All posts by bsowell

About bsowell

I am currently a first year graduate student in computer science at Cornell University. I did my undergraduate work at Carleton College in Northfield, MN, and grew up in Omaha, NE. This site is a collection of things I find interesting.

Welcome

Meta

Another year, another blog. I’ve always wanted my own domain to mess around with, and I received the funds to purchase a year of Dreamhost hosting for the holidays. There are many things I would like to try with this space, and I hope that at least some of them will come to pass.

At the moment I am using the default k2 theme, which I may or may not change as time goes on. The geek in me wants to design a theme from the ground up, but the part of me that has to worry about such things as graduating thinks that might not be such a good idea. I do want to get asides working à la Kottke so that I can post quick links more easily.

Prefab

Art, Personal

Took a break yesterday and went into Minneapolis for the day. My primary objective was to see the Some Assembly Required exhibit at the Walker. It’s on modern prefabricated housing, which turns out to be a surprisingly interesting topic. Prefab housing traditionally has a very negative connotation, but the exhibit displayed the work of a number of architects who are designing some very unique structures. Says the Walker:

Today’s prefab movement has captured the spirit and imagination of a new generation of architects and home buyers, who together have championed a variety of modern modular dwellings that challenge preconceptions about “prefab” homes as cheap, cookie-cutter structures of last resort.

If you’re interested, there’s more info at fabprefab, and the Walker is podcasting its audio tour (direct rss link). Very cool.

Today it’s back to work, slowly. Thank goodness for midterm break.

The End of an Era

Personal

I destroyed a little part of my youth today.

In my combined quest to pack and reorganize my room, I threw away my collection of computer games that won’t run under OS X. Such gems as Civilization II, Descent, Warcraft II, Deus Ex, and Sim City found their way to the wastebasket, never again to shine from my monitor. How many hours I spent in those worlds I will never know, but they certainly left an indelible mark on my childhood.

Back in Northfield on Monday. We’ll see how that goes.

Vienna

Travel

Back from Vienna. It was a very interesting trip. I didn’t realize how economically advanced Austria is, but it turns out that it’s the fourth most prosperous country in the EU. That meant clean attractive buildings and well funded cultural institutions. It also meant high prices. I don’t think I’m up to a complete writeup, but here are some highlights:

Hostel Ruthensteiner
Clean, friendly, and well equipped. A wonderful homebase from which to explore the city.

The Metro
Every new European city I visit makes me wish that the U.S had better public transportation.*

The Vienna Opera
The opera house isn’t as ornate as the one in Budapest, but the sets and performance were outstanding. I saw The Flying Dutchman and was happy to have English subtitles on my own personal screen.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum
One of the most amazing museums I’ve ever been to. I left with a new appreciation for Rubens and Bruegel, and I got to try a cool new pda-based multimedia guide in the Classical and Egyption collections.

The Haus Der Musik
A really inovative new museum with exhibits on The Vienna Philharmonic, the science of sound, and a number of famous composers who lived and worked in Vienna. Classical music heaven.

The MuseumsQuarter
A new cultural complex containing three major modern art musuems and a number of other exhibition and retail spaces. From Monet to Madonna it was a pretty compelling look at creativity in the last century.

I’m going to try to get to Prague the weekend after next, and that should about do it for my European travels.

* with apologies to New York, which I hear has an excellent metro.