I’ve always had a fascination with retro technology, a passion which influenced the design of my 50s-sci-fi-esque tube theremin.  Recently the battery in my five or six year old watch died, which got me thinking about buying a new wristwatch (keeping the old one for rough conditions, of course).  When I happened upon a series of automatic skeleton watches, I was hooked at first sight.  Automatic watches use a fully mechanical movement (springs and gears and such, à la grandaddy’s pocket watch) with the addition of an asymmetrically weighted mechanism which helps keep the mainspring wound by turning as you move the watch.  In “skeleton” incarnations, much of the inner workings of the automatic movement are visible through the front and back watch face, meaning you can literally see what makes the watch tick.  The effect is quite stunning, and unfortunately still pictures don’t quite do it justice, but here’s one anyway:

Conveniently, the mainspring is clearly visible from the front.

Sure it will require occasional manual winding, and it’s horrendously inaccurate by modern standards (accurate to a few seconds per day at best), but the sheer Steampunk awesome-factor is nearly sufficient to impel me to buy a Victorian suit and a top hat as period-appropriate accoutrements.  Just watching the balance wheel oscillate and the lever escapement rock to and fro could entertain me for hours.

I recently procured an excellent new addition to my bedroom décor.  Doubtlessly you’ll perceive the same timeless artistic quality in it that I did.

Have you got it in you?

Google has released a beta version of their new WebKit-based browser called Chrome.  In reading through the introduction comic and feature list, I couldn’t help but keep thinking “why hasn’t anybody implemented this feature before?”  As someone who keeps a lot of tabs open for long periods of time, and who well knows the frustration of a JavaScript hanging the browser or a Flash crash taking the browser with it, I’m really excited about the direction they have gone.  It’s just as thrilling that a company with the mindshare and clout of Google is releasing an open-source standards-compliant browser which stands a chance of putting another dent in Internet Explorer’s market dominance.

Google Chrome rendering my site

I’m actually writing this post using the Chrome browser.  Above is a screenshot of how it renders my web site (correctly) and of the nifty memory manager which shows some stats on the resource usage of each tab process.  Neat!  There are a few glitches I’ve seen so far, but this is still a test version and what I’m seeing right now is very exciting.  Now I’m just waiting in expectation of the Linux and OS X versions.

P.S. – Try typing about:internets into the address bar in Chrome.  Read this if you don’t get the joke.

It’s been some time since I’ve posted, but I have been busy with life and such.  However, here I am again with some cool site updates!  First off, I’ve finally finished my series on the GT Theremin with the remaining circuit details, lots of information and photos about construction, and some results and final comments.  This series of pages basically represents how I would have written the final reports for the project if I had the time and were granted total creative discretion.  Please let me know if I have made any errors or omissions or if any of my explanations are unclear.  Or you may just contact me to say hello; that’s fine too.

In the process of writing all these pages on the GT Theremin, I realized that my site layout afforded horizontal insufficient space for text given my penchant for verbosity.  Therefore I’ve updated the style sheets to give me some breathing room and hopefully make longer pages less tedious for you to read.

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So about two weeks ago, I packed up most of my things into my car and this cargo van:

Now that I’m more or less settled in my new apartment here in Greensboro, I took a few photos so you guys can assess my living conditions and evaluate whether visiting me will be a safe and sanitary experience.  Read on, fearless friend.

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