Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Keep up with events in the Middle East.

This is interesting, a site that monitors and translates Middle Eastern  TV.


http://www.memri.org


http://www.memritv.org


Pakistani Actress Defies Mullah Accusing Her of Immoral Behavior on an Indian Reality TV Show




http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2830.htm

To think that Christians used to be just as bad, maybe worse at one time.

Broadcast TV over the Internet.

I just set this up, I plan to add more channels and features.

http://www.videotechnology.com/tv/

Please let me know what you think.

Also if you have more channels that you know about that I can add in also let me know.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Talk: Content Distribution Networks and Broadcast Video

I will be giving a talk in the Bay Area.

SVLUG events.gif

SVLUG (Silicon Valley Linux Users Group)


Wednesday April 6th, 2011, 7PM-9PM
Speaker: John Sokol
Location: Symantec (formerly Veritas), Mountain View

Topic: Content Distribution Networks and Broadcast Video

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Japan radiation fallout map...

The National Radiation Map, depicting environmental radiation levels across the USA, updated in real time every minute. This is the first web site where the average citizen (or anyone in the world) can see what radiation levels are anywhere in the USA at any time

Blackcat Radiation Network
Mineralab - Radiation Network



UPDATE 3/16/2011:

Radiation detected in Bakersfield, California...the map is at:
http://www.BlackCatSystems.com/RadMap/map.html

RADIATION reaches USA March 16, 2011 234 uR per hour


Forecast for Plume's Path Is a Function of Wind and Weather - Animation Feature - NYTimes.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-03-17-japanradiate17_ST_N.htm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110316/ap_on_re_us/us_west_coast_radiation_monitors

UPDATE: 3/17/2011  
Radioactive fliers land in US

Two flights that originated in Tokyo and landed in Dallas and Chicago yesterday triggered radiation detectors when passengers passed through customs, The Post has learned.

Tests on the jet that landed at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport showed low levels of radiation on the travelers' luggage and inside the cabin's filtration system.

STEVEN SEAGAL TOLD US THE TRUTH AND WE DIDN'T LISTEN!

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Visually mapping RF Fields.



For RFID

Immaterials: the ghost in the field
On Vimeo: Immaterials: the ghost in the field


For WiFi

http://www.nearfield.org/2011/02/wifi-light-painting

The Aerial Locomotive

I ran across this at a fleamarket, someone used paraffin to attach this to a piece of cardboard it seemed very old but I didn't think it was real.

Turns out there really was a Rufus Porter trying to do this.

R. Porter & company really did have plans to build this, and it would have been 100 years ahead of the German Zeppelin.  It looks like it may have worked too.


Click to Enlarge



More Interesting reading on this:
Mystery Airships of the 1800's
Mystery Airships: The Steampunk UFOs Part Three
Flying Machines - Rufus Porter
Townsend Historical Society - Rufus Porter
Rufus Porter Museum - Chronology of Rufus Porter's Life

Imaging of Ultrasound fields.

Back when I used to work in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Stanford University from 1987 to 1992 we made several high powered Ultrasound transducers to heat cancer tumors for Hypertheremia treatments.

I have some of my old papers on line here: http://www.dnull.com/stanford/


Some of this data was never published or I am now unable to find it and would like to share it now.

We had 2 transducers that we wanted to map the fields patters on.
Both were 10 cm PZT disks approx 1mm thick.
One was optimal at around 1 Mhz, and the other was 2 Mhz.

The disks were mounted in an aluminum housing and had nickle platting on both sides of the PZT disks electrical connection was around the periphery and made using silver impregnated conductive rubber O-Rings.

I worked on all the the machining, software and some of the electronics under the direction of Dr. Stavros Prionas.

We made a large acrylic hexagon shaped water tank about 3 feet across.
In it was degassed water and the transducer was mounted in to one of the walls of the tank, on the far side was a rubber acoustic absorber to prevent reflections.

The transducers could output 100 Watts of acoustic power.


You can click on the image to enlarge.

Our sensor was a small 1 mm bead of silicon rubber mounted on a Type T (copper–constantan) thermocouple. We would measure the SAR, Specific absorption rate, basically the slope of temperature rise.

The thermocouple was mounted on the end of a 1 mm OD stainless steel tube, that was attached to a 3 axis robotic stepper motor positioner.


Capturing the images below would take days for just a single image.  Power would be applied, the temperature rise would be measured, power off, then we would wait 2 minutes to cool down, move 1 mm, then run the test again at the next position. Between each measurement we would turn our RF generator on and recalibrate against a dummy load to make sure that our power levels were consistent as the amplifiers temperature changed.

The end result is like looking at the beam from a flashlight but these are images of the ultrasound beam we were generating.

In the images you can see patters of constructing and destructive interference. 











Warzone Tower Defense

There are a number of sites that offer Tower Defense games.

One of the best I found is at:
http://www.27bslash6.com/warzoneTowerDefense.swf  This link died.
http://www.madcowinteractive.com/warzone_original/  Use this one.

If you play "ground only" it lasts a little longer, but it's very difficult. Getting over 100,000 score is almost impossible and I have spent entirely too long trying to figure out strategies on how to go further.
Well I found one that I can play almost indefinitely even though the enemy tanks are nearly indestructible.


I started playing on 12/29/2010 at 2am and finally walked away on 1/4/2011 at 10pm
For much of that time the game was on pause while I slept and went to work.


As you can see my final score is 223,143  I eventually gave up because I just got tired of it.

The trick was being able to send the tanks that made it through back to the beginning to start over again. Also to be able to create such a traffic jam new tanks wouldn't be able to enter the game.  Towards the end 1 tank would die only every 10 minutes or so.

You can click on each image to see it enlarged.













What is your best score? Please comment if you've taken a shot at it.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Vegetarian/vegan Black bean and Barley stew, one of the best soups I ever made.

My favorite soup is Beef Barley, but my wife is vegetarian from India.  So she has never been able to enjoy this with me.

So last night I tried another soup experiment, just starting with an empty pot and what ever I had around in the kitchen.

What I came up with is a Black bean and Barley soup and it is so good. It is just as satisfying as beef barley and it's hard to believe there is no meat in it. My wife loved it.





Here is the recipe:

I started with an 8 Liter pot.

1 Cup of dry black beans ( 1/2 of a 16 oz bag)
1 Cup of barley ( 1/2 of a 16 oz bag)
3/4 cup of dry lentils. (from Indian grocery store, dried peas could possible work here too)
2  Telma brand Vegetable soup & seasonings cubes. (found in the kosher foods section of Albersons.)
1  14.5 OZ can of Diced Tomatoes
1 Table spoon of Smoked Paprika (from Costco)
1 Tea spoon of celery salt
3 Table spoons of Olive oil
3 Table spoons of Oregano leaves (from Costco)
3 Table spoons of Basil leaves (from Costco)
3 Table spoons of chopped Garlic cloves (from plastic bottle from Costco)
1 large onion finely chopped.
1 fresh jalapeno pepper finely chopped. ( you will not taste it )
1 whole bundle of celery finely chopped.
Approx 2 Cups of mixed frozen vegetables, (carrots,string beans, corn and beans from Costco)
Fill the rest of the pot with water.
Add some salt, maybe a table spoon or so.

Cover and simmer on low heat for 2 to 3 hours stirring occasionally till most of the water is soaked up and the barley and beans are soft.  Then add a little salt till it taste right.

This made a thick and hearty almost meaty gravy with the beans, lentils and barley, like a beef stew.

I could have used a slightly larger pot and a touch more water since my pot was completely full and it was almost too thick,  but it's super delicious.