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CmdrTaco Visits Pixar 128

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sometimes-my-job-rocks dept.
A couple of weeks ago I scored a visit to Lucasfilm and half jokingly challenged the Slashdot audience to invite me to other cool places. Two brave Pixar employees took me up on my offer and showed me around for Slashdot T-Shirts. It's an amazing campus. Thanks to Mark Harrison and Ralph Gootee for showing me "0% of the render-farm" and making me wish that I was talented enough to have a place in such an amazing world. Soon I'll have a cool story to post about the crazy work Mark is doing with mind boggling volumes of data, but for now I have a picture of me next to a giant Luxo Lamp. Also thanks to Heidi Parmelee who gave me a Woody doll to give to my son and made me a hero. So now the gauntlet has been doubly thrown: Who out there in Slashdot-land works somewhere super cool and can give me a tour in exchange for a T-Shirt?
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CmdrTaco Visits Pixar More

CmdrTaco Visits Pixar

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  • New plan: Create internet phenomenon and use ensuing "cred" to live my dreams!

  • Nice success so far (Score:5, Funny)

    by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Friday May 27, 2011 @03:03PM (#36266648)

    I'm glad to see that the "Invite CmdrTaco to your cool place" campaign has went a lot better so far than its predecessor, the "Come kick kdawson in the balls" campaign.

  • How about this (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Google.

  • Show us the photos. If you are shy, you could photoshop your face with a Ghost In the Shell logo, or a V for Vendetta logo.

  • Woddy (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 27, 2011 @03:05PM (#36266662)

    "Also thanks to Heidi Parmelee who gave me a Woody" ...niiiiiice

  • Nice! Another reason to live my life vicariously through CmdrTaco!

    Any übergeeks out there that could get Rob into NASA for the Atlantis launch?

    • Probably.

      NASA employees can sometimes get Employee-Car Passes to the launches (assuming they don't have to work said launch). I know you can get Causeway 'seating' that way.. someone with more cred might be able to get something closer though.

  • Is the summary all there is here?

    • The location of the article is only available inside the article, which is not indexed by Google and has zero backlinks.

  • This is news? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nationless ( 2123580 ) on Friday May 27, 2011 @03:15PM (#36266760)

    What do you think this is? Your personal blog?

    (And for those who don't get the joke, yes, i know ;)

  • MSFT (Score:5, Interesting)

    by donutface ( 847957 ) on Friday May 27, 2011 @03:15PM (#36266762)
    CmdrTaco if you're in the Seattle area within the next two months I can give you a tour of the Microsoft Redmond campus ;-)
    Can't really see that being your scene though!

    • Re:MSFT (Score:5, Funny)

      by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh@@@gmail...com> on Friday May 27, 2011 @03:19PM (#36266800) Journal

      LOL I think he'd get killed by a chair that mysteriously fell from an upper floor XD

    • I can give you a tour of the Quantum building and you can look at our lab with our nifty-keen tape and disk libraries! Even more importantly, afterwards I can take you to awesome pubs here on the Eastside!!!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nyder ( 754090 )

      CmdrTaco if you're in the Seattle area within the next two months I can give you a tour of the Microsoft Redmond campus ;-)

      Can't really see that being your scene though!

      While he's here, he can tour my apartment. It's a hands on tour, and to appreciate the charm, you get "hands on experience"* in my kitchen. Then the bathroom.

      Don't worry, you don't have to do windows.

      * Cleaning

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bazorg ( 911295 )

      closing up shop in 2 months over there hey Ballmer?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 )

      CmdrTaco if you're in the Seattle area within the next two months I can give you a tour of the Microsoft Redmond campus ;-)

      Can't really see that being your scene though!

      August 20th (IIRC) Groundspeak (Geocaching.com) is having a blockparty/open house in Seattle. He'd have a lot more fun there, along with 3,500+ other geocachers.

    • It's a trap!

    • If he doesn't make it all the way to the Seattle area, he could stop in the Portland Oregon area and visit my cool employer instead. Even Obama has stopped by for a tour. Much more to his liking is the nearby Open Source Labs.
      http://osuosl.org/ [osuosl.org]
      Info on Obama's visit to my employer
      http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2011/02/intel_obama_continue_difficult.html [oregonlive.com]

      I'm sure we could arrange a tour. I don't think I can get you into the clean FAB. Sorry.

    • I'm not a fan of MS business practices but the software has been improving, I got to spend a few days out in Redmond as part of a TAP for one of the System Centre products and whether you like MS or not it's an experience I'd highly recommend to anyone.

  • The light is obviously pointing in the wrong direction. It's a fake!

  • I can give you a tour of where they clean out port-a-potties. You'll never forget it.

  • If you're in Kentucky I can show you around the Buffalo Trace Distillery [buffalotrace.com]. We make bourbon and organic vodka from scratch.

  • Well hey now, guys, look. I do not want to do anything illegal here... but I would kill somebody... in front of their own mama... to get a /. T-shirt. And if any witnesses testify against me, I'll gouge their eyes out. Otherwise you could come visit the Skype office in Palo Alto.

  • Of course that means having to be in Houston.....

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Nothing particularly interesting here - mostly old tech crap - but there isn't any heat, and in the midst of a minnesota winter 'cool' is an understatement.

    Can I upgrade my tee-shirt to a /. parka?

  • I literally live right next door to your sister in law Mary cmdrtaco. I hung out with your brother a few weeks ago when he was visiting. You should come down here and give me a tshirt just because I know some of your family personally ;)

  • If you're out San Antonio way, I can give you a tour of Rackspace's Headquarters. Can't claim to be as cool as pixar, but got quite a few people who'd probably want to meet you.

  • I can arrange a tour of the 300+ acre SAS Institute headquarters here in Cary, NC if you would like. It's beautiful - and SAS was Fortune's #1 best place to work in the USA two years in a row - last year and this. I think it's a cool place to work! http://www.sas.com/company/ [sas.com]
  • I can show you around Google's main campus and get you a free lunch, if you're in Mountain View.
  • I work as a Software Engineer at Facebook and I would be happy to give you a tour of our campus(es). ;o)

  • You can see Alan Cox in his natural environment, here’s a bit feral, but you can coax him out with a rump of steak, that has a picture of Linus taped to it.

  • I can get you into some interesting places...

  • C'mon Taco, give a little back (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Triv ( 181010 ) on Friday May 27, 2011 @04:46PM (#36267896) Journal

    You got invited somewhere awesome by a member of the /. community, and all we get is a thank you and a request to be let into more awesome places? It would've killed you to snap a few pictures, or to have set up an interview, or to have given us something, anything, back in return?

    Either make a big deal out of it when this happens and do some actual, experiential blogging, or keep quiet about it, but this story is just...a smirk.

    I work nowhere remotely interesting these days, but if I did, after this story I wouldn't be inclined to help yo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rwade ( 131726 )

      Yeah, I don't get what this is all about. I thought that when he posted about Lucasfilm last week that he was just doing it on a lark -- I'm pretty shocked to see that this is a regular, erm, feature published here.

      Indeed, I don't see the point of these posts from a content generation perspective at all -- I mean, clearly there are 67 comments here so far, so people are reading it. But I bet there are better things to occupy the space than this...

  • I can give a tour of all the excitement that is the Defense Media Activity, American Forces Network Broadcasting Center in lovely Moreno Valley, California... We broadcast tv and radio programs worldwide for service-members and their families.
  • Cool story man! Keep 'em coming! I liked the part where you visited Pixar and took the picture with the ball and there was that lamp right beyond you omg lookout lol hahaha anyway man keep in touch would love to read more on that trip to Lucasfilm! Take care! BTW have you seen my bong? Can't find it anywhere, I'm thinking it's either you that put it in your bag mistaking it for the darker one (yours) or Amanda... you know how she is! LOL ok take care Taco peace out

  • While PNG is a great format for digital artwork, and maybe even archiving, it's a terrible format for distributing pictures on the web. JPEG, while lossy, still looks good at high resolutions, and compresses down to smaller image sizes for distribution of photography on the web. It's the difference between FLAC and high bitrate MP3... while the FLAC is "technically" superior in terms of quality, most people aren't going to be able to tell the difference between 256kbps MP3 and FLAC.

    Saving that photo as a

    • Not only is it a big ass PNG, it's also in AdobeRGB colourspace - so probably about .1% of the readership is actually able to see it correctly. and never mind cutting file size by 75%, try 90 or 95%, and that's without even touching the resolution. The only question is why he didn't go the whole hog with a 32-bit image instead of the paltry 8-bit option. (that last bit was sarcasm, or should I say the last 24 bots were sarcasm) Leading technology web site, eh? Remind me again of the relevance of slashdot,

    • I'm GLAD he used PNG. With modern highspeed being what it is, you shouldn't complain about the size difference, and the quality difference is substantial.

      • No, it really is not substantial. It's there, but you really have to be looking for it.

        Besides, this attitude of "with modern X being what it is", we create this computing culture of throwing hardware at the problem when there are performance issues, rather than trying to solve the root issue at hand.

        • I was trying to be mildly sarcastic, but I was tired and could've done better.

          The image type in question doesn't even benefit that much. A line art drawing sure does, or a traditional cartoon, but a fully rendered high colour scene is best done in JPEG.

    • You're missing the point, entirely. The problem with the picture is that it's a photo of Cmdr. Taco touching a giant ball in front of Pixar's HQ, underneath 4 lines of text (on my screen) about his trip. At the least, post a gallery of something, anything and write more about... other things... am I asking too much?

  • I wish this fuckbag would just give up the torch to someone who actually gives a shit about the quality of the content here.

  • You're welcome to visit Kisko Labs [kiskolabs.com] any day, with or without t-shirts. We don't have a render farm, but we compensate by having a sauna.

    Heck, we'll even throw in some Frozen Rails [frozenrails.eu] conference passes.

  • We actually met up at the A2 slashdot tenth birthday celebration, so I already have a t-shirt. But, I'm also the admin for Yankee Air Museum [yankeeairmuseum.org] , home to a flying B-17, B-25, and C-47. I offered then, and it still stands. I think something can be arraigned.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Spykk ( 823586 )

      I think something can be arraigned.

      Come on now, officer. How many criminals actually fall for that?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • If you happen to come to Geneva let me know, might show you around CERN :)

  • Been there. Done that. Have a picture of my son next to the 6' Lego Buzz Lightyear

  • As in, big shiny toys.
    Of course, you'd have to get yourself to Hawaii...

  • a. have a temporary background check and polygraph (previous employer, still have connections for tours).
    or
    b. willing to sign an NDA (HINT: you may have already did from your last visit. Think parents...).

    Also, did they show you the hideouts (i.e. must be 21yrs or over) and did you get to play drums?

    TFA has tag: brag written all over it... and hopefully this post does not. FYI, I don't exist.

  • Care to visit the R & D facility of the world's largest chipmaker? If I twist the right arms I might even be able to get you a 6 core i7 990X Extreme to try out. If not I'm sure we can find a t shirt.
    http://www.intel.com/products/processor/corei7ee/index.htm [intel.com]
    http://www.intel.com/?en_US_01 [intel.com]

  • Disney (Score:2)

    by stm2 ( 141831 )

    @Glendale, CA.
    But it must be before Jun 18 that I go back to Argentina. I am a the "website factory" and it is very cool, but there are also a lot of different sections in the same block and the block in front of that. Email me at sbassi gmail if you like the idea.

  • Come hang out here and I'll introduce you to one of this generation's most prolific children's book [bones3d.com] authors.

  • Quote: "Also thanks to Heidi Parmelee who gave me a Woody" ... is it just me... or that sounded funny?

  • I don't work there any more, but I can arrange for a tour of the CIT and Comp Sci offices and maybe a student computer lab at Hope College!

    Slightly cooler, I more recently did tech support work for Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, and still have friends there....

  • If you ever find yourself in West Texas/Southern NM, I could probably give you an insider's tour of a 3.5 meter telescope. If the timing and weather is right, you might get to see an Apollo run when we bounce a laser off the moon. They have some pretty cool computer equipment, including a Dec Alpha running VMS and Lisp to control the telescope motors. I also rather like the 6-8 parallel DAT drives that recorded the streaming take from the SDSS 2.5 meter telescope.

    Apache Point Observatory is about 100
  • If you're in the LA area I can give you a tour of the SpaceX facility and show off awesome rockets and spaceships.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by dnoble ( 56642 )

      Like spaceships? Come to JPL too, and I'll give you a tour. Pasadena is also in the LA area, depending on the time of day.

  • At CERN, the http protocol was born, the Grid Tier0 is hosted, open access publishing was organized, the LHC is operating, other mind-boggling experiments take place every day, and there are free tours.

    What are you waiting for?

  • CmdrTaco, I'm in R&D at Dreamworks Animation (Redwood City campus) and we'd love to show you around! :)

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