The Whirling Temeraire

Writing

Boing Boing Gadgets

I’ve moved from Wired to BoingBoing, where I’ll be working at its gadgets blog. Pictured here is a quick ’shop I did for a slow weekend day, mashing Honda’s Asimo with one of Francis Bacon’s screaming popes. One commenter remarked that it looked like Asimo was singing his cage into existence!

DMCA Culture Wars

A dispute between an atheist group and a creationist group over some postings on YouTube has critics of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act crying foul. They say it’s a new and inappropriate use of DMCA, which is becoming a frequent weapon in nasty political and cultural battles.
For Wired News.

Open-Source Phones

Open-source and hacker-friendly alternatives are coming to the market or already available. Here are nine of the best that let you do things the iPhone won’t.
For Wired News

The ultimate iPhone hack

Mobile Complete, a software-services company, pulled an iPhone to pieces and lashed it to a remote-controlled server. Every input and output on the dissected iPhone is electrically hooked up to the net, providing access to would-be iPhone programmers over the web.
For Wired News.

Mechanical Fingers

If the X-Finger looks like a prop from The Terminator, relax. It isn’t out to kill you, and it isn’t robotic. In fact, it’s a mechanical prosthetic finger so effective it provides articulation as fast and flexible as the real thing.
For Wired News

Researchers Dream of Humanizing Androids

“I believe that the next-generation humanoid robots should have a spine as we do.”
For Wired News.

Nuclear Power’s Softer Side

“The promise of nuclear fusion is safe, clean energy,” said Rob Goldston, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. “With fusion, if all the fuel burns at once, your shift supervisor will get annoyed with you. With fission, if it all burns at once, your nearest 200,000 neighbors have to move out of their homes.”
For [...]

Inside Seagate’s R&D Labs

“When I joined Seagate, the idea of conquering 100 Gb per square inch seemed unimaginable,” Kryder said. “Even 20 seemed unlikely.”
For Wired News.

Wi-Fi as a Health Hazard

Electromagnetic field sensitivity is an empirical chimera.
For Wired News.

Short Stories

It Is With Great Regret…

Notes from the front lines of a Japanese role playing game, wherein the papers of a deceased village elder reveal a dark secret.

Such Bravery

After my husband’s funeral, I closed the gate and wandered back to our salt-rimed townhouse, through a throng of youngsters and their bitter songs of Jerusalem.

The Narrator

The visitor smiled without parting his lips.

Flash/Web

German He-Man Intro with translated subtitles

In another universe, I chanced across this translation of the intro to the German version of He-Man.

Quarter to Three

A simple, no-nonsense Wordpress theme for Quarter to Three, the homepage of writer Tom Chick. The logo isn’t by me, however!

Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac has a new look. It’s less bandwidth-intensive, but has a tighter layout that fits nicely with current ad-sizing trends and draws the eye more strongly to the authors’ posts.

Ectoplasmosis Redesign

Qais Fulton and Ross Rosenberg recently joined Ectoplasmosis, and the site celebrated by commissioning a new site design.

Cyber Command

A flash map of candidate locations for a silly-sounding cyber warfare base, for Marty Graham’s story at Wired News. Click through for the interactive version. Epic pork!

Hobbs News-Sun

I worked at the Hobbs News-Sun full-time for several years, turning its website from a standard 1990s-style free news page to a profitable subscription-based one. You can see here the newest version, currently in the final stages of development.

Blackbird Flash

HP’s high-end gaming machine deserves more than just a PR photo. See an interactive version created for Wired, with easter eggs waiting to be found.

RAZR 2 Field Guide

The fall of 2007 saw a twisty maze of RAZR 2’s, all alike. This interactive infographic, for Wired, explains how each carrier customized its version of Motorola’s new phone.

What’s In A Name?

For Kristen Philipkoski’s great article, What’s in a Name? The Future of Life, I produced an flash graphic to illustrate some of the weird bonds between life on Earth. It’s not terribly exciting in static form: click through to view the interactive version.

Retro Action/Puzzle Game Generator

This one’s for fans (or, indeed, haters) of retro-style action puzzle games, from weird French fare of the 1980s like Purple Saturn Day to modern nostalgia-burners like Geometry Wars and Every Extend Extra.
Retro Action and Puzzle Game Generator.

Susurrations

For my personal site, where experiments and other such miscellany goes, I wanted something atmospheric, with plenty of space to dump ideas and show off in-progress projects. Take a look.

EQ Fan Movie

The makers of a fan movie project required a website to organize and publicize their work. Unfortunately, nothing came of the plans and the site is defunct. I’ll post a replica shortly, but this screen grab is all I have at the moment.

It’s not in the game

Sport games get the random generator treatment. No random pictures in this one, though, so it’s not a very good one. But maybe good for a titter.
Sport game generator

Groovy Squares

Here is some 1960s-style psychedelic geometry, with a suitable soundtrack. The flash source code included.
These were the results of my first forays into proper Flash coding, instead of just Flash-the-animation-program.
This was supposed to be a medieval city plan generator, but it didn’t work out. With the application of pastel colors and The Girl From Ipa [...]

Cowboy Junction

A homestead-style church in Lea County, New Mexico, Cowboy Junction offers a relaxed atmosphere with a western flavor.

Over the face of the waters

Random map generators produce realistic results using fractals. Rather than do the same, I wrote this one instead as a grid of cells, representing elevations, which react to the random movements of a wandering entity. Various aspects of this fellow’s behaviour and the cellular rules can be tweaked, and the size of the map changed.

Cliched WWII Game Generator

The Japanese RPG sausage factory might amuse, but the West has it’s own genre cliches. Though not as fleshed out as its eastern counterpart, maybe the WWII first-person shooter generator will be good for a couple of laughs.

Japanese RPG Game Generator

Anyone familiar with Japanese role-playing video games will understand this one. Some are intruiging epic productions that suck in the player for dozens of hours. Others… Well, others are not. Here is my tribute to every generic, poorly-translated, hackneyed game ever to rise from the land of Dragon Quest VIII, Final Fantasy XII.

Bladez Hair

Leigh Melton’s Bladez is a great hair salon in Hobbs, N.M. With about 35 years of experience as a stylist, Leigh specializes in natural hair extensions. See the site at bladezhair.com.

Celestial Mechanics

Those interested in web design and development services can corner me at Celestial Mechanics. I have strong graphic design, layout and painting skills, and it’s all backed up by solid PHP development abilities, standards-compliant code and server management experience. Prices are reasonable and packages include hosting, email and tech support.

Kim Ryan

Kim Ryan is an excellent photographer working in south-east New Mexico. She wanted an online gallery and portfolio site to display her work.

Native Desert Design

The unique landscaping work of Native Desert has to be seen to be believed. Unfortunately, I think its gone out of business at some point in the last few years. If you’re in New Mexico and need a natural-style water feature, look up Belinda Erwin.

Pictures