Tinef

#welcometoseattle (pic)

Andy — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:45:28 +0000

where the water (Greenlake) glows at night

#welcometoseattle (pic)

Andy — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:43:48 +0000

Where snow days shut down the city!

Even more Kinect stuff

Andy — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:08:41 +0000

Will it blend?

A great play by play of the cruise ship disaster

Andy — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:35:21 +0000

This film, produced by gcaptain.com, covers each step (according the ship heading, location, and speed) that lead to the disaster of the Costa Concordia. It seems to me that technology could have prevented this. Who knows what the full story is, who made what mistake, or whether equipment failure was involved, but there is an obvious point-of-no-return that pops up when you’re heading straight for an obstacle at 15 knots.

A win for the family

Andy — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:30:59 +0000

In 1971 my father and uncle sailed together in the Snipe National Championships and won. A week earlier, my uncle and aunt sailed together and won the junior title. They were a bunch of stars – a real win for the family in ’71.

Apparently they were invited to be on Sports Illustrated TV, but they “weren’t into publicity” and declined. I was, however, able to dig up this little piece that appeared in Sports Illustrated Magazine:

Steve Brunton’s Mathematical Art

Andy — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:36:20 +0000

@Princeton is full of talent, but it’s rare to find an award-winning mathematician and artist (in one – producing mathematical art) – that’s Steve for you. Here’s an example of some recent work (excerpts of bifurcation diagrams) that Steve shared with Princeton University’s Art of Science Gallery. For more visit: http://butdoesitfloat.com

@pchelmer came to visit

Andy — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:25:09 +0000

and though he missed his flight, he finally did make it out of here. He snapped a few cool shots (all with an iPhone) and posted them on posterous.

See more here of Chris’s amazing iphonography here : http://pchelmer.posterous.com/

One of my personal favorites is “Facial Hair”: http://pchelmer.posterous.com/facial-hair

Random Photo

Andy — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:58:45 +0000

A sunset back home in the California land. Taken a while back, just before Christmas, the sky was nice and clear which yielded a bit of a green flash.

More Kinect stuff

Andy — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:54:15 +0000

the punchline is – I’m getting one. This is a must have, and something I’m planning to use in an upcoming robotics project.

Here’s a great example of a robot that uses the Kinect for both recognizing objects it manipulates and also interfacing with an operator:

another example of a robot that reads human input using the kinect:

Pretty cool use of the Kinect

Andy — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:20:38 +0000

The Kinect is a pretty exciting tool that has grabbed a lot of attention in the robotics community. People are using it to navigate spaces autonomously, recognize objects, and of course read human input (as an interface). In this music video some creative artists used Kinect images (which provide you with a 3D point cloud) and moved them around using post-processing.