Category: Miscellaneous


Burning Man Live Stream Rocks!

Filed Under: Miscellaneous by dsneddon — Leave a comment
September 1, 2010

For the first time in 12 years, I am not going to Burning Man this year. This fact comes as such a shock to my friends and coworkers, that it still hasn’t sunk in. I keep getting asked when I am leaving.

Since I was just out at the Black Rock Desert in July, and since I haven’t washed my car since then, I still get to breathe in plenty of playa dust on a daily basis. I will still be playing my banjo this week, just not on the porch, and not in front of so many people. But one thing that I have been missing is the people watching.

Sure, there aren’t so many naked people at Burning Man anymore (or maybe there are, and there are just many more clothed people), but the quality of people watching available any time of the day or night is unparalleled. Thanks to Ustream TV, I can get my fix around the clock through the Internet. That’s right, the high quality webcam is up and running, attached directly to a microwave Internet link back to the nearby town of Gerlach.

Let me tell you, it’s not like it used to be, with all those Segways zipping back and forth, and giant RVs as far as the eye can see, many of which are parked underneath even more giant carports. The days are long gone when a 4-person tent and a couple of Thermarest mattresses were considered luxurious. Check it out, in all its over-the-top splendor:

Burning Man 2010 Live Webcam

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Summer Vacation Season

Filed Under: Miscellaneous by dsneddon — Leave a comment
July 27, 2010

I’ve been making the most of my freedom this summer, and have been taking as much vacation time as I can. I recently went on a vacation to visit a friend and then led a camping trip in the desert. Last weekend I was out on a boat, an the weekend after next I will be camping in the woods.

I have fallen behind somewhat on responding to contacts. If you have been waiting for me to contact you, please let me know.

Beginning at the end of August, I will be tied to home more because I will be taking university courses.

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Student Recordkeeping Still in Dark Ages

Filed Under: Computer Science, education, Miscellaneous by dsneddon — Leave a comment
July 20, 2010

It occurred to me this week–while trying to sort out all of my paperwork for a class I’m taking at a California State university–just how backward student recordkeeping is in this country. While areas such as Finance, Shipping & Logistics, Manufacturing, and Technology Services have been fine-tuning their Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) for over 30 years, the education sector has become ever more fractured in the wake of the Internet. Every college has their own system, with it’s own quirks and difficulties, and few of them work together at even the shallowest layers.

Each and every semester, nearly every student who transfers from one college to another has to have paper transcripts sent between colleges. In many cases, copies of the transcripts are only available to the students by mail, so at a minimum a student has to have 2-3 copies printed and mailed. All of this is per college attended, so a student who attended 3 different community colleges prior to transferring to a state school might have to order 9 transcripts to be printed and mailed. If they transfer again a year later, the number could go up to 12 (or more for students with scholarships or other obligations where proof of GPA is required).

As you can imagine, this cycle of printing, mailing, receiving, processing, and filing all of this paper is practically an industry unto itself. A gluttonous, wasteful industry which has never had to bear the burden of its own indirect costs. View full article »

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Rockin’ like Spock

Filed Under: Miscellaneous by dsneddon — 1 Comment
July 18, 2010

For years now, I’ve wanted an old rocking chair in which to sit and play banjo. There were a few requirements for the perfect chair:

  1. The perfect rocking chair has to be old. I don’t want to be the first owner of a new rocker. I want to be the last owner of an old one.
  2. It had to be free (or dirt cheap). A hand-me-down is always best, but I’ll settle for one abandoned on the street (call it a hand-me-down from an anonymous donor).
  3. The arms have to be low enough that I can play banjo while I rock.

Yesterday I was driving to get groceries, and I saw a perfect candidate:

Rockin' Chair (before reupholstering)

Clearly this will not be the first time it has been reupholstered. The last time, someone nailed thick, ugly, orange shag-carpeting to a thin plywood board, and covered it with velour material. I don’t know what they were thinking. If you paid a thousand top research scientists a million dollars each to come up with the perfect cat-scratching toy, I think they would develop a rocking chair with shag-rug cushioning and velour fabric. The only difference is that the commercial version would be infused with catnip and cost 89 grand.

It will look a lot better when I’m done with it, or at least a lot less nauseating. Anyway, the frame is sturdy, and it, you know, rocks.

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Content copyright Dan Sneddon and Dan Sneddon Consulting