Fearless Felix

On August 16, 1960, Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger, completed a world record 102,800 foot skydive. According to centennialofflight.gov he was protected against the subzero temperatures by layers of clothes and a pressure suit and during his descent, he reached speeds up to 614 miles per hour.

Yesterday, Sunday, 10/14/12, on the Discovery Channel, I watched Australian daredevil Felix Baumgartner break Kittinger’s 52 year old record. Interestingly, Joe Kittinger was a member of Baumgartner’s support team.

Courtesy Google Images

Baumgartner’s capsule was lifted on high by a hot air balloon to a height greater than 128,000 feet. He wore a high tech pressure suit and helmet that protected him from the freezing temperatures present at that altitude.

Just before the jump, he stood on platform outside his capsule and hesitated and I wondered if he was thinking, “Wow, that’s a long way down.” He leaned forward and toppled. As he dropped he pin wheeled. I wondered if he was ok but I could hear him breathing. His descent steadied and eventually he opened his chute and floated safely to the ground.

According to abcnews.com his skydive was record breaking on three counts.

1. The only man to achieve a supersonic skydive (833 miles per hour or Mach 1.24)

2. The highest exit from a platform

3. The free fall without a drogue parachute

I was amazed and awed that someone would be willing to perform a stunt like this. I don’t even like to ride the roller coasters at Six Flags.

Are there any daredevils out there that want to attempt a jump of 128,000 feet?

Red Shirts

According to Infoplease.com, in college sports a red shirt is an athlete who did not play in any games (at the coach's request), or was seriously injured during their first season. The "red-shirt" designation means that that season will not count against the player's four years of NCAA eligibility, allowing them to play four full seasons.

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Anyone who has watched the original Star Trek series (1966 – 1969) knows that a red shirt character is usually the first one to die. The term “red shirt” has become so ingrained in my family’s lexicon that when we watch a TV program we attempt to identify the designated red shirt.

I found an interesting article at Wired.com that reported being a "Red Shirt" on the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 was one of the most dangerous jobs in any (imaginary) military. According to Wired.com 13.7% of Kirk’s crew died during their three-year televised mission; 73% of the deaths were Red Shirts.

Courtesy Google Images

I knew that the "Red Shirt" was the first to go. It’s reassuring to know that there is statistical evidence to back up what I knew intuitively.

Not America's Favorite Pastime ... Yet

The 2012 Major League Baseball (MLB) season is nearing a close and this makes me reflective.

I don’t know a baseball fan that isn’t familiar with the tune, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” According to the Baseball Almanac, the lyrics were written in 1908 by Jack Norworth on a scrap of paper. Albert Von Tilzer composed the music and by the end of 1908, the song was a hit.

The quintessential lines, “Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack. I don’t care if we ever get back,” remind me of sitting in the stands and taking in the sights and sounds of a baseball game. The cheering/jeering crowd, the perfectly manicured field of play and the in-game strategic moves by the managers coalesce to make baseball my favorite of the professional sports.

Courtesy What-If


So, when one of my kids sent me the link to realivistic baseball I was intrigued. In a nutshell, the webcomic describes what would happen if a pitcher could hurl a baseball at the speed of light. It’s an impossible scenario but it’s still interesting to postulate the outcome of such an event. According to what-if.xkcd.com, the end result would be a firestorm that destroys everything within a mile of the park.

I think I’d rather watch that game via video feed.

If you’re seeking a snack while lounging on the couch watching your favorite realivistic baseball game and you’re too lazy to move, you’re out of luck. Supposedly a device, the Popinator, has been developed to shoot popcorn into your mouth once you issue the command, “Pop.” However, according to ABC News 7 out of San Francisco, California, it's just a guerilla marketing campaign for a popcorn company. Darn, that’s so disappointing.

I figured if they had a machine that could shoot popcorn, an automated beverage shooter wouldn’t be far behind?

Explosions and hoaxes aside, is anyone interested in catching a game and noshing on some popcorn?

Internet Security

It must be a decade since I took a computer security class as part of my degree program at Westfield State College. Since that time, computer security has become an even bigger industry.

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During the course of my research for a term paper about Kevin Mitnick, an infamous computer hacker, I learned about the Def Con Hacking Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to the Huffington Post, it is an annual event that attracts thousands of the best code crackers to discuss the latest hacking techniques. Hackers can make a name for themselves by demonstrating how they find security flaws in technology that most consider well-protected.

What amazed and confounded me most about the conference was the assertion by one of the attendees that he could hack a bank account using information from an ATM slip. This prompted me to make sure that I never leave my ATM slips in the trash at the teller; I shred them.

Database breaches have had an indirect impact on me. On three separate occasions, institutes I’ve done business with have had their databases compromised. Each incident resulted in that company enrolling me, at no cost to me, in a credit watch agency. Fortunately, none of the incidents presented a financial hardship for me.

I’ve probably become lax regarding computer security. I came across an article by Mat Honan at Wired.com that reminded me how much damage a hacker can do. The article, How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking describes, in detail, the process the hacker(s) used, the data lost by Mr.Honan and the process (and cost) of retrieving just 75% of what was destroyed. (They were even able to erase data from his mobile phone and home computing devices.)

Mr. Honan’s experience has led me to re-evaluate my on-line practices. I think there are three (3) elements of internet security we should all practice:

1     1.  Don’t save credit card/bank information on a site just to make purchases and bill paying easier.

2     2.  Create complex passwords that contain a mixture of letters, numbers and characters.

3     3.  Don’t use the same password for all your secure internet sites.

I think what happened to Mr. Honan is frighteningly educational. I wouldn’t want it to happen to me.

Is anyone else concerned about leaving an electronic trail that hackers could utilize?

Not a Harley

When I was a kid I used to love riding my dirt bike; a 2 stroke Kawasaki. I think it was 180 CC’s, but it’s been so long I don’t really recall the size. I lived in a very rural area, surrounded by fields, woods and apple orchards. The orchard gave me access to the trails along the power and pipe lines. I would ride for hours and never encounter another soul.

Alas, as I aged, my fear of sustaining a serious injury pushed aside the joy of zipping over the myriad of obstacles that trail riding presented. By the time I graduated high school, my motorcycling was a distant memory.

Courtesy Google Images

I have found something that might reignite my desire to own a motorcycle. DVICE.com reported on a concept spherical-wheeled motorcycle that students at the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering at San Jose State University are investigating. The end result will be a rideable, electric motorcycle that uses balls instead of wheels. I think it looks cool; kind of like the Batpod from The Dark Night.

Courtesy Google Images

The students needed to obtain funding to study their spherical drive system (SDS) design so they assembled a sponsorship packet that outlined their team and its goals. They explained, in detail, why they wished to pursue the SDS, various aspects of the design, such as the drive system and the wheels and provided a detailed breakout of their projected costs.

I’m not an engineer or a scientist so I won’t pretend to understand all the nuances involved in making this thing operate. I just think it’s futuristically awesome-looking and I want one!

Anyone else share my desire to own a high-tech two wheeled piece of the future?

Mind Reading

Extrasensory perception (ESP) and mind reading has been a staple of fiction for generations. Television shows such as Babylon 5 featured a PSI Corps; a government sponsored organization that employed mind readers to help keep the Earth Alliance safe. What Women Want is a cinematic comedy in which Mel Gibson plays a man who acquires the ability to read the minds of women.

Mind reading has always been a figment of fiction. However, advances in technology may be changing that.

In December, 2011, Mashable conducted an interview with IBM Senior Inventor Kevin Brown. He said IBM’s vision for mind reading is this: a person wears a headset that can detect general electrical signals from the brain and sends them to a computer. Sophisticated software interprets those signals and, in turn, tells a machine what to do.

“One of the common misconceptions is that the headset is reading your thoughts,” says Brown. “It’s not. It’s just reading a level of excitement. It’s not understanding.”

Forbes reports that a group of researchers from the University of California at Berkeley, Oxford University and the University of Geneva presented a paper on this very topic on August 8, 2012 at the Usenix security conference in Seattle. Their presentation hinted at the darker side of a future where brain sensors are used to let thoughts manipulate computers. The researchers found they were able to extract hints directly from the electrical signals of the test subjects’ brains that partially revealed private information.

The ACLU has some issues regarding the possible use of this technology. They are concerned that private employers might attempt to use the technology as a lie detector in violation of Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988.

The whole thing seems a little MinorityReport-ish. I think there’s the potential for abuse of mind reading technology by well-meaning individuals. On the other hand, the use of the brain’s electrical impulses to manipulate electronic devices could be a boon for the physically handicapped.

What do you think? Would you use a hands free device that’s controlled by the electrical activity in your brain?

Google Glasses

I’ve worn glasses since the fourth grade and I’ve been called Poindexter, Four Eyes, Specs. You name it; it’s been thrown in my direction. But, I’m the youngest of five boys so there was nothing others said that could bother me, especially since my family nicknamed me Shithead.

Yup, you read correctly: Shithead. When I was but a wee lad, we traveled to DeerIsle, Maine for Thanksgiving. My uncle had hung a banner that read: Welcome Egertons. You too, Shithead. It stuck.

But, I digress. Despite the barbs tossed my way wearing glasses had never been an issue for me. I’ve worn contact lenses and I’ve considered Lasik eye surgery, but it’d always seemed easier to just don the spectacles.

I guess I’ve never understood why wearing glasses was such a big deal. So, I was happy to hear that in the not too distant future, wearing glasses might actually be considered cool.

Google, the company that is working to develop a driverless car, is developing what could possibly be a “must-have” piece of technology, the Google Glasses.

Google Glasses are being developed in the ultra-secret special projects lab near Google’s MountainView, California headquarters, and they could be the next generation of computing apparatus. Techradar reports that the glasses will run Android, will include a small screen in front of your eye and will include motion sensors, GPS and either 3G or 4G data connections. Google still needs to develop a workable interface, such as voice activation.

Initially, people wearing these glasses might seem odd to onlookers. They'll appear to be talking to themselves and bobbing their heads as they walk to avoid virtual obstacles. But as people adopt the technology, Google Glasses will become mainstream.

I think the advantage of these glasses will be the heads-up display that will provide the user with unobtrusive Internet and phone access. FarhadManjoo states that wearable computers could end up being a fashion statement. They actually fit into a larger history of functional wearable objects—think of monocles, wristwatches, and whistles.

If Google Glasses existed when I was a kid I doubt I’d have been tagged Four Eyes or Specs but I can’t imagine any technology that would prevent my uncle from dubbing me Shithead.

Does anyone care to make a functional fashion statement?