I created my first downtown building using Google SketchUp, which made it into the Google Earth 3D buildings layer where anyone/everyone can see it.
I did a little walk-about around town looking for a good first building to make, i.e. geometrically simple and easily photographable and found a good fit at 634 West Main Street in an old brick building.
It was actually easier to create than I thought it would be, although it did take a bit of time but just following this tutorial was all the direction needed. More to come.
A unique and visually interesting way to make printed circuit boards layouts, inspired by a type of mathematical diagram. It looks a lot different than the more traditional, angular lines of the boards on the right.
Yes, Wisconsin has more to offer than food and beverages. It has startups too, says TechCrunch, which if mostly pretty valley-centric in it’s tech coverage (not without reason though). But it’s nice to seeing Wisconsin getting some deserved attention.
As mentioned in the article I did not know that Forbes ranked Madison as the 7th most innovate city in the country, but it is not at all surprising. As a student at UW it’s pretty easy to see the cornucopia of offerings in terms of resources, support and overall encouragement to start a business venture. From contests, classes, departments, subsidized spaces available, seminars, events, and more. And that’s just the university affiliated stuff, which is complemented by many entrepreneurial networking groups, mentoring services, governmental programs and angel investors.
It really is an active, multi-faceted community of people perusing that entrepreneurial urge.
It’s simple: I needed some storage space and didn’t want to spend more than $15 so I made some shelves out of the cardboard tubes used for concrete posts. It’s got that honeycomb look going for it, can be reconfigured easily, and is easy to build.
Verdict: they of course work (how could they not?) but a little is left to be desired. Load it up with some books and it starts to seriously sag, and not a good sag. A better, stronger tube material would be a major plus.
Interesting lamp design as it’s using a material not really known for it’s translucency, especially in block form. When off it looks like a wooden cube with a cord sticking out of it. The purpose is initially unknown, giving it a little mystery.
The Terrace hosts concerts regularly during the summer. The backdrop to last Friday night’s music was lightning a few miles away across the lake the lit up the clouds in a semi-epic way, semi-similarly to the more epic video below of the same storm’s lightning hitting the three tallest Chicago skyscrapers simultaneously.
If I would’ve had my hypothetical high-speed camera on me I would have made a similar video, hypothetically speaking.
I don’t get it. A tropical storm leads to a gaping hole in the ground? The Earth is being an a-hole lately, what with global warming and all. It needs to be put in it’s place somehow.
If you’re in the webdev world you of course know “Google I/O” is going on today and tomorrow, Google’s annual developer conference where they introduce new technologies that are likely to change the web. I really wanted to be there but even if I was I wouldn’t be able to get to all the sessions that I would want to attend on HTML5, maps, Android, etc, etc. I hear the atmosphere, while heavy on the geek (not that there’s anything wrong with that), is almost festive. A lot like the upcoming WWDC that takes place in the same venue, minus the insufferable concentration of Apple fanboys.
One quick note, while Google is a great company and makes great products they did drop the ball on my invitation: I never even got it. I would have been more than happy to give a few talks about the what, why, and how of the innovative technologies I use as a, if not yet the, leading web developer/ninja/entrepreneur of this generation. I’ve already contacted them about keynoting next year’s event.
Tomorrow: my initial, insightful review of the significance of the announcements and where they fit in to the future of the web.
You never hear stories like this in the liberal mainstream press, which often focuses on stories of success. I had the idea that every tech business which started out in a garage worked out similarly to HP. This is called survivorship bias and I’ll have none of it. But seriously though, a little advice: if you’re still in the garage after a couple decades consider trying something else.
I really like to bike. And I like Google Maps. Now I can combine those likes as Google rolls out bike route layers and directions for Maps. Lots of Madison data. Below is a route spit out, which exactly matches what I would take, including the alternate routes suggested.
Also over on the LatLong blog are some interesting details of how it was implemented. Not satisfied with a simple shortest path from A to B for directions they actually incorporate a physical model of the exertion required for a rider based on the topography of the route. See car drivers, when biking you exert yourself which makes good exercise and feels good.
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