False Sun Over Cambridge

A "sun dog" over Cambridge, MA.

I was walking home one day when this view caught my eye. It's what's known as a false sun or "sun dog", and it happens when ice crystals in clouds act as a lens, and refract sunlight toward your eye. In this case, the glow in the clouds over the intersection is the false sun and the brighter glow over the building to the right is the real sun. More spectacular images still can be seen under exactly the right circumstances, making a full ring of light around the sun with bright spots to the left and right.

I've heard that under unusual circumstances including when volcanic ash is in the air, false suns can out-shine the real sun. I'd love to see something like that one day.

The Tubes Are Clogged

2nd story walkway with the Akamai in background
From Misc Photos

Ever wonder what happens when the Internet's series of tubes gets clogged? Apparently, they call in this guy....

Google Maps - Planning the Perfect Evening

Recently, I wanted to suggest a route for a pub crawl to someone who was organizing a bachelor party. Google maps seemed like it might be the right tool, so I tried it out. Turns out there's a whole collaborative mapping interface I hadn't even realized was there.

I started by searching for a pub. Then I saved that location ("save to my maps") and did another search and so on until I had saved all of the pubs I was interested in to a map of their own. I then clicked on that map name in the side-bar and found that there's a drawing tool, so I was able to draw a line connecting the pubs.

The final result is saved in a map that's publicly viewable as "Cambridge Pubs near Central Sq". You can visit it, but only people that I invite as collaborators can edit it.

It seems as if, every day, I find new reasons to be impressed with Google's services.

Construction at MIT: Part 3

As you can see, I'm just thrilled with this building. It's in the perfect spot, and I get to watch it being constructed, piece by piece. Every night before I go home, I look out of the window at it, and appreciate the fact that generations of MIT students who come through here after me, will have no idea how cool this place was. To them, it will just be yet another building with a number. Hopefully, a few of them will find this blog and consider how much work went into it.

I leave you with this parting shot. Someone crossed the street while I was taking a long exposure, and it really worked out perfectly.

Construction at MIT: Part 2

I came out of the office one night to find a planet (Jupiter, I think) over the street and the whole building lit up by internal ligthing, shining through the canvas pannels that they drop over the steele skeleton. Very cool looking, and just too tempting a picture not to take.