The Hawker's Homepage

22 Jun 2009 Click Here	Spring Potpourri I've been so busy living life, that I haven't had time to blog it. When I wasn't busy, I was sick. Now that there is a lull in the activity, at least for a few days, I want to get caught up. Here are some highlights from the last few months. My 10 year old gave an energetic and compelling performance as The Duchess in a children's music theater pr ...
22 Jun 2009 Click Here	Google IO videos Well, even though i wasn't able to attend the Google IO conference this year (turns out i could have if i'd found out about it earlier ... oh well; next year!), the folks at theconference were nice enough to record many of the sessions and put them online! I'm going through all of the Android presentations now. Google IO videos
16 Jun 2009 Click Here	The Aquarius from Mattel Oh this brings back some memories ... :) The very first computer that my parents bought back in the early 80's was one of these. It was awesome! (and horrible now that i look back on it 25 years later). I had a lot of fun typing in the sample programs, making a little guy run across the screen and playing the one or two silly little games that ca ...
09 Jun 2009 Click Here	Warbreaker Brandon Sanderson has just released his latest book called "Warbreaker". On his website he's also releasing a free pdf of the book that you can download and read if you like. I grabbed it and stuck it on my kindle. I'm looking forward to reading it. So far i've been quite impressed with what i have read of his works (Elantris and Mistborn). Here ...
03 Jun 2009 Click Here	C++ Tidbits I have been a Java engineer for over a decade, and have recently found myself thrust back into the world of C++. I haven't really done C++ since college, so as you can imagine i'm a bit rusty. As I've been coming up to speed I thought it might be nice to have a place to jot down little things that i find interesting (or awful) about the language - from the viewpoint of a hardcore java developer.
02 Jun 2009 Click Here	Digital Smog Digital Smog: A jumble of public digital information that follows one around in the online world. The smog comes from many sources, including (but certainly not limited to) social network profiles, blog posts, wiki edits, newsgroup posts, search histories, tweets, text messages, and emails.
22 May 2009 Click Here	The flying car future I just recently listened to an interview with John Smart (which you can find on the http://accelerating.org website if you're interested in seeing more). He talked about six things coming in the near future as we progress towards the singularity, including the humbot, the metaverse, and the cybertwin. All of which are very interesting. But one ...
20 May 2009 Click Here	Some good advice My mom just asked everyone why they haven't written any blog entries recently. I think it's because everyone is updating their facebook status and sending tweets instead. But it's good to still write blog entries now and then. So here's some good advice that i heard many years ago that can apply to a wide variety of things. It's the cryptic kind ...
17 May 2009 Click Here	My thumb is NOT green After several hours of yard work yesterday, it suddenly dawned on me that i'm not a gardener. I'm sure it has dawned on most of the neighborhood too. The day started out good enough. I set up some cages for the tomato plants. I set out a trap for the wasps. I even dug some trenches so that the water in the garden would flow down to the end. Then my ...
13 May 2009 Click Here	Star Trek Now that Star Trek has been out long enough for anyone to see it who cares to, i thought i'd write some of my thoughts and impressions. Let me just start off by saying that the movie was amazing in every respect. The storyline, the acting, the visual effects, the music. All top notch. Whether you're a Star Trek fan or not, this is a great show. ...
10 May 2009 Click Here	A Message to Mom Happy Mother's Day!
07 May 2009 Click Here	Indiana Jones and the Intellectual Liquidity As I read the latest Academic Evolution blog post "Intellectual Liquidity and Academic Impedence", i was struck by the following paragraph: It appears that one of the primary roles of academic institutions is to prevent people from exchanging knowledge quickly and publicly. Overwhelmed by the exacting nature of a school schedule, degree requirem ...
06 May 2009 Click Here	Rainy Day Portraits Lately my mind has been buzzing with some new portrait ideas. So last Friday when my phone rang not once, but twice requesting Saturday sessions, I could feel my creative juices getting primed and ready to flow. Then I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of pouring rain. No problem! Instead of bagging the morning session, we just let our plans ev ...
03 May 2009 Click Here	Shatnerquake Wow ... must.resist.buing.this.book. ... ok, i just can't imagine how horribly crazy insane and probably really cool (in a trainwreck kind of way) this book has got to be: Shatnerquake. after a failed terrorist attack by Campbellians, a crazy terrorist cult that worships Bruce Campbell, all of the characters ever played by William Shatner are ...
02 May 2009 Click Here	Elections Hi I would like to tell you about the TRINITY ELECTIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm running for governor along with Sarah Clark and Emma Stincelli. bye for now. TALKING MEATBALLS ARE ATTACKING ME!