geeky stuff

12 Aug

Tech camp – day 4

You’re not wrong, there was no days 1, 2, or 3. I just figured all you folk who have taken the time to remember us in prayer deserved an update.

The theme has been connect, which we’ve been using in worship sessions and devotions everyday. We’ve got 9 kids and have 4 local leaders, and up until this afternoon had 4 americans that have been doing random PCI teams helping us out. They have been VERY useful, and will be very missed… though they have been fairly bored of the tech talk. They left for Larne today for another team, so, naturally we’re praying for their The field trips we’ve had have been fairly interesting:

On Wednesday we paid a trip to the Ulster Museum, which the leaders scouted out earlier to get some nice quiz questions for when they went, followed by a full, proper table quiz I wrote, and it went pretty well. found out one of the leaders likes Justin Bieber a bit too much. We are, of course, monitoring the situation, and attempting to fix that.

Thursday we ran a short video workshop (which I guess is still ongoing as they’re currently editing the videos they made) followed by a fairly interesting trip to production house group’s warehouse in east Belfast. The kids got to see the kit being prepped for tenants vital and new horizon, and the guys were kind enough to ‘test’ one of the Subs they’d be using for skrillex, deafening a few of us for a while. That night a few folk who use tech in industry were kind enough to sit answering a few questions we fired at them. They carefully brushed off the Mac or PC question. Mostly.

Yesterday ( or friday if i don’t publish this in the next hour) was possibly the most interested they’ve been so far. Though I may be slightly biased as I was the most interested then too… Anyway, I gave a short workshop detailing the innards of desktops and laptops and tried to explain how they work. It was pretty much the first time I’d given a presentation like that, and I’m fairly shocked at how well they listened, and the questions they asked. Gave me some hope for future gamers and system builders.

After that we went to a fun little place called Farset Labs, where people do Awesome things with electronics. Apart from 2 of the kids getting a little obsessed with the nerf guns, it went very well. They build random computer and electronic based projects, like a wheelchair that goes 40 miles an hour or adding random things to r/c helicopters. Seems fun, and I think they may feature here again.

Following this we went to UCBs radio station in Belfast, called commission radio. They make one of their digital evening shows here, and drama series with a fairly complex studio. Pretty cool stuff.

So then we come to today, when I woke up unable to speak, and we had a graphics seminar that I unfortunately had to sleep through, followed by bowling and laser quest. And now we’re watching Up.

That’s a sumup of the past few days, which have been tiring, but fun. Few prayer points:
most of the leaders are sick/wounded from previous endeavours. Energy and health would be appreciated.
Kids are great, we’re seeing them grow, and it would be great to see more on our last day
And finally, that the parents are appropriately impressed by their kids hard work when it’s presented tomorrow.

I’ll attempt to update again tomorrow… 😀

6 Aug

Its not ridiculous if it works.

Right now, the Olympics is happening. And it gives an… interesting perspective.

1 man can run a hundred meters in 9.63 seconds.

Now, when you think that many men and women, working off the shoulders of many more, fired a rocket at Mars, and successfully softly landed a 1 ton automated laboratory on a planet tens of thousands of miles away, using the most ingenious delivery system ever devised, with a margin of error so small it makes my head hurt, does this achievement by one individual not pale in comparison? I wish I knew someone who was involved in designing, testing, or even scrubbing a part on the curiosity delivery system just so I could congratulate them. Instead my tax money goes towards a project 5 times as expensive that I feel about as involved in as… well… a rover on Mars.

Anyway, the title is most specifically about the delivery system. It is… insane. All the last set of rovers were delivered in similar pinpoint accuracy using a bouncing ball method. This involved being slowed by parachutes, then the capsule is completely surrounded in air cushions so it becomes a ball. This is fine for a 100kg capsule, that could sri-mech itself flat then release the tiny payload to run around mars. Its not fine for a one ton behemoth that would’ve needed massive cushions and massive parachutes.

So someone then came up with the idea of using rockets to slow it down, as a parachute would need to be the size of a lake to slow it down enough.

But rockets would kick up a LOT of dust at the surface,  and would be unpredictable close to the surface so a traditional rocket based landing would be risky.

So some genius had the fantastic idea of using rockets to hover, and lowering the one ton rover, naked, down to the surface.

When I first saw this plan I thought there was absolutely no chance it could succeed. Well… it did.  And thats the greatest achievement humanity has made this year.

So, when I read this, less than an hour after the rover successfully touched down on Mars, it rang through my head all day (link may not work, try this). The quote, “nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do” (or something along those lines) is taken from Genesis 11, verse 6, when God chose to scatter us around the earth and give us different languages, as we were progressing too quickly.

I wonder what it means, that we seem to be beyond that limitation. Russell Kirsch imagined digital photographs, and the internally programmed computer, and made it so. NASA thought up a delivery method for dropping a ton of lab equipment softly on Mars, and actually did it. We live in a great time when these things are possible. The list of impossible things is getting shorter everyday, and that’s fantastic.

So, I address this last point to myself, more than anyone. If you think that great thing you want to do is impossible, make it your goal, and strive for it. It could just happen. And it definitely will if God wants it done.

22 Jun

Why don’t you like the rain?

Seriously, why don’t you like the rain? Rain is awesome. Rain makes everything interesting, theres no experience like driving in pounding rain. And the sound of heavy rain on windows? AWESOME. I even like walking through it… getting soaked when its not freezing outside is actually kinda cool. So stop complaining and learn to see the greatness of one of God’s more awesome ways of keeping this planet working.

I’m tired, and in pain. BUT I HAD FUN. And who cares if I’m bleeding, its not like its dripping on anything important…

I should prob get that stitched.

Annnnyway,

This week has been interesting. For those of you who don’t know, I test things. Networking computery things. Last week, I was approached in work, apparently I’m the go to guy for testing a particular bit of hardware. Apparently my lack of understanding of it is slightly less than everyone elses. For the first time, I actually feel pressured, and like the random tests I’m doing actually get seen by someone, rather than just being a stepping stone to a bigger thing. Its slow menial work, that probably isn’t helping the fact I now need glasses for computer screens, but its definitely getting something done.

In other news, hectic week ahead… training for pci team, and commissioning service tomorrow. A couple of meetings about random things, Google I/O (look it up.), Summer Madness, and a team in donaghadee from Saturday.

 

I should sleep more.

 

I say I should do things a lot. I don’t do those things. I should fix that. (See what I shouldn’t have done there?)

15 Jun

CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKITY-CLACK THUD

I got a new keyboard. Its loud. And was expensive (you really don’t wanna know). But its a joy to type on, if you’re not really listening to anything.

So, this is the second entry onto a blog some people actually read. How many read this one will clearly determine how good the first post was…

That virus thing is apparently gone now, I’m pretty tired from it, so I’ve been back at work for the last week and a half or so, since I no longer have an excuse to do nothing all day… I finally got around to completing Deus Ex Human Revolution though. I regretted that.

In the mean time I’ve also collected a myriad of useless random crap, but here’s one of the weirder ones:
http://soundcloud.com/rob-cantor/sets/music-for-the-stage/s-wJ1cQ

Anyway, tomorrow will be a long day. Maybe I’ll post about it. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll build a small thermo-nuclear device in my basement… oh hello CIA, Mi5, and…. I don’t know that acronym I’m sorry… but thanks for popping by! I don’t actually have a basement. Or any aspirations towards building a thermonuclear device. I just thought it might get me a few hits. Sorry for wasting your time!

Assuming I didn’t just annoy the wrong government agency and they’re not about to come get me to put me in that secret prison in the Falklands where they’re keeping the real Saddam and Bin Laden (thats the real reason they wanna keep ’em), I’ll be doing a couple of teams this summer, but, again, still not leaving this island. Grr… though I’m sure my wallet is appreciative. On a related note my teams seem fairly standard people so far, though I can’t wait to see how weird they get at 2 in the morning when they’re getting hyper and confused as to why I’m poking them in the face. I’m kidding, I won’t do that. Probably.

Dear goodness I’m weird.

Why did you read this far?!? GO DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE.