Thursday, November 11, 2010

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

"Every year, people in all 50 states and across six continents see birds in their own backyards that begin their lives on the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is home to more than 200 wildlife species including polar bears, musk ox and caribou. Wildlife and mankind are already under stress from the impacts of climate change. Put this cause on your agenda and focus your energy to designate this area a National Monument and you will protect a critical habitat for wildlife and help preserve biodiversity."

Everyday my email in-box has petitions from worthy causes that I have supported in the past. I endeavor to respond to one of them each day and delete the rest. The copy above was added to an automated letter to be sent from me to President Barack Obama. This service was expedited by the Sierra Club. The link to the USA federal government Arctic National Wildlife Refuge site is http://arctic.fws.gov/. Here is Wikipedia's entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_National_Wildlife_Refuge. This is authentic living 11/11/2010 and I personally support this message. Meet me to verify.




Creative commons details. Photo credit: Steven Chase, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

aZza Gallery as Flickr group

screen-grab-17 In conjunction with my pending launch of aZza app for iPhone and iPad, I created aZza Gallery as a Flickr group. This gallery will be melded into the aZza website experience at aZza.mobi

Monday, September 20, 2010

AEOLUS in Nantucket

AEOLUS is nesting with other dinghies at Children's Beach in Nantucket. She was there this last weekend to transport the Lochridge family members around the harbor at their 4th annual reunion on the island. In the background is the ferry EAGLE of the Steamship Authority that transported Aeolus to this destination.

Friday, September 03, 2010

Track weather (Earl) on your mobile


Check out Earl's latest position with nifty storm track weather map overlays on your wireless device at http://stevebull.mobi/weather11965.php.

I built the page two years ago for myself and shipmates when I was a relief purser and deck hand on the North Ferry Co. http://www.northferry.com/.

Steal this code and write your own custom weather page for your mobile page. My source is Wunderground

Thursday, September 02, 2010

AEOLUS - double ended skiff


AEOLUS is a double ended rowing and sailing skiff that my son Frank and I finished in 2009. This photo is taken at the inaugural launch from Preston's dock in Greenport NY. Aeolus is a lapstrake hull of stitch and glue construction from a kit supplied by Chesapeake Light Craft. She is 15 feet long and weighs only 95 lbs. Note her cotton lanteen sail from Lamu, Kenya.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Desktop tidbits

While cleaning up my desktop I rediscovered this mix from the Cellphonia: Blues June 2010 installation that still puts a smile on my face. Check it out at http://cellphonia.org/blues/audio/mix-20100602atAI.mp3 :)s

Friday, June 04, 2010

Cellphonia: Blues / Analagous Projects / ICMC 2010


Cellphonia: Blues was selected and presented by Analagous Projects for the 2010 International Computer Music Conference (icmc2010.org) and this installation version received favorable reporting in the column Nocturnalist | Taking the Canvas Digital by Sarah Maslin Nir with photos by Béatrice de Géa for the New York Times. For the next two weekends in June visit the Cellphonia: Blues installation at Devotion Gallery.

Listen to the latest mix.

Thank you all for your participation.

Friday, May 07, 2010

Kelvin Paddle Launch


"In cases where the size of the propeller approaches the total draft available, it is necessary to adopt either the tunnel stern or the paddle wheel....It is efficient up to moderate speeds, and specially suited for towing." Kelvin Paddle Launch circa 1913.

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Lloyd Lochridge - Oldest Boy Scout in USA

Austin, Texas, February 6, 2010 - Lloyd Lochridge rode at the front of the Austin Boy Scout parade this morning in an open white BMW convertible together with a 14 yr old Eagle Scout. Mr. Lochridge is said to be the oldest Eagle Scout in existence! - Austin American Statesman
Later I joined uncle Lloyd's Boy Scouts of America troop in Forest Hills, Queens, New York -- no camping or open fires permitted.

PHP Links

Google results with string: php resize image on upload

Resizing images with PHP - I will try this one first, it processes three common image types
PHP: Upload and Resize an Image - an interesting variation of above w/ useful bg info
Code Examples -> Image Upload And Resize Script - note catch of errors

Monday, March 01, 2010

Frank Svoboda's bid for Regent

Frank Svoboda at home in Ogallala NEVote for FRANK!

My father-in-law Frank Svoboda is running for the elected position as Regent of University of Nebraska.

Visit Frank's campaign site SvobodaForRegent.org for more details.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

iPhone Developer Links

Terrific Beginner Tutorials [switchonthecode.com] - thank you

An Absolute Beginner's Guide to iPhone Development Because of file naming on my part I totally failed on my first try here. My tricky rename file fix did not work. So I do not recommend simply renaming a typo misnamed file within the developer environment. However, working all over again from scratch was a success.
Creating Basic Buttons Builds on tutorial above, very nice.
Lots more here under "Cocoa Touch" www.switchonthecode.com/tutorials

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

LEO Space Farm

From the archives I discover a paper "Low Earth Orbit Space Farm" (1986) written with Nils Bruun and Randolph Liebelt and presented at AIAA conference in USA and IAF conference in UK.

ABSTRACT
The paper proposes a modular low earth orbit space farm which combines the current CELSS technology with a single launch, artificial gravity space vehicle to provide fresh produce to a nearby space station crew in a balanced exchange for their biodegradable waste and carbon dioxide. While growing a substantial amount of produce, the space farm will also be developing the plant propagation technology for transfer to future lunar colonies and to accompany long range space missions, ie. interplanetary exploration. The components of the space farm will be launched by conventional booster, then manned, assembled and operated by a crew of two. Since the space farm is habitable during all stages of development, the shuttle rendezvous will be brief. Adding modules will facilitate increasing crop yields.

The complete paper: LEO-Space-Farm.pdf

Monday, February 08, 2010

My Asterisk Links - passing variables

asterisk-gateway-interface-scripting-with-php
Asterisk+AGI+php
Asterisk+Detailed+Variable+List
Asterisk+variables
asterisk-channel-variables-and-the-asteriskagi-perl-module/
What is AGI?

I was able to pass variable from .php to dialplan, that is the number that SalesPitch.mobi needs to make the follow-up call, let's review the hard code:
/* as saved within the passvariables.php script itself */
//- essential parts of /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin/passvariables.php
// lines 51 to 64
// create .PHP variable with a hard code phone number
$CLIENTNUMBER = '8005551212';
$SOMETEXT = '\"some text for swift to speak is thus\"'; // *
// speak a script identifying that we are in this file
write ("EXEC Swift \"pass variables dot p h p\"");
// speak the variable to be sure it works
write ("EXEC Swift \"$CLIENTNUMBER\""); // spoken as a billion number
write ("EXEC Swift \"$SOMETEXT\""); // spoken as complete string
// create DIALPLAN variable equal to .PHP variable
// this DIALPLAN variable is a Channel variable
write ("EXEC Set CLIENTNUMBER=$CLIENTNUMBER");
// * NB: ONLY THE FIRST WORD IN THE PHP VARIABLE IS GETTING PASSED * * *
write ("EXEC Set SOMETEXT=$SOMETEXT"); // *
// go to dialplan with DIALPLAN variables in tow
write ("EXEC Goto scene6|s|1");
// - essential parts of /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf [scene6|s|1]
/*
[scene6]
exten => s,1,Wait(1)
; identify this dialplan context
exten => s,2,SayDigits(66)
; go to this new context with "Channel" DIALPLAN variable in tow
exten => s,3,Goto(sceneTest,s,1)
; hangup if above not available
exten => s,n,Hangup()

[sceneTest]
exten => s,1,Wait(1)
; identify this dialplan context
exten => s,2,Swift(scene test)
; speak digits of DIALPLAN variable
; from passvariables.php
exten => s,3,SayDigits(${CLIENTNUMBER}) ; spoke in single digits
; * NB: Swift ONLY speaks first word of this DIALPLAN variable
; to be determined later how to pass a .PHP string as a variable
exten => s,4,Swift("${SOMETEXT}")
exten => s,n,Hangup()
exten => i,1,Playback(pbx-invalid)
exten => i,2,Goto(salespitch,s,1)
exten => t,1,Playback(vm-goodbye)
exten => t,2,Hangup()
*/

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Transfer resistor = Transistor

My son Frank sent me a link to HOW DO THEY REALLY WORK? by William Beaty, BSEE 1995 and I am pleased to report that this is the best explanation I have ever read on transistor basic principles. For years and years I was baffled by all previous explanations and this article told me why. There are useful links at the end for more visualizations plus a nifty article on Iron Pyrites Negative Resistance Oscillator with a DIY cat whisker radio.

Thursday, February 04, 2010

aZza + RaaWee

Early shout outs to Saleem Qazi and his crew at RaaWee for the Android programing they are providing to my art application aZza. I look forward to the finished code, publishing and selling this application out of Orange, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Android & Sony-Ericsson shops.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

My Amaryllis

I got the bulb that prduced this amaryllis at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden store two years ago. This blossom is the last of five. The photo made on my Google Android developer phone
exif:GPSLatitude: 40,43,4N
exif:GPSLongitude: 73,59,16W
Snow still clings to the back wooden deck.
Happy Chinese New Year!

Monday, January 04, 2010

SeeClickFix: New York : Fallen Fire Plug

SeeClickFix: New York : Fallen Fire Plug

Posted using ShareThis

I like SeeClickFix.com as citizen empowerment social network service. Congratulations! I plan to use it again.

Friday, January 01, 2010

Citizen Complaint

Fire Plug broken off on South side of Delancey Street, New York between Allen and Forsyth. It has been there at least two days ignored by the "authorities" that should restore its functional location seen on the side walk in the background of this photo. I shot the picture with my Google developer phone after turning on the add GPS to photo feature.
exif:DateTimeOriginal: 2010-01-01T10:57:23 -05:00
exif:GPSLatitude: 40,43,10N
exif:GPSLongitude: 73,59,27W

View Larger Map.
To get the map I resolved the EXIF data using by Photoshop to create the following string '40 43 10, -73 59 27' that regrettably puts the fallen fire plug location on the North side of the street but close enough for my purposes. This photo will be the reference image for my "Citizen Complaint" Android application to be submitted in NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge due in few days. More details to follow.......