Y'all have a safe and pleasant holiday!

Google Office

I NEED TO WORK AT GOOGLE!

I have no idea what I could do there, but fuck! I got a tour of their offices today and I was floored by the awesomeness of it all. To the eye, it was more or less just like any other ".com" office, but there was something different about it, more laid back, more stuff, more friendly. Their seemed to be a good work ethic there, and a calmness to it all. It The non-work related perks were of course amazing. Free food where ever you turned, healthy snacks and drinks, gourmet food for consumption in their many cafeterias, living room set-ups at every turn with any console system you wanted to play on giant screen TVs. Large game and fitness rooms, massage rooms, you name it, they got it.


I was most impressed by the amount of Legos stations one of the floors had. There were bins of Legos everywhere! It seemed like the while floor was just for building Legos.  The picture above is a giant Google logo made of legos. To the right is a giant mural made out of Legos. There was a lot more, portraits, scenes, barcodes, all made out of Legos. They even  had a MindStorm station for making Lego Robots! The one that was sitting there at the moment was a moving Google logo that rotated that was made of of giant Legos alphabet blocks. It wasnt like FAO Schwartz or anything, but it was a Wonderland.

I didnt feel entirely comfortable taking pictures while I was there, especially with all the corporate secrecy articles I've been reading these past couple of days, but I did get one final one of something I was blown away by. It was a giant Google Earth station, seems it was just being worked on, but it was functioning and impressive as all get-out! It was 9 computers attached to 9 giant HDTVs all running together to give you an incredibly smooth, immersive, and mind blowing tour of the planet (also mars and the moon). I wished that google earth would run this smoothly on my computer. There wasnt a bump or hiccup to be found. I dont know if they were prototyping it for public display or if it was just a pet project of someones. What ever the case, I hope to be able to play with it again. It was sweet!

So anyhoo, my tour was awesome, I got free snacks and drinks, and I loved every minute of being there. I need to work there. Or maybe I can just find myself a quiet corner somewhere where I can just squat rent free for awhile. Now I know what all the hub-bub is about. It really is as impressive as everyones says. I think the planet would run more smoothly if all offices were like this. If not for anything else, god bless Google for making their employees happy.

eclipse 12/21/10

eclipse 12/21/10, originally uploaded by ★ 0091436 ★.

In all my years on this planet, this is the very first eclipse (solar or lunar) that I've ever seen with my own eyes. It was cool, nothing spectacular, but at least now I can say that I've seen one!

This was taken half way through it's run, with my crappy Tamron 28-300mm lens.

Wanna-be Cable Cutter pt. 2

Before boost, test to the UK

After Boost, local test

Got "Boost" internet tonight. For the extra $15 bucks, Im not impressed. Thankfully I have a month to decide if I want to keep it (and the 1st month is free). If it stays consistently above 5Mbs, and they dont cap me, I'll keep it.

We had really REALLY bad service tonight, less then 1Mps, which is what prompted me to finally sign up for Boost. Locally its as fast as advertised 30Mbs/5Mps Really nice, but if I test with anything outside of the tri-state area, its pretty much the same. Of course its different from day to night, hour to hour, so we'll see. But the old service was going to be impossible to watch any streaming content without being constantly frustrated by the poor and inconsistent connection. Let's hope for all our sakes that this service will be more stable then regular internet. Also, being the conspericy theorist that I am, I suspect that once my 1st month trial is over, it'll be just as jittery and lame as it was before. I guess only time will tell.

To be continued...

After Boost test to LA

pings around the world

Domes

Here is a new series that I did for the Secret Science Club Taxidermy event.
(more after the break)

Wanna-be Cable Cutter

So cable TV pretty much sucks, theres never anything on, and when there is, we're not usually around for it. On top of that, we pay up the wahzoo for it! Well, I think enough is enough. For years now, I have fantasized about cutting the cord. But with the amount we would have to for internet along is just as painful. So, I stuck with it. All the while, trying different things (hardware) and ways (downloading, streaming, etc.) to get my content.

I think I'm finally at the point where I just need to bite the bullet and do it. I cant afford the $100 a month for stupid TV anymore. Especially when we watch 90% of our TV through the computer. My only concern is the stuff that my girlfriend enjoys watching. Which isnt available online, at least night right away. But she has reassured me that it doesnt matter. And it's probably not the worst thing in the world that she doesnt get to watch them anymore anyway, so I think we're gonna do it. I have it in my head that we're gonna do this in January. We'll see if it really happens. But with my current financial situation, I pretty much have no choice. Honestly, I'm hoping for a financial reprieve. This is gonna me hard! Its almost like I'm trying to quit smoking. I mean, how do you just give up something youve had everyday for 20 years?! I guess we'll find out...

I've pretty much planned it all out in my head and started getting the provisions we need to have a smooth transition. Unfortunately I'm doing this on a budget. If I could I would get a sweet HTPC (home theater PC) setup and be done with it. But I cant so I am doing this with, more or less, just bits and pieces of what we already have. We currently already have many iterations of HTPC set ups. none of them really do the trick. But I think I have been able to muster up a good transitional machine that will get us by for at least a few months, then we'll see where we're at.

To be continued.

Portraits of Von

Here are some portraits of a girl named Von. (more after the break)

Another Year, Another Blog

So I thought I needed yet another blog. This one can be a little bit of both work and fun. A little more wordy and little all over the place.

Ive done blogger before, I am no stranger to it, but it's been awhile, so we'll see if I like it any better now. The main reason I wanted to start up a blogger page again is because my two main blogs have now become Tumblr pages and it's really hard and annoying (to everyone) when you get to wordy on there. I wanted something simpler to handle then wordpress, which was my last portfolio blog. Its way awesome, but just a bit too much for my current needs. I want this blog to be for bitching and moaning, and to occasionally do reviews and stuff. Quick and easy, nothing that needs too much tweaking.

So anyway, here you have it, I hope this doesnt bore the hell outta you and if it does, whatevs, Happy Holidays and Enjoy!