The spice of life

The iPad

So a lot of hoopla happened around the iPad, as a self appointed early adopter of technologies (such as the Apple Newton, the wide screen movie glasses etc.) I had to get in the rush with the rest of the group that gobbled up 2 million iPads in 60 days. For the iPad's features, it really is a machine perfect for my wife, she can do email, calendar, watch chinese soap and read the Bible on this one simple device. So when the iPad came out, I asked her which one she wanted ? The answer ? The iPad 3G.

The Pelican Case-Project Icarus

For my project Icarus, I'm following the step by step guide set up by these MIT students. The components seem simple, box, camera, GPS tracker, balloon, parachute. As most of you already know, I've secured the SPOT messenger GPS tracker and according to Len Youden, General Manager of Yamnuska Mountain Adventures, it's the right decision. GPS, check.

iPed

With the release of global iPad, China's recent "iPed" comes as no surprise, with a full android OS and slick hardware topped by highly affordable pricing, the iPed is receiving international attention. Of course, this also shows how far China has come in the past decade from pirating Louis Vuitton to pirating iPad. 

SPOT Satellite Personal Tracker

The first purchase I made for project Icarus is the SPOT personal tracker for retrieval purpose.  The original price on this unit is $120, I was lucky enough to find it on Craigslist for $50. As I track along the different teams doing this project, one common theme I noticed is cost is never calculated accurately and doesn't reflect the true cost of doing this project. I realize it's probably because most people doing this are engineers and not business managers. No wonder when engineers are put in charge we always have cost over runs :) So in my documentation I will try to be as detailed as possible to reflect the true cost of doing this project. I will do this by separating the cost into fixed and variable costs, fixed costs in this case means re-usable parts such as the camera (hopefully), the styrofoam box, the parachute, and the SPOT personal tracker. The variable costs will be costs incurred per single launch, such as the balloon and the helium. Back to the SPOT tracker, the web interface is extremely easy to use, allows you to share your coordinates, create a web page for tracking and all your friends and family can track you via a web browser (not sure if that's a good idea).  Here's a screen shot attached. I will be performing various tests to ensure the unit is capable for our launch.

Project Icarus

So I finally decided to do Project Icarus, a MIT project aimed at doing near space photography on a budget. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, I will start by simply duplicating 1337arts step-by-step guide and record my findings along the way. After printing out the guide, I've compiled a list of equipment required to do this project as a check list.

Styrofoam Cooler

Canon Camera

Parachute

Weather Balloon

GPS Phone

Satellite Messenger

The GPS Phone and Satellite Messenger are redundant parts, its sole purpose is so the unit can emit GPS signals for retrieval purposes. The Spot Messenger is the recommended product so I'll try my luck on Craigslist or eBay and see if I can get a used one for a reasonable price. I will try to document the progress through this blog as I barter, secure and build parts to complete this project.

Introducing CoCo

As Evan and Ethan got older, one recurring theme seems to pop up in their little head-I want a dog !! As a dog lover and someone who grew up with dogs, I want a dog too. So Evan, Ethan and I teamed up to convince Clara it's a good idea to have a dog, since taking care of two kids and cleaning up after me probably wasn't enough work to keep her busy :P After a year of persuasion and writing a bunch of empty promises (yes, I will take care of her, you don't have to do a thing) We finally decided to get a dog. The original intent was to get one from the pound, coming from the US, where we can get stray dogs for free, I got a sticker shock when I went to the Vancouver pound to find out it costs $500 to adopt a stray dog. $500 !!! The government evidently decided it was a good idea to keep the dogs in the pound instead of letting them go to loving homes, another policy victory where big brother over rules. At any rate, we then started trying to decide which breed we wanted, my last dog was a Rottweiler and she was an awesome dog, so I really wanted another Rottweiler; Clara thinks Rottweilers look too mean (which I counter argued they have a really soft heart), Clara's suggestion was we get a Labrador. Realizing negotiating with the spouse is often like trying to pass a bill in the US Senate, I had to do my share of pork barrelling. So a deal was reached, we were gonna get a Lab. Once the breed was decided, next come the color question, the choices were Yellow, Black and Chocolate. Both of us loved the chocolate, quick decision. So we started to look online and just happen to find a breeder on the Vancouver Kijiji site. The breeder is in Richmond, and for $650 we get a puppy chocolate lab. So the four of us called the breeder, hopped into the van and headed west. We got there early enough when the pups were only 4 weeks old, since we were the first ones there, we got our pick from the eight puppies. Since they all looked the same to me, Clara picked out her favorite one. We put our deposit down and waited another 5 weeks before we picked her up. On the way home, we were trying to decide on the name for the dog. CoCo popped into my head, Chocolate Lab, CoCo, not to be confused with famous asian singer Coco Lee. Anyways, here is CoCo's pics at 4 weeks and 9 weeks when she got home.

Geely buys Volvo

Just saw the news that China’s Geely officially is now the owner of Volvo for a 1.8 billion dollar transaction from Ford. I remember seeing Geely’s founder, Mr. Li on a television interview in 2003 and really like his entrepreneurial spirit. What he said left an impression “How hard is it to make a car ? It’s a couple of couches, 4 tires, an engine and a shell.” This is his response to the naysers back then, people in China were highly skeptical of how this farmer from a village is going to start building his own cars in China and selling it. Today, he proved his doubters wrong. An interesting part is, there’s still a lot of people who doubt Mr.Li is going to make the merger a success. Well, I think if Volvo became a Chinese company, it would certainly motivate a huge untapped overseas Chinese market. For example, the overseas Koreans overwhelmingly drive Hyundais and the Japanese will drive a Toyota or Honda, but the overseas Chinese population has never had a brand it can show its nationalism to. Now, there is Volvo, a brand that represents European technology and the highest safety standard in the automobile industry. This fits well with the Chinese culture, I would be really surprised if Geely doesn’t take advantage of this huge untapped market and reap the benefits both domestically and in the North American market.

My next picture attempt-Space

So I read in the news some British hobbyist used a combination of a weather ballon, some duct tape and a used digital camera from eBay to take awesome shots of space. This reminded me of the possibilities and creativities of individuals when we put our ultimate cheapness in front of an awesome idea

China’s Global High Speed Rail plans

Word out of China lately is that it’s targeting creating not only the world’s largest high speed rail network within its borders, but it’s planning on connecting to European countries via high speed rail as well. Just think, a “low carbon” alternative to flying and taking one from London to Beijing in only 2 days. The challenge is whether or not China can afford to spend and grow at the rate it’s been in the last ten years. One thing I noticed about the difference between a China and US centric approach, China’s spending on military simply can’t compare to what the Americans spend on its military might, of course, the Americans have to take on the role of the global police and as a result, all this “policing” costs a lot of money. Just think, if Ronald Raegan decided to spend the Star Wars dollars on building a US high speed rail and other infrastructure, or even just not spend it and pay down the deficit, the Americans would live in a totally different world today. The Chinese are pragmatic by nature and it shows, why spend money on building out 3,000 nuclear war heads like the Americans and the Soviets, just build enough so people take you seriously, like 180. At any rate, as a political observer, China’s government has the ability to perform long term plans and project into the future without worrying about political turnover. Which is what Plato envisioned centuries ago with its Philosopher King and which is why the “Central Kingdom” was the center of the world for centuries. Perhaps the Washington politicians can forego all the party politics and do what’s right for the people and by the people, there I go day dreaming again, but that’s the beauty of our political system, the ability to dream.

Avatar-Dances with Wolves, alien version

So after all the hype about Avatar, I finally found time to watch it at the Dublin movie theatre in all its IMAX glory. After the movie, I was really dissapointed, an uninspiring, predictable, unoriginal story line. Despite all the oohs and ahhs you see from the special effects, to me, a true movie fan, the storyline is the soul of the film, and this film stole another great movie’s soul. Dances with Wolves, which I’m sure for most teenagers, seems ages ago and they won’t remember the story, but James Cameron stole the story. If you haven’t seen Dances with Wolves, go see it. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where Cameron stole his material from.