Ich habe glücklicherweise gerade die Herren (und Damen?) von SpaceLiveCast entdeckt. Offenbar machen die schon eine ganze Weile Livestreams zu den verschiedenen Raumfahrt-Events.

P.S.: Wenn ich einen Wunsch frei hätte, wäre das, dass die Seite einen Video Podcast Feed anbietet….(wird Hilfe benötigt?)

Source 1: http://spacelivecast.de/
Source 2: http://www.raumfahrer.net
Source 3: http://spacelivecast.de/2011/04/29-04-ab-1900-uhr-sts-134-letzter-endeavour-flug/

Having more and more hardware and software around us creates the use cases for a broader audience people like me have for 10+ years. Mainstream is a bitch for nerds

That said I found a nice plastic box I want to use in a winter project. This plastic box is called “EzControl XS1”. It comes with several visible and “invisible” interfaces.

The visible and obvious ones are: power, 100 mbit ethernet, sd card slot. So it takes some power and does something on the network. The not so obvious and therefore “invisible” interfaces are the most interesting ones: the EzControl XS1 comes with the ability to send and receive on 433 Mhz and 868 Mhz.

Yes that are the ranges used by switchable and dimable power sockets, temperature sensor and AMR. The EzControl XS1 is not that cheap (coming at 189 Euros for the base version and additional 65 Euros per upgrade option). I do not own one yet so it’s the plan to acquire at least one and start of with dimable power sockets and add more sensors and actors on the way

One great feature of the EzControl XS1 is the embedded WebServer with which the users application (the one I want to write) can interact using a HTTP/JSON Protocol. Oh dear: Sensor data and Actor control using JSON. How great is that!

There is some example code available (even a proprietary iPad/iPhone client) but since I want to have some custom features I do not currently see to be available in software I am going to write a set of tools which will get and protocol sensor data and run scripts to controls actors. Oh it’ll be all available as open source (license not yet chosen).

P.S.: If some one from Rose+Herleth is reading this and wants to help – send me a test unit

Source 1: http://www.ezcontrol.de (in german though)
Source 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_meter_reading
Source 3: http://www.ezcontrol.de/content/view/12/31/

“We’ve partnered with Google to offer our entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It’s an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates our ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology’s incredible potential to improve our lives. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.”

Source: http://www.popsci.com/archives

I was in desperate need for an DDate equivalent running on Windows. DDate is an unix implementaion of date accoridng to the erisian calendar described in the principia discordia.

I only found some C Implementations. And since it’s fun to do I ported the original Discordian Date C code to C#.

You can download the C# sourcecode, licensed under CC-BY-NC here.

I also created a web page which displays the current discordian date and offers you to convert any gregorian date into discordian date representation.

This page can be accesses here. You can call another page with parameters and you only will get the ddate output back:

for example: http://ddate.schrankmonster.de/DiscordianDate.aspx?year=2009&month=6&day=9

Source 1: http://ddate.schrankmonster.de/
Source 2: http://dropbox.schrankmonster.de/dropped/SharpDDateLib.zip

“In an era when most technology based products follow a path of ever-increasing capability and
reliability while simultaneously reducing costs, launch vehicles today are little changed from those of
40 years ago. SpaceX aims to change this paradigm by developing a family of launch vehicles and
spacecraft which will ultimately increase the reliability and reduce the cost of space access by a factor
of ten. Coupled with the emerging market for private and commercial space transport, this new model
will re-ignite humanity’s efforts to explore and develop space.”

Source: http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php

“For some time now, I’ve been studying how to build Earth in Blender. I’ve read quite a few tutorials, studied NASA’s Blue Marble images, and received critique from other Blender enthusiasts. I now have some satisfactory results, which I’d be happy to share.

I’ve put together a 21-page tutorial which explains how I achieved my Earth renders. I know there are already a lot of Earth tutorials out there – but none that I found helped me get quite the effect that I wanted. My tutorial combines what I gleaned from all the other tutorials, with what I learned on my own through hours of experimenting. I’m sure it’s not perfect – but I think it will be helpful for anyone interested in the subject.

The tutorial focuses on three different models of Earth – a photographic-style Earth, a Blue-Marble-style Earth, and a night Earth. It demonstrates how to render details such as proper specular shading and ray-traced cloud shadows.”

There’s a free pdf tutorial available that shows how to create these 3D renderings with blender.

Source 1: http://chamberlinproductions.110mb.com/mappedearth.html
Source 2: “what’s the size of the earth compared to”
Source 3: http://web.olp.net/wildernesslodge/Earth%20Tutorial.pdf

It’s unlikely to be from an unnatural alien source but if you take in account that all the equipment was built by students on the campus of Durban Universit… that is just astonishing.

Source 1: http://www.thirdeyeconcept.com/forums/index.php?page=258
Source 2: http://indlebe.dut.ac.za/

“NASA Images is a service of Internet Archive ( www.archive.org ), a non-profit library, to offer public access to NASA’s images, videos and audio collections. NASA Images is constantly growing with the addition of current media from NASA as well as newly digitized media from the archives of the NASA Centers.
The goal of NASA Images is to increase our understanding of the earth, our solar system and the universe beyond in order to benefit humanity. “

Source: http://www.nasaimages.org/

“Announced this morning by TVR Managing Director, David Oxley, at an exclusive preview event held at the new TVR development works in Lancashire, England – TVR Production has resumed!

Upon the momentous occasion, which included invited members of the TVR Car Club, TVR staff presented the TVR Sagaris model year 2008. Exterior design has remained the same except for new 5 spoke wheels, while the interior receives a new center console with satellite navigation.

As promised back in 2006 by TVR owner, Nikolai Smolenski said “My intention is to expand the sales and distribution of TVR cars throughout Europe, the rest of the world and USA markets is a key part of the business strategy of the company.” Built as a left hand drive model, the 2008 Sagaris confirms it will be exported internationally.

Preliminary pricing puts the 2008 TVR Sagaris just below 85.000 Euros.”

So now the only thing I need is the money to buy one of these beasts… I’ll have one in black or white

the re-designed interior included satnav…touchscreen…

…and re-designed exhausts… I actually liked the side-exausts better…

the new bonnet … and the gorgeous speed six…*raaawwr*

Source 1: http://www.worldcarfans.com/9080710.012/page1/tvr-production-restarts—2008-sagaris-presented
Source 2: http://www.tvr-car-club.co.uk/tvrpreviewevent.asp

“Citizens’ Band radio (CB) is, in many countries, a system of short-distance, simplex^[1] radio communications between individuals on a selection of 40 channels within the 27 MHz (11 meter) band. The CB radio service should not be confused with FRS, GMRS, MURS, or amateur (“ham”) radio. Similar personal radio services exist in other countries, with varying requirements for licensing and differing technical standards. In many countries, CB does not require a license and, unlike amateur radio, it may be used for business as well as personal communications.”

For several years now there is a group of people from virtually everywhere in germany who connect their CB radios to the internet – they link their “gateways” together using a software normally used by online gamers called “TeamSpeak”. All you have to do to take a look is to read this short how-to and follow the steps.

Here’s a sneak-peak at the current status of the server:

There’s even a livestream available (but sometimes not working):

Source 1: http://www.freiesfunknetz.com/
Source 2: http://www.goteamspeak.com/

There’s NASA TV but on the NASA website you only get low (150kbit) bitrate streams. If you want better quality, just try these links:

300kbit Stream
500kbit Stream
1200kbit Stream

Of course you can always go with the standard website livestream…

See an avalanche on Mars:

“How much data was released? 2422 observations, making up 9.9 terabytes “in over 225,599 standard PDS and extras products” according to our database specialist. This was for data between orbit ranges 4400 and 6999, or between July 05, 2007 and January 23, 2008 (which is a lot of loops around the Red Planet!)

We have now released a total of 16.8 TB worth of data, or nearly 500,000 image products. Please check out the latest images on the HiRISE website on the “March 2008: New HiRISE Images Released to the Planetary Data System” page.”

Source 1: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/HiBlog/?p=147
Source 2: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007338_2640
Source 3: http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/
Source 4: http://hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/
Source 5: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

“One reason I recently don’t blog too much is the fact that I am a bit restricted in what I can tell. Being involved in some exciting projects, the confidentiality of these projects does not allow much publicity.”

So really the only thing I can write about is that I am honored to work with these great people and being part of the process of creating great software.

So – for now I am on my way back to Cambridge – the next article will be written from there…

Of course I will write about all the things when I am allowed to do so…

Source 1: Martin Calsyn
Source 2: Andreas Heil
Source 3: http://research.microsoft.com/ero/

“The image below is an up to date map of the solar system displaying the orbits of the terrestrial planets and the estimated position of thousands of known asteroids. This diagram is missing comets, space probes and, of course, the undiscovered asteroids. Even conservative estimates would suggest that for every asteroid on a dangerous Earth-Approaching orbit there are hundreds more which have yet to be discovered. There are over 300 known objects on Earth-crossing orbits, the majority of which are potentially capable of causing death and destruction on a scale unheard of in human history.”

To make this clear: red and yellow = (possibly) EVIL! ZOMG!

“Small green points mark the location of asteroids which do not approach close to the Earth right now. This does not exclude the possibility that they will do so in the future but generally we can consider the Earth to be safe from these for the near future. Yellow objects (with the exception of the one in the middle which we astronomers call the Sun are Earth approaching asteroids which are called Amors after the first one discovered. Amors have orbits which come close to the Earth but they don’t cross the Earth’s orbit. However, their orbits are close enough to the Earth that they could potentially be perturbed by the influence of the planets and begin to cross the Earth’s orbit in a short time. There are over 300 known objects on such orbits.

Finally the red boxes mark the location of the Apollo and Aten asteroids. These cross the Earth’s orbit and are the most directly identifiable astronomical threat for the near future.”

Source: http://szyzyg.arm.ac.uk/~spm/neo_map.html

thanks do #blogs.de irc channel for the link.

Source: Google Maps

“We’re using weather balloons to go up to approximately 100k feet armed with 4 cameras… 20 megapixels of camera! We’ll be taking shots every 7 seconds for two hours and measuring the temperature with the Make: controller and thermistors!

It took 16 people working on this, countless cases of mountain dew, lots of take-out food, and a lot of sleepless nights, and we intend to fly Sunday!

Cloud cover, snow, and mechanical failure may postpone the launch, but we’re ready to give it our best shot this weekend.

In this Make: Video Podcast, you’ll learn all the details of how to put a weather balloon up into space! The weather balloon will make it up to about 100,000 feet. That’s almost 20 miles up and more than twice the height of being in an airplane. It’s high enough that the sky is black and you can see the curvature of the earth.”

Source: EarthCam.com Top Ten
Source: Webcam

Good to know that after you got killed by the radiation someone else (probably doing the job you did previously) can use your NukAlert for another 3 months-years…

Source: http://nukalert.com/

“MIRAVI stands for MERIS Images RApid VIsualization and it’s a data-driven system for real time image rendering and quality analysis. Those images, though fascinating, are not suitable for scientific use. Scientists usually prefer to work with MERIS data products, which fully exploit the 15 spectral bands of the instrument, and which are generated with sophisticated algorithms.

MIRAVI generates the images directly from the MERIS raw data (i.e. the Level 0 data), usually available within 2 hours from data acquisition, depending whether the raw data have been transmitted directly to ground stations, or first recorded onboard then transmitted to ground stations.

The MIRAVI image processing does not intend to provide a very accurate geolocation or calibration. The high geolocation accuracy is achieved within the standard MERIS data products (less than ½ pixels).

MIRAVI generates the images using the MERIS Full Resolution (FR) mode (resolution about 260 m) which is activated systematically over land and coastal areas of Europe, Africa and Asia, and non-systematically over America. In its Reduced Resolution (RR) mode (resolution about 1200 m), MERIS operates systematically along its orbit illuminated by the sun.”

Source: http://miravi.eo.esa.int/en/

Well well, the two sneaky space travellers are kind of tattered – ones wheel isn’t working anymore and the other one had to get his brain “reformated” several times…but all over all they are in good shape for very old fellas.

Source: http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/home/

“In 1990, we started to develop a Wearable Power Assist Suit, and in 1991 we fabricated a Powered Arm constructing the master and slave system in one unit by utilizing a rubber tube air actuator and sensing cuff, [ref. 1]. In 1994, we developed a Wearable Powered Suit constructed with powered arms, a powered waist, and powered legs [ref. 2], and finally in 2002, we developed a Stand Alone Type Wearable Power Assist Suit [ref. 3]. This suit was composed of newly developed air bag actuators driven by micro air pumps, newly developed muscle hardness sensors, and an embedded micro computer. The muscle hardness sensor was developed for detecting the muscle force driving joints. The micro computer was for calculation of the necessary joints torques to lift heavy objects. The calculation equations was derived by body mechanics. This suit could run continuously 20 minutes with 12 volts Ni-Cd portable batteries. The latest power assist suit can generate higher assist power, and is composed of compact body, a compact embedded micro computer, small and flat rotary sensors, and has newly designed muscle sensors which are embedded in 3-D mesh [ref. 4].”

Source: http://www.we.kanagawa-it.ac.jp/~yamamoto_lab/pas/index.htm

Follow the link and see other home-cockpit-setups.

Source: http://www.shorttext.com/z0gv5

They make great looking powerful sports cars and I hope one day one will be mine They are quite affordable compared to other supercars – for example you can get a brand new TVR Sagaris (4l V6) for 80k EURO…a pre owned 2004 Cerbera (4.5l V8) comes for about 48k EURO…did I mention they do not come below 380 bhp and weigh as much as two packs of chewing gum? (I’ll have to pay royalties to Jeremy Clarkson for that…damn!).

The fact is that the Cerbera has gone out of official production in 2004. But now TVR is auctioning the last made Cerbera on the Internet:

Yes, you can get that brand new, pepper white, 420 bhp supercar…just sign up and bid…well if you have the money (which I don’t)…

Beside the Cerbera I fell in love with the Sagaris…look how gorgeous it is:

raaawwrrr!!

I just found the sagaris video:

If you want to buy me one…contact me

Source 1: http://www.thelastcerbera.com/
Source 2: http://www.tvr.co.uk/overview_sagaris.php

“This is my analyse about how google map works, et specially how the tiles are encoded. Google map uses pre-rendered tiles that can be obtained with a simple url. This article explains how to build the url for a tile from its geo coordinates (latitude/longitude)”

Google Earth mirroring anyone?

Source: http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/googlemap.asp

It’s also available through the podcast or directly linked here.

This is only one of several other panoramic views of the moon.

Source: http://moonpans.co.uk/vr/

But first a before-after comparision:

before

Aaaaaand:

after

Tell us what you think of it!

We will add some more pictures in the next hours, beside that a short movie in 720p is in the rendering process at the moment.

Last time I worked with 3D tools they were called “3D Studio Max 3.0″…which is quite a while ago. 3D Studios current version number is 8… You can grab your own trial version here.

We actually experimented a lot with the tools…look what earth became after just seconds of play:

yes,we even hair-styled earth!

Source 1: original article and picture
Source 2: 3D Studio MAX trial

Source: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMY46XAIPE_index_0.html

Yeah I know…the picture is shabby…I’ll maybe create a better looking version…

Source: http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

“Because GPS satellites, which were put into orbit by the Department of Defense, are funded by U.S. taxpayers, the signal is free — consumers need only purchase a receiver. Galileo, on the other hand, must make money to reimburse its investors — presumably by charging a fee for PRN codes.”

Source 1: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/521790/?sc=rsla

Source 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_positioning_system

Source: http://swith.gazaxian.com/2001seconds.htm

“It is our self-supporting vacuum elevator; a light and resistant structure built with aluminium and polycarbonate. By simple principles of physics; the difference in air pressure above and beneath the vacuum elevator cab literally transports you by air. It is the vacuum pumps or turbines that pull you up to the next Floor and the slow release of air pressure that floats you down.

Pneumatic Vacuum Elevators are easier to install, maintain, and operate than traditional elevators. They are especially ideal for existing homes due to their compact design because excavating a pit, and hoistway are not required. Air pressure above and beneath the elevator cab are the key to transporting.

The reliability and safety of these vacuum elevators are unsurpassed due to the physics behind the design; it is virtually impossible to get stuck between floors, or freefall.”

Source: daytonyelevators

Vertical-axis wind turbines not only look very sci-fi, but when you add LEDs to the border of the turbine you can use them as a display:

So I leave you with a patent pending revolution which produces power and is virtually silent…whatever that means.

Source: http://www.quietrevolution.co.uk/

There’s a short video you shouldn’t miss on that:

Great historical speeches and sounds for free download. Including Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein,Robert Frost,…

Source: http://www.freeinfosociety.com/site.php?postnum=460

Despite focusing on the lies we were told about the PS3 in the last year and months here are the hard facts with the source of the information for backup:

• 
  
  You won’t get HDMI and Wireless LAN with the “cheap” EURO 499,- version which means you even won’t get BlueRay-HDTV movies with this SKU.


• 
  
  32,5 cm x 9.8 cm x 27,4 cm and 5 kg is HUGE compared to:




• 
  
  The Xbоx 360 weights 3.5 kg and is 30,9 cm x 8,3 cm x 25,8 cm
  or even


• 
  
  The Xbоx weight 4 kg and is 32,0 cm x 10,1 cm x 26,0 cm


• 
  
  you won’t get a controller with rumble/vibration… because of the innovative motion sensors…


• 
  
  you get GigaBit ethernet… for what purpose?

stay tuned for more tales of interest…

Source 1: PS3 press release
Source 2: PS3 controller press release

Hurray!

“This week on Top Gear, the show got a thrilling new look, and so did we. Plus, the boys made a people carrier into an exciting convertible, James enjoyed a new Honda, Jeremy enjoyed a Swedish supercar, and Richard didn’t enjoy a Micra. At all.”

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/

“Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.”

Source: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Since my GPS logging tool is not working at the moment I just made a picture of the timer that comes with BMWs iDrive. So it’s 9 Minutes 25 seconds for the complete racetrack…very nice.

“When a liquid drop is placed on a surface held at a temperature much higher than the liquid’s boiling point (such as a drop of water in a very hot pan) it hovers on its own vapor cushion, without wetting the surface. This phenomenon is called film-boiling and occurs beyond a surface temperature called the Leidenfrost point (about 200 – 300 ºC for water on flat surfaces, depending on surface quality).”

“This method uses heat to pump liquid, and could therefore be used in pumps for coolants, for instance to cool microprocessors. Such a pump would need no additional power (it’s run by the heat that needs to be removed anyway), it would have no moving parts, and it wouldn’t require a thermostat. Whether this method will actually be powerful enough for applications in, say, a laptop, is not yet known.”

Source: http://www.uoregon.edu/~linke/res_droplets.html

Source: http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/core.html

“Accurate Image Manipulation for Desktop Publishing (AIM) is devoted for the best possible quality in the desktop publishing workflow. This calls for accurate calibration and correct choice for the working space.

The calibration setup that is in use in high-end professional digital imaging, the linear workflow, is explained here in detail as well as the issues of CRT gamma.”

this is NOT usable for calibration…go to the site…

Source 1: http://www.kiesows.de/blog/2006/03/11/kalibrieren

Source 2: http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/evaluation/cdg/cdg.htm

we are on the road again on our way to CeBIT / Hannover… see you there!

the light is better in the virtual version…

half real…half virtual

Source 1: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=233460

Source 2: http://www.ag-systems.net/

It seems that there is a new definitive wallpaper available for your desktop:

Spiral Galaxy M101

It’s even available in a 440 megabyte uncompressed TIF…

Source: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2006/10/

That’s a humongous tank isn’t it? And it’s shiny new… hopefully it will prevent more catastrophes.

Source: Nasa.gov

Source: http://www.levitated.net/p5/chamber/index.html

I did not write for over a week now – I simply had no time to write – but now I want to give you a short update on what happened the last days:

2. December: the 360 arrives. I had only some time to unpack and testdrive PGR3 – in fact it’s what was promised – the next generation gaming console. (please make a firmware update so that the DVD drive is more quiet).

yes, there’s an apple keyboard attached to the 360.

To raise the pain-bar the desperatly needed XBOX VGA cable is not available anywhere around. I actually have to wait till it’s available again. Until then I am using the 360 via PAL-60 – which is – oh well …

There are some nice and some bad things to say about the 360 – one thing I just found out and impressed me: when you want to type – let’s say in XBOX live – you might want to use the on-screen keyboard. But when you attach a commonly used USB keyboard to the 360 – you can use it for the typing job … I wasn’t expecting that.

late last week I attended the 3rd “Speakers Acting” Training held by Vision Voices Executives Alexandra Schwarze and Martin Marx. As you can imagine it was a fantastic and enriching experience.

And the this weekend it finally happened: SIXT gave me my the first V6 – a Mercedes Benz ML320 – what a … hell of a car.

hmm… a SUV at >220 km/h… hrhr eat this mother nature!

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you what I did with the addictive ML – We took a trip to Berlin to meet with the guys of the Chaos Computer Club Berlin who are organising the 22th Chaos Communication Congress. As things work out we will be in Berlin at 25th of december with 10 people – recording and streaming the whole congress for you. Working closely together with the guys from congress-tv, congress-streaming… I can only cross fingers and hope that everything is going to happen as planned and discussed.

Source 1: http://www.visionvoice.de
Source 2: http://www.ccc.de
Source 3: http://www.ccc.de/congress/2005