visiblog

So this morning, I looked outside and thought it might rain.  Heading over to Wunderground.com (the best weather station around, BTW), I tuned into the “wundermap”.  All these choices for overlays of Tornadoes (we’ve had three in the past twenty years!), Fires, Hurricanes, Brimstone, Illegal Aliens – it’s amazing.  So I fired up every single overlay they offered and goggled (not googles) at the insanely overlayed map.

Pat Watson and I are teaching a Maya Character Bootcamp this spring over at CSUMB.  Given this course outline (thank you Graffle), would you be interested in this class for $200?

Short post here.  I upgraded the blog to the latest version of WP.  What a pain.  It may be that I’m just a bonehead, but good GOD what a process.  No fun.

In other news, the Tumblr Blog now has comments.

What a boring post.  Sorry your RSS woke you up for this one..

There’s a need in my life for more complexity. So I’m starting a second blog.

VISICHUNK

Today marks the first day of an entirely Apple tooled lab for Lindsay Digital. My last interaction with an MS-based PC was unbelievably painful and, as this computer is most likely laying in wait for me to trust it during some important crunch time, I am removing it from the network and installing this new thing.

Unlike the iPod or iPhone purchases, this was a little less “candy-like” in its packaging.

The new Mouse is pretty weird.  Definitely going to take some getting used to:

The new Remote is also pretty space-aged, heavy, like it’s important:

Can’t wait to move this into its place in the Lindsay Digital Command Center of Wonder…

Edit: I just found this cool little gadget on the Highrise site.  Very awesome.

NASA has been spending our tax dollars in some really interesting ways recently.  Apparently some engineer with a really good sense of design got control of the cameras on the cassini spacecraft recently with some really excellent results. Another spacecraft has been flying over mars at a pretty low orbit taking amazing shots of our red brother.  Boston.com has some great excerpts from the raw NASA shots.

Here’s one:

Lot’s of talk back and forth about building planets and good ways of rendering them in the past few days.  Here’s the latest Earth render:

We got the maps from the Blue Marble site over at NASA but the shaders are still not right in my opinion.  Take a look at an actual shot of our Mom from space:

A giant version of this is available here and the Blue Marble mapping resources are here.

Spencer –

This morning, Michelle and I awoke to some surprising and humbling news. At 6 a.m., we received word that I’d been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize — men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

That is why I’ve said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won’t all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it’s recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.

This award — and the call to action that comes with it — does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.

So today we humbly recommit to the important work that we’ve begun together. I’m grateful that you’ve stood with me thus far, and I’m honored to continue our vital work in the years to come.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

We’ve been working on a lot of new stuff – totally unable to find time to upload.  Here’s a sample of some of the science-focused work we’ll  be doing in the next year:

Electron Micrograph look and feel.  This is spectacularly difficult to tune.

DNA Strand.

Mother Earth.  May she continue to bear our weight.

Cruising the net last night, looking for taxonomy graphs of Microbes, somehow I stumbled on this panorama site - totally cool shots of the VLT in Chile.  They look like spaceships…