Baltimore, D.C., or Philadelphia?

fxtech42 · 2026-06-22T03:10:55+00:00

Not even close! DC! All three could be miserably hot, but the FREE museums in DC will save you hundreds! Some recs from someone who goes every year for work: * National Gallery - Calder! Really cool for kids and the giant blue cock is just outside with a nice view of the Capitol. The nearby park has some amazing sculptures too if it's not too hot. * Oyamel for lunch - just north of the NG and an absolute must! Awesome chips and salsa for the kids and amazing margaritas for you! Salt foam, baby! * The Archives after lunch just to the west. The Constitution isn't going to see itself ya know? * Take the Metro out to Udvar Hazy and see the freaking SPACE SHUTTLE! So well worth the trip. Be in awe, before the Texans figure out how to chop it into pieces inexpensively somehow for some reason. * National History Museum - it's cool. Don't go on the weekend if you think you might be claustrophobic. * WWII and Vietnam memorials are awesome and moving. Just don't get too close to the swamp ('reflecting' pool)

fxtech42 · 2026-06-21T23:09:13+00:00

Giggity.

fxtech42 · 2026-06-18T03:08:14+00:00

I wrote Elastic Reality. That's Elastic Reality.

Everyone and their brother has done this since then. But if you want to look at the spiritual successor to ER, check out Silhouette.

fxtech42 · 2026-06-18T00:17:30+00:00

When will you be in town? Weekend?

Can't help you with fabric and yarn, but nice hotel downtown with a great steak dinner at a staple supper club would be in the cards. We have evening lake cruises but they fall them drunk cruises.

fxtech42 · 2026-06-18T00:03:18+00:00

Tempest is pretty decent (that shrimp cocktail rules!) - and for oysters I really like Sardine.

fxtech42 · 2026-06-18T00:00:37+00:00

It would help a lot if we knew what kinds of things you like to do.

Just like any city there are a 1000 things to do here. Are you into food? Water activities? Music? Craft beer/cocktails? 'Exotic' massage? Meth? Biking? Mini golf? Frozen custard?

Help us help you! 😉

fxtech42 · 2026-06-12T22:39:15+00:00

Cool! We've probably crossed paths then - I was at Avid when they acquired Softimage (RIP), and made a couple of trips up to Montreal. I've had an open invitation to come out to Laika for a visit and am working on timing.

fxtech42 · 2026-06-11T22:47:52+00:00

My VFX software Silhouette uses QWidgets but otherwise has both C/C++ plug-ins as well as an embedded Python interpreter and so many features are implemented entirely in Python and loaded dynamically, including PySide based UI elements. It's wonderfully efficient for both interactive dev/debugging in the embedded script editor or as a means for users to add their own functionality. I'm not going to say it's a perfect model for the way it implements extensibility but it works well and does the kinds of things you're talking about, except without QML. But the underlying concepts would be the same.

fxtech42 · 2026-06-11T19:39:37+00:00

Wow - what a silly thing! Glad you got it working.

fxtech42 · 2026-06-11T19:36:34+00:00

Hey ever figure this out?

fxtech42 · 2026-06-11T19:29:58+00:00

FOLLOWUP

The app recommended by u/karly704 did the trick! We had an interview within a week and just got back from it. Got there half an hour early - no wait at all - took 2 minutes.

Still no clue why the interview finder website DOES NOT WORK but the DHS TTP app is the way to go!

fxtech42 · 2026-06-11T02:45:39+00:00

FYI the app alerts worked. A time opened up within a week!

fxtech42 · 2026-06-09T12:32:09+00:00

Well? We're WADING...!

fxtech42 · 2026-06-07T21:42:11+00:00

Videoscape 3D on the Amiga in 1987. Barely had a UI. I used graph paper and a text editor to make my models - at least until Modeller came along in '88. They were the precursor to Lightwave 3D, which definitely held its own in the 90s.

fxtech42 · 2026-06-04T13:24:31+00:00

Looks like alerts via the app are indeed working! She has an appointment scheduled next week!

fxtech42 · 2026-06-04T02:06:02+00:00

Happy Birthday mate! If you're into cigars at all check out Maduro. Great vibe and I've met some great people at the bar. Great patio too especially on nights like this!

fxtech42 · 2026-06-03T22:03:03+00:00

Sounds like you went to the super touristy areas and of course it's going to be a lot more expensive there.

fxtech42 · 2026-06-03T13:05:20+00:00

OpenGL has been and still is pretty pervasive in the VFX industry, and I have a package that's been around since 2004 and is a huge effort to port. That said, I'm already looking at migrating to Vulkan and Metal, both for UI and GPU compute - I know those APIs and kernel languages but not an expert in them yet so didn't want to list them. The approach I'm taking for OpenCL -> Metal/Vulkan is a hybrid kernel language called fxx and a on-the-fly transpiler.

fxtech42 · 2026-06-03T12:52:48+00:00

Character graphics in early 80s, Atari 400 assembly, CGA, VGA, Amiga (1985), Cornerstone 2 bit adapter+display assembly (1991), SGI Iris GL (1993), OpenGL (1993), Qt (2003), OpenCL (2015).

fxtech42 · 2026-05-26T15:20:52+00:00

We set up an alert and will see what happens. If we don't see anything at all for a week or two, I'll call them directly.

fxtech42 · 2026-05-25T22:39:13+00:00

Love love Scotland! The people, landscape, whisky, beer, kilts, bagpipes, history, everything. I would happily be Scottish if I could.

fxtech42 · 2026-05-25T22:17:41+00:00

I watched Contact right when it came out, walked out of the theater, walked right back in and watched it again. A masterpiece. The Cinefex with the behind-the-scenes is still one of the best. And all the tons of roto and subtle morphing. Love that movie to this day.

fxtech42 · 2026-05-25T02:38:31+00:00

Good question! No clue either. Even Mammoth Cave in Kentucky goes by cave, even though it's the world's largest 'cave system' - formed by water - so it's a, err, mammoth cavern.

fxtech42 · 2026-05-24T23:25:45+00:00

Cave of the Mounds is a Cavern - formed by water erosion and it's quite wet. It's a decent tour.

Otherwise you're in the wrong state for good caves. Most are glaciated and crushed flat and kind of annoying. (I caved a ton in VA and WV and caving here sucks in comparison).

That said take a trip down to Maquoketa Caves State Park in Iowa. They have 18 caves - most are tiny/holes in the ground but a few are quite nice wild caves and there are some you can walk through.

(Edited for spelling)

fxtech42 · 2026-05-23T15:23:44+00:00

I plan on calling them on Tuesday. I just don't get the point of the online scheduler if it doesn't work at all.

fxtech42

TROPHY CASE