Welcome to the home page of Kurt Pires
My Public PGP Key and Thawte Freemail Certificate are available for private and/or authenticated communication.
My resume is available in several formats.
Burning Man Projects
- 2012 Stanistan -- For years we have been camping between 4 and 4:30 without placement. During last year's Burning Man we decided to join forces with our long-standing neighbors and finally request placement. This would also allow us to have planned events. I'm the camp layout planner plus have some ideas for a huge flame effect for our camp's entrance, but I still need one more ticket (we didn't get any in the lottery, but a friend got an extra one).
- 2011 Opa rides again! -- Opa returned this year with a few upgrades and appeared both on the playa and at Burning Man's San Francisco Decompression. Opa also appeared at the San Mateo Maker Faire (where she won a Editor's Choice Blue Ribbon for our work with the school outreach program), two East Bay Mini Maker Faires (a benefit for the Park Day School) and the Vallejo's Mad Hatter Art Car Parade.
- 2009 Opabinia Regalis (Opa) -- A quadra-cycle pedal car modeled after an extinct Cambrian-era sea creature with five eyes and a prehensile probosces which in our recreation had a nice-sized dragon's breath flame effect.
- 2006 Voodoo Baptismus -- A life-sized voodoo doll of a popular figure. Within 8 hours the doll was completely covered with the pins and nails provided. Within 16 hours the installation had been completely destroyed: we don't know if it was an accident or someone taking out their frustrations. The doll was taken ceremonially taken away and burned.
- 2004 Our Wedding! -- We were married at the 9 o'clock plaza on Sunday. Much of our wedding is captured in the documentary "Burning to get Married" by A Dog and Pony Show (last link here).
- 2003 Phoenix Temple -- 1/3rd of the way from the man to the esplinade along the 3 o'clock road, a firey Phoenix beconned people to come into a relaxing chill dome where they could rest and write down their messages of newal and rebirth then place them in the 4'-tall Phoenix Egg for burning.
- 2000 Dome-a-Deer -- We had a pair of domes on the esplinade: the one on the inside had flame effects and lights that were remote controlled from a piano keyboard in the dome on the camp-side of the street! People would stop and watch the lights like deer caught in headlights!
Stories & Videos
Lists and Points of Interest
- The Phoenix Temple: An art project for Burning Man 2003
- Berkeley/SF Weather by:
The Weather Channel,
AccuWeather,
Intellicast,
CNN,
KPIX/LHS/SMC,
WUnderground,
SF Gate,
Yahoo
and NOAA.
- Wulfram II -- My friend's game -- Play it; it is very fun!
- Haiku Movie Reviews from dimspace.com
- Acupressure -- especially Jin Shin Do (learned at the Acupressure Institute in Berkeley, CA)
- Acupressure Institute in Berkeley
- Metronome Ballroom in San Francisco
- I dance at Intermediate Level: West Coast Swing
- I dance at Beginning Level: Cha Cha, Foxtrot, Rumba, Tango, Waltz
- I forgot (but could pick back up): Salsa, Samba, Viennese Waltz, Lindy Hop/East Coast Swing/City Swing
- Other places to dance:
- Nearby places to relax:
- Dave Barry's story about Roger and Elaine.
- San Francisco Bay Area Transit Information includes maps, schedules and other information for the 8 major transit systems in the SF Bay Area (BART, SF Muni, AC Transit, etc) as well as many minor services throughout the region.
- Main USGS Earthquake Site and USGS's "Did you feel it?" Site
(Note: The regional USGS centers get overwelmed after a 4+ magnitude urban event.)
- topozone.com -- Interactive topo map of the entire US!
- The Daily Feed -- Radio's Satire Column
- My custom hyper-linked copy of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (S.652).
- Weather at Empire, NV (Closest weather station to Black Rock City (13 miles SSW of "The Man")).
- A lot more to come...
Recommended Less Well-Known Movies and TV Series
I could list hundreds of movies and TV series that I enjoy,
but here is a small list of off-the-beaten-path movies and
TV series that I recommend:
Movie/show links from the Internet Movie Database -- my favorite heavily inter-linked database on the net!
Music
- Pink Floyd (both with and without Roger Waters)
- Wish You Were Here
- Dark Side of the Moon
- Meddle
- The London Philharmonic Orchestra does Pink Floyd in:
Us And Them: Symphonic Pink Floyd
- Suzanne Vega
- Luka
- Tom's Diner
- Small Blue Thing
- The Tommy Castro Band -- a SF Bay Blues Band -- Tommy's
lives shows are killer. His energy builds as the night goes on. By the third set, he's the
best I've ever seen. Since they've gone national, I rarely get to listen to them live (and
their recordings just aren't as good). Don't miss them if you can hear them live.
- The Fatt-Back Bluesman -- I heard Brother Yusef
play at Blues on the Bay on Treasure Island for Labor Day in 1998.
His acoustical one-man show was excellent!
He's based in LA and so the only time I get to hear him is on the tape I bought that day,
but if you're in LA and like Blues, I recommend checking his schedule on his web page
and catching a show.
Random Facts
- Internet User since 1983: Use to telnet to MIT from UC Berkeley
- UC Berkeley EECS Cad Group System Administrator from February 1984 until September 1988.
The CAD Group had the largest computer budget of any group I knew on the campus.
This meant I got a lot of experience with all the new toys as they became available.
Those were the days...
- UC Berkeley Organizations & Clubs (between 1982 and 1990):
- A founder and second Chairman/Director of the Experimental Computing Facility (XCF)
- Secretary and President of the Computer Science Undergraduate Association (CSUA)
- Chairman of the Undergraduate Computing Facility (UCF)
- SUPERB Member and organizer of a two-screen all-night sci-fi film festival:
Feburary 20, 1987, "Dusk-to-Dawn" we showed movies
back-to-back in each of Wheeler and Dwinelle.
In Wheeler Aud. we showed: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (6:00pm),
2001: A Space Odyssey (8:35pm), The Quiet Earth (11:30pm),
Android (1:20am), and Star Wars (3:00am).
In 155 Dwinelle, we showed: Clockwork Orange (6:00pm),
A Boy and His Dog (8:35pm), Dark Star (11:30pm),
Wizards (1:20am) and Rollerball (3:00am).
All-night passes were $8 for students and $10 for general admission.
We also sold individual tickets, but I can't remember how much they were.
It was a success, but it required so much effort and risk that the SUPERB director
decided not to do it again -- can't blame him.
I found a copy of our flyer!
History and Old Projects Still On-line
Observations
- Interesting Technology Information:
And so, in my State of the -- my State of the Union -- or State -- my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation -- I asked Americans to give four thousand years -- four thousand hours over the next -- the rest of your life -- of service to America.
[President George W. Bush as quoted in "The Back Page" by Paul Slansky in The New Yorker Magazine, June 17/24, 2002]
- Voodoo Economics beget Fuzzy Math...
- The term "compassionate liberalism" seems awkward...
Old E-mail Addresses I historically used (that are no longer valid):
- kjpires@berkeley.edu
- kjpires@ic.berkeley.edu
- kjpires@cad.berkeley.edu
