superduper.net : Sam's blog

Tomorrow will be my first day at my new job at Google in Mountain View. Very exciting. Looking forward to learning a lot of doing some crazy cool shit over the next few years.

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 17:31 | personal | # | TB | 0 comment(s)

I've just spend my first week in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. I'm staying right in the middle of town on Karl Marks Ave and working just around the corner. So far so good. The language is the main things that is eluding me. Despite Rosseta Stone I'm finding it pretty hard to pick up many words. Its seems like the ending of most words change for a million different reasons.

Vegetarian food is not as hard to find as I hard expected. People are very friendly, even though most don't understand me. I have a nice apartment right in the centre and four weeks left of my stay. Apparently the sleeper train to Kiev or Lviv is worth doing but that can probably wait until Tessa comes to visit in a couple of week.

Photos in the gallery coming soon.

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:43 | personal | # | TB | 3 comment(s)

Finally got around to flashing my galaxy S with gingerbread. So much smoother now. No more waiting 8 seconds (literally!) for the keyboard to appear.

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:30 | personal | # | TB | 5 comment(s)

This season I'm leasing a cabin with 10 other up by Donner lake. Tessa and I just drove up to today in the sunshine. Its super beautiful up here.

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 03:00 | personal | # | TB | 3 comment(s)

If you haven't already signed up now is a good time to join falttr. Really smart micro-payments system for donating to things you like. Founded by some of the pirate bay folks.

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:51 | personal | # | TB | 4 comment(s)

Another big title built using the technology that I've spend years building.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lara-croft-guardian-light/id394106986?mt=8

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:13 | personal | # | TB | 3 comment(s)

I just spend a week on the east coast seeing family and also speaking at the webos developer day. You can see my presentation about 5 minutes into this video.

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 03:10 | personal | # | TB | 3 comment(s)

I just moved in last week to an awesome little co-working space in the mission. Will port some pictures soon. Its great to be so central and nice to have geeks to chat to face to face. They even have a meeting room with a bed in it! :)

Sun, 09 May 2010 17:03 | personal | # | TB | 3 comment(s)

Tessa and I finally, after many many years together decided to officially tie the knot. We were married on Thuesday the 20th of April at city hall in San Francisco.

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 19:30 | personal | # | TB | 4 comment(s)

Next week I'm going to be presenting airplay at macworld.. on the main stage! I'm pretty nervous about getting up in front of all those people. I sure hope they don't mind being told that the iPhone is the only game in town.

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:40 | personal | # | TB | 0 comment(s)

I finally got the git bug and switched all my old repositories from svn. All my ancient projects are now available via gitweb. As you can see some of them having been updated in 7 or 8 years to this was largely a way for me to learn git-svn.

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:41 | personal | # | TB | 12 comment(s)

Is performing tonight at after dark at the exploratorium in San Francisco.

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:04 | personal | # | TB | 0 comment(s)

The airplay SDK (which I've spend the last few years working on) is now available for download at airplaysdk.com. Anyone can now download it and try it out.

Basically it allows you to develop apps in standard C/C++, build then using whichever compiler you like and run the resulting binary on all mobile phone platform (well.. all platforms that allow third party native apps).

Check it out!

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:26 | personal | # | TB | 3 comment(s)

Will my trusty lenovo X300 got rained on pretty hard and the little draining system under the keyboard couldn't save it.

Since I never really liked the screen on the X300 I decided to go back to Sony and get a new Z series. Much more powerful (300Gb disk, 4Gb RAM, 2.66Ghz) and still way way lighter than even the 13" MacBook pro.

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:40 | personal | # | TB | 2 comment(s)

Orr hot springs and Rock the Bells in one weekend... this week Santa Cruz and Sea Ranch.

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:04 | personal | # | TB | 5 comment(s)

We've been back in SF for a few days now and everything has been pretty great. From our welcome to Simon's house with the hot tub heated, to our first night out at the fire arts festival. Its been so nice to see our old friends again.

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:35 | personal | # | TB | 0 comment(s)

Nowhere 2009 is over and it rocked pretty hard. Not sure how Burning Man is going to compare after all these great years at nowhere.

Now we're about to head back to live in San Francisco for a big. I'm half excited and half amazing that we're actually going to get on a place in a bout 1/2 an hour.

It was super great to see everyone last night for our goodbye drinks. Hopefully I'll be back in London from time to time to see people and lots of folks will be coming out of the burn this year.

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:52 | personal | # | TB | 0 comment(s)

After spending a few days on Lundy island last week one thing is for your: I'll be back. Beautiful sea cliffs and sunshine with not a sole in sight.

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:38 | personal | # | TB | 0 comment(s)

Try not to do the following.

Go to the supermarket with your fancy Osprey rucksack and feel smug as you pack all you shopping into it without using any plastic bags. Try a bit to hard and cause a carton of mango juice to split but don't notice this until half way home you find the you back getting wet. Get home to find a litre of mango juice swimming around the bottom of your rucksack.

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:21 | personal | # | TB | 0 comment(s)

I just got back from seeing Forced Entertainment at the Arts Admin space in white chapel. They performed First Night which I glad to say lived up to all my expectations. Their stuff can be really provoking and this was just that. It was easily as good as any of their other stuff I've seen.

Its a shame I missed other pieces they have been doing over the last week. I think I am becoming a true Forced Entertainment fan. They are also doing something in the Festival Hall for meltdown festival in not to long. Hurrah! Anyone who has not yet seem these guys needs to go!

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 23:12 | personal | # | TB | 2 comment(s)

Last night I was at Faster than sound where Ben Stern and is involved with building the sixty foot dome. It was an amazing event. Completely uncrowded and full of amazing sound experiments. Set on a decommissioned US air-force base east of London. The surrounding are completely amazing and surreal. Highly recommended.

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 11:41 | personal | # | TB | 3 comment(s)

After more than two years I finally got to visit my old home of San Francisco. Even better, I was able to get my flights paid for by combining my visits with GDC 2007 where Ideaworks had a lot of business going on.

It was really great to see all my old friends who I love so much and to see what has changed in the city. The main difference seem to be that even more people have been forced to move over the bridge to Oakland due to city prices. Apart from that everything seems pretty much as I left it. We even got glorious sunshine for the weekend of the 10th and 11th.

GDC was also super fun and I got to meet up with a lot of old colleagues from MathEngine who are now scattered all over the industry. Was especially good to see James Golding again, who is now at Epic writing large parts of their engine product. And, of course, I got to consume unlimited amounts of food and drink at the various industry events.

I've uploaded the few photos I took on the trip. Most of them are of the weekend in Lake Tahoe. Unfortunately. I didn't get many pictures of my time in the city.

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 18:33 | personal | # | TB | 0 comment(s)

Next week I'm going to LA for work. Not that exciting, except that it means I may be able to come to up to SF for the weekend and see all my lovely friends, restaurants and climbing walls.

Hey you SF people, I know you probably don't read this stuff ever, but if you do then let me know if you're around the weekend of the 10th and 11th. I've probably already mailed you anyway.

I wonder how many super burritos I can eat in one weekend. Maybe I can carry them back in my hand luggage and freeze them for consuming here in London. Tessa brought one back for me last time she went and we ate it cold the next day on the train to Bath!

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 16:19 | personal | # | TB | 4 comment(s)

I'm thinking of getting a tattoo. In true geek style I was thinking of getting my GPG fingerprint tattooed on my person somewhere. Maybe just the long (16-byte) key id. I'll post here some mockups once I've created them.

Am I crazy to do this? Couldn't I think of a more imaginative thing to permanently scare myself with? Well, I figure this would represent many things that I believe in: freedom, privacy and free software, all in one little hex string. Actually, maybe I am crazy.

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 09:19 | personal | # | TB | 7 comment(s)

I must be getting old, or maybe just more focused. Yesterday, I worked late and ordered pizza at the office. The first thing I was asked was "what's your phone number?". I've had the same number of over five years now, so clearly I said "07973.."... and forget the rest. I tried again. And again. In the end I had to ask if I could call back later.

How many times have I said the phone number outloud from memory. Certainly many hundreds. When I did track down the number in written form I read it out and it sounded alien. Certainly not the number I should be very used to.

Is this just me working too hard? Or maybe getting old? Or is it something more sinister. Perhaps its a clue in the phildickian sense, like the guy who goes to pull the light cored in his bathroom and the realises its a switch, and that he's never lived in a house with a light cord?

That's my first personal entry in my new blog. Hope you like it.

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 08:19 | personal | tags: personal | # | TB | 4 comment(s)

At last I've got the insurance money from CityLink after waiting more then 5 months! Just ordered a sexy new Sony Z1. Should be here on Teusday. Hurray!

Wed, 07 Jul 2004 01:36 | personal | # | TB | 4 comment(s)

Well lots has been happening here in London. The last couple of weeks have been packed with some great concerts. And best of all I've managed to wangle free tickets for all them them!

• The Pixies

  Unbelievable. The living legends themselves. We got to see the Pixies in concert at Brixton Academy. Quite an honour. Lots of absolutely passionate fans. Thanks Manish for sorting Tessa and I would free VIP tickets.

  Frank Black was incredible. Didn't stop for one minute out of 90 to catch his breath. Definitely a night to remember. I have some photos that will be in the gallery section RSN.

• Peter Gabriel

  Despite being involved with Real World for many year, I'd never actually seen Peter perform at a large gig. I got to see him do his large performance of a two year tour at Wembely arena. The stage show was quite amazing. All kinds of crazy tricks from walking upside-down to a blinding coat of purer light, to two Segways (look it up if you don't know what it is) on stage dancing to the music.

  Much more than I expected. I now understand the meaning of "stadium concert".

• Orbital

  On their way to Glastonbury to play they final gigs Orbital did two nights at Brixton Academy. Manish, again, sorting out a couple of tickets at the last minute, thanks dude. Tessa, unfortunately, was ill so I had to find someone to go with last minute on the night of an England match. Paul Makepiece eventually showed up on his way back from NYC.

  I think I must has seen these guys play at least 10 times in the last 10 years, starting back in Glastonbury 1994. For me they are the definition of nineties electronic music. This gig was nothing special, however. England having lost, the crowd, despite growing considerably after the match, wasn't too up for it. However, it was great to see them one last time and say good by. Pictures on their way.

Wed, 07 Jul 2004 01:27 | personal | # | TB | 4 comment(s)

Today I finally finished reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Took me three months of central line journeys to complete but definitely worth it.

I'm thinking of adding a "book" catagory to the blog that I can use to list the books I read, with cover images and links.

Sun, 23 May 2004 03:42 | personal | # | TB | 0 comment(s)

Its been 9 weeks now since my laptop was "lost" by the couriers. I really can't believe how shite CityLink have been at sorting it out. You'd have thought a big company like that would be able to hadle claims like mine in a matter of days... but ohh no.

This means that I havn't had any CPU cycles at to devote to my site or any of the software projects I have been planning. For those who are interested I'm working on three new projects:

• Litter - my linux port of clutter, that can arrange album art on the desktop. It will integrate tightly with...
• PyTunes - you guessed it. A simple iTunes-like thing written in python/gnome2. It is focused on music organisation and will itegrate with Rhythmbox and litter. It will also work with the ipod and feature a 2-way sync so you can pull music off your ipod. It will feature automatic album art retrieval using amazon and fingerprinting using musicbrainz.
• PyPhoto - you guessed it again! A simple photo orgaizer. I use the command line and gqview at the moment but want something that will integrate with metainformation I currently store on the web site.

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 12:54 | personal | # | TB | 0 comment(s)

Although, I don't normally use my blog in the traditional way and reference others, this one is kinda special to me. My dearest Tessa is really and truly writing HTML and actually understanded it as she does so. Wow. All this from the girl who.... I'll leave that stuff off the public formum acutally :)

Anyway her blog is much more active than mine and far, far more creative.

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 05:40 | personal | # | TB | 16 comment(s)

For some reason I haven't been writing in this blog for a very long time now. Since my last entries I have now completed my MSc. My thesis, along with some of my other school work can be downloaded from here.

I've also been in Brussels for about a month and am now looking for work in London. If you're reading this and you know of a programming postions in London that involves Linux and is with an innovative, lively, young company please get in touch.

Tue, 09 Dec 2003 10:35 | personal | # | TB | 0 comment(s)