Hacking « Michael Doornbos

7May/102

Inspiring kids by thinking big in space

The audio quality is shockingly bad in this video. This was on Feb 18th, at Ignite-DC. I'd like to do a new spin on this talk soon.

This is an Ignite talk. If you're not familiar with Ignite, the talks are all EXACTLY 5 mins. You get 20 slides that auto advance every 15 seconds. It's a real challenge to not get behind on the slides.

Despite the challenge of giving a compelling talk in this format, I do really enjoy it. It forces presenters to get the point in 5 minutes and you can get through quite a few really great ideas in a 90 minute session.

Is it just me or were several of those slides way shorter than 15 seconds? Hmm...

Filed under: Ideas, Think, space, take action, video 2 Comments

12Apr/105

Jumping in with both feet: An Open Source NASA Android app

I've long been a lover of Open Source. Both from a philosophical point of view, and a quality of software point of view. When I got serious about Linux in the 1990's, I spent a lot of time contributing back to the community. As time has gone by, I've been giving back less and less. In 2010, I've been working almost entirely commercially. Sure I do Evadot for free and give all of my content there away as Creative Commons, but it's really not enough.

I've been working on some Android apps for a while and as of today, there are few Space related apps in the Android ethos. I've been following the excellent work of people like Rob Schingler at NASA, and been reading the Oreilly book "Open Government". It seems like a good fit to launch an Open Source Android project around the "new" NASA.

Ideally, we, the Android user and developer community should be able to contribute a little each to a project like this.

If you had a clean slate for an Android app with a NASA theme, what would you want on it? What parts of NASA would you want in your pocket or purse, and always at your fingertips?

A few things I'd like to have with me are:

a few excellent news feeds
video from places like SpaceVidcast and This Week in Space
Launch tracker and countdown
OpenGov/OpenNASA tracking and a way to submit feedback

But that's just me. Tell me what you want to see!

If you're interested in helping, the project page has just been put on Github. It's just a skeleton project at this point, so let's light this candle and get to work!

Filed under: Hacking, Think, mobile, take action 5 Comments

31Mar/100

Textmate Rails Routes Bundle

mkdir -p ~/Library/Application\ Support/TextMate/Bundles
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/TextMate/Bundles
git clone git://github.com/szeryf/rails-routes.tmbundle.git osascript -e 'tell app "TextMate" to reload bundles'

Filed under: How-To, Mac, Ruby No Comments

13Feb/100

The must have Winter Olympics phone app

Handmark has an excellent (and free) app for tracking the winter olympics called Winter Sports Live.

Scan to install on your android phone

Get it while it's hot!

Filed under: Cool Stuff, games, mobile No Comments

30Jan/101

iPad vs. a Rock

via iPad vs. a Rock « The Jason Calacanis Weblog.

Filed under: Funny, Mac 1 Comment

30Dec/090

Minty Boost

Filed under: Electronics, Hacks No Comments

1Dec/090

The art of the power nap

I have a very clear daily rhythm. My best writing, clarity, creativeness, code, whatever happens in the first 5-6 hours after I wake up in the morning. After that, my ability to concentrate drops off significantly. My energy level slows significantly. By the evening, it's almost like I'm viewing the world as a different person.

The modern solution is to slam a RedBull and push through it.

This temporary and probably very unhealthy solution pales in comparison to something I've been trying to master over the last few weeks: the power nap.

I'm talking about a 20 minute sleep in the middle of the day. There are many studies that show that sleep is essential to brain function in mammals and an improvement in reaction time after even a 5 minute nap is significant. It's rumored that Albert Einstein was a frequent napper.

Our modern RedBull society views sleep as a weakness, but I say nay nay. When done right, a 20 minute downtime is not only 3 bucks cheaper than a RedBull, but actually works better. I find that I can work with that same clarity of mind for another 5-6 hours afterward that I enjoy in the morning.

The trick is to do it right. 20 mins, no longer. Longer naps put you in a deep sleep cycle that can be hard to get out of. You want to be restored, not groggy.

Using it as a substitute for staying up late every night playing World of Warcraft isn't right either.

It's not lazy, it's smart. I'll bet you a case of RedBull that your doctor would tell you it's the right thing to do.

Filed under: Ideas, Think, take action No Comments

18Nov/098

On saving NASA

I noticed a new Twitter hashtag this morning for the first time: #SaveNASA

I love rallying cries.

I also love the huge list of things that the world benefits from as a result of NASA over the last 50 years.

BUT (come on, you knew there was a BUT in here)

Making lists of things accomplished in the past isn't enough to get programs funded for the future. They are a by-product of other goals.

Great by products, but they are still by-products. The result of something else.

By-products don't get billions of dollars in funding. The chance of some by-products is also not a good motivator.

Programs that have vague half hearted goals don't get the American people's support. Without public support, congress has a difficult time giving a program money.

It's the reality of the situation, whether or not you think it's right or fair.

We need our leaders to make a decision about the space program. A bold decision that motivates entire generations to step up to a common goal. To become something bigger than we are.

Only that will save NASA.

Filed under: Think, space 8 Comments

10Nov/090

Installing Google Go on Ubuntu 9.10 x86

This is for x86 processors. You need to change the 386 to amd64 if that's your chip architecture.

First create a bin directory in your home directory if you don't have one already:

mkdir $HOME/bin

Then edit your .bashrc file and add:

export GOROOT=$HOME/go
export GOOS=linux
export GOARCH=386
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin

Then reread your bashrc file:

source .bashrc

You'll need some packages installed to build it:

sudo apt-get install bison gcc libc6-dev mercurial

Now check out the code and build it:

hg clone -r release https://go.googlecode.com/hg/ $GOROOT

cd $GOROOT/src
./all.bash

That's it.

Filed under: How-To, Linux No Comments

8Oct/090

Infrared Sensor Data for Hal

I'm using an infrared range sensor for the real life Hal.

The Sharp GP2Y0A02YK0F - Infrared Proximity Sensor Long Range -

Hal 1.0

While testing his motions, I was noticing some pretty erratic behavior, so I decided to collect some data on the sensor values on a fixed object, while Hal was not moving.

This is a graph of about a minute of Hal moving the sensor from 45 to 135 degress in front of him and then taking a reading when the motion of the sensor stops. It's at a wall, at a slight angle so the graph lines aren't on top of each other at about 45 centimeters away.

evadot_bot_sensor_line

My results for this sensor are not within the tolerances of being able to program him to to anything really interesting in an environment that isn't really simple.

The good thing is that only once in this data would a "is this way further than that way" check be incorrect. Then again, he isn't even moving positions here. The data is pretty erratic over a 1 minute period.

In reality, this is maybe not the correct sensor for this application. Maybe an ultrasonic would be better. Hal may have to have eye surgery.

Hal IS supposed to be a very inexpensive robot based solely on Arduino. I don't expect him to be able to do very complicated things, but I was hoping for a little better readings on a fixed object than what I'm getting.

Filed under: Arduino, Electronics, Hal, How-To, Ideas, Robotics, Ruby No Comments

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