g-speak 3D Gestural IU

On GeekBrief.TV a gestural user-interface called g-speak was demoed. After watching the video all I could say is that I still haven’t acclimated to using a WACOM tablet because the tablet picks up the pen motion even when the pen is not in contact with the tablet. Gesturing in the air seems just that much more foreign to me. Ack. I am such a UI luddite.

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Streaming NASA.TV

I love this stuff. I wanted to put a streaming viewer of the ongoing Endeavor mission on my blog and remembered that a video podcaster was doing this via Ustream. I’d used this source last Spring when I watched the landing of the Mars Phoenix lander. Funny that there was nothing available directly from NASA but that this video podcaster was taking the NASA stream and making it available using the Ustream.tv embed viewer. I love this stuff. jbb

Launch of the Shuttle Endeavor Part 3 - 7:55 PM ET

Wow, that happened way 2 fast. Leaving the parking area is going 2 take much longer than Endeavor’s 1st orbit. Video 2 follow. 08:20 PM November 14, 2008 from Twinkle

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Launch of the Shuttle Endeavor Part 2 - Waiting for the Launch

Some folks watch a NASA documentary and fall asleep with five-seconds of the first acronym. My buddy Dan is one of those guys. We’d just started the Astronaut Hall of Fame tour and as much as he wanted to be there for the launch the first video we watched made him groan. I had no idea how we were going to do with the five-hour wait for the launch itself. Here’s my twitter rendition of the wait:

* Camped out @ Astronaut Hall of Fame waiting 4 Endeavor launch. Next time need lawn chairs. Picnic b4 launch http://snipurl.com/5hi61 4:04 PM Nov 14th from Twinkle
* Shuttle video play-by-play on big screen stuttered, then they switched 2 tape. Hope my twittering didn’t tax the network 4:07 PM Nov 14th from Twinkle
* Next time, besides lawn chairs, need backpack full of food & drink, also need to bring my Nintendo DS. Or maybe a book. Nah,definitely my DS 4:14 PM Nov 14th from Twinkle

Here’s my video version of this part of the event:

Launch of the Shuttle Endeavor Part 1 - Astronaut Hall of Fame Tour

One of the first things that I knew that I wanted to do when I decided to move to Florida was to attend the launch of a space shuttle. I really should have gotten my feet wet in this area back during the summer before my course started but it just didn’t happen. Then I read in ArsTechnica that there were only 10 more shuttle missions left before NASA would end the program on May 31, 2010. I definitely needed to make the pilgrimage to the Kennedy Space Center. Of course if I was going to make the trip I’m going to do more than just show up and watch the launch, thus the Astronaut Hall of Fame Tour (Kennedy Space Center tours are closed on launch days). jbb

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Mars Phoenix Lander Farewell

I knew someone had to put together a video of clips from the Mars Phoenix short life… I’m not one to anthropomorphize my own computers or gadgets but when I got my first “tweet” from the lander I was touched in a way that went past scientific curiosity:

• parachute is open!!!!! 7:50 PM May 25th from web
• come on rocketssssss!!!!! 7:53 PM May 25th from web
• I’ve landed!!!!!!!!!!!!! 7:54 PM May 25th from web
• Cheers! Tears!! I’m here! 7:55 PM May 25th from web
• Now.. I still have some other milestones ahead. Solar panels will open in 15 minutes after the dust has settled here. 7:56 PM May 25th from web

MarsPhoenix whole tweet record listed below (remember it goes from oldest on the bottom to newest on the top). I didn’t realize that the tweets began twenty days before the landing).

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Mars Phoenix Mission “Ends”

Watching the landing of the Mars Phoenix probe was one wonderful geek highlight last Spring. Alas, I’ve gotten a bit busy and haven’t been paying as much attention as I should. Then I heard the following sad message on Monday:

From Gizmodo:

This is My Farewell Transmission From Mars

If you are reading this, then my mission is probably over.

This final entry is one that I asked be posted after my mission team announces they’ve lost contact with me. Today is that day and I must say good-bye, but I do it in triumph and not in grief.

As I’ve said before, there’s no other place I’d rather be than here. My mission lasted five months instead of three, and I’m content knowing that I worked hard and accomplished great things during that time. My work here is done, but I leave behind a legacy of images and data.

In that sense, you haven’t heard the end of me. Scientists will be releasing findings based on my data for months, possibly years, to come and today’s children will read of my discoveries in their textbooks. Engineers will use my experience during landing and surface operations to aid in designing future robotic missions.

But for now, it’s time for me to hunker down and brave what will be a long and cold autumn and winter. Temperatures should reach -199F (-128C) and a polar cap of carbon dioxide ice will envelop me in an icy tomb.

Seasons on Mars last about twice as long as seasons on Earth, so if you’re wondering when the next Martian spring in the northern hemisphere begins, it’s one Earth-year away—October 27, 2009. The next Martian summer solstice, when maximum sunlight would hit my solar arrays, falls on May 13, 2010.

That’s a long time away. And it’s one of the reasons there isn’t much hope that I’ll ever contact home again.

For my mission teams on Earth, I bid a special farewell and thank you. For the thousands of you who joined me on this journey with your correspondence, I will miss you dearly. I hope you’ll look to my kindred robotic explorers as they seek to further humankind’s quest to learn and understand our place in the universe. The rovers, Spirit and Opportunity (@MarsRovers), are still operating in their sun belt locations closer to the Martian equator; Cassini (@CassiniSaturn) is sailing around Saturn and its rings; and the Mars Science Laboratory (@MarsScienceLab)—the biggest rover ever built for launch to another planet—is being carefully pieced together for launch next year.

My mission team has promised to update my Twitter feed as more of my science discoveries are announced. If I’m lucky, perhaps one of the orbiters will snap a photo of me when spring comes around.

So long Earth. I’ll be here to greet the next explorers to arrive, be they robot or human.

It’s been a great pleasure to have Mars Phoenix guest blogging for us, reminiscing back on a successful mission via its personality conjurer, the great Veronica McGregor at JPL—maintainer of Phoenix’s famous Twitter feed. Just as Doug McCuistion from NASA said on the news conference today, it’s certainly more of an Irish wake than a funeral today. We’re drinking to you tonight, little buddy. You can see all of Phoenix’s previous entries and the official press release announcing the end of Phoenix’s mission.

The Matrix Runs on Windows (XP, NOT VISTA!)

Sometimes after all of the political stuff and musings on religion it takes a giant step in the direction of silliness for it all to make sense. Thank god for YouTube and CollegeHumor…

And just in case you were still taking your life too seriously…

Is it me, or does Times New Roman look a lot like Ryan Block formerly from Engadget?

Another Geek-asm: Going from Puny to 320

This is entirely a geeky thing (consider yourself warned). I had a revelation many weeks ago when I was trying to figure out what to do about having endless strings of external hard drives connected to my Mac Mini because my iTunes library didn’t fit on the Mini’s puny 60GB (5400 RPM) hard disk. Add to that wanted to use the Mini as a media center and have my DVDs stored for quick retrieval on said hard drive(s). This was also during the summer when I could hear the poor little fans on the collection of hard drives spinning up in a feeble attempt to stay working in the Florida heat. Then it dawn on my heat/humidity addled mind, install a bigger hard drive you big dope! At the time the sweet spot for drive size vs. price was 320GB for under $200, so I ordered one, found a “How to Replace Your Mac Mini Hard Drive” video on the web and presto-chango, my mini was up and running with three times the space and almost two times the speed. Now all I need to do is figure out which compression to use for storing my gigantic DVD collection… I could only get three Star Trek series (Classic, Next Gen & DS9) to fit on a 1 terabyte drive in their native Mpeg2 format. Ack. Then my thoughts turned to my macbook pro, which has had a 150GB external drive dangling from it for over a year….

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Apple Fights Back - MS Still Doesn’t Get It

Buzz was that Microsoft’s last three ads changed the effectiveness of Apple’s “I’m a PC/I’m a Mac” ads. To recap: the first Seinfeld/Gates “Churro” ad left the techies wondering WTF and the general public wondering when Gates and Seinfeld’s new sitcom was going to be airing. The general public got their wish with the second “move in with the typical dysfunctional American family” ad… kind’a. The TV-version cut out all of the funny bits and what was left was even more WTF than the “Churro” ad. Adding insult to injury, probably only the techies saw the four and a half minute much funnier YouTube version, laughed and then moved on to the next YouTube video. The third “quit picking on me, I’m not a stereotype” ad was the most pathetic. The company that single-handedly killed IBM’s OS/2 operating system (thus eventually ending IBM’s role in the microcomputer world) and out-maneuvered Apple with it’s own graphical user interface “revolution” in the 80’s and 90’s is now whining, “Hey, I’m cool too!” And where do all three of these ads fail? Well, just compare a Bill Gates’ keynote with a Steve Jobs’ keynote. Which one perfectly balances the graphical message with an easy to remember verbal hook and which one clutters the screen with words and drones on with no decipherable message?

So, with two new 30-second “I’m a PC/I’m a Mac” ads, Apple redirects the conversation back to Microsoft’s failed Vista OS and points out that throwing money at ads or choosing to banish the “V” word won’t change Microsoft’s uncoolness. Nothing flashy, no WTF factor, no “churros” or subplots, just a silly little observation that Microsoft continues to miss the point.

This has got to piss off someone at Microsoft. $700-million in advertising undercut by two simple 30-second spots. That’s gotta hurt. jbb

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