Kitchen Sink

Bill Amend's digital conversion

FoxTrot is one of my all time favorite newspaper comics. I've been reading it since it's debut, originally in my hometown paper the Detroit Free Press, then online via Ucomics and now from the FoxTrot homepage. Bill Amend, the creator of the strip has always been among the geekiest of comic creators, his affinity for computers and sci-fi has been among the themes of the strip that have kept me a loyal reader.

Amend added this note to his weekly strip

My first newspaper strip drawn and colored entirely in Photoshop using my Wacom Cintiq. Can't wait until I get better at it!

I have no information on how many other strips are created digitally, I imagine it isn't the first, but to move from pen and paper with traditional coloration to a Wacom and Photoshop is great.

Here is the strip from this week

Source

Why Can't Planes Fly Through Volcanic Ash?

Pop-Sci explains in detail what happened a decade ago when a NASA plane flew through a plume of volcanic ash.

Eyjafjallajökull has grounded planes across Europe, but most of us don't understand what the issue is.

After all, planes fly through lightning storms, heavy fog and the occasional flock of geese and come out fine on the other side with amazing consistency. But a volcanic ash cloud presents it’s own unique set of problems, particularly to an aircraft engine’s working parts.

Physicists Prove Teleportation of Energy Is Possible

This is exactly what I wanted to hear as 2010 started. No flying car, but real progress in bringing my Trek fantasies to life.

Over five years ago, scientists succeeded in teleporting information. Unfortunately, the advance failed to bring us any closer to the Star Trek future we all dream of. Now, researchers in Japan have used the same principles to prove that energy can be teleported in the same fashion as information. Rather than just hastening the dawn of quantum computing, this development could lead to practical, significant changes in energy distribution.

Physicists Prove Teleportation of Energy Is Possible | Popular Science from Popular Science

The Worst 20 Passwords

Another reason I use 1Password for almost everything these days

In December, RockYou.com was hacked, and a list of usernames and passwords was exposed to the Web, in plain text. A month later, security analysis firm Imperva has analyzed the most common passwords, and the results are depressing, to say the least.

By far, the most popular password on the site was '123456,' apparently satisfying a minimum character limit on the site's password restrictions, but doing little for security. A full 290,731 users used this password, far more than the runner-up, the slightly less complex '12345, which attracted 79,078 uses."

Conan O’Brien Says He Won’t Host ‘Tonight Show’ Following Leno - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

"Mr. O’Brien said ‘I sincerely believe that delaying the ‘Tonight Show’ into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. ‘The Tonight Show’ at 12:05 simply isn’t the ‘Tonight Show.’’"

I couldn't be happier with this statement. Thank you Conan, keep it up.

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Adding a second bit to FunctionSwitch

I've decided to divide the site into distinct content types (Thank you Drupal).
The primary content type will remain posts that are my creation, with little or no attribution to anyone else.
The post "Why Blog?" rides close to the line as it was inspired by another blog. The second content type will be attribution posts; interesting items I find and then either repost or post with commentary.
This is similar to what John Gruber does with Daring Fireball I can't and won't deny his influence on me. I had blogged before John went full time, but never consistently, I often look to John as a guidepost on what I am doing. I would love to achieve an inkling of his success (not material per say).
How the items will display I've not yet determined, but they are starting today.
Thanks

Why blog?

I've always wanted to write in some manner. I enjoy it immensely, always have. I also have desire to produce something of my own others will enjoy.
In a former life I was a cook/chef and worked in many different roles. My last gig was as an assistant pastry chef and it let my wings spread far and wide. I left the kitchens of the world after college and it left an absence I've yet to fill.
I love to tell stories, inform others and generally communicate ideas and thoughts.

I'm not great at the whole blogging thing at this stage. I feel my writing is not as concise and interesting as I would like. I ask, would I read my blog posts? Not certain.

I find myself reaching for a wider audience, I want an audience. I've struggled with how to achieve this and am not satisfied.

Today I found a post from Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software entitled "You Should Be Blogging"

It gave me some great inspiration, Daniel is someone I follow via his blog, Twitter and his podcast (core intuition)

Daniel wrote this after discussing his rocky start as a blogger 4 years ago

"So what changed? The moment I started blogging, I became part of a community. Sure, the community was just myself and a few readers at first, but as my readership grew, it merged with other readerships, and connected me to other bloggers and readers, many of whom have become good friends. Every opportunity I’ve had the privilege to take advantage of over these years can be traced back to the reputation I earned and the friends I made by blogging."

That right there is a new reason to do this. If I can gain any of the benefits Daniel has I will be ahead of the curve.

Kitchen Sink

Functional

I've been attempting get FunctionSwitch back online for far too long.
Generally unhappy with what was presented, both visually and content wise. I determined a while back how I want to focus content, but the design was horrible, I didn't want to view my own site.

After several failed attempts, I reached out to a twitter acquaintance for help. @matthewrex is a young designer who is doing great, admirable work. In a matter of a few hours, he had the new logo and design aesthetic in place. I then spent a few days theming around Matt's work and what we came up with is what you now see.
This is it, simple, clean and most of all; Functional.
Content is coming soon, starting with an essentials thread.
Mac Essentials, iPhone Essentials and Dad Essentials.

Kitchen Sink

The constant yet irregular iterative processes of

This blog/site started several months ago as a place to put down some thoughts the affects of daily life.

The subtitle "Interesting notes regarding Macs, Tech and Fatherhood" to convey my interests and intentions has been used. Over the first few months quite a few entries were submitted, most falling loosely into that arena. The problem encountered there was no specific direction and it felt either too constrained or not constrained enough. For non-sunstantitive reasons this site went off-line a few months back and became stagnant.

Finally decided to bring some life back to the project site Function Switch, the intentions for it remain largely the same as the slogan indicates. Hoping to focus on some more specifics, writing a few longer pieces in small chunks; stories not just about where we are today, but also how we got here.

In addition to the tech and parenting posts, look for some essays I've been contemplating, some people find them funny, others sad. You decide. All the old content is gone for now, it may never come back. I've added a new mission statement, it likely makes no sense as well it should "The constant yet irregular iterative processes of"

Thanks

Kitchen Sink

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