I’m caught up as much as everyone in the Apple tablet hype. I won’t really try predictions, but here are the two things I’ll be looking for:

OS — If it’s a big iPhone I’m not interested. OS X and I’d be hard pressed not to buy it.

Input — Here is where they can do something truly innovative, though I don’t know what. I would like a full qwerty-esque keyboard on the touchscreen, where the keys pressed are determined not by their location, but by their position relative to the rest of your fingers. So you lay your fingers down on the screen and start typing, not really worrying about where your fingertips press. Rather, you extend your left index finger up and to the right (-ish) and then your right index finger to the left (-ish) and then your left middle finger up (-ish), and the tablet realizes you were probably typing “the”.

The concern with a touchscreen keyboard is the lack of tactile feedback. But with a good enough algorithm, the type-and-only-sort-of-care-where-you’re-touching” technique might be enough to make up for not knowing where the keys are. My friend had a FingerWorks keyboard once that was entirely a touchscreen and it was difficult to type on. However, it allowed you to easily move the mouse and do complicated gestures without your fingers leaving the keyboard, so overall he was more efficient. Incidentally, Apple bought FingerWorks, so maybe some of that technology will make its way into the tablet.

Anyway, tomorrow’s the big day! Let’s see what it brings.

Last weekend was MIT’s annual mystery hunt. There were a number of cool puzzles, as always, but I just wanted to highlight this “Be Kind Rewind”-esque one. For this puzzle, we had to “Swede” a popular movie and upload the resulting 3-4 minute clip to Youtube to submit. We weren’t allowed to say any of the main words in the title. See if you can guess what movie we were assigned…

Evans and I did the video editing on that bad boy. iMovie is pretty impressive!

While I’m at it. Here’s another video my team had to make for the Hunt a few years ago. It’s the trailer for a hypothetical sequel to the movie Wordplay. Greg Schroll did most of the editing on this one (hence it’s higher quality…), although I did suggest the music that plays, and the (spoiler) laser pointer idea.

Autumn is definitely here. For my family and friends back in CA, who sadly don’t get to participate in this season, I thought I’d take a few pictures on my walk back from work. One picture here as a sampler, more follow it. (All pictures are hosted on Flickr, since my web host charges by the MB stored and the GB transferred. Click the picture to go to Flickr and see larger versions.)

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As I was cleaning my room last week I stumbled across an old notebook. Flipping it open, I saw it contained a story I had started writing when I was just a wee little boy. I didn’t get very far into the story, and I’ll almost certainly never finish it, but I want to save what I do have. The pen and pencil marks are fading, so I figured I’d type up what I have, and may as well store it on my blog!

The binder it’s in mentions “Happy Eyes”, a cat I had when I was very young, so I think I started the story when I was no older than 10. But then about halfway through the “prologue” it switches from pencil to pen and I think that’s where I took over when I was older. From my knowledge of military ranks in it, I would imagine I was in Cadet Corps at that point, which would make me 12. I vaguely remember finding this notebook way back in the day, and rediscovering the story I had started even further back in the day, and trying to continue it.

Read on if you want to hear the start of a tale full of daring and intrigue that will leave you hanging…

Prologue

“Do you understand what you’re supposed to do?” Captain Rieekan finished his overview, and now began the specifics. “You two” — Captain Rieekan indicated two of the Special Forces Group — “will infiltrate the rebels’ base, avoiding being detected at all costs. Do you understand?” he asked again.

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