I Have No Idea

In early December, 2011, I was both surprised and flattered to discover that Apple had named Halftone as one of the best photo apps in its App Store Rewind 2011. Since then, I’ve received a lot of e-mail asking me how I did it. That is, what did I do to “get” Apple to pick Halftone? I don’t know what kind of response they expect, but I’m sure that I disappoint them when I respond:

I have no idea.

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Ever since I’ve moved to my new blog, the most common request I get (by far) is: “when are you going to post your wallpaper images again?” Well, the answer is: today! I’ve gone through the 160+ images that I’ve released over the years and culled them down to a set that represents some of the most popular along with some of my favorites. I hope you enjoy them.
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Ever since I’ve moved to my new blog, the most common request I get (by far) is: “when are you going to post your wallpaper images again?” Well, the answer is: today!

I’ve gone through the 160+ images that I’ve released over the years and culled them down to a set that represents some of the most popular along with some of my favorites. I hope you enjoy them.

Happy Thanksgiving! I was curious about heat transfer while cooking our turkey this year, so I logged the thigh temperature every five minutes. We cooked a 14lb turkey at 350⁰ F in a cooking bag, and it took almost exactly three hours (which includes a 15 minute resting period at the end). Note that I pulled the turkey out of the oven when it reached 180⁰ F, and it continued to warm to 189⁰ F. The Thermal Imaging Blog has a nice post about cooking turkey, and here’s a post by someone else who tried this last year. If you’re really interested, I found a paper titled Modeling Heat Transfer During Oven Roasting of Unstuffed Turkeys that uses a 2D finite element model to calculate temperatures at different points in the turkey. Cool! Update on 11/25/2011: I’ve had a few questions about the dotted line in my graph. It’s an exponential trendline that I used to predict when the turkey would reach 180⁰ F.
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Happy Thanksgiving! I was curious about heat transfer while cooking our turkey this year, so I logged the thigh temperature every five minutes. We cooked a 14lb turkey at 350⁰ F in a cooking bag, and it took almost exactly three hours (which includes a 15 minute resting period at the end). Note that I pulled the turkey out of the oven when it reached 180⁰ F, and it continued to warm to 189⁰ F.

The Thermal Imaging Blog has a nice post about cooking turkey, and here’s a post by someone else who tried this last year. If you’re really interested, I found a paper titled Modeling Heat Transfer During Oven Roasting of Unstuffed Turkeys that uses a 2D finite element model to calculate temperatures at different points in the turkey. Cool!

Update on 11/25/2011: I’ve had a few questions about the dotted line in my graph. It’s an exponential trendline that I used to predict when the turkey would reach 180⁰ F.

We received our Nest Learning Thermostat yesterday. The unit and its packaging are exquisite, simple, and well-designed. Other than a drill, the Nest includes everything you need to install it yourself, including a small screwdriver with four interchangeable bits. It took me about an hour from start to finish, and as you can see in the photo, I used one of the optional mounting plates to cover up the bare wall that was behind our old thermostat. Yes, the screen has a slight red tint to it, because it was heating the house when I took the photo. The free iPhone app (and web site) makes it easy to remotely monitor and control the Nest. So far, so good.
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We received our Nest Learning Thermostat yesterday. The unit and its packaging are exquisite, simple, and well-designed. Other than a drill, the Nest includes everything you need to install it yourself, including a small screwdriver with four interchangeable bits. It took me about an hour from start to finish, and as you can see in the photo, I used one of the optional mounting plates to cover up the bare wall that was behind our old thermostat. Yes, the screen has a slight red tint to it, because it was heating the house when I took the photo. The free iPhone app (and web site) makes it easy to remotely monitor and control the Nest. So far, so good.

Juicy Bits

Most of my friends know that I’m always working on side projects. And if you don’t know what side project I’m currently working on, that doesn’t mean that I’m taking a break. It just means that I’m being quiet. ;-)

This side project began as an experiment in March, 2009, and over the past 2½ years, it’s become my new full-time job.

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While I left Microsoft of my own accord, Lemonade is a short documentary about 16 people in the advertising industry who lost their jobs and found their calling. It’s just as appropriate today as when I first saw it years ago. Definitely worth watching.

Keoni
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Keoni