Recently a pair of finches has built a nest in a light fixture on our porch in Fairfax. I hooked up a webcam and about 5 USB extension cables to a PC to get a live feed of the Finch nest. Take a look at the video: Finch Nest When we see any new developments, we will post updates....
I just published my first Windows Phone App, Architecture , which helps users find architectural projects from around the world and nearby. It uses projects from the Urbarama site. Please give it a try and submit your feedback. ...
Bruce Springsteen at Austin City Limits Medium: Sharpie Ultra Fine Point Pen Media: Handmade 5”x7.5” Journal from Iona Handcrafted Books March 15, 2012 at Austin City Limits, Austin, Texas Copyright © Michael S. Scherotter 2012 See all of my journal pages and sketches from SXSW 2012 on Facebook...
I just learned that I was awarded a patent for work that I did as part of a team at Mindjet creating “smart map parts”. I look back very proudly at my four years at Mindjet in software development and business development, working with visionaries like Mike Jetter and Chris Holmes . The concrete result of my work on information visualization and using mind maps is two patents that I can stand behind. If you are looking for a great patent attorney, I would highly recommend Tina Lessani who we worked with to define, refine, and file the patents: My Patent Portfolio...
Today I have made up a new word – please use it freely: allusophoria noun the sense of delight experienced on discovering the origin of a literary allusion. Usage in a sentence “Alex felt allusophoria and laughed when he realized that Nemo in Finding Nemo was named after the fictional character Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.” What was a time that you experienced allusophoria ? Here’s one I experienced: Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street were characters in It’s a Wonderful Life....
Friday was the last day of the Fairfax Computer Camp , an informal camp that I led in my house for my 9-year-old son Alex and nine of his friends and I would say that is was an absolute success. By the end of the week all of the campers were adept at Kodu and knew how to make computer games. My son Alex says “it’s really fun to learn about different characters and what they can do. For example the turtle can close its shell and open it.” Alex programmed the shell to open and close like a shield, protecting the turtle from enemy blips and missiles. Kodu has a...
On the fourth day of the Fairfax Computer camp the campers were busy building, refining, and testing the games that they were creating with Kodu . Almost all of the kids tried some of the sample games and started tinkering with them by changing the rules, the programming, the worlds. When I was in architecture school, one of my professors said to me that as a designer, you don’t want to borrow ideas, you want to steal them: when you steal an idea, you make it yours. These kids were making the games theirs by adding their own unique characteristics and perspectives to them...
On our third day of the Fairfax Computer Camp, we started out Small Basic for a second day and I immediately noticed that the enthusiasm had waned a bit. I was also noticing that Small Basic was still a bit advanced for these incoming 4th graders who were all still learning their way around the computer keyboard. We did a bit with graphics and animation but that wasn’t as fun as the Turtle or Kodu from the first day for the kids. At that point the kids were getting a bit antsy so I let them out into my back yard for a snack break. After about 15 minutes I made an executive...
