Wired News: NASA Test Jet Hits 5,000 Mph

Sometimes a technological breakthrough leaves a me sitting in an akward silence, struck dumb by the possibilities that have been opened before the human race. In this Wired News article we learn that NASA has successfully tested a ScramJet and preliminary results indicate that the jet flew at 5000 mile per hour or Mach 7. Here is a quote from the article:

LOS ANGELES -- Three years after its first test flight ended in an explosion, NASA on Saturday successfully launched an experimental jet that the agency believes reached a record-setting speed of about 5,000 mph.

This is the kind of technology that has so many applications that you just have to sit and wonder what it will bring to the world. Of course there is the initial application of jets moving through the air at Mach 7. If the technology can be commercialize then we could easily travel from New York to Los Angeles in an hour. Travel to anyplace in the world would take a few hours at most. That is a phenomenal concept.

To compare this technology to our current commercial flight infrastructure is laughable. This is an order of magnitude faster. A better comparison would be between the jet airplane and wind-powered ships.

It will probably take 100 years to commercialize this technology. I doubt that I'll ever get the chance to ride in a Mach 7 jet, except in my mind, where I've gone to Paris for Dinner.

TrashTalk - The Mac Trash Talker

This morning Jeremy wrote about an idea for a Trash Talking mac application. I remember talking with him and others about this at the Geek Dinner a few weeks ago, and thought it would be a fun little project.

Well, I had some time to myself this afternoon, and I had been meaning to check out CamelBones (the excellent framework that lets you write Mac Gui apps in perl), so I hacked together a first draft of a Mac Trash Talker. This is an open source app, and you can download it here.

Ikea

Jenna and I went to Ikea today. This was the first time I had been there, and it was really an overwhelming experience. The store is huge and they make it hard to get out without seeing the entire thing, on both floors. As we were nearing the end of our ordeal, I turned to Jenna and said, "I didn't know hell would be so colorful."

I love a company that has fun...

I occasionally order music from CD Baby, which has a great selection of independent artists. They have a great selection of bay area groups, and often I can get a CD or two from them after I hear a group I really like around town.

Last week I ordered a copy of Gary Jules' Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets, and when they shipped it CD Baby sent me this message:

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, March 26th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

I really love a company that can have fun, and not take itself too seriously.

Avalanche Company: The 213 Things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army

This post has got to be one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. And, I've never seen it before in the net, until today, so that makes it doubly good. The original is here. The description on the site says:

Once upon a time, there was a SPC Schwarz stationed with the Army in the Balkans. SPC Schwarz was either very clever or very bored; but probably both, since he managed to attempt or be warned about 213 things he wasn't allowed to do. He collected those things into a hillarious list and posted them to the web.

Here are some of my favorites:

8. Not allowed to add pictures of officers I don't like to War Criminal posters
14. Not allowed out of my office when the president visited Sarajevo.
20. Must not taunt the French any more.
23. Must never ask anyone who outranks me if they've been smoking crack.
32. Not allowed to let sock puppets take command of my post.
33. Not allowed to chew gum at formation, unless I brought enough for everybody.
34. (Next day) Not allowed to chew gum at formation even if I *did* bring enough for everybody.
57. The proper response to a lawful order is not 'Why?'
68. I may not line my helmet with tin foil to ‘Block out the space mind control lasers'.
87. If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it.
104. Vodka, green food coloring, and a ‘Cool Mint’ Listerine® bottle is not a good combination.
200. My chain of command is not interested in why I 'just happen' to have a kilt, an inflatable sheep, and a box of rubber bands in the back of my car.
204. NEVER nail a stuffed bunny to a cross and put it up in front of the Battalion Headquarters sign as an "Easter Desecration."
210. Must not make T-shirts up depciting a pig with the writing "Eat Pork or Die" in Arabic to bring as civilian attire when preparing to deploy to a primarily Muslim country.

[via BoingBoing via The Adventures of Accordian Guy in the 21st Century]

The real first impression - Part II

From a recruiter at Microsoft, here is an article that outlines what this person likes to see on a resume.

Google Local Search

Google has release a combination of it's search engine and a yellow pages application to come up with Google Local Search.

Great sentence

Tonight I'm reading Cory Doctorow's short story collection "A Place So Foreign and 8 More". Overall it's a nice set of stories, but I just ran across this sentence in "The Super Man and the Bugout", which I thought was wonderful.

It wasn't exactly devious, but it certainly teetered on the meridian separating planning and plotting.

280 Insider Newsletter March 2004. AIPMM, FireTide, Product Marketing Handbook for Software, QuickSurveys

This week FireTide is highlighted in the 280 Insider Newsletter

One of the hot companies we've been watching is Firetide. Funded by Menlo Ventures, HMS Ventures, and Hawaiian Electric Industries, FireTide is a wireless networking company. They have just shipped their first product and have brought on a talented new CEO by the name of Bo Larsson. Additionally they also just won the Best of Show at the Wi Fi planet show.

At first glance FireTide appears to be yet another mesh networking company. But when you look a little deeper you realize that they provide a very unique and compelling solution. The HotPoint Wireless Mesh Router, their first product, completely eliminates the need to pull Ethernet cables. Anyone who is familiar with setting up networks knows that when you set up a network one of the biggest hassles is getting Ethernet ports to where you need them. Even if you are setting up a Wi Fi network, you still need to have an Ethernet port to plug in your access point. Thus if you want to network a building larger than a few hundred feet (802.11b only supports about 300 feet), you have to pull wire, which makes it expensive and time-consuming.

FireTide HotPoint routers provide a simple and reliable alternative to standard LAN cabling, forming automatic, self-healing networks. For situations where a network must be set up rapidly (emergency hospitals, army command and control centers, trade shows) or where it is impractical or too costly to pull wire, FireTide has a very compelling solution.

Wi-Fi Networking News: Mesh May Achieve Broader Reach

Wi-Fi Networking News: Mesh May Achieve Broader Reach

Mesh Networks is releasing a mesh software suite, MeshConnex, that can be embedded on any standard 802.11 chip: Initially, Mesh Networks built the software into Atheros 802.11a/b/g access point chipsets so that products built with those chips can support mesh networking. Embedding Mesh Networks’ software onto standard 802.11 chips means that customers can buy products from a variety of vendors. The move could also drive down the price for equipment with MeshConnex because the software will be added to standard 802.11 gear.

FireTide is hiring...

If you are a regular reader of this site, you already know that I recently moved to FireTide to lead their QA efforts. I'm having a great time and the company, and have found that it's a very interesting place to work. Now, I'd like to invite you to join me. FireTide has several positions open, but I'm going to talk about 2 specifically.

I have 2 openings for QA test engineers in my group. You can email me if you are interested or have questions. You should also feel free to email your resume to jobs@firetide.com.

SQA Platform Test Engineer
As a QA test engineer, you will test an embedded wireless product with emphasis on layer 2 networking. Write test plans, and then execute those plans in a timely manner. Work with development engineering to create and verify complex network topologies. Provide support as needed during the alpha and beta phases of test cycle. Work with others to ensure that a quality product is delivered on time.

SQA NMS Test Engineer
As a QA test engineer, you will test an embedded wireless product and its Java management system. Write test plans, and then execute those plans in a timely manner. Work with development engineering to create and verify manageability of complex network topologies. Provide support as needed during the alpha and beta phases of test cycle. Work with others to ensure that a quality product is delivered on time.

HeadlinedNews.com - Ipod Used In Domestic Homicide - Mar. 05, 2004

I don't think there is anything I can say about this story from HeadlinedNews.com. I imagine, given the weight of an iPod, that you would have to hit someone pretty hard with it to kill him.

Brad Pulaski had died of blunt trauma to the head after being repeatedly bludgeoned with an iPod, a popular MP3 player produced by Apple.

[via The Unofficial Apple Weblog]

HOW-TO - Ethernet Cables

I haven't made an ethernet cable in about 5 years, so when I needed to today I jumped on google and found this site. It's really well done, if you need a reference for this kind of thing.

Cal Aggie Alumni Association: UC Davis Alumni College

This July UC Davis is hosting an Alumni College entitled Social Change and Ethical Challenges. I'm not an alumnus of UC Davis, but my Wife is, and I think we are going to be attending the college this summer.

They've got some great sounding sessions lined up including:

• Social Challenges in the American Founding


• The Challenges of Globalization


• Who Wins and Who Loses from Globalization?


• Business, Government and Social Change: Lessons from the Progressive Era


• Religion in the Modern World

If you are in the area, and have a couple of days to spend in Davis in July (ugh), you might want to consider the conference. There is a discount if you went to Davis, but it's open to everyone.

InfoWorld: Comcast cutting off spam 'zombies': March 09, 2004: By : Security

According to this article in InfoWorld comcast is starting to cut off internet access for people whose machines are spewing out spam:

Comcast has been contacting customers whose machines are being used as "zombies" to forward spam e-mail with warning messages. In some cases, the company has cut off Internet access to customers, some of whom are unaware their system is sending out the commercial solicitations, said Jeanne Russo, a spokeswoman for Comcast's cable division.

It's too bad that is has come to this, but I'm glad that this consumer ISP is taking steps to protect the network from people who aren't meeting their responsibilities to keep their machines virus free.

[via /.]

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things - Spam Haiku

BoingBoing has an article today about some writing Russell Buckley has been doing about Spam Haiku. I wrote to him about my SpamKu Project and got a nice response from him:

1. Damn and I thought I was being original.
2. Damn - your idea is much cleverer.
3. But then the purist takes over as I realise your Haiku doesn't use the traditional 5/7/5 syllable pattern.

He's right in 3, my algorithm only counts vowels to figure out how many syllables are in a line. It's a pretty crude way to do it, but works sometimes :-)

Housekeeping...

I've been doing a little housekeeping on the site over the last day or two. You'll notice that the bar of stuff on the right of the page is much shorter now. I've moved my BlogRoll to it's own page. I've also moved the archives off the sidebar to their own page. I've been blogging for a couple of years now, and even with a monthly archive, the list is too long to keep in the sidebar. You will find links to both pages in the navigation section.

Natural Bridges State Beach...

Last weekend was the first nice weekend of the spring for us here in Silicon Valley. So rather than spend the day inside looking at a computer, Jenna and I went to Natural Bridges State Beach to get some fresh sea air and have dinner with some friends. I've posted about 30 pictures here, and I hope you enjoy them.

We took 17 over to Santa Cruz and spent a few hours at Natural Bridges State Beach. This is one of my favorite beaches because of all the great tide pools. We spent quite a bit of time hoping over the moss covered rocks, watching the wildlife in the tide pools and people watching at the beach.

After the beach, we hiked down the Monarch trail to see if there were still any butterflies this late in the season. We only saw one or two, but it was a nice little hike. After that we took a short nature trail, and saw a cute little gopher building a nest.

We sat and watched the gopher for a long time, but then some more hikers came down the trail and ruined the mood with their loud talking. So, we got back in the car and headed up highway 1 to see our friend's new house and enjoy a late dinner.

All in all, it was a perfect Saturday.

TikiMac: Devil Duckie Drive

TikiMac has introduced the "Devil Duckie Drive" which is a flash drive stuffed into a Devil Duck.

They are cute, and could make a real impression when you show up at your next meeting with your with one plugged into your computer. They can be used directly or with an extension cable.

According to the site you can get them in 128M, 256M, and 512M. The costs range from $64.99 to $142.99.

The funny part of this is that FireTide gives these ducks away at trade shows, although without the flash drive ;-)

[via MacCentral]

Go Sharks...

I went to my first NHL game last night, and got to see the San Jose Sharks win over the Montreal Canadiens. The score was 4 to 3. I was struck by the speed of the game, I'm used to watching sports like baseball, and it was great to watch a really fast paced game. Also, I couldn't help but wonder how many referees the league goes through in a season. It seems like they get hit quite a bit.

I ended up going because the CTO at my company, Ike Nassi, had a couple of extra tickets. He ended up sitting on the other side of the arena, and Dave (my boss) and I sat in Ike's seats.

So, thanks to Ike for the tickets, it was a lot of fun.

Letters From Exile Gallery :: FireTide Golf Outing -- February 2004

Last Friday, I went out to play golf with a couple of the guys from FireTide. We had a great time. I took a couple of pictures for everyone to see. The course was beautiful, and it was a great game. I didn't even embarrass myself too much.

We went to Cinnabar Hills, played 18 holes, and had a wonderful afternoon.

Thanks to Ken for arranging everything.

Oscar...

I'm sitting here watching the Oscars, and I said to my wife, "Hey we could blog this while it's happening." She gave me a look that I can't really describe, but I don't think it was complementary. Anyway, I just realized that I haven't even seen most of the movies out this year. I think I was just too busy at Airgo to see any movies, so I'm glad that I've moved over to FireTide, maybe this year I'll be able to see some movies.