The hardest part of snapping this pic was avoiding eye contact with Katie, who was on the couch laughing at me. Tradition is tradition.
As I was preparing the shot, I noticed that my phone was picking up the infrared LEDs from the Wii sensor bar… infrared-y
I had pegged the Wii bar as a passive unit…a la IR receivers only. I guess I was wrong, and now have an urge to rip one apart. But I digress.
This game took me ages to complete…feels good to be done with this one. Not quite as fun as Ocarina, but Twilight was a good time. Rumor has it that the new Zelda for Wii is borderline unreal…look for me to post a ‘conquered it’ picture on this site in 2016.
It (still) never rains… crappy woot crap is bag of crappy
The second woot bag of crap is equally as crappy.
…as much as I like refurbished ethernet routers, I think BOC round two wins. Winning being on an inverted scale, whereas less crappy is awarded more points.
I can chop up USB Guard Dog for its infared sensor, and the small Swanson girl will play with the caped monkey. Win win for the win…
In 2001, I was part of a team that set out to replicate the space science performed by Explorer-1 in 1958. Explorer-1 was 25 pounds, and our solution was a 2.2 pound, 10cm by 10cm cube called MEROPE. I was on the payroll for a few summers, working on the grounds station design, researching tracking software and antenna theory.
Our launch provider was set to launch another twenty some cube sats like ours atop a converted intercontinental ballistic missile payload. After getting pushed out past my graduation date, the launch finally went down from Kahzikstan in July of 2006. Though the Dnepr rockets had a 97% success rate, our satellite ended up in a crater of parts and pollutants during the second minute after liftoff…
explode-y
Rest in peaces.
That hydrolic failure was a setback. The good news was the fact that the engineering plans were complete and ground station built…the rest ended up waiting on a *cheap ride to orbit for the next version. The bad news was that the next launch also failed, as the velocity was too low to maintain orbit. 0 for 2.
E1P launched successfully on October 28th. The HAM radio community has been busy tracking the orbiter along with the team from MSU’s SSEL…as of yesterday afternoon, they had over 1000 packets received.
The mission has two main scientific systems in play: a passive dampening system and a Geiger tube to measure the Van Allen radiation belts. It is a proof of concept per se…showing that some solid science can be done on a budget. The cube is in an elliptical polar orbit, and high enough to stay aloft for a decade. As so long as the com board stays functional, this satellite can be monitored via HAM (@ K7MSU…don’t quote me on that) frequencies. MSU has prepared a UI to snag and analyze the packets…I might play around with that down the road.
Currently, the satellite is loud. They have it configured to blast huge signals still, as the dampening system is still doing its thing. Once the trajectory smooths, it will be tuned down and should be more predictable.
I’ll be watching this one. Good stuff from the alma mater.
Ten years and a few months ago, I became a licensed HAM operator…
I'm going HAM
That means, without any doubt, that the satellite that MSU stuck in orbit last week has indeed been a long time coming.
I’m running up to campus for the mission statement and a possible down-link tomorrow afternoon…stay tuned for this one. We have entered full-on geek mode.
Quantum Levitation is all over the webs. It is way easier to find videos than it is to find explanations…it all boils down to this:
after cooling
You may want to kill the sound for the video…pretty obnoxious.
As speculated, the main thing in play is the fact that at areas of the superconducting material that are not uniform, (defects) flux tubes exist as the material is cooled to extreme temperatures. These tubes act to ‘pin’ the item, with respect to the permanent field.
Physics rules. I really need to track down some liquid nitrogen.
The Dell Mini 9 always draws short straw. The little guy once again gets to play the part of guinea pig, and be the first to upgrade to the new version of Ubuntu.
+1 Oneiric
V. 10.11 a.k.a. Oneiric Ocelot
We’ll see if they sharpened Unity up a bit. Preliminary reviews are pointing at a good release. Expect my review before long.
FWIW, ‘oneiric’ is a mouthy way to say dreamy. I don’t care for the word, and neither does my spell checker.
The Dell Mini 9 always draws short straw. The little guy once again gets to play the part of guinea pig, and be the first to upgrade to the new version of Ubuntu.
+1 Oneiric
V. 10.11 a.k.a. Oneiric Ocelot
We’ll see if they sharpened Unity up a bit. Preliminary reviews are pointing at a good release. Expect my review before long.
FWIW, ‘oneiric’ is a mouthy way to say dreamy. I don’t care for the word, and neither does my spell checker.
