bradgrier.com

Month: December 2009

  • Some of my better photos from 2009

    I’ve taken a look back at some of the shots I’ve been for­tu­nate enough to cap­ture this year. flickr has a cool fea­ture called ‘sets’, so I made one — then noticed that I can share the set as a slideshow — embed­ded below. Enjoy! And happy new year!

  • A movie scene inspires a genre of casual games

    The movie is Ali­ens — the James Camer­on action flick that spawned all sorts of video-game and cul­tur­al cliches. But it also spawned some inter­est­ing ideas in cas­u­al gam­ing. Con­sider this scene: Ripley and the Mar­ines are bunk­ing down for the night in the ter­ra­form com­plex on LV-426. But first they have to secure the…

  • Tech with family at the holidays

    This Christ­mas has prob­ably the most intens­ive tech-soaked hol­i­day peri­od I’ve had with friends and fam­ily. It was refresh­ing to see the ways that recent tech devel­op­ments have allowed us to enjoy the gath­er­ing, events, exper­i­ence and excite­ment. …more This post is an excerpt from one of my weekly posts on the Future Shop Techb­log.…

  • This is the week that was

    The Pleth­ora of Presents edi­tion: Yep, it’s box­ing day, so I hope you’ve all received the gift’s you’ve wanted, ’cause you won’t find them here. Instead, I’ve got a gaggle of good­ies found around the inter­net; things that happened this past week both inter­est­ing and fun. …more This post is an excerpt from one of…

  • NORAD tracks Santa with Google Earth

    If you’re online this even­ing, and hap­pen to want to keep the kids amused, then you may want to look at the latest space age tech used to track Santa tonight. No, it’s not Twit­ter. …more This post is an excerpt from one of my weekly posts on the Future Shop Techb­log. Check out the…

  • Blogging at 31312 ft.

    As I write wrote this I’m was cruis­ing along at 485 mph, just over 30,000 ft. Over the Rockies. This vista was shot with my digit­al cam­era, and wire­lessly uploaded to my flickr account. The tech that let’s me post this (delayed, as my air­line does­n’t have in-flight wi-fi yet) is pretty com­mon­place these days —…

  • Another favourite Christmas gift from the annals of tech time

    In the last half of the pre­vi­ous cen­tury, tech­no­logy was sim­pler. Com­puter cir­cuits were just com­ing into their own on a piece of sil­ic­one called an IC, or Integ­rated Cir­cuit — a chip. Bud­ding young hob­by­ists want­ing to learn this arcane art of elec­tron­ics had one great omni­bus took to help them out… …more This…

  • Three tech stocking stuffers

    By now you should have had all your major gifts bought, wrapped and out of the way, but what about the little things, the cool tech toys that just fit in that stock­ing, hung by the chim­ney with care. Fear not, I’ve got a stock­ing stuffer list that will help you out in these final…

  • This is the week that was

    Hmmm, it’s start­ing to get a bit quiet out there — are the news gen­er­at­ors get­ting into ‘hunker down for the hol­i­days’ mode? …more This post is an excerpt from one of my weekly posts on the Future Shop Techb­log. Check out the full post here.

  • Some photos of the day

    I’m in Canada, so snow is a way of life at this time of year. It’s to be expec­ted, it’s routine, almost mundane. But occa­sion­ally you get the right mix of an early morn­ing snow­fall, and some really inter­est­ing light to provide the basis for creativity. Mix in a little Light­room tweak­ing, and I have fun:…

  • The coolest indie video I’ve seen all year

    Think Dis­trict 9, or Inde­pend­ence Day. But done for $300 by someone with a crap-load of tal­ent. In Uruguay. With Giant Robots! And now he’s got a movie deal: The pic­ture will be a sci-fi thrill­er set in Argen­tina and Uruguay. In case you’re hop­ing to see the fea­ture-length ver­sion of “Pan­ic Attack!” in a…

  • Lego Christmas ornaments

    What would Christ­mas be without dec­or­a­tions, and Lego! The two just go togeth­er like peas and carrots. Since the loc­al Toys ‘R Us is across the street, I found these two items  just inside the door. How could I resist 🙂 What bet­ter way to bright­en up a drab grey office cube. They’re small, descrete, yet…