Jimmy the Geek

John Hodgeman... PC in the Apple commercials

John Kellogg Hodgman (born June 3, 1971) is an American author and humorist. In addition to his published written work, such as The Areas of My Expertise, he is best known for his personification of a PC in Apple's "Get a Mac" advertising campaign and his correspondent work on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Here is a very humorous film of a routine he did at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design): John Hodgman: A brief digression on matters of lost time.

Check out the film, then peruse the rest of the site. A lot of very smart people talking about some very cool stuff.

Continue for the video...

Windows Vista...

What to do, what to do...

I'm really flip-flopping on whether to buy Windows Vista.  It's flashy interface is very appealing to me, but the $400 price tag for the Ultimate version is hard to swallow.  And yes, I wouldn't be satified with anything but the Ultimate version.  I've run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, and my laptop passes with flying colors.

I've been reading all the reviews.  Once you sort through all the "Microsoft is the antichrist" crap, conventional wisdom says 'if you don't have a compelling reason to upgrade... don't'.   So is my love for a great looking user-interface a compelling reason?  If Windows Vista Ultimate was a hundred-and-fifty bucks, I'd say yes.  At four-hundred bucks, I don't think so. 

It sure looks nice though. 

Of course, the Microsoft haters are poo-pooing all the new bells and whistles.  'OS-X and Linux have been doing that for years'... 'Microsoft is ripping off Apple's interface'...'Linux is free' they whine.  Ya' know what?  I could care less.  I'd be concerned if Microsoft didn't update to current standards.  And I happen to LIKE the Windows interface.

I probably won't be upgrading to Vista though.  Not right yet.  I'm going to do like millions of others and hang loose for a bit.  I'll upgrade in the future, but not yet.

"My name is Albert Einstein..."

This is just cool!

Web Site Development

I gotta show off...

My daughter approached me a few weeks ago asking about creating a website for the PTA at the school where my grandkids attend.   Oh yeah, Jamie just happens to be the PTA President. 

I asked her what she had in mind.  Let's see... interactive calendar, content management, dropdown menus, etc.  I decided to take it on as a donation to the PTA.  With everything they wanted, it was going to be pretty spendy.  I'll use it as part of my portfolio and as a tax deduction.  They'll end up with a professional website with all the bells and whistles.

So, I'm probably around 60% or 70% finished with it.  I've got the databased calendar up and running and am just getting started on the content management system (CMS).  CMS allows the end users to add/edit their content online without having to code anything.  Pretty popular stuff these days.

I even photoshopped an Orca whale, the school mascot, to fit in the header.  All the water and mountains to the left of the whale...  it wasn't originally there. 

Check it out, I'm pretty happy with it so far... 

Crestwood Elementary PTA

Teensy-weensy transistors...

QuIET: Quantum Interference Effect Transistors!

University of Arizona physicists have discovered how to turn single molecules into working transistors. It's a breakthrough needed to make the next-generation of remarkably tiny, powerful computers that nanotechnologists dream of.

They have applied for a patent on their device, called Quantum Interference Effect Transistor, nicknamed "QuIET." The American Chemical Society publication, "Nano Letters," has published the researchers' article about it online at Nano Letters. The research is planned as the cover feature in the print edition in November. <read more>

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This is cool some stuff.  I've recently become obsessed with nano-technology and it seems like there is something new every day. 

The Pentium 4 CPU has somewhere around 55,000,000 transistors.  Each of those transistors can be as small as 65 nanometers.  If you've been around computers much, you know about the heat the CPU generates.  That heat translates to lost energy.  25 nanometers is considered the minimum size limit for current technology transistors because of the tremendous energy required. 

"Even if it were possible to build an ultra-advanced laptop computer with molecule-sized transistors using current transistor technology, it would take a city's worth of electricity to run the laptop, and the thing would get so hot it would probably vaporize."

The QuIET technology promises to reduce the size of a single transistor to ONE nanometer.  A billionth of a meter.  And the CPU mentioned before would run at room temperature.

This is exciting stuff!

Google Search of the Day

I'm going to start a new feature here at Jimmy the Geek.  A Google Search of the Day sounds like great fun and a cool way to expand our understanding of nearly everything. 

So here's the first Google Search of the Day:

untapped solar energy

Enjoy... and post your observations in the comments!

Bio-batteries...

This just in...

A research team in Sydney has created molecules that mimic those in plants which harvest light and power life on Earth.
“A leaf is an amazingly cheap and efficient solar cell,” says Dr Deanna D’Alessandro, a postdoctoral researcher in the Molecular Electronics Group at the University of Sydney. “The best leaves can harvest 30 to 40 percent of the light falling on them. The best solar cells we can build are between 15 and 20 percent efficient, and expensive to make.”

“We’ve recreated some of the key systems that plants use in photosynthesis,” says Deanna.  <read the article>

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Kudos to the Aussies for doing this kind of research.  There is so much untapped solar energy out there and it's not going away.  Unlike our precious natural resources, the sun is pretty much an infinite power source... at least for the next few million years.  We need to take advantage of it.

The beauty of this research is that the result is more efficient than the traditional solar cell systems.   30% to 40% efficiency doubles what is currently possible.   Hopefully less expensive too.

A few days ago, I was sitting on the couch with the sun beating down through the window.   It felt good for a while, but soon it became too hot.  As I started pulling the shade down a bit, I had one of those 'Wow!' moments when it occured to me that the Sun, at 93,000,000 miles away, could produce so much heat.  THAT'S a lot of energy!

Pluto not a planet?

Pluto Loses Planet Status

By Lisa Pickoff-White
August 24 - The International Astronomical Union has stripped Pluto of its planetary status. Pluto was discovered in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh of Arizona's Lowell Observatory and classified as a planet. In 2003, Pluto’s standing was called into question when astronomers found a larger object, UB313, in the Kuiper Belt, an area beyond Neptune filled with large icy objects and believed to be the source of many comets.

Approximately 2,500 experts at the IAU’s general assembly voted to change Pluto’s status, rejecting a proposal that would have retained Pluto as a planet and brought three other objects into the planetary club. Pluto is considerably smaller and more distant than the other planets in our solar system. Two-thirds the size of Earth's moon, Pluto's classification as a planet came under scrutiny when many objects of similar size and distance were discovered in the Kuiper Belt in the 1990s.

The Space Studies Board provides an independent, authoritative forum for all aspects of space science and applications, and it serves as the focal point within the National Academies for activities on space research.  -link-

DreamSuite Pro

Special effects... cool stuff!

I just purchased a waycool filter tool for my Paint Shop Pro X software.  I've been looking for a way to jazz up some of my text and graphics for some time.  I can do it manually, but it gets time consuming.  I tried several of the offerings on the Internet and finally settled on Auto FX's DreamSuite Pro.  There are three offerings for DreamSuite.  I got number one.   It's also compatable with PhotoShop.

Very cool effects and super flexible!  I dinked around with it for about fifteen minutes and came up with this graphic.  I just started with a black circle, tweaked it to look like a ball, added a reflection image, scribbled a design and tweaked it to give it a steel look... and voila!

Look for a new banner for Jimmy the Geek soon!

The Hacker's Diet

Now THIS I can do!

I stumbled upon a website today that totally caught my attention.  It's called The Hacker's Diet.  The byline is a tongue-in-cheek 'How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition'. 

Thinking it was a humorous slam on hackers, I was drawn in.  What I found was very different from what I expected.

It's actually a serious online book written by John Walker, founder of AutoDesk, who approaches weight loss 'as an engineering problem' .  I think I like that!  Here's an excerpt:

The absurdity of my situation finally struck home in 1987. “Look,” I said to myself, “you founded one of the five biggest software companies in the world, Autodesk. You wrote large pieces of AutoCAD, the world standard for computer aided design. You've made in excess of fifty million dollars without dropping dead, going crazy, or winding up in jail. You've succeeded at some pretty difficult things, and you can't control your flippin' weight?”

I'm going to give it a read.  Not that I'm overweight or anything like that... snort!  It looks like a great how-to for following the standard equation that we all know and love... eat less food than your body burns.