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At the moment, the plan is to go out there and climb with some climbing buddies that I used to climb with in New Mexico and Colorado. However, I might also sign up for one of the many good mountaineering courses offered in that area.

While I’m a half-decent rock climber, I’ve not done very much ice or snow (I’ve lead on rock, but not on ice or snow). And I do not have much experience doing technical snow and ice climbing, glacier travel or such things as crevasse rescue. So, I figured that the best way to learn this stuff is either to go out there and climb with folks that know such things, and take some mountaineering courses where you get to do these things.

Right now, I’m looking at Alpine Ascents International — they have an eight day intermediate mountaineering course, as well as a 12 day comprehensive mountaineering course, both in Alaska. As for the Cascades, they have a 13 day course and another interesting one aimed at preparation for climbing Denali.

Apart from the training, the 13 day course at the Cascades aims to summit some of these peaks — Mt. Shuksan, Twin Sisters, Forbidden, El Dorado Peak, Torment, Buckner, Logan, Sloan Peak and Glacier Peak. On the other hand, the 12 day course at Alaska aims to summit these peaks — Control Tower, Mt. Frances, Mt. Crosson, Kahiltna Dome and Point Ferene.

Although I’ve summitted peaks that are at least 2,000 feet more than the tallest in those two lists, those have been technical rock routes. I’ve not really done a lot of snow, ice or mixed climbing, so it would be interesting to see how well I do in comparison.

The other peaks that you could try for include Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, Mt. Daniel, Sahale Peak — and of course — Denali itself, which I would like to try before 2010. Ideally, I’d like to hit at least one each of the 15, 16, 17 and 18ers in the Alaska Range before the end of 2008.

The other problem is one of weather — the only good season to climb is from mid April through Mid June, which is a particularly small window to do any climbing. And of course, there is the small problem of equipment — a good mountaineering boot or Gore-Tex suit can be so very expensive that I’m going to have to save a grand every month to buy my equipment. Even if I rented out most of the stuff, I would still need to spend a significant chunk on some equipment (no use in renting it every time, when you are likely to be using it often).

But, either way, my tentative schedule is probably to depart around mid/end May and return after 2+ weeks in the mountains. I do know from the emails that some of my climbing friends (well, not these kind) read my blog. And of course, The Cydonian and I have been trying to talk about climbing either Mt. Fuji or Kilimanjaro.

So, if anyone is interested in joining me, do drop me a line.

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Faucet off, with no water flowing.

Faucet on, with water flowing from the tap.

Do you see the picture above? Good, now, turning on the big knob gets the water flowing. Wonderful. This is great for taking a bath. But how do I get the water flowing to the top?

Now, while I’m not a blindingly insightful and brilliant genius, I’d like to believe that I’m not particularly dumb either. But honest to god, I was baffled. How the hell do I stop the water flowing out of the tap and make it flow out of the shower. How on Earth do I take a goddamn shower?

So, on my very first day, I took a bath. Oh, it was far from unpleasant, but can you imagine waking up every morning and waiting for your tub to fill so that you can take a bath? Can you imagine telling your boss that you were late because you had to take a bath? Do you even have any idea how girly that sounds?

*shudder*

Finally, I gave up. One of my friends had come home and we got talking — and I told her about my troubles with the shower. Her first reaction, of course, was to burst out laughing, much to my dismay. Of course, when she saw the faucet, she was baffled too.

And in the end, we figured it out. Mind you — this took two people, with at least 4 (on the way to 5) degrees between us to figure out. Bad usability!

So, how do we turn the shower on? Oh, it’s very simple, really.

Faucet in default position only turns the tap on.

Once the tap is turned on, pulling this will turn on the shower.

Faucet in the first position will just run the tap. And once the tap is running, pulling down a tiny little thing at the mouth will shut off supply to the tap and turn on the shower instead.

Of course, as these things go, I had completely missed a note that was very kindly placed on my table by the apartment maintenance folks that explained how to turn on the shower. Complete with a diagram that explained the operation in detail. The only thing missing was a note of apology for having used such a retarded piece of equipment.

Very usable. The idiot who designed this probably won an award, even.

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At the outset, it seems simple enough — a simple mounted helicopter with a set of levers and a rotor controlled by a motor. However, this simple toy can be a lot more entertaining than you’d think.

Simple but fun toy chopper.

As for the controls, you have two — one for pitch and the other for throttle. Basically, the pitch control changes the angle of the blades, and consequently changes the direction of flight. Push it up and it goes forward, pull it down and it goes back. The throttle, on the other hand, controls the amount of power that goes to the chopper rotor. Pulling it down gives it more power and pushing it up gives it less power. Pulling the throttle all the way down also causes a rise in altitude of the chopper.

Intuitive controls.

Flying with minimal throttle and very little pitch.

Chopper rising.

Of course, sometimes, the simple things are the most fun. This toy is an excellent example — your first thought would be, okay, so it can do all this. What next? Well, the thing is, these two simple controls can be used in infinite combinations to do the weirdest of things.

For instance, quickly alternating the pitch causes the chopper to jump.

Jumpy chopper.

And doing the same for the throttle while keeping a constant pitch can cause it to act wavy.

Chopper on a wavy trajectory.

There are also two tiny “cargoes” that you can try lifting with the chopper — coupled with what this thing can already do, adding weight makes it more “acrobatic”, so to speak. And do not make the mistake of keeping it on your desk, because you will be tempted to lift every other thing with the chopper.

At the end of the day, a lot of good fun and a great toy! These things are made by Jasman Toys, and more details about them can be found at the Command Force Toys website.

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I pondered over it for two days, thinking about all the fun resolutions I had made as a kid about what I’d do when I grew up (when I have money, I will spend it ALL on ALL the toys that I like ALL the time!). And it did not help that the new Mindstorms looked so much like the Replicators from Stargate SG-1. Nor did these high-resolution pictures of the Mindstorms. So, this evening, I called up my friend Rebecca and told her that I was going to buy the Mindstorms. And of course, she accompanied me for moral support — lest I change my mind about it.

And quite obviously, I went into the store — and purchased the only remaining set of the Lego Mindstorms! Boy, wasn’t I glad or what!

Okay, to say that the new Lego Mindstorms NXT are awesome would be like saying that Mount Everest is a mountain. In little more than half an hour, I had a robot up and running. And it was so easy! The software is so easy to use, and the whole set is amazing.

First, a little overview of the kind of equipment that the new Mindstorms have.

The big thing that you see right in the middle is the NXT command centre — the brain behind the whole system. The three similar looking things on the top of the block are the three precision Servo motors. Going right, the binocular-like thing is actually an ultrasonic sensor that helps the robots see things. Going right, the other three are Light, Sound and Touch sensors, respectively.

And to complement the whole thing, you have a set of Technic components that you could use to build the robot of your choice.

From the booklet and the manual, Lego has a few popular models:

Alpharex — a humanoid robot that can walk and can sense distance/movement through the Ultrasonic sensors.

Spike — an animal robot that can be programmed to attack (sting) based on sensor impulses.

RoboArm — a robotic machine arm that can lift, pivot and grasp objects.

Tribot — a vehicle styled robot that can grab balls (the set comes with two balls specifically for this purpose).

For those of you who have played with the Mindstorms RCX, please note that the default block of the Mindstorms NXT is different from the default block of the Mindstorms RCX. In the RCX, the default block was the standard two-by-four Lego block; in the NXT, the default block is the standard “studless” Technic block.

Other than that, the Mindstorms NXT has a command centre that is a 32 bit, iPod-like device with a significantly large LCD display. Wikipedia contains more information on the technical architecture of the NXT command centre. The NXT can also be controlled by Bluetooth devices and has three motors with in-built rotation sensors for smoother operation and six wire digital cables (as opposed to analog cables in case of the RCX).

And of course, the whole set comes with an excellent piece of software, written by National Instruments, to help you program and play with the system. Based on the LabVIEW system by NI, the software is very intuitive and easy to use.

The other big thing is that the previous version of Mindstorms was only for the PC, however this version can work on both PCs and Macs — and Lego has even promised to make the software interface Open Source.

The Lego Mindstorms website also has a tonne of cool things, such as the Mindstorms developer program, a section containing building instructions for the various robots and the NXT’reme, for advanced Lego enthusiasts. Microsoft also has something called Coding 4 Fun, which talks about using a Microsoft .NET interface for Lego Mindstorms.

I could write a lot more, but nothing would quite do justice to what the new Mindstorms actually are. Ars-Technica has an awesome review (with pictures and videos) on what the new Mindstorms can do. There was also a related article on Wired that talked about the evolution of the latest Mindstorms called Geeks in Toyland. As a geek who loves to be in toyland, it was simply an awesome story, and quite nicely summed up how much Lego has been a part of my learning process through life.

Now, forgive me while I get off the computer and play with my Lego!

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My friend Chris had been recommending this series to me for the longest time, and I finally gave in and decided to give it a go. Fortunately, it was well worth it.

The universe of ColdFire is set in a very unique world — a planet called Erna, occupied by settlers from future Earth. However, as it turns out, the settlers were unaware of some things about this planet. It turns out that unlike other planets, Erna has something all-pervasive called Fae. Now, the Fae has a few characteristics — for one, it could be manipulated to perform such things as sorcery. And for another, it could give life to our strongest feelings and thoughts — fear, anger, emotions and the like — and physically manifest them into entities that seek to drain certain things from humans. For instance, if you were scared about a vampire drinking your blood, your fears will create a creature from your imagination that will be a vampire — and this creature would quite literally be after your blood (and anybody else’s, for that matter — so, your fears not only affect you, but everybody around you). If you dreamt about a seductress that would seduce you till you were drained and bloody, your dreams will bring to life such a creature. And the more such a creature is fed, the stronger it would grow. On the other hand, sacrifices and other good deeds also go a long way towards manifesting good intentions. Therefore, just as how violent dreams can result in violent demons and entities, good thoughts would do just the opposite.

The whole series deals with the struggles of a race of humans settled on such a world, and their wants, needs, battles and wars. One of the nicest things about this series is that your understanding of the world grows as you read on. Unlike some authors who set their world in stone, the world of Erna is ever-evolving, and you learn a lot more as you read on.

The other particularly nice thing about the book is that one of the lead characters in the story is an anti-hero of sorts, and has a particularly charming personality, despite his extreme vanity and intentions. The other lead character, on the other hand, is a reverend knight, reminiscent of Church-knights from the crusades. Despite their seemingly obvious differences, the two are more alike than different, and the books do a great job of comparing moralities and the fundamentals of what really constitutes right or wrong.

While the series as a whole is nice, the last book feels like the author decided to proselytise. And there are parts of the second book that reek of comparisons between Catholics (the sanctified) and Protestants (the Patriarch’s followers). It is almost as if the author had a great idea, but was having an urge to preach and compare faiths. However, that still does not take away the charm and the unique ideas within these books.

A good series if you can ignore the obvious overtures to religion (which is confusing since the author’s website has links to Jewish websites, indicating that she may be Jewish). Either way, definitely a recommended read!

Originality: 5/5
Depth of writing: 3.5/5
Language: 3.5/5
Interesting: 4/5
Inspiring: 2.5/5
Overall Rating: 3.7/5

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I had originally planned on having a page just for photos (as a matter of fact, there used to be one that was based on the famous rotate.php and has since been removed).

However, what I was looking for was something small – a background slideshow of sorts, rather than a page dedicated exclusively for photographs. Secondly, I merely wanted small, low-res images, to give a fleeting overview of things and places, as opposed to showcasing any images in more detail (I mean, if you’re looking for large, high resolution pictures of mountains, flowers or women, there are several other websites out there with professional photographers that cater to that need).

Looking around, I found this cool WP plugin called Flashfader written by Marcus Grellert. The reason I liked Flashfader was because of its simplicity — and the fact that it was XHTML compliant.

Now, I’ve had some feedback so far and here are my two cents on why I chose this instead of something else.

It’s in Flash! It could be in DHTML.

Yes, it could be. However, a few things to consider — first, I had wanted a plugin that did what I wanted it to, and this was it. That it happened to be in Flash was secondary. Secondly, I had used something with Flash because I did not want folks to be able to save the images. The other alternative was Java, but UGH! And finally, Flash is almost ubiquitous today. If someone does not have Flash, then all they are missing is a few pretty pictures. Besides, Flash is hardly bleeding edge. Unless you’re Richard Stallman, there really is no reason why having Flash installed would be so hard.

(I mean, I can totally see people whining to Ze Frank about how parts of his site are in Flash.)

You could use something like Flickr (or insert name of photo service).

Of course I could. But what happens if Flickr changes their policy (and we all know how all of us read the fine-print of every online service that we use). Or if Flickr goes out of business. Or giant aliens (or evil California lawyers) kidnap Flickr executives and demand that Metlin’s pictures be taken offline?

The point is, I do not want to be dependent on a service that I do not have absolute control over. However, with the photos being in my very own server, I’ve some control over what happens with them. Therefore, I’d rather have my own service (however crappy) than be dependent on someone else’s.

But I must add that if I do take up a paid service, I might consider moving my stuff there — simply because the moment they take my money, I would have some control and leverage over what they do with my content.

The slideshow is distracting. I want it to go away.

The good HCI designer that I’m, I have taken care of that problem.

I realise how distracting a series of changing images would be to a visitor, especially if they are reading something. Therefore, the Photos section can be clicked to show or hide. By default, the slideshow is shown, however, clicking on the Photos title makes the slideshow go away. Clicking it a second time brings it back.

Yes, I know. I’m awesome.

Here is a cool feature you could use!

Now that is something I’d love to hear about.

Here are a few I’ve heard — displaying a title or a caption for each image, the ability to set the speed of the slideshow through a slider, the ability to click to view larger images for certain images of interest (this defeats the purpose of not showing high-res images, you know?), the ability to view previous/next on the slideshow, a semantic theme-based slideshow (e.g. mountaineering pages show pictures tagged as mountaineering) and so on.

So, either way, consider this a beta — if folks do not like it, it will go away. However, if folks do like it and have suggestions on improvements, I’ll try to make appropriate changes!

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