Category Archives: Everything Else

Everything Else, Technology, Travel

Crack Team Agent Ensures Successful Mission

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Ever since I was a child I have dreamed of watching a space shuttle launch in person and my opportunity finally came last week on a visit to Florida. After several changes to the launch date NASA finally settled on August 7th for the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-118). We were able to obtain congressional passes from Representative J. Sestak through non-Crack Team personnel and viewed the launch for free from the NASA causeway viewing area.

Several things happened the week before the launch which conspired against my chances to see a successful launch. 1st, NASA was having trouble launching the mars probe Phoenix. They needed to get this probe on its way before its launch window closed or they would have to wait 2 years for the next window to open. NASA said they would probably delay the shuttle launch until after Phoenix was launched. Then, the orbiter failed a pressure leak test due to a poorly installed pressure seal. Thankfully, Phoenix was launched on August 4th and NASA got the faulty seal replaced. They only had to move the launch date 1 day to August 8th.

We arrived at the Merrit Island Mall to meet the bus for Kennedy Space Center. The bus took us to the parking lot of the visitors center where we went through the dumbest security inspection I have ever seen. We were asked to leave the bus and bring all of our smaller belongings but were allowed to leave larger items like folding beach chairs on the bus. Why we were allowed to leave items about the size and shape of a shoulder launched missile on the bus is beyond me. Once off the bus, we put our bags on a table and passed through a metal detector. The security guard ran his wand over my bag and when it squawked he asked me what was inside. After telling him I had a camera and a lens inside he said “ok” and I got back on the bus without the guard actually looking to see if I was telling the truth. The same thing could have been accomplished much faster if the guard just popped his head on the bus and asked if we were carrying anything not allowed on the launch site, except we were never told what we weren’t allowed to bring and we were nowhere near our cars if they decided something we had was not allowed.

After we got back on the bus we were driven to the NASA causeway viewing area. I have to give it to NASA for getting something right. With very little information to go on I had feared the worst. The temperature in Florida at the time was over 100�F with the heat index. I assumed we were going to be dropped off onto an empty field and left there until after the launch. When we arrived there were chairs covered with tents, vendors selling food, and water stations where you could refill water bottles for free. There was a light breeze so the temperature wasn’t too unpleasant and there were very few, if any, mosquitos. Also, all the busses that took people to the viewing area stayed there with their air conditioners running so you could hang out on the bus until just before the launch if you wanted to. I got the impression that, unlike Universal and Disney, NASA actually wanted us to survive the experience.

I spent several weeks prior to my trip arranging to have an acceptable amount of photographic equipment on hand and in hindsight I would have done things a little differently. I own a Canon 5D and borrowed a Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L zoom lens and rented a Canon EF 2.0x II teleconverter. This gave me an 800mm f/11 lens which I mounted on my Manfrotto 3021 tripod. In addition, I unwisely used both a haze filter and a circular polarizer which made the viewfinder very dark. I took a meter reading through the camera and then set it to manual at ISO 400, f/11, 1/250s so the bright exhaust from the solid rocket boosters wouldn’t cause incorrect exposures during liftoff. I also turned off the image stabilization on the lens (which gets confused on a tripod) and the autofocus (which wouldn’t have worked anyway). The launch was on SLC-39A which was about 6 miles from the viewing area and it was a very hazy day. I was lucky for the launch to be on the southern pad which is about 2 miles closer than the northern pad. The launch was scheduled for 6:36:36PM EST and as the sun went down the haze cleared up a bit and it offered a nice off angle light source behind and to the left of the viewing area. I was able to take this photo at approximately T+5 seconds.

Space Shuttle Endeavour

If I ever get the chance to do it again I would pay the cost of renting the Canon 400mm f/2.8L telephoto lens to use with the teleconverter. I would get the same focal length but would have an aperture large enough to let my camera auto focus and could have used a lower ISO for less noise in the digital image. I had a very hard time manually focusing with the viewfinder so dark from the small aperture and the setting sun and the circular polarizer. If I did get stuck manually focusing again I would at least replace the viewfinder screen in the camera with one designed for such a purpose.

There was 1 technical issue during the countdown where they werent sure if the hatch was properly sealed or not but they got it straightened out during the built-in countdown holds and there was no delay to the launch, which was nice since there was only about a 5 minute launch window and I didn’t think I could bear the heat again the next day.

There was a PA system at the viewing area so we could hear the public affairs officer doing the final countdown and everyone in the crowd started counting along with him at T-10 seconds (is it possible to resist counting down a rocket launch?). We could see the cloud of steam that rises when the main engines fire at about T-6 seconds and it completely engulfed the orbiter. AT about T+2 seconds you could see the nose of the external tank poke out above the steam and then the rest of the orbiter appeared. I have watched many shuttle launches on television but seeing the exhaust from the solid rocket boosters is completely different in person, even from 6 miles away. It’s hard to estimate how high off the ground the orbiter was when we heard the sound of the main engines firing but it was at least several hundred feet. Then a few seconds later we heard the roar of the solids which was unlike anything I have ever heard, or felt. You could feel the sound in your chest and it was louder and more powerful than any base at any concert or club I’ve been too. It was simply amazing.

With a pair of Canon 8×23 binoculars I was able to track the orbiter fairly easily and saw the solids separate at about T+124 seconds. I looked away for an instant to see what the solids looked like without the binoculars and was never able to reaquire the orbiter. By this time all that you could see was an extremely bright dot in the sky that was getting fainter as time went by.

During the ascent several pieces of foam broke off the external tank and cause a gouge in the heat shield on the underside of the orbiter. NASA officials currently believe that it won’t present any danger to the orbiter during re-entry.

It was an amazing experience that I will remember for a lifetime and I even ended up with a great photograph which will find its way onto my wall at some point.

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Everything Else, Internet

Thoughts on Facebook

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Now that Facebook is open to the public, I’ve joined up and wandered through. I’m a social software buff, so I thought I’d share my thoughts.

Networks and Exclusivity
Facebook started out as an exclusive network for college kids, and that still shows. It is still divided into networks based on schools, workplaces, and geographical regions (the last of which anyone can join). To get into the school or workplace networks, you need an email address that proves your affiliation. I don’t have one for my alma mater, and I’m not terribly keen on adding my work affiliation.

Profiles and Access
The clean profiles are more reminiscent of Friendster than MySpace. On the one hand, there’s less customization and personalization. On the other hand, you’re not constantly pulling up some garish vision of Hades, a cacophony of top 40 vitriol that will forever haunt your dreams. So you got that going for you. The message seems to be, “We’re a bit more civilized over here, a bit more mature, as evidenced by the many photographs of my alcohol drinking escapades, which is what grownups do.”
     You can only see the full profiles of your friends and those in your networks (and there are ways to further restrict your profile). To clarify, you can verify the existence of just about everyone on there, using browse and search features. But if they’re not in one of your networks, you only see a thumbnail and are limited to sending them a message or adding them as friends. So even though there are millions of members, I can only see the profiles of those in my regional network, which has about 50K people. You can switch regional networks, but only once every 60 days. This is especially annoying for those like me who live on the border of another regional network. I can switch, but I can’t be in both.
     This is probably another reason why Facebook has been called a “walled garden” and the AOL of today. In addition to the general Internet public being kept out, virtual walls exist between the different internal groups. It seems I also can’t see the profiles of those in my regional network who are underage. There are various search/browse filters that can weed them out for you, but I still appreciate the extra layer of protection, because you really can’t tell by the photographs anymore, and Facebook is filled with HS kids.

Identity
Once you start browsing profiles (or just looking at your own), you realize there is virtually no anonymity. Just about everyone goes by their full name. It also makes it much easier to find people by name, especially when compared to sites like MySpace.
     I think this also affects how you craft your identity on the site. You’re probably a bit more cautious. Not as cautious as you would be on LinkedIn, but still… Age, of course, is a factor; the younger the person the “riskier” the profile. This happens a lot: you’ll see a thumbnail of a hot chick in a bikini, instinctively click on it, and see the profile is blocked because she’s in high school. Perhaps this behavior stems from when the virtual walls kept all non-students out, most importantly parents and younger siblings. Or maybe there are just a lot of young girls with poor decision making skills, as Masterchief would say.

Social Focus
The user base skews young, as you’d expect from a site that was students-only until a few months ago. I’m pretty far from ancient, but after uploading my Outlook contacts file it only found two friends already registered. I’ve also seen other user data that shows most members are in school or within 5 years of graduation. You also see a mix of people like me with very few connections, and college students or recent grads with over 100 friends. You hear a lot of buzz about how this is going to be the next big network, but if so, it’s going to start with students and move forward. A lot of people will have more friends on MySpace, and that will continue until the current teens and 20-somethings start aging.
     It also has more of a dating feel than MySpace (closer to Friendster, I guess). Probably because the basic profile questions are similar to sites like Match.com. At the same time, it doesn’t go nearly as far as a dedicated dating site, and seems a little strange to use it as one. I did find a rather brilliant 3rd party application called Matches. It allows you to anonymously communicate your interest to someone. They get notified they have a secret admirer, but your identity isn’t revealed until they indicate they’re also interested in you. If this sounds familiar, I blogged about this feature earlier when American Singles added it.
     Perhaps because of the dating feel, it feels weird to include work related info – like mixing business and pleasure. I’ll leave the professional networking to LinkedIn, which I’m also on.

User Communication
There are a few ways to interact with other users without resorting to messaging them. Networks have message boards and something called “The Wall”. Walls are like MySpace comments, and your profile has one too, but you’re not prevented from writing on your own wall – a nice improvement. And there are groups, but they’re listed alphabetically, so it’s hard to find popular, active groups, unless it’s a top 10 group in your network. That’s included in the basic network stats.

3rd Party Apps
Garnering recent buzz in the developer community was the Facebook Platform, which allows you to create plugins (“applications” in Facebook parlance) for Facebook users. So far the popular ones include those that display your music playlists, what states/countries you’ve been to, a virtual white board for visitors to scribble graffiti, and the aforementioned Matches app.

Conclusion
It’s interesting, and I can see how it’s a must for college-oriented people. As these people continue to enter the workforce and interact with older peers, membership will grow. Right now, I’m not sure that all regions have reached the critical mass to offer a real community experience, and you may find you want to switch to an outside region just to have access to more people. Or you can just stick with MySpace until I build something better for the rest of us.

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Everything Else, Film, Television

Replica Movie Costumes

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AbbyShot is a company that makes replica costumes from famous movies (although not always in an official capacity, judging by the names, or lack thereof). Some interesting stuff. And you don’t have to wonder if you’d look silly in them. AbbyShot uses real scifi geeks as models, removing all guesswork!

If you’re hung up on Uma Thurman (and I know some of you are), you can get the jacket she wore in Kill Bill. They also have Neo’s coat from The Matrix, which looks really cool, but I’m concerned about the response I’d get if I tried to wear it. “Holy shit! Agent Smith ate Neo and stole his coat! You’re dead, you fuckin’ coat stealer!” pummel pummel pummel

No, they’ve got exactly one coat that I could pull off. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

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Everything Else, Technology

Mmmm… PI

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I’ve recently been building a new computer system and one of the things I have been trying to work out is the overclocking of the system.� In my search for benchmarks and stress tests I came across a popular benchmark in the overclocking community that I thought was pretty neat.� Ever wonder what the 21,865,285th digit of PI was?

Super PI is a program that will calculate PI to various numbers of digits (up to 32M).� The standard benchmark is to run it for 1M digits and compare your time to other computers.� My current CPU (Intel E6600�@ ~2.9GHz) did it in a little over 17 seconds, and my 64-bit workstation at work (Intel Xeon 5150 @ 2.66GHz)�does it in 19.781 seconds.� I’ll add a comment to this once with my final�1M time once I finish overclocking my system and�verify its stability.

There is also a wikipedia entry on the program here.

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Everything Else, Technology

Track All Your Wasted Time

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For a while now, I’ve wanted a super-simple time tracking facility to track the various ways I throw my life away. Something where I can just add tasks, then hit a button to start and stop a timer, adding a comment when finished. A very short search unearthed Time Tracker, which provides exactly that. It’s also great if you’re doing consulting, working on different projects for different clients. And you can export your work log in XML or Excel (CSV). I hoping it will really motivate me, seeing just how little time I spend on the important things, like disco dancing, archery, and rape.

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Everything Else, Travel

I would like to thank God, Subaru, Goodyear, and Starbucks

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For pretty much saving my life 20 minutes ago. I was on the 405 South near Cerritos, meditating on religion, when I realized cars don’t usually make U-turns on the 405. It looked like the car attempting this was not very successful. Then I noticed a pickup in front of me in my lane, only it’s perpendicular to the dotted white lines – SWERVE LEFT. The U-turn car is now in the left lane – STAY RIGHT. Another car has turned itself around in the right shoulder and – CRASH – CLANG – it knocks over a freeway street lamp – THOSE FUCKERS ARE BIG – into my lane – SWERVE LEFT. And old, dark blue pickup, rear end smashed in, drives on in front of me. Did it cause the accident? An uninsured motorist? Drunk driver? Innocent victim? I have no idea.

“Is it safe?”
“Yes, it’s safe, it’s very safe, it’s so safe you wouldn’t believe it.”

Ordeal over, I call 911. All operators busy, everyone else beat me to it.

So I’d like to thank God for interrupting my conversation with Him, and keeping me cool through everything. In my mind, at least, I was Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity. But without Franka Potente riding shotgun, sadly.

I’d like to thank Subaru for making the Impreza WRX capable of swerving around the random obstacles materializing in front of me while going 65+ MPH. It’s like one of those BMW commercials, except BMW can suck my balls.

I’d like to thank Goodyear, and it’s fine Eagle F1 GS-D3 tires, which did not complain as I broke, accelerated, and swerved around various cars and freeway paraphernalia.

I’d like to thank Starbucks for keeping it’s Hollywood and Highland location open to 12:30am (although 1am would be more appropriate at that location on a Saturday night), and it’s fine Caramel Macchiato beverage, for keeping me alert.

Amen.

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