Personal

Hobbies

Bob Wall

We built all of the holds by hand. The best tools for this are a belt sander and a dremel. The wall and all the holds were painted with texturized paint to give it better grip for climbing.

Oh, and since we're complete geeks, we built SOFTWARE for the climbing wall. We used this as our senior project at Cal Poly. It had a graphical interface that allowed the user to drag and drop holds onto the wall, spin them, mark routes, store wall configurations, etc. We also added an artificial intelligence component that would create new routes for us and rate existing routes.

Again, you can read more about Bob and see pictures of it at Saul's website.

Terabyte the Turtle

I've also started some some aquaria projects, most in Terabyte's tank. I've also listed a few future projects that I'd like to do when I have more space.

Puppy the Cat

Puppy is two years old. We adopted him through some very strange circumstances, but he has settled in well. His favorite pastimes are greeting us, sitting on the windowsills, "hunting the bed mice" (our feet moving under the covers), and chewing on our shoes. Apparently shoes make good chewing only after we've worn them and made them stinky. I swear that's why he greets us at the door; he just wants some freshly smelled up shoes.

As you can see, Puppy has some extra toes. While his back paws are normally, he has 6 toes on the left front paw and 7 on the right front paw. This, of course, means he has opposable thumbs. He does use his "thumbs" to grab things, like shoes. Thankfully, he's not a very bright cat, so he hasn't figured out how to open cabinets yet. However, he does flip off the lights. It's very annoying to be reading, and then Puppy decides to jump up and hit the lightswitch.

Puppy is a "special needs" cat. He seems to have some kind of mental problem with symptoms such as hallucinating, acting absolutely nuts, and then suddenly going catatonic. We've been feeding him better quality food (Eagle Pack), and that helped. It also helps if we don't disrupt his routine. He actually checks on us during the night to make sure we're still there.

But he's a sweetheart. :)

Software Engineerinq Quotes

"A program is never less than 90% complete, and never more than 95% complete."
--Terry Baker

"I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by."
-- Douglas Adams

"Software engineering is a battle against entropy...and you're going to lose. Measure your success on how slowly you lose."
-- Dr. Clint Staley

"If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization."
--Weinberg's Law

"The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency."
--Bill Gates

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
-- Rich Cook

Links

• Saul's Web Page
• The End of the World
• Happy Turtles Pub
• Bash.org
• PhD Comics

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