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Entries From July 2009


July 29, 2009

SIGGRAPH 2009

Filed under 3D, Animation, Celebrity, Computers, SIGGRAPH

It’s almost time! I’m heading to New Orleans on Friday for SIGGRAPH 2009. It will be my 13th in a row.

I plan on actively updating this blog (http://davidlenihan.com/ORIGINAL_davidlenihan.com) and my twitter account (http://twitter.com/davidlenihan) while I’m out there. Let me know if you will be doing the same and I’ll track you.

Here are some pics from SIGGRAPH 2008 that I never got around to posting…a few computer graphic celebrities.

Jos Stam (I told him I was collecting photos of the tallest people at SIGGRAPH and he won).

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And Ken Perlin (I think he needs a new shirt…check out the link!)…

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SIGGRAPH uploaded a few videos to whet your appetite for the New Orleans event.

SIGGRAPH overview…

 

Technical papers previews…

Animation festival preview…

A new category at SIGGRAPH, real-time rendering animation festival…

July 26, 2009

Pixar Visit

Filed under 3D, Animation, Travel

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I’ve been trying to get a tour of Pixar for quite a while now.

And I finally did…thanks to my buds Rachel and Jason.

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I met them for lunch on Thursday. We grabbed some Mexican pizza from Cafe Luxo and ate outside.

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Front desk

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Open area in center of building P1020627 
Pixar has an art exhibit featuring work from various stages of development of their last project. Up! was on display when I visited. There is a lot to see…I wish I could have spent more time looking at this.

Pixar is filled with the characters from their movies.

Luxo Jr.

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The Incredibles

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Finding Nemo

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Monster’s Inc.

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Cars (on the right)

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They have “hidden” rats drawn in various places…

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My last stop was the company store.

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I got a few new work shirts for me…

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   …and some shirts for my nephew and niece.

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Thanks again to Rachel and Jason! They were great hosts…now it’s my turn!

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July 14, 2009

My First Movie Credit

Filed under Movies, Work

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I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince today. It is easily the best Harry Potter movie.

I knew my name was submitted for a credit...but you don't know if you actually *are* in the credits until you see the film.

I watched the film today...and I *am* in the credits!

The first large break in the credits (about a full screen) occurs just before the "Industrial Light & Magic"-section. I'm in the "Research & Development" group at ILM. There are only 2 people from R&D in the credits: myself and Max Chen. We are under the title "Technical Support." My name is in the center column, last row.

I'm thrilled to have a movie credit...and on a really good movie, no less.

July 8, 2009

Desktop Hunters

Filed under Computers

This is David.

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He told us he wanted a desktop with...

"a super-fast processor with lots of cores, lots of RAM, lots of hard drive space and looks cool"

...for under $3,500.

We told him...

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"I like the look of the new Dell Studio XPS 435, so let's start there."

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"I went to dell.com and configured it just how I wanted...

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  • 3.33GHz Intel Core i7-975 with 8 cores
  • 12GB RAM
  • 1.5TB Hard Drive
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 1024MB RAM
  • Blu-ray Burner (reads/writes CD, DVD and Blu-ray)

...for a grand total of $3,054."

 

 

"Ok, let's see what Apple has. The Mac Pro looks nice."

image"I configured an Apple Mac Pro with similar options...

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  • 2.93GHz Intel Xeon with 8 cores
  • 12GB RAM
  • 1.0TB Hard Drive
  • ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 512MB
  • SuperDrive (read/writes CD and DVD)

...which adds up to a total of $6,549."

 

 

"The Dell Studio XPS 435 has all my qualifications. When compared to an Apple Mac Pro, the Dell has...

  • A 13% faster chip (3.33GHz vs. 2.93GHz)
  • 50% more hard drive space (1.5TB vs. 1.0TB)
  • Twice as much graphics card memory (1024MB vs. 512MB)
  • A Blu-ray reader/writer (Apple doesn't have an option for this)

...all for $3,495 less than the Apple Mac Pro."

"I'm going to buy the Dell Studio XPS 435."

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"I got exactly what I wanted for *well* under $3,500."

 

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"I'm a PC and my new system blows away the fastest Mac for half the price."

 

 

P.S. I am naming my new PC "Lauren."

 

 

July 2, 2009

PowerShell Gem #1

Filed under Computers, Programming, Software

PowerShell is a replacement for the Windows command prompt (a.k.a. CMD).

I ran into this feature today: accessing network shares.

With CMD, you map a drive letter to a network share in order to access it. Trying to access the share directly (via the UNC name) does not work.

For example, here's what happens if I try to list the contents of a share called \\ivory\users\public directly (fails) and then via a mapped drive S: using CMD...

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PowerShell supports UNC! No more mapping drive letters!

Check out the same task via PowerShell...

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About July 2009

This page contains all entries posted to David's Blog in July 2009. They are listed from oldest to newest.

June 2009 is the previous archive.

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