Twitter: It's Like Away Messages for the Internet

Friends and fellow nerds: please get Twitter accounts as soon as possible.

Workout Generator Applescript: How I Managed to Nerd-ify Even the Most Simple of Sports

As some of you might have noticed from my "Project Fatass" post below, I'm trying to run a 5k in May. In order to do that, I probably need to be able to run a 1k first. I'm working on that.

Of course, since I use a computer---and AppleScript---for just about everything else, I figured I'd apply it to running as well. But unlike a lot of the other scripts I write, I think other people will find this useful.

Priceless.

(Via the internet)

A quick iPhone hack

If you want to open more than 8 Safari windows, use home screen bookmarks. I'm not quite sure exactly how, but I just had like 12 windows open.

Puppy Vs. Robot!

PUPPY ATTACK!!!

Getting closer...

Check out the sign:

23 ways to get to first base (yes, in baseball)

Here's an interesting article on the oddities of the rules of baseball, including 23 different ways to get to legally get a runner to first base.

I hate you, Time Warner

I just finished rebooting my stupid Time Warner digital cable box for about the 3700th time. When I turned it back on, I saw a Time Warner commercial making fun of satellite TV for--seriously--the fact that you have to reboot satellite TV boxes occasionally. This is from the same company that ran commercials on their own channels asking for people to come work for them in a call center to call their own existing cable customers and try to sell them more services. I think I'll switch to something else when we get the house.

On my manager's markerboard at work...

Drawn by Lauren, one of my PxP teammates:

He's right—it's just wrong.

Ihnatko: "Finally got Vista on my MacBook's new 320 gig drive. Seeing a Mac running Vista fullscreen is like spotting your dad in drag."

(Via Twitter / Ihnatko.)

Nonsensical But Amusing Analogies from British Dorks, pt.1

"I slipped an 8GB stick into the Cybershot without thinking. No matter how many photos I take, they will rattle around in that cavern of memory like a pea in a cathedral."

Stephen Fry, the original British dork. FYI, he was the narrator in the film version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so imagine the above quote in that deep, saliva-y British accent.

Why not me?

Turns out NI had a booth at MacWorld this year. I would have sacrificed a few toes to make it to the Mac promised land, but alas, it was not meant to be. The guy in the video even discusses using LabVIEW in a Windows virtual machine, which was the project I spearheaded! Of course, if I would have been manning the booth, I wouldn't have been able to wander around the showroom floor, or get into the keynote...

There has to be a better way to do this.

Bryan, you're good at automation and such. Here's a snippet of some code I'm working on. Click to make it bigger...

Lessons Learned in Running

When it's 35 degrees, and misting, and you've committed to start running, and your wife says "If you go running in that weather, you'll get sick," listen to her, because she's right.

9 Years in a Row!

Well, for the 9th year in a row, National Instruments is on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list. We came in at number 79 this year, up from 86 last year, and above Nike, Microsoft, and Yahoo. I can see our marketing department now--we always put up signs everywhere, and I know they were just aching to put NINE all over everything. And they sure did.

Project Fatass: Day 0

Well, I guess it's about time. (Sorry about the title, Mom.)

Overheard at Test Summit 3

From one engineer to another, in font of about 30 people: "You meant 'negligible.' 'Negligent' is how you are to your girlfriend."

Overheard at Test Summit 2

"You can do this digitally or analogly, and the star on the slide is because 'analogly' isn't a real word."

Overheard at Test Summit

In the semiconductor industry, they refer to burn-in testing as "baby killing."

So Far, So Good...

We recently made an offer on a house in Round Rock Ranch. It's a fantastic neighborhood right in the middle of Round Rock with 20-minute commutes for both of us. After a bit of back-and-forth, we seem to have reached an agreement on price, so unless there are any catastrophes (which is definitely possible), we'll be homeowners soon!

Click through to see a whole bunch of pictures (click to enlarge them).

This Will Not End Well

This showed up in my friend Brian's facebook inbox:



Nevermind the whole "give me free support" thing— one thing I've learned from AE is that "quick" and "easy" questions are NEVER quick OR easy. Click the picture for the full size version.

I'm Special!

So as most of you know, I have been the team leader for my team since October. But as of yesterday, I've taken on a new job--I'm an AE Specialist now.

It's technically in the same department, but it's definitely a different job. I no longer have daily phone shifts, which I'm pretty excited about. Now, I get to work very closely with our sales, marketing, R&D, and systems engineering departments. As a "test-side" AE Specialist, I'll mostly be doing proof-of-concept work for our sales force when they are trying to sell a big system; after all, big systems almost always include a whole lot of PXI. My first assignment is a unique challenge: I'm building a system with a giant PXI chassis connected to other hardware and a ridiculously-fast quad-core server, but it's for a company that builds and disassembles NUCLEAR WEAPONS, so I don't get to know much more about it than that.

I'm stoked that I get to stay in AE, which has a fantastic culture, and training that's second to none. But I also get out of the 'drudgery' of handling service requests every day, and I get to do a lot of varied, interesting work, and the visibility is fantastic. I'll make sure and add a post here when I get more interesting customer applications. I've always said that our customers do the coolest things in the world. Check out the video.

My Trip to Silicon Valley, California

I just got back from teaching a LabVIEW Basics class in Mountain View, CA, the heart of "Silicon Valley." It was an awesome trip--especially for a nerd like me.

My Cool Awesome Flickr Page

I'm in the process of uploading my archive of 4,000 or so photos to my public page on Flickr. If you haven't noticed yet, random pictures also appear on the sidebar. If you have some time to kill, go check it out. I'll post new stuff (like California) as it happens, and I'll be catching up on old stuff at the same time.

Welcome Friends, Family, and "Others"

Howdy!

I've secretly had a blog for a while, but it was mainly for techie stuff. But there's a whole lot going on with Katie and me right now, and I figured this would be a good way to keep everyone up to date. I'll still be posting about my various nerd projects, but I hope to include a lot more about personal stuff (like cool trips, etc). So check back often!

If you know how blogs work, great. There's an RSS link on the right side for you power users. If you read a lot of blogs and you've never heard of RSS, it's the best thing since sliced bread--check out Google Reader and then add my blog to Google Reader.

If you'd like to get an update by email every time I post something, just sign up for e-mail notifications in the sidebar on the right. Then, it's like each of my blog posts is a special message just for you! Except it's not.

And if you only want to get a subset of what I post, I plan on eventually setting up fancy URLs like blog.chadbailey.net/personal, blog.chadbailey.net/tech, and so on. More on that later.

P.S. If you want to read up on some techno-nerdery, just scroll down the page.