Category Archives: Cool Stuff

Satellite, Star or Planet?… It’s Jupiter

Posted on by Brad Heap

I ended up going to be very late last night thanks to assignments.

But the one positive thing to come of going to bed late was the fullness of the moon. I got a few photos of it and then noticed a very bright object to its right.

P1090933

At first I thought it may be a satellite and I tried to zoom up on it to get some good shots, most of them turned out blurred or weird because of the lack of light and long exposure time, but I did get a few good ones.

Panasonic DMC-FZ5 1/8s f/8.0 ISO: 100 12x Optical Zoom

Panasonic DMC-FZ5 1/8s f/8.0 ISO: 100 12x Optical Zoom

At this point I began to notice the odd colors coming off it, still convinced it was some form of satellite I zoomed up onto the digital zoom and changed the settings to TIFF format and ISO 400

P1090942

At this point I was thinking okay I have some really bright star, maybe Mars.

It wasn’t until this morning I decided to look up a star map. And what do you know?

Star Map for 00:00 Sep 3 2009 NZST, Look right next to the moon.

So off to the star dome website we go for confirmation.

http://www.ectoolset.com/func/Newsdetails.asp?sid=440&id=10033

Another planet visible at this time is Jupiter. High in the sky to the east, Jupiter is the brightest thing in the evening sky apart from the Moon, making it easily noticeable. A small telescope or good binoculars will reveal some or all of Jupiter’s four largest moons, named the Galilean moons after their 17th century discoverer, Galileo.

You can see the moons too? Okay time for some image correction, Increasing the shadows on the picture and we have a moon there (with a green tinge).

Moon on top of planet

Moon on top of planet

And I am loving the red-shift too.

Update the moon will be IO and it is green in real life it is not a camera trick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_%28moon%29

A study of our species

Posted on by Brad Heap

From: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sideswipe/news/article.cfm?c_id=702&objectid=10594361

A prank sign has appeared on the side of the Bristol Zoo Garden’s popular cafe, designating the area as the best place to spot Homo sapiens. The sign reads: “The human is one of the world’s most widespread species, and is present on all continents. In adolescence, the offspring adopt a more nocturnal lifestyle and engage in ritualised activities of drinking fermented liquids and dancing to rhythmical sounds, which scientists believe may help them to find a mate. The human diet is very adaptable to regional crop varieties and personal taste, with some groups able to live almost exclusively on chipped potatoes and sugary drinks. Groups of humans are often fed by unrelated individuals in exchange for tokens made of paper, metal and plastic – behaviour which can frequently be seen inside this enclosure.”

Porters 09

Posted on by Brad Heap

On the weekend I headed to Christchurch for a short holiday. While there I went skiing at Porters Ski Area. Awesome is an understatement. It rocked. Beyond Rocked.

P1000188

The road to Porters/Arthurs Pass

Looking up the right side of Porters from the base area.

Looking up the right side of Porters from the base area.

Looking down from the top of T1 nice wide open slopes.

Looking down from the top of T1 nice wide open slopes.

There were a few things that made Porters really special. The first was the atmosphere. Until 2007 it was a club field, and despite turning commercial it still has a really friendly feel to it. The second is the lack of people, because it has T-bars rather than chairs there are fewer people so you have more space to yourself. Finally the terrian just simply rocks. No dodging rocks or narrow runs. The beginners have plenty of space at the bottom of the field. The intermediates have some good runs down the 1km long T1 and there is expert terrain to die for. I didn’t get to go out on Big Mama because the vis was poor. But I did go down Bluff Face twice which was such an awesome experience. Would definitely rival my run down the waterfall at Turoa the other week.

The view from the top of Bluff Face

The view from the top of Bluff Face

Me sitting comfortably at te top of Bluff Face laughing in the face of danger.

Me sitting comfortably at te top of Bluff Face laughing in the face of danger.

Bluff Face as seen from the base area. 38 degree slope. Pure awesomeness.

Bluff Face as seen from the base area. 38 degree slope. Pure awesomeness.

The 2008 2.4L Toyota Camery Rental Car I took up the mountain. A dream to drive.

The 2008 2.4L Toyota Camery Rental Car I took up the mountain. A dream to drive.

The access road to Porters 6km of gravel. Was resonably wide and good, much shorter than the 15km Mt Hutt road

The access road to Porters 6km of gravel. Was resonably wide and good, much shorter than the 15km Mt Hutt road

As I sit here and post these photos it makes me want to go again, it was that good. Next year I will go for a week (maybe – if I can afford it).

Finally this was a cool inscription at Christchurch Cathedral.

2009-08-24 10.03.36

Ski Helmet use rising

Posted on by Brad Heap

Twitter is indeed a powerful tool for getting interesting news articles that are otherwise not reported in NZ.

Got this tweet through a few minute ago:

snowreportsnzRT @SkiingExaminer: The ski helmet saga continues. Jackson Hole vs OSHA http://tr.im/txmm // 48% of skiers now use them. Well done.

Naturally being interested in snow sports I clicked though on the link to find out more. The 48% figure seems to be based on the US not on NZ. However the number of people now with helmets is something I did notice when I was up on the slopes a few weeks ago.

This article here highlights some more of the stats: http://www.examiner.com/x-4364-Skiing-Examiner~y2009m6d4-Survey-reports-continued-upward-trend-in-ski-helmet-use

The National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) released its 2008-09 National Demographic Study that showed helmet usage at 48 percent of all skiers and snowboarders. The figure represented a 12 percent increase over last season’s percentage of 43 percent. The annual Demographic Study is compiled from more than 130,000 interviews of skiers and riders nationwide.

That is a big jump for just one year, and on the back of a sample size of 130,000 that is some decent stats too.

Percentage of ski helmet wearers by demographic group

* 48 percent: All skiers and riders
* 77 percent: 9 years old or younger
* 66 percent: 10-14 years old
* 32 percent: 18-24 years old

Interesting enough young adults seem to think that helmets are not cool.

I got my helmet earlier this year and have used it on two days, one pea soup and the other a bluebird. And it is really good, lightweight but at the same time having that protection on your head and around your upper neck does give you confidence to try things that otherwise you may be a little to scared to with risk of hurting yourself.

Update, here are some cropped photos from the other week

9 from 11 wearing helmets

9 from 11 wearing helmets

6 from 11 wearing helmets

6 from 11 wearing helmets

7 from 11 wearing helmets

7 from 11 wearing helmets

I haz evidence from the Moon

Posted on by Brad Heap

Okay, enough LOL Cats for one evening, but this is cool.

NASA have released new photo graphs taken from their new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of the original lunar landing sites, complete with pictures of what was left behind: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

Bad Astronomy blog make some interesting points too: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/07/17/apollo-landing-sites-imaged-by-lro/

Apollo may seem like ancient history, but those artifacts on the Moon are still sitting there, in many ways as fresh as the day they were placed there.

In all of human history, there are many dividing lines we can arbitrarily assign. Before and after the use of atomic weapons, before and after the invention of the light bulb, before and after this war or that.

But there is one dividing line that can inspire us, fill us with wonder, make us dream of bigger goals, higher aspirations, better ways to live our lives for the future. And that is the dividing line between the time we were a race shackled to the ground, confined to a single planet… and the time a human being stepped foot on another world.

And there it is, in pictures and in fact. This is what these pictures mean. We humans spend a lot of time looking around, looking out, looking down. But sometimes, for just a brief moment, we look up. We did it once before, and it’s time to do it again.

It is like time is standing still and looking back at us. Some of us believe that the pyramids and other amazing structures were left behind to us by aliens from other lands. Now we have left evidence of our prior existance on another world and imagine if an alien lifeform came across it would they start an eagar search for life on that world?

Thoughts on Google Chrome OS

Posted on by Brad Heap

It was interesting returning to Auckland on Thursday night to find out that in the past few days the world has completely changed. Yes Google has finnaly let the cat out of the bag (but I think it actually escaped months ago) that it was developing an operating system to rival Windows.

Google Chrome OS is not planned to be released until late 2010 however the source will be released later this year (so in some ways you could start using it later this year). The full announcement is here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

The points that I am most interested in are:

  • This is not Google’s first OS, in fact it is their third. In house they use Goobuntu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu) which is a modified version of Ubunutu Linux. And at the end of 2008 they released Android an open source operating system for cellphones, and it rocks.
  • Cloud Computing. The operating system is going to be very light weight on the end users system and plug directly into the internet. This is going to be a lot like the Android where it is always on and things are straight away at your finger tips. This works really well for a cellphone but I do wonder how much functionality it is going to have for more high end activities. Sure you may be able to edit a word document etc, but what about being able to do some coding, or playing a game. In those realms I think that a full desktop environment will still be a lot better.
  • It is free. Well being open source and based off linux they really didn’t have much more of a choice. Having said that it really gives Microsoft a kick up the pants with the cost of Windows even at OEM price being really expensive.
  • The number of companies involved: Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba. This shows that it has some major industry support and the chances of success are high.

I am excited about what it can deliver, but building a web browser that gets 30 million users in 9 months is one thing. Building a operating system that can deliver a smooth user experience without bugs or issues is a whole lot harder.

Playing with Magic

Posted on by Brad Heap

It is official; I am in love; with my new HTC Magic Google Phone.

I have now had my new toy for two weeks and in some ways I cannot remember what life was like before it, or how I survived without it. To put it simply this is more than a gadget or a toy that will bore you after a while, two weeks in and I am still finding things to do with it.

Firstly the specs:

  • 3.2in flat panel touch screen running at 320×480 resolution
  • 528Mhz CPU
  • 512MB ROM
  • 192MB RAM
  • 8GB MicroSD
  • Quad Band GSM
  • Bluetooth
  • Wifi
  • USB
  • 3.2 Megapixel camera
  • Android 1.5 (cupcake) operating system

This mobile phone has more power than my computer from 2003. You may go wow 2003 was a long time ago in technology terms, but in the space of six years to compact more power into a phone then what was in a computer is still really impressive.

Here is a quick highlight of my experience with it over the past two weeks:

Android – Android officially rocks. It is Google’s open source Operating System for mobile phones and it has more power built into it then one could ever expect. Normally you do not have to wait long for a mobile phone to turn on or off. Android is like a computer it must be booted or shutdown and it does take time.

3G Coverage – In NZ Vodafone run their mobile network on three different frequencies. Having just been away I have experienced the use of all three. And the phone handles all really well and having the use of all three means I can get the best possible coverage in any location I go. Take that iPhone which only operates on two. (so if you are in a coverage area with the one that iPhone does not operate on you will have no signal).

3.2 Megapixel Camera – The photos and the video from my snow trip earlier this week were almost all exclusively taken on the phone. The camera is really good, however I have yet to find out if it can zoom, and also it is slow to focus and actually take the photos so it is probably not much use for fast moving situations, plus no flash so you need some form of decent light to get a good photo.

USB connection to computer – Now this is cool, while connected to USB the phone can charge, you can use the phone like a flash drive accessing the 8GB MicroSD card inside it, you can also download all your photos and videos and stuff from the phone. But best of all through the use of PDANET you can tether internet off it. So if you are in a place where your laptop has no internet access you can plug in your phone and get access through the 3G network.

Powered by Google – I cannot begin to describe how awesome this is. Gmail at the touch of a button you can both read and send email. Google Talk on the go. YouTube built in, and the streaming of video through 3G is really quick and smooth too, you can also upload video to YouTube. Google Maps built in, and GPS to show you where you are. Oh and did I mention Google Gears built in too.

Android Market – You can download apps on the go. This reminds me of a very old 8mb Palm Pilot I had many years ago, so far I have installed a weather app, a battery meter, a fuel mileage calculator, virtual bible software, wordpress blogging software, a notepad, and a voice recorder.

Full Internet Access – Android comes with a web browser built in, but it is a little slow and can’t quite handle all websites 100% right. Never fear just download Opera Mini through the Marketplace, it is really fast, the GUI is a little hard to use but the way it displays websites is really good. Only crashed badly once (through my own doing).

Touch-screen and Keyboard – this is my only annoyance. I have big fingers and even with the screen rotated the keyboard is still hard to use. Also a lack of stylus or any place to buy one and place it onto the phone.

Overall 10/10 this phone really does rock, and it just simply amazing.