This is just awesome: audio recordings from Jupiter. It's not really audio, it's magnetic field disturbance waves caused by the supersonic solar wind bow shock from the planet interfering with the magnetometer aboard the Casinni spacecraft. These disturbances have been transformed into audio to show off their non-stochastic character. And wow does it sound creepy. If the sun is alive and talking to the solar system, this is its voice.

Wow, I'm having a hard time getting over what a fun movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was to watch. I'm genearlly not a big fan of over-the-top martial arts films with superpowers, but this one was done really really well. I recommend it to anyone, even people with no interest in martial arts films. I'm gonna go watch it again tomorrow.

Let's see... it's been so long, and so much has happened! Where to begin?

In no particular order... Happy Birthday to me, I'm 25 as of last Saturday.

Minneapolis is absolutely the greatest city in the world for urban exploration bar none. While I was home the urbex group I assembled in the twin cities over the past year went on several expeditions, including the massive east-bank steam tunnel network, the sand mines, a hydoelectric plant, old grain mill tailraces, and natural caves beneath an island in the river. It was amazing, except for the minor foobars of Brian getting his finger cut off, Nicole twisting her ankle and aggrivating her fresh ACL surgery, and setting off an alarm. I have amazing pictures and you don't get to see any of them. Nyuh.

Aside from being possibly the only two people that ever read this crap I write here, my friends Nichol and JessiGerman are two of the coolest people on the planet and I'm lucky to know them.

The city of Qunicy, MA, has zero interesting drains in it.

Speaking of urban exploration, the Cave Clan has asked me to be their US representative and to help coordinate networking efforts within the states. Fun. On a down note, a moment of silence for the 14 year old kid in Melbourne who was killed while exploring a drain last week.

I'm packing up my exploring gear, computer, and a few changes of clothes. Later this morning I'll board a plane and allegedly fly to Minneapolis. The fact that I'm flying through Chicago and arriving in Minneapolis, the two cities in the country with the worst weather right now, makes me think maybe I'll arrive late.

But, assuming I don't, then I'll get there just in time for the second meeting of Under-MN. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, it is still being referred to as Mouser Week 2. Mouser Week 1 was in August and consisted of 5 straight days of marathon drain and tunnel exploring beneath the twin cities. Mouser Week 2 promises to be more of the same. Photos and vague commentary coming soon.

Time to pack.

Met with Molvig for the last time in a while. No more obligations to anyone for awhile. That's nice.

Spent the rest of the day at the Media Lab working with Rich on the wearables. I spent seven hours creating one body bus interconnection cable. It is the coolest cable ever. With indestructible 20,000 insertion cycle surface mount connectors and six separate cables for ultra flexibility, it is going to be the main communication and power path for all the different modules on the wearable. We had a number of unforseen problems creating this cable, but now that we have a method down, we can make the next one in under 2 hours.

This is the first time I've actually contributed something useful to the group. While I was working away at the cable, Rich was stuffing the latest revision of the video driver board. We finished at about the same time, and then we assembled the latest version of MIThril. It was really cool.

Today the construction work for the MouserCade™ began in ernest. I started with the cable harnesses that connect the keyboard emulator to the breadboard. It took forever to separate, strip, tin, solder, and heatshrink each of the 80 cables... but they're done.

Next task is to wire up the keyboard emulator and test all the connections. Assuming that they all work, then go on to building the cabinet. Yay!

Unrelated, Jess joined the wearbles group. This is good. Now we'll all be stylin' in our new gear. I just hope they're not made out of bubble wrap or puzzle pieces or something...

Well it's certainly a relief to have my class behind me. I'm pretty ashamed of my performance in the the class, though. My grade will not reflect my ability and that's not acceptable. The issue of getting a B or a C is currently a toss-up, I have no idea.

In happier realms... all of the parts for my arcade controller are here. My soldering iron is missing, and i asked for a better one for my birthday so I can't just go out and buy one. Frustrating. I walked over to east campus to borrow one last night. Today is solder day.

Also last night, Heemin and Jonah threw a great party at their place. Jamie is the turntable god. As much as his electro sets make me feel all tingly, his [unknown genre name] set last night was brilliant. Heemin was kind enough to record it for me.

We finally got into the super-technical 18 shaft. The lock that no one could pick after hours of trying was no match for a proper key. I didn't ascend the shaft, I was pretty exhausted. But it looks like a good one.

So the bad news is that i'm going to have to do the arcade controller wiring the hard way. But who cares.

The good news is that I got to go climbing today for the first time in forever. A minor trainwreck as I took my safety test and couldn't figure out how to put my own damn harness on, but otherwise a lot of fun.

The great fantastic uber-miraculous news is that Yip decided to give me an A- in 22.53! This is simply beyond my comprehension, and has made my day absolutely care-free. He says my performance suggests a straight B, but that he wants to give me some encouragement because he thinks I show potential. So he's upgrading me to an A-, and that's just the coolest thing anyone's ever done for me.

So Yip gets huge bonus points on the cool guy scale, I don't have to worry about my GPA for the generals, and my new "jaws" belaying device is really cool. That's today.

How to get your ass handed to you, part one.

Any cummulative oral exam where it's just you and the professor and he can ask you any question in any format should make you nervous. And when he immediately puts you in an uncomfortable position and then kicks you around and watches you squirm, that should make you feel worse.

If I get better than a C in this class it's going to be due to a clerical error. And if I get a C in the class, then my GPA drops below 4.0 and I have to make up for that next term or.... I can't take the qualifier again next september! I guess the gravity of this class was not apparent to me earlier. If Yip gives me a C, it could mean that I cannot get a Ph.D. here. That's not a good feeling at all.

Today's funny phrase:

"Ahhhh, it is verry very turd! Full rectal prolapse in fact."

VMware: very cool.

Lots of little nerdy things have happened that are making my life a better thing. New hardware for the linux box, I finished the wiring diagram for my arcade controller and have ordered some of the parts. HexX3l10r is sending me fun goodies. Railgun is moving along.

Speaking of the railgun, Holly and I took over the 0.005 brass shim and some 1/16" teflon blocks over the E-Ink to use the shear at their shop. Holly gave me the grand tour. Wow. Their place is amazing. What a great place to work. It almost makes me want to quit school and just design hardware for them for a living.

E-Ink is the tech startup that I always wish every company was like.

If I could choose any name in the world, maybe it would be Zebulon Montgomery Pike.

Phil's guide to seeing New Mexico is pretty good, but I'd personally spend less time looking at pueblos and petroglyphs and more time looking at things like the Rio Grande gorge bridge, East Fork Canyon, and the Sandia mountains. And don't listen to this crap about spending the night in Alamogordo - get a tent and camp in white sands. Nothing else does it justice.

Leave it to the Basement Jaxx, possibly the worst techno band since The Shamen, to be the mystery band I've been seeking for the last two months...

Disregarding that most of their music is complete crap, and that they have a penchant towards cheesemaster vocals.... Red Alert sure has a great synth bass line. It's the song from that "bliss comes from within" Coke ad. I've been searching for this song ever since the first time I saw the ad. Turns out that they sampled only the good bit for the ad; the real song has a bunch of cheese added over it. But it's just got one of those sounds that makes me smile and my fingers tap.

Horizontal Drilling. I guess it's something Texaco does.

Junkyard Wars is too damn sweet. But if Holly's friends got turned down for application, I stand no chance.

My Luck: I miss one class this whole semester, and one quarter of the final deals with that day's topic.

Things I've heard recently:

"Then there are the girls: there are almost always females along, but... none of them are into it... Which is really too bad, because it certainly seems like UE get togethers, just like atheist gatherings, are inclined toward being sausage parties."

"I went into the bathroom, and there's a chalkboard above the urinal. And there's like some kind of quadratic equation on it. Only at MIT."

These two things aren't related, and there's no point. I just thought they were funny.

All it took was Rachel from NED computing to run into me in the hall and say, "well now how are we going to recognize you if you aren't wearing your banadana."

Bam. I cut off the hair. lots of it. It went from well over a foot long to about 6 inches at the longest. Now it's all anti-gravity curlicious and boofonic, whatever that means.