Huntersdad.com

According to this story, Snow Leopard will include OpenCL (CLI) support for offloading certain tasks to the GPU.

Which means all that transcoding I seem to be constantly doing will be able to be done on the GPU, leading to a huge decrease in time wasted on that and more time for goofing off

The admissions director at CU-Boulder called me back today. They are accepting me to the Computer Science program but I need to retake Calculus I. It’s a fair request, since the last time I took Calc I was the first year I was working with IBM (14 or so years ago…)

I’ll need to take it this fall and then I will matriculate in the Spring… Yay!

I procrastinated more than I should have, but my application to CU-Boulder is finally sent in. I am applying to the Computer Science program, likely with the goal of majoring in Software Engineering. Another program of interest to me is Computational Science and Engineering. The goal of such a major would be to design programs which could predict scientific models such as weather, subatomic particles, cells, and unknown-as-of-yet phenomena

The more I think about it, the latter sounds much more exciting than the former. Some of the core classes to the degree have a focus on game design, so I worry about being intermixed with the type of student who only get into programming for the games. It is certainly not as exciting as it sounds…

Also of note is the fact I sent out the newsletter I had been working on for several months at work. While it may not have actually been a tremendous amount of actual work, there was plenty of worrying about it as there were changes in the very last minutes as it had to go to press. The audience is around 1,500 which is plenty enough to be nervous about if anything was overlooked. I had fun making it and I am now (finally) comfortable using Photoshop. It took me forever to get used to the simplest things in the program, but now I finally understand the overall flow and love it!

Here I find myself well overdue for an update… I don’t believe I have ever felt so busy (overwhelmed?) in my life. Work has been crazy busy with the release of a new product, and I add my own frustrations to that by working through a manager prep program. The hope is this all pays off in the end. The economy does not seem to be rebounding as we were all promised now that Jesus has been elected President.

I go to KC next Friday to spend the weekend with Hunter. He has been doing much better in school but still has some room to grow. The trips to Kansas City give me time to think over everything that has been going on in my own life, but mainly to try to plan out my time for the next month or so. It is difficult not to feel time slipping away in some respects.

I want to get enrolled at CU-Boulder this fall in order to finish up a real degree. I have many ideas for apps I could program for the Apple iPhone store, but I find myself with almost no free time to put into such projects. I also have some programs for work which need refining. Programming for the Windows platform has been very frustrating for me. Everything I plan out on Linux seems to have no comparable simple solution for Windows. It is very frustrating that one practically needs to .NET in order to make things happen on this platform.

I am really looking forward to Memorial Day weekend as that is when I get to pickup Hunter for the summer. I am looking forward to more hiking and bicycle riding this summer. He is also going to bring out his Eagle Scout book which will give us some other smaller ideas for the summer. For various reasons I should have as many as 3 weeks off-shift or off-work completely so we will have lots of time to plan activities throughout the summer.

For various reasons the website has been offline for quite a while, it’s nice to have things back up and running.

Over the next week I should have lots to say and updates from life/tech/etc. For now, I have more Kernel and Wordpress updates to download…lots of IT changes in the house with the main server back up and running!

In the meantime, please visit the new Picture Gallery link on the right-hand side of the page.

I got this link from a co-worker, but it is one of the more interesting ideas of a Flash movie I have ever seen.

Click here.