The Logo Of The Fictional Union Broadcasting System (UBS) Television Network, From The Brilliant Sidney

Joan Clarke June 24, 1917 – September 4, 1996

Working alongside Alan Turing and other codebreakers at England's famous Bletchley Park during World War II, Joan Clarke was considered among the most brilliant mathematicians on staff.

She faced many hurdles in her career due to her gender.  One famous example of this occurred when, as no suitable senior codebreaking position existed at Bletchley to which a female was allowed to be promoted, she was granted the title of "linguist" to grant her some measure of recognition for her work.  Clarke, who spoke no second language, would later recall with bemusement filling out paperwork with "grade: linguist, languages: none."

Acrylic on canvas, 5x7″.  From my set Luminaries of the Hacker World.

My standup set from last night’s “Say Everything,” the talk-show-esque pub comedy show where I’m a regular performer.  We talked about my hometown, Hurricane Joaquin, funerals, and more.

More info about the show on its Facebook.

Alexander Graham Plane 1978

As the era of novelty telephones took hold in the 1970s, third-party phones of all shapes and gimmicks began finding their way into homes.   Most telephone companies were still discouraging the practice of customers connecting third-party phones to their lines, but interestingly-shaped phones caught on regardless.  Canadian phone company Northern Telecom addressed the issue with their own cute airplane-inspired phone.

The Alexander Graham Plane, part of Nortel's “Imagination” line of contemporary telephone designs, was one of very few novelty phones of the period to be actively manufactured and made available by a telco.

Acrylic on canvas, 7x5″.  From my series of paintings of historical telephones.

Another piece of captchart.

I liked basing a drawing on the userpic of my 400th Twitter follwer so much that I decided to make it a habit for every hundredth follower after that.  Here's a fifteen-minute sketch of my 500th follower, who just happens to be my old pal @jayeennenn.  Jenn's an old-school telephone enthusiast like myself, among other things she archives old telephone company recordings, so I dug up the last telephone book left in my house and doodled her on the telephone page.

I must point out that Jenn is more attractive than her userpic or this sketch of her userpic would suggest.  I'd snark at her extreme-eyeball-close-up avatar and tell her to go back to MySpace with that stuff but, well..

Ballpoint pen on telephone book page, 9.75x6.5".

Stromberg-Carlson upright phone 1894

When Alexander Graham Bell’s patent on the telephone expired in 1894, American Bell Telephone Company employees Alfred Stromberg and Androv Carlson went into the telephone-manufacturing business for themselves.

The telephone shown here is Stromberg-Carlson’s first upright desk phone, nicknamed "the Coffee Grinder" by enthusiasts due to its unusual shape and side-mounted hand crank.  Few of these unique members of the "candlestick phone" family survive today.

Acrylic on canvas, 5x7″.  From my series of paintings of historical telephones.

Konrad Zuse June 22, 1910 – December 18, 1995

In May, 1941 German inventor and civil engineer Konrad Zuse secured his place in computer history with his Turing-complete Z3, the world's first working programmable computer.

Acrylic on canvas, 5x7″.  From my set Luminaries of the Hacker World.

It's National Draw T-Rex Day, as started by crashsuit and spread around by nedroid over on Twitter yeterday.  For my contribution I riffed (very badly) on this guy.

Callie & Izzy Season 2 is coming soon, and here’s the trailer!

I performed voiceovers and served as an audio engineer on this show.  It’s really nuts and wonderful, and I’m ridiculously proud to be part of it.

If you haven’t seen Season 1 yet, binge on it here!

This is a new variant of Scrabble I'm working on which is fairly mean to its players.  Rare letters are no longer rare, point values are rendered mostly meaningless, and you have to make valid plays without actually seeing any of the words on the board. Please click over and share your thoughts, I'd love some input on this.  Would it actually be any fun to play this way?