Blog 
Procedural All-Color Images ()
A few years ago I ran into the allRGB contest. The gist of allRGB is to design a procedure for producing images with every single RGB color used exactly once. Since then I’ve had ideas simmering on the backburner as I thought about how I would approach the problem.
I settled on populating my images using a modified 2D random walk in which I can move in any of the cardinal directions to any unvisited neighbor. At each step of the walk, I select the next color in sequence for placement. If the random walk ever gets trapped (all four cardinal neighbors have already been visited), then I search for the closest unvisited pixel. This approach, as I had it implemented, produces images that pretty consistantly look like this
[read more]Surface Pro 4 and Academic Note Taking ()
Background
I’ve been looking for a way to take digital notes for a while. I started out with an Asus Transformer TF101 and planned to use a capacitive stylus. I quickly realized that stylus/tablet combo didn’t have the necessary precision and there really wasn’t any good software on android to handle something as precise as note taking. Later, I moved on to the Nvidia Shield Tablet. It suffered from the same problem as the Transformer: not enough precision and no useful software.
Anyhow, I was going to get a Thinkpad X1 Yoga until a friend suggested I check out the SP4 and I was blown away. In particular, the precision, accuracy, and speed of the stylus was astounding. I ended up getting the Core i5 / 8gb ram 256gb ssd variant.
[read more]LED Bulbs ()
TL;DR
Your best bet is probably the Philips 455955 bulb. It’s 60w equivalent, uses 8w, has a daylight color temperature (5000k), and is about the best price I’ve run into so far. If you want a more orange bulb, there’s a similar model that’s cheaper and runs at 2700k (I haven’t tried that model but I assume they’re essentially identical). Amazon and Home Depot both sell the 455955 but Amazon seems to price it at about double what Home Depot does. You can probably find it elsewhere too.
[read more]Site Migration ()
I’ve pretty much finished migrating my blog posts from RagingRoosevelt.com to here. I decided to make the move when I realized that I didn’t like the level of control over my site that I was able to achieve when using wordpress and I was worried about backing up my content if I ever decided to leave wordpress, especially if I got more stuff posted.
[read more]Computer Desk, Finished (part 3) ()
(part 1) (part 2) I actually managed to finish this project surprisingly quickly. I think I only spent about 10 hours total building it.
Anyhow, I decided to abandon the vertical plywood since I liked how the desk looked without it and it turned out to not need any additional support that the plywood would have offered.
I also decided that, in the interest of cable management, I wanted a few holes that went through the surface of the desk (where, eventually, cables will land in wire cable racks). I settled on linseed oil over tung oil since it was cheaper ($9 for an 8oz bottle of tung vs $9 for a quart of linseed) and I didn’t want to get too little and have to get more in the middle of the project.
And, here’s the finished product:
[read more]