I have a collection of video links for this post. You'll need sound for all of them. Grab your headphones or turn on your speakers.
The first is for TED talks. TED is a conference held anually in Monterey, California with a goal of spreading ideas. They have started putting videos of the talks online for people to watch. I try and watch a presentation about once a month, because I find them so inspiring. The people that give the presentations have amazingly creative ideas in technology, entertainment, and design (TED) that make me think more creatively about the problems I face in my work. Most of the talks are very short, some are a bit longer. This talk (at just under 8 minutes) blew my mind. It starts with the rapid and seamless display of enormous quantities of visual information, and then shows the integration of this technology into a photogrametry application. I can't really describe how incredible this is, you have to see the presentation and play with the demo. It only takes 8 minutes, go watch it now.
OK, are you back (shame on you if you're skipping ahead)? Think of the amazing implications of this. Normally, as a research scientist, I think in terms of "How can I gather this information?" This technology challenges me to instead think "Who else is gathering this information, and what does it tell me that they weren't expecting to find out?" The people gathering the information aren't even aware that they are contributing a piece of the puzzle. Each of the photographs of Notre Dame were taken by ordinary people, none of whom thought, "Gee, if I take enough photos, then I have enough information to reconstruct a realistic 3D model of the cathedral." But many researchers in my field have thought, "Gee, if I had enough photos, I could reconstruct a 3D model of the cathedral" and then set off to take a ton of photos all with proper calibration artifacts, etc. etc. etc. The brilliant part, the truly creative part, was the person who thought, "If I had enough..." and then realized, "But the world does have enough photos of Notre Dame!" and instead solved the bigger and more interesting problem of how to find these photos with all their flaws and work with them anyway. Brilliant. Now extend that network thinking to other areas! Genius.
The second is the first of two commercials that have been airing on UK television lately. One is a surreal commercial for Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate bar. It made me laugh. I like it.
The third video is for a Woolworth's commercial. "It's a bit on the dark side".
Finally, I found out last week that I was selected for Associate Technical Fellow. So yeah me! I'm glad it's over, and I really feel proud about this accomplishment. It was a lot more work than I probably thought (especially since I did the process from the UK while still being classified as "Central"). If you care to join me in celebration, go find a bottle of Black Sheep Ale. And if you do, please let me know where I can get it when I get back to St. Louis.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Moving Air
I've updated the Places I've Been page. I didn't go anywhere in July except back to the US (and other work related trips). Amanda went with the family to Scotland. Maybe I can show her how to tag the places they went to and upload those. It's kinda cool to see everywhere we went in Ireland from 300km up. We covered a good bit of the Emerald Isle.
One thing I forgot to mention that I accomplished last weekend. I fixed Amanda's blower! The heater blower fan for Amanda's Peugeot wasn't spinning (even though I was certain that I checked it when I test drove the car) and as a result if the weather was wet and cool you had to crack the windows to get the windshield to defog. Not a big deal right now, but wouldn't be acceptable come winter. I'd already checked the fuses and relays without finding a problem, but I needed some free time to really check everything out (and a multimeter).
So, last Sunday I borrowed a coworkers multimeter and took out the blower assembly. Turns out it is very easy to get to in Peugeot 306, right under the passenger side dash. First thing I did was check the windings. Measured about 45 KOhms. OK, that sounds reasonable (not open, not short). Put the multimeter on the harness. Dead simple setup, there was two wires for power and one wire to supply a speed control voltage (which means that the speed control circuit is part of the blower assembly and can be replaced in one go if it if faulty, nice). Supply voltage is 14V, good. Control voltage ranges from .7V to something around 2V depending on where I set the fan speed switch on the dash. That looks OK. What the hell is wrong with this thing?
One thing left to try. Hook it back up and see why it won't spin. So I hook up the harness, turn on the car, and whirrrrrrrrr. OK. Reassembly everything, and it continues to work. So, best case scenario, the wire harness had a bad connection with the motor assembly. Disconnecting it and reconnecting it fixed the problem. Worst case scenario is an intermittent fault somewhere in the harness which wiggling stuff around to disassemble and reassemble has temporarily fixed. As long as it keeps working right now, it's fixed. More importantly, I did it, and didn't get ripped off by a garage charging me for a new fan motor (which they probably would have just to do something).
Yesterday I went climbing up at Stanage again, and to stay on topic it was windy as hell. At the bottom of the crag, you barely noticed, but by the time you reached the top it was a very steady 15 mph or so. Never really dangerous, but it did feel like I was more likely to get blown off the face than fall off. We climbed some good challenging routes first, then Rich showed me how to properly set an anchor at the top and how to set protection in the cracks.
I led a very easy route first (I don't remember the British grade, but I'd put it at a 5.5 or maybe a 5.6). This let me concentrate on setting good protection and not having to do anything under duress. All my protection I could set while well balanced with a good hold. Then I led a Severe route. Estimate about a 5.7, maybe an easy 5.8. Again, I could set all my protection from a good spot. I set way more than I needed just to get practice setting protection. It was great. I'm glad to be leading again.
Wednesday I have scheduled some time with the instructor at the climbing gym to show him that I am capable of lead climbing. One other person in the climbing club can lead now, so I hope to pair up with her and get back to leading routes.
The kids start school on Tuesday and they are looking forward to that. I find out the results of my ATF interview on Wednesday. Looks like an exciting week ahead.
One thing I forgot to mention that I accomplished last weekend. I fixed Amanda's blower! The heater blower fan for Amanda's Peugeot wasn't spinning (even though I was certain that I checked it when I test drove the car) and as a result if the weather was wet and cool you had to crack the windows to get the windshield to defog. Not a big deal right now, but wouldn't be acceptable come winter. I'd already checked the fuses and relays without finding a problem, but I needed some free time to really check everything out (and a multimeter).
So, last Sunday I borrowed a coworkers multimeter and took out the blower assembly. Turns out it is very easy to get to in Peugeot 306, right under the passenger side dash. First thing I did was check the windings. Measured about 45 KOhms. OK, that sounds reasonable (not open, not short). Put the multimeter on the harness. Dead simple setup, there was two wires for power and one wire to supply a speed control voltage (which means that the speed control circuit is part of the blower assembly and can be replaced in one go if it if faulty, nice). Supply voltage is 14V, good. Control voltage ranges from .7V to something around 2V depending on where I set the fan speed switch on the dash. That looks OK. What the hell is wrong with this thing?
One thing left to try. Hook it back up and see why it won't spin. So I hook up the harness, turn on the car, and whirrrrrrrrr. OK. Reassembly everything, and it continues to work. So, best case scenario, the wire harness had a bad connection with the motor assembly. Disconnecting it and reconnecting it fixed the problem. Worst case scenario is an intermittent fault somewhere in the harness which wiggling stuff around to disassemble and reassemble has temporarily fixed. As long as it keeps working right now, it's fixed. More importantly, I did it, and didn't get ripped off by a garage charging me for a new fan motor (which they probably would have just to do something).
Yesterday I went climbing up at Stanage again, and to stay on topic it was windy as hell. At the bottom of the crag, you barely noticed, but by the time you reached the top it was a very steady 15 mph or so. Never really dangerous, but it did feel like I was more likely to get blown off the face than fall off. We climbed some good challenging routes first, then Rich showed me how to properly set an anchor at the top and how to set protection in the cracks.
I led a very easy route first (I don't remember the British grade, but I'd put it at a 5.5 or maybe a 5.6). This let me concentrate on setting good protection and not having to do anything under duress. All my protection I could set while well balanced with a good hold. Then I led a Severe route. Estimate about a 5.7, maybe an easy 5.8. Again, I could set all my protection from a good spot. I set way more than I needed just to get practice setting protection. It was great. I'm glad to be leading again.
Wednesday I have scheduled some time with the instructor at the climbing gym to show him that I am capable of lead climbing. One other person in the climbing club can lead now, so I hope to pair up with her and get back to leading routes.
The kids start school on Tuesday and they are looking forward to that. I find out the results of my ATF interview on Wednesday. Looks like an exciting week ahead.
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