geeklinks’ Neighborhood

Happy Holidays!

Team Vox
Yesterday
2 comments

6acardVOX

Happy Holidays to you, your family, friends and neighbors from all of us at Vox.
See you in 2010!

One Day Till My Favorite Movie Christmas Vacation

northerngeek
Nov 30, 2009
4 comments

Christmas Vacation

If you have been a long time regular of my blog you know that my favorite movie of all time is National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. My number one rule is I can't watch it til December 1st. I love the movie so much that I watch it at least 15 times throughout December. This way I save my relationship with my girlfriend, otherwise I would watch it more. I wore out my VHS tape of it and the best thing that could ever happen was Jen (my girlfriend) bought me the DVD. (god bless her) Hope you enjoy the clip. It also contains my favorite Christmas song as well from Ray Charles. Whats your favorite movie during Christmas time?

Christmas Vacation

Crazy Girlfriend Smashes Xbox 360

northerngeek
Nov 23, 2009
4 comments

Girlfriend Smashes Xbox 360

The Engadget Show Talks to Ben Heck

I've posted Ben Hecks creations many, many times and the man is just amazing. Yea, he's the guy that created the Xbox 360 and PS3 laptops among tons of other awesome gadgets. Thanks to The Engadget Show we learn a little more about the man.

The Engadget Show Talks to Ben Heck

Are We Ready for Sex With Robots?

David Levy thinks so. He is the author of Love and Sex With Robots and he's all for it. I'm not too sure about that, hmmm, well.......hmmmm....maybe not.

Love and Sex With Robots by Mo Rocca

A Back to the Future Mod for Crysis

And yes, it does travel in time...or at least to another part of the Crysis world. Mr geek, I salute you!

Back to the Future Crysis Mod

On turning "30"

Well, not actually 30. Today's my birthday, and I'm turning 30 only if you measure it in hexadecimal, a milestone I've been looking forward to for the past 6 years. (It gives away the secret if you say "I'm 2D years old".)

It's not only my birthday, but it's also the birthday of my brother Russ, exactly one year younger than me (and always has been... imagine that!).

It's also a famous day for people who are at least a bit older than me: Kennedy was shot on my second birthday, and my brother's first birthday, so we hear a lot about that on our birthday as various major anniversaries kick in.

Today is also the birthday of my "twin sister", Mariel Hemingway. After discovering that she shares my exact date of birth from the old Internet Movie Database, I had called her my "twin sister" on my web homepage since from nearly the beginning of having a website for stonehenge.com. It took a couple of years, but I found an address that happened to reach her, and she sent me an autographed picture of her, and I sent her husband an autographed copy of Learning Perl. For a few years, we exchanged birthday cards, and then the address started bouncing so I left it alone.

Mariel Hemingway Twitter Exchange 2

Until this year. I noticed Ms Hemingway was on Twitter, so I started tweeting about my "twin sister". Apparently, she noticed, and responded kindly. And if she's reading this, thank you. :)

Looking back, it's been a really rough year for me. Brought to the brink of financial ruin, losing close relatives and longtime friends, and my own medical struggles, have all really tested my endurance. I have made it clear to my longtime friends though that the stress of this past year has easily exceeded the stress I felt in 1995 during my arrest and felony conviction. Yes, "a new high in lows".

And in a typical "Randal" fashion, right alongside those pains, I've had some pretty amazing things happen, with the success of FLOSS Weekly and my re-entry into the Smalltalk world. It's all Mr Toad's Wild Ride constantly, and yet there I times I say "I wouldn't have it any other way".

I'm taking Mom on her second cruise in a few weeks... a nice run down into the eastern Carribean on Insight Cruise sailing # 50. This will mark her first visit to the east coast, and her first time in an airplane in (gad) 50 years. She also had to get her first passport ever. She's excited, and can't wait. Of course, having a seasoned traveller like me along has been very helpful for her... but she comes up with those questions I didn't realize anyone would ever have. :)

For those of you who have stood by me and continue to do in my times of trouble, thank you. For those of you who think my life is just fine all the time, please pay attention. :)

And we continue... one day at a time.

Turn in Old Building Into A Pinball Machine

Using projectors of course....the folks at Urban Screen took an old building and had some crazy fun by turning it into an interactive pinball machine. Be sure to check out some of the other crazy things they've done.

Pinwall

I'm on fire, bay-bee!

Randal Schwartz
Nov 21, 2009
1 comment

In the past 10 days, I've delivered a talk I call "Karaoke for Fun and Profit" not once, but twice, at two separate "ignite" events: IgnitePortland and IgniteSalem.

I pitched the talk a bit as an afterthought... I had originally pitched a talk about FLOSS Weekly to IgnitePortland, which had been rejected as too self serving. The karaoke idea came quickly in response, but once accepted, there was the dread of having to actually write a talk that fulfilled the over-the-top promises I had made. And once the Portland talk was confirmed, Salem quickly asked me to do the same thing in their venue, to which I agreed as a "rehearsal" for Portland.

I have lots of practice delivering short, medium, and long talks to classrooms around the world. That wasn't the problem here. The problem was having slides that auto-advanced every 15 seconds for five minutes, and had to be frozen two full weeks before my performance, just a few days after I had been accepted. This was all new, and required a different thinking to generate. I managed to pull it off though, being warmly received in both venues.

You can watch the IgniteSalem video (which was shot on my brand-new Canon 7D in 1080p mode), or the IgnitePortland performance (as published officially by the event). Or both, and compare.