«Goodbye Future»

I feel like the future has been stolen from me.

Colonizing Space - '70s Style!


Where's my damn space colonies? Flying car? Mr. Fusion?! Nope. Just a retired 30-year-old shuttle program and a cancelled space telescope.

At least the Russians are getting their shit together. Monday they will launch a Cold War era telescope. They still have manned missions to space. Looks like we called "winner" of the Cold War a bit prematurely.

And how's China coming along? Better than the US I'm sure, at least they're trying!<sup>1

1:</sup> Yes, I mad.

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«AR.Drone In Flight»

Just wanted to share a couple pictures I took yesterday of my AR.Drone in flight.

Eye-level.

Click image to view full.

And slightly above me.

Click image to view full.

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«AR.Drone Flight Time»

I was playing with my AR.Drone yesterday. It was the first day I spent any real time flying it.

AR.Drone with the indoor hull.

Click image to view full.

The first time I flew it was the day I got it, and I lost connection with it and couldn't regain connection. So it sat there 3 feet off the ground in autopilot until the battery level went critical and it landed itself. I figured out it was interference from my wifi that caused me to lose connection. So now I disable my wifi before I fly it and haven't had any issues since.

A bunch of the neighbors have wifi networks too, but none of them are as powerful as mine... I have aftermarket antennas on my router.

I was a bit afraid to try again until yesterday. I flew it inside with the indoor hull on it (pictured above) to protect the rotors. I got a feel of the controls and even managed to fly it through a doorway. It's nice that you can let go of the controls and it stabilizes itself. The battery life is painfully short, however.

Then I got daring and put the outdoor hull on it and took it outside. I was a bit reluctant to do this, because I've read stories of AR.Drones losing control and flying away... Never to be found again. Thankfully this didn't happen. It sure responds better without that bulky indoor hull.

AR.Drone with the outdoor hull.

Click image to view full.

I flew it around the building I live in a couple of times, and ended up drawing out every kind in the neighborhood it seemed. I had a crowd of fascinated kids watching me by the end. They were especially fascinated that the drone had a camera and I could see on my iPhone what the drone saw. I got the low battery alert, landed it and said "Well, that's it. The battery is dead, show's over."

Sorry, no in-flight images yet. I never think to photograph it while I'm flying it.

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«FSM iPhone 4 Skin»

After being in the US mail limbo for 22 days after it shipped, I finally got my Zagg Invisible Shield for my iPhone 4. There's also a green bumper from Apple on the phone.

Click image to view full.

There's also a clear one on the front. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It actually looks better in real life than it does in the photo above. You never know how vivid the colors are really going to be when they print it. It's made out of the same material they put on the leading edge of helicopter blades to prevent abrasion from sand and dust.

It's a custom design, I made it in photoshop. I took a picture of the Flying Spaghetti Monster from Venganza.org. The background came from NASA, it's a photo of the Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) as seen from the International Space Space Station.

Here's the original pic I sent to Zagg to make the skin.

Click image to view full.

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«iPhone 4»

It's the new iProduct! Apple fanboys rejoice!

iPhone 4 New Commercial

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«iPhone 4 Line»

Yesterday I was in line at the AT&T store to buy a new iPhone 4. Yes, even Ketchikan, Alaska had a line for it...

Click image to view full.

Needless to say, they sold out of the 32GB model before I could get one. They had just enough of the 16GB model for everyone in line who wanted one, with not one to spare. I figure they had 30 iPhones in total that day.

I had them order a 32GB model for me. So I'll be getting mine in a few days.

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«Caturday: Prosthetic Feet»

Instead of pictures with funny captions, I present a video today.

Pioneering vet gives cat new prosthetic feet

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«Parrot AR.Drone»

I want one. It's controlled with an iPhone app.

I've been waiting for a remote controlled quadrocopter. Regular remote controlled helicopters are too tough to control, and they never seem to hover stationary like that. The on-board cameras make it even better.

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«Everything is Going to Kill Everybody»

So a couple of weeks ago I happened across an article on Cracked.com that was a sample chapter in a book called Everything is Going to Kill Everybody. I don't remember how I came across it, I don't follow Cracked.com.

After reading that, I determined it was worth getting. I have a morbid interest in doomsday, so the book fell in line with my sense of humor. For the entire 2 years and 105 days I've been doing my blog, I've only read 2¹ books. Yeah, I'm that bad... I do my reading online.

A few of the disasters covered in the book are a bit unrealistic, like the hypercane or verneshot. The part about robots pointed out a bunch of new technologies that are more-or-less harmless by themselves, but when combined you get an overemotional flesh-eating monstrosity. Why would such technologies be combined? Well why would accelerometers, cameras, and clocks be combined? They are such different technologies, yet they are useful when combined. Just look at the iPhone.

So it will be with other technologies like the EATR (Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot). It can eat bio-matter (like plants or meat) to power itself. How cool would it be to have a lawnmower that feeds itself on the very grass it cuts? Of course, meat is the most efficient fuel for the EATR, so it might rather eat you than your lawn...

The book also covered other more mundane doomsdays, like the asteroid Apophis that will buzz past Earth closer than our geosynchronous satellites in 2029. Depending upon the small gravitational effect those satellites have on it, it has a very good chance of colliding with Earth on its next pass in 2036. It'd be like the dinosaurs all over again. But perhaps by then the supervolcano we call Yellowstone National Park would have already killed us.

It really was a hilarious book, in a frightening non-fiction sort of way.

I finally delved into the Amazon Associates program, so the link to the book here is a referral link. Amazon.com handles all the transactions, so it's not like you have to trust me with your credit card number. I figured since I have to declare my blog as a business on my taxes, I may as well act like it is one!

^1: The two books I read are Everything is Going to Kill Everybody (duh), and The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

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«iMaxi Pad»

It's the Maxi Pad case for the apple iPad!

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«iPhone: Midomi»

I have an iPhone. Not one of those newfangled¹ 3GS phones, but 3G isn't even available in this town anyway. I also have no cell plan for the iPhone, so it's basically a glorified iPod Touch. But hey, I can still use WiFi.

One app I have that I'm pretty happy with is Midomi². It listens using the microphone built into the phone and identifies what song is currently playing. They say on the website it takes 5 seconds. In my experience, it takes anywhere between 8 and 20 seconds. With songs that start out slow, it may fail to identify it until the main part of the song is playing. I've also had a couple of false matches, but a re-try usually returns the correct song.

I'm actually surprised at how well it works. Unlike some of the music identifying apps out there, Midomi doesn't use the lyrics for identification. That means it can identify instrumental music as well. I've tested it with the music at the end of a movie during the credits, and most of the time it will identify the song, and even list the soundtrack album for that movie. You don't even have to hold it up to the speakers for it to work, either. Background noise or people speaking in the background can throw it off, though.

Understandably, it doesn't have a clue about some of the obscure songs I have. Like "We Like the Moon" or the "Soluble Song". But those are by Joel Veitch, just a random British person (emphasis on random). It does however, recognize "Still Alive", the credit music for the game Portal. But with a catch: it brings up the version sung by Jonathan Coulton (the writer of the song). For remixes, it usually just brings up the original song.

My favorite feature is when you don't have any connectivity. It will record and save it until you do have a connection. That's a big plus for me.

As a testament to how well it works, it correctly identifies this song (if you can even call it a song) no matter what part of it is playing:
Chacarron Macarron - With Lyrics In Video


^1: I've been seeing the word "newfangled" all over the place lately, so I figured I'd use it, too.
^2: The extremely observant of you will notice in the link to Midomi, the "from" url parameter says www.mastermarf.com. This is NOT a paid endorsement or review of Midomi. I just happened to notice that parameter in their url and figured I'd screw with their tracking metrics.

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«Lolcats Greater Than Space Travel»

Perfect video to follow Caturday¹...

And yeah, I know how annoying this guy is to some of my readers. This isn't exactly one of his "less annoying" videos, either. So if you don't want to watch it, the general idea is we'd rather sit around and laugh at lolcats than develop space-age technologies.

I can has space hotel?


But really, it's not realistic to expect that level of technology yet, even if we were more driven toward those goals (and we should be). Just because some old movie had vastly overestimated the advancement of our technology does not mean that we should be able to meet its fictional timeline.

Granted, we should be further than we are, and do kinda have the attitude that the moon was "good enough". It is imperative for the long-term survival of humankind that we move to other planets and eventually, other star systems. Right now we have all our eggs in one basket. If something were to happen to that basket, mankind goes extinct.

We should at least try to live long enough to develop an artificial intelligence. Perhaps that AI will have the wisdom to diversify its existence, if humans fail to see the need to.

^1: Specifically around the 2:05 time index in the video.

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«Juan Enriquez: Homo Evolvus»

Something to think about.

Juan Enriquez: Tech evolution will eclipse the financial crisis


He has a damn good point. I'm not sure that it will happen quite as soon as he says. I'd imagine that as Homo Evolvus comes closer to a reality there will be a bit of legal red tape that gets in the way of the research. However, I do believe it will come. Humanity will get swept along with the

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«What Has Science Ever Done For Us?»

I'd imagine according to Looney, this is all Science is good for. After-all, God created and gave us everything else we have... Like computers.

Click image to view full.

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«Sim City Microwave Power Plant»

For those of us that played Sim City 2000 or 3000, this will sound familiar.

Solaren would generate the power using solar panels in Earth orbit and convert it to radio-frequency transmissions that would be beamed down to a receiving station

- PG&E makes deal for space solar power

Holy crap, that's exactly what the microwave power plants in Sim City do! It's expected to begin beaming down 200 megawatts of power by 2016 (a full 4 years ahead of the 2020 date the power plant becomes available in Sim City!)


If that one is successful, larger-scale ones could be built that produce up to 4.8 gigawatts. (Remember, took only 1.21 gigawatts to travel through time in the movie Back to the Future.)

I love it when the fictional technology of the future becomes a reality.

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«Name Node 3 Xenu»

Quick Note: For those of you in regions that observe daylight savings time, it's time to bump your clocks forward an hour.

The head of the Galactic Confederation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 yrs ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet -- 178 billion on average) by mass implanting.

He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H Bomb on the principal volcanoes (Incident 2) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic Area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged."

His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants. When through with his crime Loyal Officers (to the people) captured him after 6 years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is.

"They" are gone. The place (Confed.) has since been a desert.

- L. Ron Hubbard

In honor of the head of the Galactic Confederation, I propose that we join others in voting "Xenu" for the name of NASA's Node 3 for the International Space Station.

The link: Help NASA Name Node 3!

Over on the right side of the page, select "Suggest Your Own:"
In the text box type "Xenu" (without the quotes) and click Vote.

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«PSA: Intelligence Singularity»

[ ALERT! THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. ]

The artificial intelligence singularity is inevitable. Once computers become smarter than humans and are able to reason, they will be able to improve upon themselves. The improvements will allow even smarter computer and they will be able to improve themselves, and so on (hence the "singularity").

When the robots come, see if you can arrange to be their pet. Pet owners love their pets.

[ THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Master Marf. ]

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«Satellite Images of the Inauguration»

You may or may not have seen this image already. It's Washington DC 41 minutes before Obama was officially sworn in. Ever wounder what 1.8 million people looks like from space?

Click image for larger version. (Not quite full-sized, see below.)

They look like swarms of ants or bees. They're in groups like that because they are in front of the JumboTrons (very large TVs) spread down the National Mall.

You know what's amazing? There were at least 1.8 million people there, and no-one did anything stupid enough to get arrested. Just... Wow. I'm impressed.

The newly-launched (on September 6th, 2008) GeoEye-1 satellite was over DC January 20th. This satellite is owned by GeoEye, the same company that provides imagery for Google Maps and Google Earth.

Now, you might notice that I usually have the text "Click image to view full" under images I have sized-down for the blog. Well, this time if you click the image above you'll get medium-size (2560x2650 px), not full. The full-size is really big. But if you must see it, here it is:

Full Sized Satellite Image of Obama's Inauguration
Caution: the image is very large at 7816x8091 px, 51.5 MB in size. I recommend right-clicking the link and selecting "save as...", as well as a fast internet connection. (I'm putting my GoDaddy hosting to work now.)

For ground-view images, Boston.com has a great page: The Inauguration of President Barack Obama

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«Motivational Monday: The iPhone»

My dad has an iPhone. Keeping in mind I have a bias against Apple products... Even I think the iPhone is friggin' awesome.

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«Because the GPS Wants You to Die»

"Turn right" means take the next right turn on the road, not immediately turn right and drive down the train tracks. I mean... Seriously... I don't drive and I know that.

And yet, that is exactly what two different people did on the same set of train tracks this year. What's wrong with you people?! I'm sure the GPS meant for you to turn onto the road that runs parallel to the train tracks. Wouldn't the overly bumpy ride on the tracks be a hint? Maybe it wasn't meant for cars?

If you followed the GPS in this town, you would be off in the Tongass Narrows. There's a rather large offset in the GPS maps around here for some reason. It would be impossible to navigate this town by GPS, because you could be on 1st Ave, but the GPS would register as being on 5th Ave (Yes, it's that bad).

You can see how bad it is in some areas by looking at Google Maps. I think they must use the same road maps the GPS does. Take a look. See where it put North Tongass Highway? That's way out in the water.

EDIT: Finally, in October 2009 they fixed the road alignment for this town!

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