I’ve been doing quite a lot of retooling recently for my research. Switching over to Javascript, writing tools to create procedural diagrams in HTML5, rebuilding my 3D modeler in WebGL so it can use triangle strips and fast fragment shaders, and starting to control sensors and output devices through an Arduino while getting up to speed on the real microprocessor that I will need to use for serious projects.<\/p>\n
Today I was doing all of those things, in a kind of crazy round robin of happy hacking. Then I spent some time on-line learning about how to make strong tiny electromagnets, and right now I’m revisiting Etherpad for synchronous code sharing.<\/p>\n
At some point, when you find yourself in one of those modes, you realize that it’s all one big project. Somewhere in the back of your mind is an idea, and every acquired skill gets you closer to finding it. Each new tool becomes part of a kind of laboratory workbench, and the real power comes when it becomes easy to pick up any tool from the bench, combine it with the others, and extend your reach in new directions.<\/p>\n
The exciting part is seeing how the space of reachable places grows with every new tool in your arsenal.<\/p>\n
I guess this has been true down through history — the vehicle defines the journey. Back when anything that traveled faster than a horse was considered a marvel, a thousand miles was thought to be an epic distance. Now, in these days of space travel to other planets, the Moon is considered too near to bother with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been doing quite a lot of retooling recently for my research. Switching over to Javascript, writing tools to create procedural diagrams in HTML5, rebuilding my 3D modeler in WebGL so it can use triangle strips and fast fragment shaders, and starting to control sensors and output devices through an Arduino while getting up to … Continue reading “The vehicle defines the journey”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12895"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12896,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12895\/revisions\/12896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}