Tomasulo.net

scans_daily: Alan Moore's "IN PICTOPIA!"

2008-10-13T12:58:00.000-04:00

CNN Money: Marvel Entertainment's publishing revenue up

2008-10-13T09:52:00.000-04:00

Spoiler alert: Comic books are alive and kicking -- Print revenue for Marvel Entertainment has grown double digits three years running.

2 Improvements on No-Knead Bread

2008-10-09T11:16:00.000-04:00

Via Metafilter: Two improvements on the no-knead bread recipe from NYT and Cook's Illustrated.

Catching up on the financial crisis

2008-10-07T15:20:00.001-04:00

This American Life is a public radio "magazine" show that does very accessible stories, typically of the human interest variety. However, they do dip into politics and world events occasionally, and usually do so fairly well. In May they did an excellent hour-long program on the mortgage crises called, The Giant Pool of Money. It was great for people like me who are looking for a good primer on the topic, but are generally ignorant of finance at these levels.

That was so popular, it spun off a podcast called Planet Money (blog) that runs roughly 20 minutes, several times a week. There are usually interviews with economists that break down a particular topic into easy to understand chunks.

This American Life has also done a follow-up episode called, Another Frightening Show About the Economy, which I have not yet heard, but it should be quite good.

Improve your math speed in Brain Training

2008-10-07T12:27:00.000-04:00

Nintendo - News - Improve your maths speed in Brain Training --

Directly under your current problem, you�ll see the next problem you need to solve. As you�re writing your answer to the current problem, look at the centre of that next problem you need to answer. When you know the operation you need to perform, you can digest the problem quicker.

Thin Film Solar Cells

2008-10-07T12:14:00.000-04:00

Researchers create thin, flexible, efficient, semi-transparent solar cells.

Epcot Fireworks

2008-10-05T20:43:00.000-04:00

This is mostly a test post, but the picture is from the fireworks at Epcot Center.

Bestsellers Cafe

2008-10-03T12:07:00.000-04:00

Bestsellers Cafe down, but not out - Medford Transcript The Bestsellers Cafe has been closed for renovations since before we moved to the neighborhood. Although I've never seen it open, the prospect of a neighborhood bookstore is an incredibly tantalizing one for book lovers like my me and my wife. According to this article, the original renovations were only supposed to take 3 months, but problems were found with the foundation that have cause things to stretch out to nearly 2 years. Still, it sounds like things are slowly moving forward, and the Cafe owners intend to re-open as soon as the building owner gets everything squared away.

The Elder Dogs

2008-10-03T11:33:00.001-04:00

Cthulu Dogs - or "Make Me A Great Old One With Everything!"

Boston Comics Roundtable

2008-10-03T09:33:00.000-04:00

Boston Comics Roundtable -- appears to be a bit of a social club for Boston-area comics creators.

Harvard Book Store Has New Owners

2008-10-02T15:45:00.001-04:00

Bostonist: Harvard Book Store changes hands, remains independent

Elvis Costello to celebrate Christmas with Colbert

2008-09-26T13:25:00.000-04:00

Elvis Costello will appear on "A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift Of All!" in late November(!), just in time for it to be released on a stocking-stuffable DVD.

MySpace + Amazon MP3 = Nifty

2008-09-26T12:45:00.000-04:00

MySpace tries to strike new chord in digital music - Yahoo! News

So, MySpace appears to have partnered with Amazon's music download service in a cool way. On MySpace, you can create playlists and listen to full tracks online (free w/ visual ads). Tracks can be purchased and download through Amazon's MP3-centric service, without copy-protection. This is a pretty nice combo. Amazon is my preferred source of major-label music downloads (i.e. things that aren't on eMusic) and essentially adding full-song previews plus playlist sharing could be a lot of fun.

Mountain Goats Press Kit 08

2008-09-24T12:39:00.000-04:00

Comic Strip as Press Kit for The Mountain Goats' Heretic Pride

Short Meal Service

2008-09-24T11:12:00.000-04:00

Short Meal Service - 140 character recipes.

I can't wait to listen to this when I get home.

2008-09-12T12:22:00.000-04:00

The Mountain Goats and Kaki King sing "Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is in Another Castle".

We The Robots

2007-12-11T22:02:00.000-05:00

We The Robots is a new web comic by a guy named Chris Harding. It is a little hit-or-miss, but I like it in theory. Here are few of my favorites so far:

Repairs Sketch

2007-11-24T15:52:00.000-05:00

Status Report

2007-11-21T09:58:00.000-05:00

On the front burner:
Adventure Web Comic - Outline for issue one needs more work. The character design is coming together.
Robot Illustration - I've got a robot sketch that I'm happy with. Next I need to do a sketch of the scientist figure and composite them in Painter. I'll post that when I get to that step.
Super-secret Web Application - The prototype for the web portion of this is maybe 80% done. I have to figure out how I'm going to do the asynchronous background processing, and switch from flat files to a database.
Budget - November has been a month for tracking spending, and that seems to be going well. After that is done, I think we need to revisit the retirement savings plan, and set up savings plans for some of the things we need for the house.
Super-secret Life Plan - Research phase is sufficiently completed to begin preparation phase.
Mice in the House - We trapped a few mice a couple of weeks ago and have not had any more come to that area. We heard some strange sounds behind the oven last week, but they haven't come back.
New dressers - We've shopped a bit for these, and Sharon has seen more than I have, but we haven't found exactly what we are looking for. The real trick has been to find two dressers of the correct size, in the correct finish, and that will fit together pushed up side-by-side.

On the back burner:
Sprawling Sci-fi comic - Lots of characters and scenes outlined, but I think I have a better idea for a POV character. May put in some work on this one relatively soon.
House stuff - Kitchen Renovation, Basement Furnishing
Redesign This Blog - I need the practice with css. I should do a from-scratch template for this blog.

Behind the Red Curtain

2006-05-19T10:16:00.000-04:00

A Short History of Netflix Mailers, including an explanation of the little UPC window.

Subdivisions

2006-04-04T14:51:00.000-04:00

Housing development in suburban Mexico City:

A Pattern So Grand and Complex

2006-04-04T11:15:00.000-04:00

Apparently, Rush drummer Neil Peart hangs out with Matt Stone of South Park fame (a.k.a. The Quiet One). From Peart's January '06 news post:

A few days ago I was hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains with South Park�s Matt Stone, and he was telling me that for him, growing up in the Denver area, everything had been centered on football. If the Broncos won on Sunday, his world would be a better place on Monday.

It sounds sweet.

City Man :: Sketchblog

2006-03-25T16:37:00.000-05:00

2006-02-28T20:10:00.000-05:00

I'm in this short film by my friend Jim Mahoney (co-written by Steve Eldridge):

A New Tomorrow

I think it came out really well. The script was tight, smart and emotional. Jim did a great job of thinking on his feet during the filming. My fellow actors all put in fine performances. Finally, Jim did a superb job of tying it all together in the editing.

It was entered in a contest on this web site.

Apparently we came in 23rd overall out of a field of 58. I'm told it was a very strong field. I haven't watched any of the other films myself. We did get very good marks for acting.

You can see the other entries here.

Udvar-Hazy Center -- James S. McDonnell Space Hangar

2006-02-01T16:31:00.000-05:00

I think I'd like to visit here someday.