blog.emerick.org

I have been listening to a lot of podcasts lately… and they are quite good… very interesting…

The first one i started listening to was Diggnation… Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht chat about the most dug stories of the week on digg. Very interesting and funny sometimes… you can get it here.

Another one that i listen to is called this week in tech. All of my favorite stars from Tech TV and now G4 and others talk about you guessed it, this week in tech… very interetsing and informative… you can listen to it here.

The 3rd, i actually watch… Its called Digital Life which is very reminicent of my favorite show on tech TV, the screen savers… Patrick Norton and Robert Heron talk about tech stuff… very good… you can watch it here.

These podcasts have been keeping me entertained… i have a couple more that i plan on listening too, ill let you know how they turn out…

Other than that, i got all 11 candy canes controlled by the computer… Got a little animation going… Ill make a longer video and post it when im satisfied w. the sequence…

Well i think i am going to go start reading a book, The Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll… Its about tracking a spy through the maze of computer espionage… Greg recommended it and let me borrow his copy before this past semester and i havent had a chance to read it until now… so thats what i am going to go do… later…

–Jason

Well i made it home safe and sound yesterday… Traffic was not bad at all and i made it home in exactly 4 hours which is the normal time…

All day today i spent setting up some more christmas lights… I was able to control 8 circuits directly from the parallel port.. so currently as i write this, 8 candy canes are outside cycling in an animation… i would have all 11 candy canes going, however, the control portion of the parallel port is not powerful enough to turn on the relays… the SSRs need 3.8v min, while the port was only putting out 3.2v… just barely under powered… But i might have a 2 chip version of my controller up and running by tomorrow, assuming Radio Shacks has the parts i need…

You can see the candy canes animated here.

Also need to revamp the control software… add a class to store the sequences… add some timing stuff… make it a lil more robust and professional… also i guess i should add coments eh?

Below are just some cool things i have found on digg after listening to Diggnation podcast…

Just watched the trailer for The DaVinci Code that comes out may, 2006… looks to be quite interesting… you can watch it here. I will probably visit a theater to see this one…

Miss your favorite TV show, dont have a DVR… Download them here!

Amazing pencil carvings… Click read more to see them…

read more | digg story

Well due to the weather this morning, i decided to stay it out in Blacksburg for one more day… Snow/sleet/freezing rain…. didnt feel like driving in that espicially with the way other drive in it around here… So my car is all packed and ready to go, all thats left is the computers… So the goal is to leave sometime tomorrow morning, between 8 and 10 AM…

I am officially done with the Fall 2005 semester… I took my last 2 exams today… I think i did well on the Intro to CpE one… i got a B- on the physics one i took today which is pretty good considering it was on 7 chapters… So hopefully i can pull of a B in physics and As in the rest of my classes…

So tonight is just packing and hanging out with everyone… i believe we are celebrating Erins birthday which is actaully on friday…

So the plan is to come home tomorrow, hopefully leaving early as possible in an attempt to avoid as much traffic as possible…

DVD drive in the laptop is dead again, put a request into Dell, should be getting a new one shortly… Dell does have great support…

Well i am going to go ahead and start packing everything up, got a lot to pack… later,

–Jason

Just finished up one more exam… It went fairly well… [UPDATE: got an 85 on it, he must grade pretty quick for it not being a scantron]

2 more exams to go, physics and intro to CpE on wednesday… I got a lot of studying to do tomorrow

Other than that, not much else new around here… same old same old…

Erin, Katherine, and Freno got us a Fussball table… Its currently being contructed right now… alltho i have no idea where we are going to put it for right now… If we move to Foxridge, we will have plenty of room to put it somewhere…

Well i am going to find something to do…. later…

–Jason

http://mirror1.spikedhumor.com/1209/SwitchLinux.swf

If you want to switch, let me know… I have several Ubuntu install CDs that i got for free to hand out and all… Ubuntu is very easy to understand and learn, you can even try it by using the live CD before taking the dive and installing it…

–Jason

http://xooglers.blogspot.com/

Its a blog by ex-googlers… They tell about their time at google and stuff…

I havent read it all yet, but so far its quite a good read and interesting insight into probably one of my most favorite companies that i would like to work for one day…

anyways, im off to bed i suppose, gnight…

–Jason

Added some more photos w/o captions or titles… Maybe if i have some time later ill add them…

I figured you would rather look at pictures w/o text then no pictures at all…

if you have any questions, email me or leave a comment…

More to come still…

–Jason

Just took my Diff EQ exam ealier today and it went well… i got an 80% on the common time exam, and the other exam i took is worth 25% i believe and im sure i did well on it so we will see…

Data structures exam on monday and physics and computer engineering on wednesday then home on thursday…

So this weekend should be fairly relaxing, just need to read some stuff for data structs on sunday and all…

Well i think im going to go watch some TV… later….

–Jason