BillstronBlog

There is no Stanley Cup to get crazy about this year, but there still is a cup to get crazy about - The FIFA Word Cup. FIFA World Cup 2006 starts in June 2006 and is being played in Germany, but qualifying matches are now taking place around the world. Today the US Soccer team is playing Guatemala at 8:00pm Eastern Time in Birmingham Alabama. The US team is coming off a tough loss to Mexico last Sunday. The US had never won a match in Mexico and that didn’t change. In addition to the big L, the team lost one of their stars, DeMarcus Beasley. He received a second Yellow Card for exposing his cleats in contacting a Mexican player. The second card disqualified him for the game against Guatemala. Even if you aren’t going to Birmingham for the match you can still provide your support. The game will be aired live on ESPN2. Check it out, it should be an exciting way to spend the evening.

The following was supposed to be posted yesterday, but because of a glitch, it wasn’t:

Right now, I am sitting in the Oakland airport waiting for the first leg of my trip home to Kentucky. I can’t wait to get back to my home state. The main reason for the trip is to play in an alumni reunion hokey game with my old team, the Eastern Kentucky University Ice Colonels. (I know, I know I didn’t go to Eastern. It’s a long story.) The game is on Sunday April 3rd at 12:30pm at the Lexington Ice Center. Come check it out if you are in town. It should be a fun (or funny) game. I plan on winning back the sliding title in addition to having a blast playing some hockey with old friends. While your at it, check out the EKU Hockey Website. Cheers!

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Sent from my Treo

To celebrate my Berkeley acceptance (I had to think of some rationalization), I brought Pippy home from Best Buy this morning. Pippy is my new PSP, and I was the 16th person (as the picture proves) at the Emeryville Best Buy to get one. I have been completely obsessed with the Sony PSP since finding out about it last September. The obsession drove me to wait in line at a closed Best Buy to make sure I got one on the first day of release (today). For the record, I only waited in line for about 1 hour, and there were no light saber wielding Lucas freaks around. In fact, most of the others in line looked like normal, well adjusted adults… Proving that nerds don’t have to be freaks. You may say, “Why the hell is he blogging when he could be playing with Pippy?” I decided to get some work done so that I can play guilt free for the next 4 days. Now, THAT is well adjusted!

I was accepted to UC Berkeley. I will begin the Mechanical Engineering PhD program in August with a focus on Controls. This is the biggest news in my life since the demise of NanoMuscle and much happier news than that. Berkeley has a top 3 Mechanical Engineering program and is a top 10 university, world wide. It was absolutely agonizing waiting the 3 months to find out, but the wait was worth it. The day I found out was the happiest day I have had in a while.

The advice I have for people trying to get into graduate school is: be aggressive. Target what schools you want to attend. Then, talk to as many professors in your desired program as possible. Be frank with them about your desires to attend the school, and ask them if they will have jobs available. Most professor appreciate tenacity, and the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at Berkeley frankly stated that aggressiveness is rewarded. The meek may inherit the earth, but they won’t have graduate degrees.

At least for a brief time, Google (my favorite internets starting point) Labs had a start page based on the look of Mac OS X. Here is a link to the page. Here is a bigger screen shot of it. It is an attractive page with interactive icons that grow when the cursor moves over them, just like with OS X.

The link may be dead. It was flaky at best. Steve Jobs is such an asshole he probably didn’t like Google using Apples design ideas and sent some lawyers after them. It seems just like him to be enraged by a fan of his products. Steve, hating your devotees is about as cool as wearing turtle necks.

Thanks go out to Scooter for the tip. He is a bigger Google nerd than me, you got to respect that. I owe the rocket ship I’m getting on to you, Scooter.

Update: Scooter also tipped me off to a posting on the Google blog about it. Check it out here.

The Game Developers Conference completed on March 11. My primary interest in the conference was on the exposition floor. So I attended on the first day that the expo opened on March 9. As the name implies, the GDC is primarily for developers, not consumers. Even though I fall into the latter category, I still found some very interesting exhibits.

I found the hand held gaming exhibits of particular interest. Sony was there in force with a large hands on display of their upcoming PSP’s power and elegance.

Let me just say for the record that my poor picture does not do the little device justice. It is absolutely gorgeous. The shiny black smooth plastic housing is very attractive, but what really distinguishes it is the beautiful display. The wide screen LCD is better than any I have seen in a portable device. I also visited the Nintendo both to get a good hands on experience with the DS, and the graphics rendered on the PSP are a million times better than the underpowered DS. (I will say that Sony didn’t have the hot both-babes that Nintendo did, though) I can’t wait till the release day, March 24. I will make sure I snatch one up that Thursday.

In addition to the cool games and consoles the floor was littered with companies showing off their developers tools. The most impressive demonstration I saw was of a haptic, virtual clay modeling device from Sensable Technologies.

The Phantom Omni is the white robot pen on the right of the screen. You can just make out a face on the display of the laptop. With that robot pen, you can feel and manipulate the face on the computer screen. It actually provides resistance in mid air when your cursor on the screen is touching the object, and as your cursor moves over the object, you can feel the ridges and bumps. I had a couple of minutes of seat time with it, and it is one of the coolest computer gadgets I have ever played with. I was blown away.

The GDC wasn’t all I had hoped that it would be, but my expectations were higher than they should have been. Next year though, I will be back. It was definitely an afternoon well spent.

How cool is that. The central Kentucky area code spells out UKY on a telephone key pad. Only Kentucky would be that fanatical about their university. The more important thing is how I learned that. I found it on the University of Kentucky entry in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an awesome free online encyclopedia build on the wiki concept. Wiki’s are user modifiable websites. That means that if you find something wrong on Wikipedia you can fix it yourself. Click here for a random Wikipedia entry. HOW COOL IS THAT!

10MPH is about a guy that escapes reality by traveling from Seattle to Boston on a Segway. (This sounds more like the premise of a 2000’s Cheech and Chong movie, but surprisingly I didn’t see a bong anywhere.) The max speed of the top of the line 2 wheeled wonder is only 12.5mph with a maximum range of 24miles. He had a support crew with him to help out, but this still must have been a pretty long and grueling trip. The best part about the story is that the two key players in the adventure were corporate drop outs. They just got fed up with the man getting them down and pulled out of the race. (I don’t know if that is the reason. I am projecting.) Go to 10MPH and check it out. Make sure to watch the video preview on the home page. The very last shot shows some awesome Segway tricks. Thanks to Fat Back, my omnipotent internet eye in the Blue Grass, for this one. Cheers!

it is a sport too. Crud was invented by the Canadian Air Force around the time of WW2. (Canada has an Air Force… to defend what… their beer reserves…) It is commonly played by military pilots, and is therefore very rough. The sport is played in a bar around a pool table, and (presumably) the players have to be drunk. Look here for a complete explanation of the game. I have never played, but it sounds exactly like a sport I would enjoy.

More Crud news will be coming you way soon…

In preparation for the Game Developer’s Conference this week, the only place on the internets to get your Billstron news has a new logo. The logo has a not so subtle dual meaning that fits perfectly with the goals of Billstron. Drop us a comment if you think you know what it is.

Stay tuned for our coverage of the GDC. There should be some exciting stuff there, as it is the largest venue for the game industry. I can’t wait…