This got slashdotted on Monday. They assembled a Lego Star Destroyer in 10 hours, the video they made is kind of cool. I would recommend downloading the torrent of it, as its very quick (I’m helping to seed ;)).
All posts by j0n
Google Maps and APRS.
From the APRS Special Interest Group mailing list, in an email from Matthew C Payne.
“It took Dave Norris (KG9AE) about a day to whip this up. Its pretty darn impressive what can be accomplished with this new API”
I’ve been playing about with it and its quite good, much more accurate as you zoom in. I’m looking at my car out in the atlantic at the moment. As I zoom in, it puts it in the carpark outside. Very cool.
Belkin Tunecast II, must get one
Words to Leave by
“As I’m sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.
And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let’s get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what “day in day out” really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I’m talking about.”
Pointer from Doc Searls Weblog. As Doc says, “Its wise from front to back”
Full version of Dave Foster Wallace’s commencement speach to graduates at Kenyon University
New Nasa administrator is a Radio Ham
While I knew that Michael Griffin was nominated by George Bush and appointed to be the new NASA administrator. What i didn’t know (until I picked up a copy of CQ Amateur Radio magazine in Borders Bookshop, Charing Cross Road last week), was that Mr. Griffin is also a Radio Ham. Along with holding the callsign NR3A, he is into scuba diving and is an accomplished pilot. I hope he gets an easier ride than Mr O’Keefe had.
Pocket Trackers/APRS in the Media
From legrandobserver.com
“Rule No. 1 of being a search and rescue volunteer — don’t get lost.
It sounds simple. But consider the challenges faced by the 50 or so volunteers who might respond when someone is reported missing in Union County’s backcountry.
There’s a good chance it might be late afternoon with the light fading, if it is not completely dark.
The weather is often difficult — snow, rain, slippery conditions.
The knowledge of the area on the part the person making the report has to be considered. Was the missing hunter or hiker planning to go down this ridge line, or that one?
Now, though, Union County’s search and rescue group has a new tool that it believes will make keeping track of the searchers a much safer, easier part of the process.
Called a Pocket Tracker, the new equipment is a carry-along unit consisting of a GPS and radio unit, set to a HAM radio frequency. The unit reports in every few minutes automatically….”
Its good to see this simple technology being used effectively. The PocketTrackers were supplied by Tony Barrett of byonics. The article is slightly incorrect in that they don’t come in anything like 90 pieces, more like about 50 components, and that includes short lenghts of wire to make up Coils with.
Contesting
So do you think you are an efficient operator? Have a read of Chris Trans series of articles here. There is some great information in there, even if you are not a contester.
An extract:
“Good operator
GM7V : CQ Golf Mike Seven Victor ..
JA stns. : xxxxxxxxKPxxxxx .. (the JA stations are giving their full callsigns in the pile-up)
GM7V : Kilo Papa Five Nine One Four ..
JA0KPL : Japan Alpha Zero Kilo Papa Lima Five Nine Two Five ..
GM7V : Japan Alpha Zero Kilo Papa Lima Thanks QRZ ..
Poor operator
GM7V : CQ CQ CQ, CQ Contest, CQ Contest, Golf Mike Seven Victor, Golf Mike Seven Victor,
Golf Mike Seven Victor is calling CQ Contest and standing by ..
JA stns. : xxxxxxxxKPxxxxx
GM7V : Er.. Was there a station calling with Papa in the callsign ? Please go ahead the station with
Papa in the callsign ..
JA stns. : xxxxxxxxKPxxxxx
GM7V : Kilo Papa something, Kilo Papa something – please go ahead ..
JA0KPL : Japan Alpha Zero Kilo Papa Lima
GM7V : Er.. Japan Alpha Zero Kilo Papa Lima, Japan Alpha Zero Kilo Papa Lima – you’re Five
Nine One Four, Five Nine One Four, is that a roger ? over ..
JA0KPL : Thank-you, Five Nine Two Five ..
GM7V : Er ..Five Nine Two Five, Japan Alpha Zero Kilo Papa Lima – thank-you – CQ CQ CQ,
CQ Contest, CQ Contest, Golf Mike Seven Victor, Golf Mike Seven Victor, Golf Mike
Seven Victor is calling CQ Contest and standing by ..”
Everyone listening to the second guy would be fit to kill him. Not that I’m any great shakes myself mind. I have been at the wrong end of a pile-up more than once, and it can be quite overwhelming to hear the noise generated when several hundred stations call you at once.
Findu gets RSS
Steve Dimse (author of findu) has been hard at work adding RSS feeds to findu.
“Over the next couple weeks I’ll be adding RSS feeds to findU. If you don’t know, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and is a way to consolidate headlines and links into a newsfeed. I’d played a bit with this, but until I saw it integrated into the new version of Mac OS I didn’t realize how cool this could be, especially as it relates to findU. Unlike most sites where there is one or a small set of news feeds, findU will support custom feeds.
So far I have one example done, the weather warnings. This works very much like the weather warning cgi:
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/warn-near.cgi?exclude=go&call=k4hg-8&nomap=1
but the URL is:
feed://rss.findu.com/warn.cgi?call=k4hg&max=1500
You have to look at this on an RSS enabled program, otherwise it is just jibberish, but the way it works is at defined intervals the newsreader (in my case Safari, Apple’s web browser) fetches the feed and looks for new news items, in this case weather warnings within 1500 miles of K4HG’s location. Any new items are flagged by the browser, and the user knows there is new news on this channel.
The next things I’ll be doing are message feeds and a near function. You can be automatically notified if a new station appears near you, or if someone sends you an APRS message! After that there will be a position function, where you can track individual stations, and of course weather feeds…I can see lots of potential here.”
So, to get a list of APRS stations within 120 Miles of the TSSG, Waterford IT use the following link (for bloglines aggregator:
http://rss.findu.com/near.cgi?call=EI3RCW-2&last=24&n=25&distance=120
The options for the script are explained here.
I might even get around to putting Tiger onto the Powerbook this week :).
Thank you Steve.
New Weather Satellite
A new environmental satellite was succesfully launched in the last few days. I’ve been following an email list where ground stations have been anxiously waiting and listening for the satellite. One of the early posters to the list (Mike Jupp, G1HWY) maintains a website here with some great images. This one shows the showers that rolled in over the southeast of Ireland this afternoon. Definitely one for your bookmarks. Thanks Mike.
