How Long for the PS3 Version?

This is not a an image from a new video game, or the next sci-fi movie prop, this is the headgear being designed by the Royal Air Force to work with the new Joint Strike Fighter jet ...



from the "Switched" blog:

" New Pilot Helmet Allows Terminator Like X-Ray Vision

The British military is testing a new helmet that allows fighter pilots to see through their planes.

The system is actually very elegant in its simplicity. A series of camera are placed on the outside of the plane. The images from the cameras are fed back to the cockpit where they are projected inside the specially designed helmet, allowing the pilot to see 360 degrees around him/her. It will look to the pilot as if there is no plane at all... which, now that we think about it, sounds kinda creepy.

The cameras will even have infrared sensors, allowing pilots to look down, through the cockpit floor, in the dead of night, and identify targets."

Particularly interesting is that this visioning technology is being used on a jet with stealth technology to allow pilots to be able to see "as if the plane was not there". In other words, the plane is invisible to both the folks on the ground and the pilot!

One wonders at what point we'll even need to have pilots in the plane, and this really does become a video game.

Jessie

This is the saddest news: our friend Jessie Doktor passed away today. She was nine. For some years now she has fought leukemia. This summer she had a new kind of cord-blood, stem-cell, marrow transplant. About a week ago she got an bad infection.


I love this picture of her not just cause of she's wearing a Red Sox cap in New York, or that she's in front of the Apple Store. She was such a fighter with an intense, competitive will. But I love her smile, that sneaky grin.

Video Tribute: Jessica Rose Doktor
If you want to know her better, here's Jessie in her own words.
And here's a Boston Globe article by Erica Tochin

Her mother writes: "And if you would…please fold some paper cranes. As many as you can. We will post how and where to deliver them…and we’re not yet sure how we’ll use them…but we would like to have at least 1000 paper cranes in Jessie’s honor."

Guess I'll start folding.

An Outpost of Red Sox Nation

"If I fail, it's going to be with my pants." - Manny Ramirez, post-game interview, Oct 6, 2007

Before I left the Boston area, my co-workers gave me the pre-requsite going-away novelties. Among the books and trinkets were quite a few Red Sox souvenirs - the kind of things you'd never buy for yourself. From the other side, my brother tried to welcome me to the East Bay with a fitted, wool A's cap, one of the black ones (actually, quite sharp and probably a little pricey for a cap!). Everything is carefully scattered around my new place, as any superstitious Boston fan should have it, to maximize baseball karma - pictured above, a Manny Ramirez 24 wrist band on a model of Fenway Park sits on my desk 

Meanwhile, I watched the end of the season on MLB-TV, and have tried to tolerate TBS Hot Corner during the playoffs. Worst. Baseball. Chat. Ever. Worse even than enduring a Tim McCarver broadcast. Imagine two fixed camera video feeds (pitcher-cam and dugout-cam), the most basic graphic display in one corner, and the TBS commentary crew in the other - four "hot corners". The discussion between the commentators is so simplisctic that, to my ears, it doesn't sound like they are really talkng about baseball; maybe they're watching a game of cricket. Setting MLB Gameday over the Hot Corner ads, so that the video feeds are still visible, makes it a little less incoherent.

But the distance, the sub-standard video, and the plain awful commentary aside, it's been all good for the Red Sox so far. Yesterday was particularly exhiliarating, of course, but also infuriating for all the above reasons. Phenomenal cosmic baseball; itty bitty media experience.

I loved the "bug-out" at the Jake that cast a kind of "Romo and the Cowboys" shadow on Joba and the Yankees. At that moment, TBS had commentary from former catchers John Marzano (Red Sox) and Jim Leyritz (Yankees). They could not stop talking about the bugs, the studio furniture, or A-Rod long enough to tell us what was going on with the game. Fortunately, in that sequence, there was all this activity I *could* see on pitcher-cam (bugs, walk, wild pitch, bunt, bugs, wild pitch, play at plate, tying run scores).

At the end of the Indians game, in extra innings, the "hostess" (Heather Catlin) was dumb-founded by Torre's choice to walk Sizemore with the winning run on third to setup a force at home and a right-righty match-up. I was now yelling at the TV: shut-up you're ruining this for me! I hit the "mute" button. After Cabrera popped out (semi-validating Torre's decision), Hafner delivers. That was an awesome end to an awsome game, but I don't think Catlin or her chatters delivered the drama of the moment at all - so, what is the point of their commentary?

All this would have made perfect sense, I think, to any RS fan, but was completely lost on these the TBS staffers. If Cabrera had grounded into a double-play, would Caitlin have understood the significance of the IBB? I honestly doubt it.

Worse was the anti-Bartman moment at Fenway with the TBS chat crew who could not understand that 17 year-old Danny Vinik's catch was absolutely *not* fan interference. I couldn't see the play, so I had to take their word on it that it *was* interference. When I saw the replay, I was floored because it was so clearly legal, and described as such by the broadcasters. And at first I thought I saw Pedroia cross the plate on pitcher-cam (it might have been a bat boy?), so I thought he was tagging. Imagine that pop foul; a little further down the line, and if not for Lowell's sac fly, that fan-catch might have cost the Red Sox a run. Then how does Vinik feel?

So I spent the night cheering with joy at the action (the parts that I could make out) and screaming furiously at the commentators; it was a strange case of baseball schizophrenia that perhaps only a Red Sox fan who had lived for a while in Cleveland Heights and now found himself in Berkeley might understand.

OTOH, pitcher-cam was perfect for Manny's walk-off dinger. He stood there for quite a while with his arms strait up in the air, and I knew. And like the rest of the Fenway crowd, my arms were strait up, too. The commentary was simply, "Ooooo." The replay showed the ball flying *over* the Coke bottles - that ball was c-r-u-s-h-e-d. Perfect coverage. 

Anyway, I'm off for the long weekend (thank you Christopher Columbus!) to see my folks in Oregon. 

And they have a dish.

UPDATE: After typing the above on my Treo during the plane ride from Oakland, I arrived at the parents house to find that the digital satellite service has been termintated. My father's new passion is DVD karaoke. D-oh. I wonder if they have "Tessie" on that thing.

Another Neighborhood Walk (with Stairs)

First a little baseball gloating ...

Last night Donna and I hooked the MacBook to the big TV, and watched on the internet as Dice-K pitched a gem. After the Red Sox won their game, we switched MLB-TV "channels" over to the Orioles and Yankees game, doing our best to duplicate the experience of the fans in Boston. We cheered like crazy when the O's tied it up against Rivera, and then could hardly believe it when Mora laid down the bunt. The unlikeliness of that series of events (plus the Red Sox and Yankees role reversal) seemed to make clinching the Division extra special; what a celebration. I loved all the comments on SoSH and YF-vs-SF. We celebrated the Red Sox' AL East Division title by watching a bunch of internet videos late into the night. It was great to hear Bob Lobel and Dan Roche bring the celebration to us from Fenway. It's weird being so disant -- and then not distant.

But this morning the fog broke, and we got one of those glorious California mornings. We went for a little walk and we're finding more and more of these public walkways and stairs hidden in the hills. It's an amazing area. Here's a little slide show for you:

My Parents as Goth-Rock Fans

Trying to put last night's ridiculous Red Sox loss to the Yankees out of my mind, and while running errands this morning, I stumbled on this odd article re-printed from the LA Times in today's Oakland Tribune (click for story):



The article is about Chthonic, a Taiwanese death metal rock band. Imagine, if you will or can, KISS with strait black hair and a real serious attitude (click to go to their myspace page). They are currently touring in the US with Ozzfest, and their fans often include middle-aged (and older) Taiwanese-Americans. Evidently, one their songs, "UNlimited Taiwan", has become an anthems of sorts for the independence movement, which is hoping that the UN will recognize Taiwan as an independent nation. Here is the song played along with a montage of the independence movement -- the myspace video description reads, "This is a short film by Director, Cheng Wen-tang. It's not a Music Video" (click to play):

UNlimited TAIWAN Short Film (Not Music Video)

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Even though it's not a "music video", the video piece actually fits well with the song, and focuses attention on Taiwan's exclusion from the World Health Organization (WHO), something my parents have been working hard to do something about. Definitely a great way to focus a new audience, and connect what would normally be divergent audiences with common goals -- but I have a hard time picturing my folks moshing at the foot of the stage, waving little flags.

But, whatever it takes. Rock on you guys.

The Spiders are in Charge

Tho it's not as bad as the "giant spider web in Texas" (why is everything big in Texas?), but the spiders here are just all over the place. True from the day we moved in, we've been running into, and cleaning spider webs all the time. Odd, as I don't think there are many bugs around at all, except maybe a few moths. I went out this AM to try to take pictures of the Bay Bridge closing (too foggy), and got covered with a web! And here's the busy little guy rebuilding:

It's such a strange day, and I really feel like the whole summer phase-shift thing is done now. I've started my job and started teaching my class; the Lab is pretty much done by now and the wave of tech issues resulting from the return of the faculty is behind me. The Bay Bridge is closed on Labor Day Weekend for this crazy construction thing, and the first Cal football game of the year is on. Tunnel Road is a mess. I had no idea we were so close to the Stadium that people would be *upstream* from us on Tunnel Road scamming tickets ("Anyone need tickets?"). It's like popping out of the T Station at Kenmore on Red Sox game day, only these guys are are barking at the traffic jam. And the traffic jam is a block or two from my front door. That's really strange.

So here we are, in our own happy little web. Our back to the Hills and Tunnel Road in front of us. We are caught here, but I am fine with that for now.

A Walk Around the Neighborhood

Went for a walk after dinner and snapped a few pics.

We moved to an area of fires and earthquakes, but it is a really beautiful neighborhood. It was wiped clean about fifteen years ago by a big wildfire. All the homes are new and crazy big, and they scamper up the hills in the most amazing ways; it's hard to show in pictures. And stylistically, the homes stretch the American vernacular - from pseudo-colonial, to California Mission, to "real new".

A guy from Berkeley Public Works told me that our house and the one across the street were really the only two buildings to come through the fires intact. It's strange that it should all feel like an established area and a new development at the same time.