Pablo Fernicola's Personal Blog

Endangered Muriqui Monkeys - A Virtual Visit

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:00:24 -0700

A couple of months ago, we visited a forest reserve in Brazil where several endagered Muriqui (Brachyteles arachnoides) monkeys live. These are the largest primates in the American continent. Since the location is a bit far from the usual turist centers, it is unlikey that many of you will be able to visit, so here is a description of the place and some photos of the monkeys.

Muriqui adult

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The bailout bill and arrows (Wooden arrows only, with no lamination of course)

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:16:32 -0700

I am not sure what the benefit to the overall economy from this is, or how many Yes votes in the Senate or House this won over, but here it is, from page 300 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization "bailout" bill passed by the Senate yesterday (451 pages long).

SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.

(a) IN GENERAL.Paragraph (2) of section 4161(b) is amended by redesignating subparagraph (B) as subparagraph (C) and by inserting after subparagraph (A) the following new subparagraph: (B) EXEMPTION FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROW SHAFTS.Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to any shaft consisting of all natural wood with no laminations or artificial means of enhancing the spine of such shaft (whether sold separately or incorporated as part of a finished or unfinished product) of a type used in the manufacture of any arrow which after its assembly (i) measures 5⁄16 of an inch or less in diameter, and(ii) is not suitable for use with a bow described in paragraph (1)(A)..

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.The amendments made by this section shall apply to shafts first sold after the date of enactment of this Act.

I haven't finished reading the whole thing, maybe there are other important provisions in there which improved the original 3 page proposal and the earlier version rejected by the House - full text of the bill.

And I thought folks the other day in the debate were all for cutting earmarks and special interests's influence. I guess something went wrong along the way.

Oh Deer!

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:45:45 -0700

As Spring continues to take over the Pacific Northwest, the deer are making their usual appearance. It is fairly common to see them around our house, but a few weekends ago we spotted a couple close to downtown Redmond (half way between home and work).

Deer in Redmond

This is close to Marymoor park, a nice place for them, but fairly dangerous because there is a lot of traffic in the area. Every year, we usually come across a couple of dead deers on highway 520, next to the park.

Deers and traffic

Battlestar Galactica - It is not too late

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:11:46 -0700

Don't know how this happened. Probably it was because we don't channel surf by the SciFi channel that much (we tend to use only the Favorites button on the Comcast remote), but the bottom line is that we managed to miss the existence of Battlestar Galactica for the past three years!

We finally got into the series this weekend. We got the DVD of the mini series, and watched it Saturday. We also got season three from Costco and ordered Razor, and we will go through those on a future weekend. I am still debating whether to get season 1 on HD DVD, although the price is a bit too high right now.

We already got a couple of the new episodes recorded on the Media Center, and have the series programmed in it. I got the free downloads on X Box Live as well, and downloaded the podcasts to listen to while running.

If you have any suggestions as to how best to approach the series, please leave comments.

The series has many layers to it, and touches on interesting and complex plot themes. Not as brainy as Twin Peaks, but with a certain darkness reminiscent of Blade Runner.

If you also managed to miss Battlestar Galactica, get going fast, as the final season is underway.

My First Starbucks

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:57:16 -0700

Recently I visited Washington DC, to attend the National Academy of Science's e-Journal meeting. A side meeting took me to Dupont Circle, and that gave me some time to drop by the Starbucks facing the square, which has the distinction of being the first Starbucks store I ever visited.

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That's what you were up to!

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:53:21 -0700

Now and then I get people asking me what I have been up to (and not blogging about it). Well, last week we released the Tech Preview for one part of the project my team has been working on.

Tech Preview blog

This is a very exciting milestone and kicks off the public phase of what I expect will be a fairly impactful set of tools to help with scientific information dissemination. And, certainly, information related to medicine and related fields tends to impact all of us at one point in our life.

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Thoughts on HD Video Content, as HD DVD Exits Stage Left

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:01:20 -0700

With the fresh HD DVD news, I am going to kick off a discussion on my views on the future direction for HD and video content consumption, based on my personal experience.

I love movies and enjoy watching the good ones several times, going back to them as if they were great books. I also enjoy the extra material that comes with many discs. But, this behavior does not match the mainstream public, so one angle in this discussion will relate to the different audiences, and another to the technologies involved and their likely evolution.

Read below and see if you agree with me that the future is in streaming content...

HD DVD banner, hanging from a building on campus, 2007.

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Remembering Tom Dowdy

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:58:20 -0700

With great sadness I received news this weekend of the passing of Tom Dowdy.

Tom Dowdy

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The Blinking Amber Light

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:49:39 -0700

Came back from vacation to find that my primary desktop computer (Dell Dimension E510) would not power up, and the light on the power button was blinking an amber color. And, as it turned out, the 1 year warranty had expired a month earlier. I tried unplugging the different devices, resetting internal connectors, but the problem would not go away. This has a happy ending, so in case you also run into a similar problem with your Dell system, read on ...

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What to use for fast 2D graphics?

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 23:01:04 -0700

Got this question on email today:

I need to build the fastest possible 2D grid control for a trading application (no 3D whatsoever). Should I use DirectX or GDI+?

Which is a pretty good question. We give a lot of overview and background material in the SDK, but not a lot of prescriptive guidance.

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Useful OpenXML links

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:57:50 -0700

I have not been posting as frequent as I would have liked, but I plan to correct this soon.

Meanwhile, here are several links to useful OpenXML (wordprocessingML and Word 2007 focused) links:

End user downloads

Compatibility packs for older versions of Word, to read/save the docx format here

Add-in for saving to PDF here

Developers downloads

SDK for OpenXML formats here

Developer community forum here

Open Source OpenXML/ODF converter (both ways) here

ECMA specification that covers the OpenXML format
Overview
Specification

Here is an introductory article about the format as it relates to Office 2007

Also worth keeping track of Murray's blog.

Desktop Applications - CNET's WPF gallery

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 14:28:35 -0700

On the topic of released WPF applications, I came across this picture gallery on CNET's web site, from January, with screen shots of The North Face kiosk, Scripps Research Institute's 3D utility, Yahoo's messenger, and Print Shop Zoom.

-Pablo

Introductory WPF talks

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:58:28 -0700

Rob poses the question as to whether introductory WPF talks are still needed, prompted by an article from Ian. As I have been doing WPF talks recently, and have a couple more to come, I would say the answer is yes.

The deciding factor is the audience and venue, so let's drill into that.

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First commercial WPF application?

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 01:01:47 -0700

Last night the New York Times Reader application displayed a notice that the Beta period would be coming to an end soon.

This is one of my favorite WPF applications and one which I use every day. So what to do?
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Hoping for a Safe Return (Jim Gray's dissapearance)

pablo@fernicola.org (Pablo Fernicola) — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 15:39:50 -0700

Jim Gray

As you probably already know, Jim Gray has been missing since Sunday (SFGate has good updates).

I first met Jim about six years ago, but more recently, in the past four months, I have been interacting with him on a weekly basis, either in person, over the phone, or on email.

Update - You too can help in the search by looking through images hosted by Amazon.

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