Jeremy McCullough

My ideal social network is one that isn’t about what people are doing, but rather about what people...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:24:18 -0400

My ideal social network is one that isn’t about what people are doing, but rather about what people are creating.

"We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies."

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 20:46:00 -0400

““We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.””

- Walt Disney

Dario Taraborelli: The Beauty of LaTeX

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:45:58 -0400

Dario Taraborelli: The Beauty of LaTeX :

This is a good primer on LaTeX, a free typesetting system. Being an Electrical Engineering student, I write a lot of technical papers. LaTeX has made my life much easier in this regard, although I did have to spend a few hours learning the basic syntax. I rarely use Word anymore.

Well-Placed Pixels

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:46:00 -0400

Well-Placed Pixels:

A catalog of beautiful software.

The Panic Status Board

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:47:49 -0500

This is an interesting piece by Panic, the makers of fine software such as Transmit and Coda (which I use on a near-daily basis for web development). They’ve created a status board for their office which lists various statistics such as unanswered support requests, bus times and project statuses. There’s even what appears to be a scrolling ticker which shows Twitter posts directed at the company. In short, it looks awesome:

You can read more about it (including technical details) at:

http://www.panic.com/blog/2010/03/the-panic-status-board/

I actually experimented with such an idea in my last apartment, but my implementation was much less polished. Instead of statistics the display would simply show customized text and an animated background (using Windows DreamScene). This almost inspires me to create another, but honestly this would serve no real use to me (at the moment!).

Update: As a side note, I just realized that this would be a great application of the upcoming iPad. For example, you could have it display a dashboard of useful information while you’re working at your desk, or anywhere, really.

Seriously—where is it?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:46:07 -0500

I’m disappointed. Why? Because the year 2015 is inching dangerously closer, and I see that society has made little to no progress in bringing a flying DeLorean into existence.

For far too long I’ve held the movie Back to the Future blameless, but today I’m going to take a rare reversal on that opinion. Let me explain:

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you went back in time to tell your younger self about all of the wonderful achievements (hopefully you have a few) you’ll eventually go on to accomplish? Of course, this would all be done with the best of intentions—what’s wrong with encouraging yourself? In reality, the consequences would likely be disastrous, because the younger version of you would have no motivation to work towards something. After all, he (in his infinite naïvity) thinks that all this will happen without any additional effort on his part. Instead of studying, he’ll head out to party with his friends every night. His life will be lived with reckless abandon, thus creating an alternate reality where he doesn’t achieve all of these wonderful things. Think 1985b, but worse.

This is what I believe happened to the concept of the flying DeLorean. Its downfall was its inclusion in the movie. For far too long (25 years!), society has rested upon its laurels, content with the fact that one day they would have a stainless steel, gull-winged beauty to grace their skies. Well, the way I see it, it’s not going to happen.

Way to go, universe.

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity..."

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:01:00 -0500

““We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.””

- Walt Disney