So, I should post about PAX '07 before it all fades into blurry memory. Short version: it rocked. For those with short memories, Karin and I went to PAX '05 and enjoyed it, but didn't make it out there last year for PAX '06. A big problem with PAX is that they always schedule it for the same time (the weekend before Labor Day weekend) and that always ends up being the same time relative to Karin's schedule: after she has to report back and the weekend before kids show up. So it's always a challenge to make it work. But this year they moved PAX to a bigger venue and beefed up the concert list enough to make Karin sigh and say "OK, let's go!" So we scooted out there Friday after she got out of work. We were worried about making the concert so went straight to the convention center and pretty got right in the concert line (still wheeling carry-on suitcases even). Because we missed most of Friday we didn't get to see Wil Wheaton's keynote, which sucks but what-are-you-gonna-do?Friday night we saw the One Ups, Optimus Rhyme, and Freezepop. (The Neskimos played after Freezepop, but us old folks bailed out and went to the hotel - we got there around 2 AM! This is the second time we've gone to PAX and skipped out on these poor fellows. I'm sure they are great.) I liked the One Ups quite a bit. It's all 8 bit classic themes, much like the Minibosses but they are more . . . jazzy I guess? This is the third time I've seen Optimus Rhyme, in the third venue (they were at PAX '05 and on tour with MC Frontalot back in February) and every time I cannot understand the lyrics because the instrumental mix overpowers the singing. Back at PAX '05 I blamed it on the acoustics of the show but now I'm thinking they must do that on purpose, and I don't really care for it. Freezepop was fantastic, well worth going to see.Saturday we slept pretty late (see not checking in until 2AM above) and then set about maximizing our one full day in Seattle. We made an early dinner reservation at the hotel's semi-fancy seafood bar and headed over to the show to grab the wristbands for guaranteed admission to the second concert. Then we grabbed lunch and planned out the rest of the day. We wanted to see the "Make a strip panel" like we did in '05 but that would have left less than an hour for the expo floor, and we weren't sure we'd want to go back on Sunday to the show. I wasn't sure how I felt about the floor in this post-E3 era, so I wanted to make sure we gave it enough time. We finally decided to hit the floor and let me do a quick read on it and if I was in doubt we'd skip the make-a-strip panel. Turned out we skipped it and I'm happy we did. I got to see Rock Band (but chose not to wait to play it - it was a huge line) and Karin and I played a game of Eye of Judgement. We also later played a demo game of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, looked at a bunch of stuff (saw the Starcraft board game, which looks cool) and played a bit with the character creator from the Penny Arcade game.Eye of Judgement . . . it's hard to say. First off, the person supposedly running the table knew less about playing the game than I did (and I haven't been tracking it that closely). The main concern I have right now is that as we played it you get a flat 2 mana per turn. Well, most cards cost more than two mana to play and most creatures costs 2 or more mana to even attack so it seems like you end up passing every other turn. Most TCG games have a curve where you slowly build up resources so you can play bigger cards later, but if you just get 2 mana a turn forever things never really get "cheaper". Karin played this monstrous dragon which looked fierce but she never had the mana do anything with it again. If there's not some other element to this (more mana based on square control or creatures that generate mana or something) this game is going to play very ponderous and sloooooooowwwwww. I can't quite believe that Wizards would ship it with the card element that broken, so I'm assuming there was something disabled for the demo. One theory I have is that there is a simplistic "beginner" mode but the real game has more mana interactions. I won't be buying it until I hear something that makes me believe what we played wasn't the "real" mana curve.This post is too long now. I'll write about Saturday night and the the WoW TCG later.

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Tags: PAX, gaming, convention, Freezepop, EyeOfJudgement

So I'm out of town for the weekend - Karin and I flew out to PAX. I'm actually posting this while we wait for the concert to start since the venue has free WiFi. I was a little afraid that we wouldn't be able to get in to this concert because Karin had to work so we didn't even land until 8 PM and the concert starts at 9:30 (nominally), but we made it! We went straight to the convention center, so we haven't even checked in at the hotel yet, but we made it to see Freezepop, and that is what matters! More later!

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Tags: PAX, concert, Freezepop

This is arguably the most difficult section of the entire vehicle. It contains extensive shielding to protect both against normal flight conditions and a worst case engine fire or RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly). In the event of an engine shutdown, well protected propellant pre-valves and pressurant fuse valves immediately cut off flow to that engine.

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation - Updates I wanted to post this mainly because I'd never encountered the acronym "RUD" before and it made me grin. But I'd encourage anybody with any interest in spaceflight to read the whole update. I got it in email, but that link will take you to the same text. It has lots of pictures of work on Falcon 9, as well as some test firing footage of the Merlin engine. Excellent stuff!

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Tags: SpaceX, rocketry, Falcon9

I almost got to yell "Stay off my lawn!" for real to a bunch of hooligans today. Well, Karin would have yelled it first. We had just had dinner, and I was cleaning up in the kitchen, when we heard glass break and some kids hollering outside. Go outside and there's like three kids on bikes and clearly one of them has thrown a bottle down in the middle of the street. Bad move! Karin popped out the teacher voice, we both glared at them a while, and Karin made them sweep up all the glass. Truth be told I mostly had to fight down the giggles as they tried to oscillate between being bad-ass at each other, apologizing to Karin, and telling each other they were telling Mom when they got home. Which I have to say, spoiled their attempts at bad-ass-ness. Plus, what kind of kid when on a bike and poised to flee gets off the ride and starts sweeping up glass just because somebody used the teacher voice on him? Not a bad-ass one, I'll tell you that much.

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Tags: Hooligans!

I've been playing a little with a program called called Photomatix. The idea is that you take multiple shots of the same scene with different exposures and then this program combines them into a "High Dynamic Range" (HDR) image. Many cameras - even my old Olympus C404 will do this automatically. The Olympus calls it "bracket" mode. When I turn this on I get 3 (or 5) shots, one at the "right" exposure, one darker, and one lighter. The above image is basically the defaults from Photomatix. Below are the original images It's a pretty neat program. There's a free trial - the only thing is that the free version watermarks the image. (If you're wondering why my sample image doesn't have the watermark, it's because the watermark happened to be outside my crop. There's even both a Windows and OS X version. The only real downside is you should really use a tripod. I shot these just holding the camera, but well over half the shots I try that with get too blurry to use.

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Tags: photography, HDR, Photomatix