RollTop Laptop – Answering Yesterday’s Laptop Design Shortcomings
November 1, 2009 by joe.bustillos
Filed under JBB's Digital Fiefdom, featured
What could we do if we had flexible display materials? As advanced as the tech seems, it still might not fly because the rolled up size still seem too big when one thinks about how small and thin and light-weight the Apple Macbook Air, the Sony Vaio X- and P-series and the various netbooks already are. Flexible display materials are just beginning to show up, but there’s something in this design that’s answering problems from when the smallest usable laptops were the 15-inch/6-pound devices. Rolling up said 15-inch devices is still going to be at least 13-inches long and a rolled up girth of four-inches diameter. That’s awfully big when one considers that a lot of people are happy using an iPhone-sized device to do a lot of their communication/computer tasks.
Alive in Joberg by Neill Blomkamp Spyfilms (District 9 director)
August 25, 2009 by joe.bustillos
Filed under Past Featured Media
This is the short film that Peter Jackson saw and signed up the director to do the “Halo” movie. With that movie in the tank, Blomkamp was able to build on ideas from this short to create “District 9.” I can hardly wait for the “behind the scenes” featurettes on the DVD.
Shaking Hands with EcceRobot
August 20, 2009 by joe.bustillos
Filed under JBB's Digital Fiefdom, featured
Seminal Sci-fi author William Gibson retweeted the link to the following video and the comments of @twiliteminotaur: “Creepy-cool in that old Gigerian sense of cyberpunk. Terminator’s in the anatomical details.” Fellow fan and skeptic of all things robotic, Lisa Smith, wondered why they’d go to such lengths to make the robot so human-like in function and construction when having a variety of anatomical structures would be more in keeping with the variety of requirements we’d need from future robots. Of course, the answer is that the more human-like they are the more likely we’ll accept these robots into our lives. And an added benefit is that all one would need would be a hot-glue gun to melt the robot’s skeletal system. Take that future robotic over-lords!
Star Trek (TNG) Saturday
July 26, 2009 by joe.bustillos
Filed under God, Relationships and Family, featured
screen-capture by Joe Bustillos (cc) 2009 from Relics: Star Trek TNG
I did something today that I haven’t done in a long time. I reconnected an external drive that had my collection of Star Trek TNG as part of consolidating my tech in preparation for the move. Anyway, I’ve pretty much spent the whole day playing episode after episode. And stayed out of chat. Ha!
Share this Post[?] Launch of LCROSS/LRO
June 20, 2009 by joe.bustillos
Filed under JBB's Digital Fiefdom, JBB's Media Buzz, featured
Didn’t drive out to the cape for this launch (two prior shuttle launches had been cancelled in the past two weeks). Co-worker quipped, “I’m really glad that you’re not into this NASA stuff.” Ha! Hello, this launch is one of the first steps to our return to the moon. Been a space-cadet my whole life. Ack
My images of the launch:
The Day the Earth Stood Still & Got Panned
February 8, 2009 by joe.bustillos
Filed under JBB's Media Buzz
I just got back from a screening of the updated “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” I know that it was universally panned by critics and friends, but I wanted to see it anyway (and it was showing at the local $2.50 theater, I could have seen it for a buck had I waited until Tuesdays!). I’m not entirely sure why everyone hated it, except that maybe the makers were too aware of the 1951 classic and the audiences/critics were not. I have a copy of the Robert Wise directed classic and made a point of watching it some time ago in anticipation of this new “re-imagining.” My guess is that the remake fails for some because Keanu’s Klatuu has none of the “wonder” that the Michael Rennie alien-in-our-midst had in the original. And except for the conversation with John Cleese as the Noble-winning mathematician we don’t seem to spend any time with any character enough to care about their fate. Well, we do spend time with the boy, Jacob, well played by Jaden Smith, but the kid was downright irritating at times. Everything else felt rushed and most of the rest of the characters were basically stereotypes, including one government suit who let a technician die in a test chamber, but yelled for someone to open the door when the control room he was in was about to be overrun.
But there were little moments that got me. One moment was when Jennifer Connelly’s character is caught making a call home to her step-son on a forbidden cell-phone, the soldier who had just banged on Connelly’s bathroom stall door demanding if she had a cell phone, then teared up asking if she could use it. Another moment was when Keanu turned the tables on the government agent who was giving him a polygraph test. Reeves deadpanned, “I’m going to leave you now,” and the agent seemed to sigh before passing out on the table.
Whereas many films released these days suffer from not enough editing and indulging the director’s ego too much, this film could have spent a bit more time letting a little character development happen beyond the boy and his step-mom. As with the 1951 version dripping with Cold War paranoia, this one is overly “An Inconvenient Truth” without ever showing us what we were doing to our environment. Writing 101: show me, don’t tell me. Oh, and I love that the name of the robot, GORT, in this version is a military acronym. Perfect.
Share this Post[?] Camelot by Star Trek
January 29, 2009 by joe.bustillos
Filed under JBB's Media Buzz
In honor of the upcoming J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek”…
Movies: Star Trek X: Nemesis
Launch of the Shuttle Endeavor Part 3 – 7:55 PM ET
November 17, 2008 by joe.bustillos
Filed under God, Relationships and Family, JBB's Digital Fiefdom, JBB's Media Buzz, education re-examined
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
Share this Post[?] Mars Phoenix Lander Farewell
November 13, 2008 by joe.bustillos
Filed under JBB's Digital Fiefdom, JBB's Media Buzz, Twitter, education re-examined
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).
Share this Post[?] Mars Phoenix Mission “Ends”
November 13, 2008 by joe.bustillos
Filed under God, Relationships and Family, JBB's Digital Fiefdom, JBB's Media Buzz, Twitter, education re-examined
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:
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.
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