Mt Rainer & Orcas Island
mt rainer dog or tree? forest creatures view from mt constitution, orcas island me waiting for the ferry
U.S. men win 4x100m free relay
I finally watched the 4x100m men’s race. It’s amazing. Jason Lezak start the final leg WAY behind, and just powers his way through to win it. BADASS, and just inspiring. Watch the video here! Read about it here. Coming from behind: Lezak on the left. Bernard, of the French team, on the right.
Silverlight at the Olympics
I’m sure many of you have heard by now… Silverlight 2 Beta 2 is powering the NBC Olympics video experience! At http://nbcolympics.com/video, you can see live event coverage as well as on-demand viewing of already-happened events. Check it out! (Be sure to use the “Enhanced” player by clicking “Enlarge Video.”)
An Early Look – VisualStateManager for WPF
John Gossman, one of the awesome Silverlight and WPF architects, just blogged a prototype of VisualStateManager for WPF. VisualStateManager will be added in to a future release of the .NET Framework. For those of you who want an early look, you can now play with John’s VSM implementation. (This is for prototyping only – it is not a supported feature yet.) He uses AttachedProperties to hook up VisualStateManager-enabled Templates to WPF controls. You’ll also see my WeatherControl using VSM on WPF!
The Daily Show – “The News Better Run” Commercial
I heart John Stewart. (I especially liked the baseball scene.)
Lake Lillian
From a recent hike to Lake Lillian. I never actually made it to the lake, which I guess isn’t that uncommon. There was snow at the ridge, and I ended up losing the trail. (Made more exciting by the fact that the mosquitos attacked every time I stopped to look for it.) But the surrounds were beautiful. I think it may be one of my favorite hikes.
Origami
About a year ago, the New Yorker wrote an article on Robert Lang and his crazy mad origami skills. I thought it was super cool, and wrote about it. Here’s a newer piece that he’s done (yes, it’s one piece of paper): In the latest TED talk, Robert Lang goes into more technical detail on how his origami designs are actually created. (I watched this on my new black, 16 GB, super sexy iPhone while working out. It rocked.) The geek in me was intrigued. One of the other talks I watched was by Benjamin Zander, on music and …
Movie Trailer: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
My mom just sent me the trailer for the next Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It looks REALLY good. It’s directed by David Yates, the same director of the last movie. Also, from his IMDB profile, it looks like they are making the final book in to TWO movies… Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is supposed to release “sometime this year” according to the trailer… and 21 November 2008 according to IMDB.
FlickrViewr Using DevDave’s AnimatingWrapPanel
DevDave (Dave Relyea) is a dev lead on the Silverlight team. He just blogged a really slick new animating wrap panel. Read about it here and try out the sample app below. There are a bunch of different “interpolations” that you can choose from, including “back”, “elastic”, and “bounce.” I’ve updated my FlickrViewr to use this animating wrap panel with the “elastic” option. In my totally unbiased opinion, it looks pretty hot. Though, as Dave pointed out, “elastic” is a bit much for a “real world” application – for a more sane UI, try “back” interpolation. (See the …
Design-Your-Own Plastic
… credit card, that is. Just noticed that flickr has partnered with CapitolOne. You can now put your own photos from flickr on your credit card. It’s a pretty genius idea – one of the reasons I like my current credit card is that it has a picture of Stanford on it. And whenever I use it, it reminds me of my college days, friends I made there, experiences I had, etc. The warm fuzzy usually only lasts about 2 seconds, but I like it enough that it’s a disincentive to change credit card companies. Anyways, smart marketing move. Nice …