The obvious option is the classic sword-in-a-cane.  You can’t go wrong with that.  Or you could take a more creative approach and do to your cane as Penguin does to his umbrella.  A little nerve gas would be quite handy for that friend who can’t stop talking about how cute his kids are.  I can color outside the lines too, you know.

If you’re not into the maim and murder scene, you could always make a funky Pez dispenser or some type of really tall whiskey flask.  Personally, I’m a tech head, so I’d probably have an iPhone/cane merge thing going on.  Texting would be so much sweeter on a cane.

ROLFWCBML!!!  [Rolling On The Floor Laughing With Cane Between My Legs.]

Hmmmmm…oh oh oh….scratch that.  Totally changed my mind.  I want a ROCKET CANE!  One I could just point at the sky and take off with.  How badass would that be?

So how ’bout it people?  Want to define the next “big thing” in fashion with me?