How long did it take Eden to get the desk looking “just right”?

Moondust! Excellent book that I had to stop reading before bed recently. It got my brain FAR too excited/bewildered about space when I was supposed to be going to sleep.

Seeing the Saturn V sitting on Eben’s desk reminded me of growing up listening to static test firings of the Saturn V moon rocket in Huntsville. They basically strap the Saturn V to the ground and then ignite the rockets. So the whole city shakes for a couple minutes instead of just those riding inside the Saturn V. The noise sounds much like the end of the world is upon us. There’s nothing quite like it. Glad to see someone else reaching for the stars!

Satrun V? There is no Saturn 5, only a Space Shuttle …

What is the Lego on the right side of the Shuttle?

My bad. Old age. :-)

I want one of those blank boards so bad!
also. One of the pis looks like it has some kind of “sd card extension” and one looks like it has a extra gpio

Airsoft 6mm BBs? Is Eben an airsofter or just building a pi powered weapon?

Uncannilty, Moondust still sits unread on my bookshelf, but for a week has been earmarked as ‘next’ once I’m through the Amber Spyglass (yes, I know, it’s for kids … )

Dell E6220?

I diagnose an O’Reilly deficiency. Take two extra magenta, two dark blue and a teal for a more balanced diet.

Are those Air-Soft pellets?

I like the book on Lex and Yacc…a classic

I notice an extended metal SD card holder on the apparently production model Pi in the centre. Surely Eben didn’t break the nice plastic one and have to replace it?

What would MacGuyer do? :D There’s a good book when you’ve a couple of minutes to kill…

Just how many 13Amp Sockets does one person need?

The forum should have a “Readers’ desks” section!

What’s the other SBC on his desk? I see 2 Pis, but there’s another with an orange RCA port which is something else. No particular reason other than I’m curious.

MOONDUST was an amazing book giving me a rare glimpse into the lives of what I think are amazing people.

ASG 6m 0.2g BBs, I think Eben is an airsofter!!! Well done that man, its more popular than I realised!!

I have the Lex and Yacc book on my desk too. Haven’t opened it in years!

Also… the left most book… is that Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks?! =)

Greg Eagan – Permutation City(?)

Charlies Wilsons war – a superb account of America’s ‘interest’ in Soviet occupied Afghanistan.

“Zero Base Policy”

Budgeting and politics. Hmmm

That looks well under control. My desk is a lot less tidy than that, but I never sit at it to work. All computer work is done on a modified Poang chair (better back support) with a custom laptop desk I made. The main desk is a dumping ground for works in progress. Currently 2 Pis 2 Gertboards a Quick2Wire board, a prototype board I’m developing, 3 breadboards, a servo-powered RasPi.TV flag and lots of other bits and pieces in and out of boxes. Also a HiFi amp and a printer. Sounds like a lot. Must be why there’s no space to put things on it. :) I only tidied up a few days ago too.

OK, who is hiding round the corner? Top left – sure that’s a shoulder with an arm & possibly an ear with some greying hair…..

Does Eben plays Airsoft (0.20 bb) ?

Moondust was a very interesting read :)

Is that a USB Type A / HDMI stick?
Looks like the format of an MK802, but not exactly.
Humm, what are we working on?

Oops, I screwed up one of the links in the last message. Preview and/or Edit would be nice :-)

Perhaps expectations vary depending on which side of the the pond you’re on, but I find Eben’s desk uncharacteristically tidy for an engineer. Proper engineers have desks like the late Bob Pease and Jim Williams and these examples of creative chaos.

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!! No corner office!

I have lexx and yacc on my ready shelf. It is a carry over from my days with MWC Coherent. Nice desk!

What model lego space craft is that? It doesn’t seem to be for sale any more?

Is that the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy on the left?

Why the lego model of Fallingwater? Frank Lloyd Wright designed that in two hours.

I’d like to have seen it as it was – I’ve long been convinced that a tidy desk is a sign of a sick mind. And didn’t a piece of research some years ago find that people with apparently chaotic desks could generally retrieve information more rapidly than those who methodically filed things away?

(Also, in a past life, I used to manage engineering workshops. I soon realised that conspicuously clean and tidy workshops were ones in which not very much work got done.)

No pictures of Liz or Mooncake? ;-)

No mention of BOINC?

I am going to ask the question everyone really wants to know and we demand answers. How much time is spent on work and how much time is spent playing with the lego? :P

I see you also have a multimeter, Eben, the Tenma 72-7925. I prefer these newfangled ones with USB output so I can fake a datalogger, in a pinch. Cheers!

And thanks for all the pi.

Getting to the inner workings of eben mind by the contents of his desk. Or just a exposition of Pi through the ages. :)

The cockpit of the spaceshuttle looked pixelated, until I realised it was lego. Duuhh!

I do share the interest in Lego and in space programs, so I like to see the Space Shuttle model and Moondust. I enjoyed a lot reading this book in 2006, after buying it during a visit to London that year.

(Please disregard any idiomatic mistake)

Oh, great…

I try my best to stay away from Lifehacker. It’s an Internet Event Horizon for me. Thirty seconds after clicking on the article, above, I have a half-dozen more Lifehacker tabs open…

I swear! I didn’t click them! They just seem to multiply, inexplicably!

I wonder if I’m the only idiot to spent 10 seconds wondering why the shuttle’s nose cone had
to be pixelated !?!

My own Homer Simpson moments make me smile………..Doh!

Desk? What is this concept called “desk” of which you write? Oh, you mean that Horizontal Storage Surface? I haven’t seen mine in decades, especially since my entire world can be accessed from my Pi-top/Pi-dock (being even lighter and cooler than a laptop, it’s much more comfortable to actually remain on my lap).

There’s a definite archaeological and generational divide associated with the Legos. My generation’s desks have detailed styrene models of the Shuttle, Apollo/Saturn V, Lunar Excursion Module, various aircraft, and perhaps some ships, and our parents might have had carved wooden versions of aircraft and ships.

As for books, you can’t possibly be a serious software practitioner without a copy of the UK’s own Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”(or the collection of short stories that included the original genesis of the “2001” plot, “The Sentinel”).to remind yourself of how horribly things can go wrong when the technology you’ve developed becomes, in Clarke’s words, “sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic”.