Uncategorized – Page 3 – Robert W. Rose

January 6, 2013

Songs that have their own dance

When I woke up this morning I was humming the “Cupid Shuffle.” Actually I didn’t know that was the song’s name, and I didn’t know any of the lyrics, but the bassline and that keyboard hit were going through my head. As the day progressed I realized I was humming one of those songs that had a dance to go with it, and it got me thinking about other songs that have their own dance. Gangnam Style (Psy), Macarena (Los del Rio, 1994), C’Mon ‘N Ride It (Quad City Dj’s, 1995), were some of the first that came to mind.

C’Mon ‘N Ride It (The Train) (1995)… I only remember this song because of how awful it is, and accidentally catching them on Oprah flipping channels when I was a teenager. That horrible image of Oprah doing the choo-choo maneuver is burned into my retina forever; oddly hilarious but at the same time horrifying to witness. I’m sure the song was inspired by the commercial success of the Macarena, which was released the year before. It’s one of those songs that’s mildly nauseating for me when I get it stuck in my head, like Hangin’ Tough (New Kids on the Block).

Hangin’ Tough, by the way, doesn’t come with it’s own “dance” per se, but it does introduce some easy to follow dance moves that involve swaying your arms back and forth and sliding across the floor with slick shoes. I’m confident it was the most popular song used in middle school lip sync contests in 1988.

Does The Twist (Chubby Checker), Thriller (Michael Jackson) also count as songs with their own dance? What is the origin of the Chicken Dance, and does that count as a song with it’s own dance? So many questions troubled me this morning! I began to wonder if others though the same and found this compilation of songs that have their own dance. It’s quite a list, and many of the songs that sprang into my inner ear when reading it induced immediate nausea. Cotton Eyed Joe was one I especially would rather have not recalled. Proceed with caution!

November 30, 2012

Microsoft Surface RT Review

Summary: Stay away.

Major frustrations:

The email client doesn’t support my corporate Exchange server’s configuration. Once you get past the certificate issue you’re presented with a terse error message about the Surface RT not being good enough for my Exchange server’s security policy. iPhone works fine. Android devices work fine.
There are too many different ways to do the same thing. There should only be one. For example, I counted at least three different ways to change your wifi settings, and they all have slightly overlapping (but different) hooks into the underlying wifi function.
Most everything is designed for horizontal scrolling. Never mind that’s not the most ergonomic gesture for my thumbs (when holding the device with two hands). Never mind you can’t build up substantial scroll inertia horizontally. (pshaw, why would you want to do that)? The core problem here is swiping from the left and right edges has a meaning separate from scrolling. I frequently have switched apps or pulled open the settings menu when I meant to horizontally scroll.

I could go on and write a long review explaining everything wrong with the Surface
RT, but I did some Googling and discovered many other people have the
same issues with the device that I do. The hardware is great, but the
software is bad. Unbelievably bad. It’s almost like there’s a willful
intent to make the most frustrating user experience possible, to confound all of your preconceived notions and intuition for how a touchscreen device should work. Yes–I just went there.

I don’t typically rant on my blog, but this device deserves it. It’s frustratingly bad. Stay away.

October 13, 2012

First commercial resupply spaceship is open for business

October 9, 2012

SpaceX-1 arrives at ISS

September 5, 2012

Combined address/search bar in web browsers

Sometimes there are “advancements” in computing that make me feel old.

I’ve been avoiding the combined address/search bar thing for some time, but the latest Safari update forced me to confront the issue. I’ve been trying to use it for a few weeks now and I can’t get used to it. It makes me feel substantially less productive. It’s one of these things where your brain is just wired to work a different way from the tool.

Entering a website address is apparently now considered a special case, a thing of the past. Now you search for everything. Searching is the common case.

My problem is, for me, entering a website address is the common case. At work, I usually know exactly what address I want to hit. Or if I want to search for something it’s on the corporate network–not google–so I’ll hit the intranet search server.

Now I have to remember to put a trailing slash on everything. I’m typing an extra character in the common case.

Back in my day we used to type http:// in front of everything. Sometimes we used to specify an alternative port! Or even another protocol! And we liked it!

July 30, 2012

On the cost effectiveness of commercial space

Link

The SpaceX Falcon-Dragon transportation system arguably represents the best investment NASA has ever made… The stunningly low-cost Falcon-Dragon system
represents much more than a rare bargain for taxpayers, in an era when
most such stories have a very different ending. It offers indisputable
proof that a new approach to space transportation can work far more
effectively than the old ways. It’s absolutely vital to keep the company
and the space transport system which has pioneered this path in the
vanguard.

July 29, 2012

Cycling with GP contact lenses

I’ve been getting back into cycling lately, and a few days ago when I was out on a particularly windy ride I was reminded of one thing I don’t look forward to when riding: dealing with my contacts. I wear Rigid Gas Permeable (RGP or just “GP”) contact lenses, which are better optically than soft contacts or glasses, but they can make a little wind or dust feel like you’ve got a rock scratching the inside of your eyeball. On this ride I was barreling down a busy road and right as I was getting passed by a truck some dust flew into my eye, my eyes teared up and I had to slam on the brakes for fear I was going to hit something. Not fun.

So I did searching around the internets and learned about motorcycle sunglasses. I went to a local motorcycle gear store and picked up a cheap pair of sunglasses that have a foam gasket around the inside. They’re awesome! I push them into my face and they form a complete seal around my eyes. I don’t feel the wind on my eyes at all. I just completed a ride with them and had no issues at all with wind or dust.

It seems obvious in retrospect, but I’m much happier on my bike now! They’re a little warm when you’re not moving but it was no worse than working up a sweat with ski goggles on. The trade-off is definitely worth it.

May 31, 2012

We did it again.

Dragon C2 returned to Earth this morning after 9 days in orbit with the International Space Station.

Getting to the point where we could begin the mission was a tough journey. Countless* late nights and weekends were spent at work going through every little detail. (*I’m sure my super-amazing exceedingly-tolerant and understanding wife can derive the actual count.. I love you Maria!)

The mission itself was also tough. The majority of the critical operations were scheduled for the wee hours of the morning (launch, fly-under, rendezvous, departure, re-entry). My desire to monitor progress 24×7 was quickly overcome by exhaustion. It’s one thing to pull an all-nighter, but it’s another thing entirely when you have a steady trickle of adrenaline fed into your veins. When I was finally able to sleep I would dream about the mission. When I woke the first thing I would think of was the mission–the adrenaline would hit me again and I would leap out of bed anxious to get back to work so I could monitor in real-time what was happening.

I still can’t believe how well the mission went. The rational part of my brain knows that for all the hard work we put into the design, development and testing of this vehicle it should have damn well worked, but there’s another portion of my brain that simply can not believe it. I have to keep looking at the photos to remind myself that we actually completed the mission.

I re-read my post from the C1 Dragon and I’m struck how similar and different the experience was. Seeing things go as planned was as astounding and overwhelming as it was on C1, but I knew with this mission the next-hardest-part was always right around the corner. There are always plenty of more opportunities for things to go wrong. It was tough trying to keep emotions in check the whole time–you want to celebrate each little success but not “jinx it.”

The final rendezvous was the climax of the mission. So much had to go right for it to work, and although there are many protections in the system to handle things in the event something goes wrong, it was challenging keeping those “what-ifs” out my head during that phase. When Pettit and Kuipers finally announced they had captured Dragon it was a huge relief. (Those guys are rockstars btw).

The successful splashdown today was a great wrap-up to the mission. I’m so thankful for the support my wife and family have given me, I’m proud to work with the SpaceX team, and I’m thankful for all the great assistance the people at NASA have given us throughout.