NorthStarNerd.Org

Blog Quest 2.0 ... Revenge of the Nerds!

As promised, Blog Quest is back, as a continuing series. I have gone back to all my old postings and labeled them under the category Blog Quest 2.0. Thus, you can now easily review all my past reviews ... including the all time favorite Code Rap! However, rather than living in the past let's move on to the the present and future. For these initial entries you have both me and a favorite tech blog friend of mine, Chris Gammell to thank (take a look at his blog, Analog Life). Anyhow, Chris chimes in with these submissions:

• Flying Flux: What can I say about a blog with kind of name. If you read this blogger's profile you will learn he is a "worker bee" and "engineer" for a large multi-national who lives in the land of the snow (fits in well with the Northstar Nerd). The blog is fun and often irreverant.

Next we move on to ... (also from Chris)

• Energy Czar Nation: I'm not sure what I can say about an engineer whose two most recent posts are It's Almost 2010 ... Where's My Flying Car and The Personal Super Computer in Your Pocket. Rick Zarr is the Chief Technologist of PowerWise® Solutions at National Semiconductor, and seems to have a serious geek rating! Worth a visit.

And finally, I had better do some work myself ... a trip to the MatLab world (actually I learned of this blog through a post on another favorite engineering blog, Blinkdagger. Anyhow, here is my new submission:

• Undocumented MatLab: Yair Altman's blog may not be as exciting as "everything you always wanted to know about sex, but we're afraid to ask" ... but when it comes to Matlab, Yair knows his stuff.  Take a look.

And that ends today's submissions. As always, I'll get around to adding these in the Engineering Learning Wiki.

Engineering Blog Quest Returns!

Apparently my engineering Blog Quest 2008 Series was popular. It still gets lots of hits, and submissions for my review. Why argue with success; thus I bring you Blog Quest 2.0 ... Return of the Nerds! For you newbies, I try to find and review blogs which are run by private individuals without an a focus upon trying to make money (i.e. no huge ad presence on the blog). Over the next week, I'll add a new category to this blog ... named ... blog quest (how creative). Stay tuned. I have a number of good candidate entries.

IBM, Jeopardy & the Northstar Nerd

Hey IBM Labs ... many of the comments on your YouTube video about Watson playing on Jeopardy are not in the best of taste. I thought you (i.e. IBM) would appreciate a video response from the Northstar Nerd, particularly if my video was on target and in good taste. It's been 24 hours ... post my video response! (Netizens ... help me get my HAL 9000 video response posted!)

• IBM's Watson Computer Jeopardy Video

And my video response ... submitted but not posted by IBM.

IBM Computer to Play Humans on Jeopardy

Isaac Asimov, where are you! IBM has just announced that its Watson computer will play a group of Jeopardy champions. Some of you may remember when IBM programmed Deep Blue and then had it play chess grand master Garry Kasparov. You can link to YouTube and watch a short video on this new effort. This will create buzz!  I will be watching Jeopardy that day (date not yet announced).

Search 2.0 ... the next Google? Wolfram?

Mathematica was a huge step forward in computational software ... will Stephan Wolfram finally demonstrate the next generation search engine? Attend the live webcast from Harvard and learn for yourself. Here is the seminar / demo announcement:

Plans were announced this week for Stephen Wolfram's first public presentation of Wolfram|Alpha. He'll be giving a sneak preview of his computational knowledge engine at Harvard Law School on Tuesday, April 28. If you cannot attend the presentation in person, we invite you to participate in the live webcast.

Google x2

Google has released some new services, Google Profiles and Google Similar Image Search. Both services are easy to use, and are worth the effort to learn. Let's first review Google Similar Image Search. Quite often when you are looking for an image, you have an idea of the desired image ... but Google can not read your mind! For instance, let's say you wanted an image that shows brain neurons and waves. Using the new search capability you could query for brain images ... and then when you see something you like, click upon the similar images link. Let's try it ... by running a query on brain, you will find the image shown below. Click upon the similar images link! Neat, but more importantly ... useful!

Let's do the same thing with the query cat ... this time we want orange tabbys ... our similar images results.

And the other new Google service? Profiles. Have you ever Googled your own name? Most of us have looked up our web results. Wouldn't it be nice if Google had a profile that they called in search results? The answer is "yes", and now Google has profiles. To learn how to build your profile, link here. if you would like to see how results are presented, here is the Google query for Richard Hoeg (me). Profiles are listed at the bottom of your result pages. Look for my thumbnail photo.

Air Shows!

Ouch ... this is both cool, and embarrassing! My wife and I have jumped upon a special package to fly down to Branson for their first ever airshow, on the first ever commercial airplane flight, two days before their new airport officially opens. As a techie I get a pass for these cool set of "firsts", but Branson! Have I lost or gained in the cool quotient? You tell me? After all, the Branson Air Show Twitters! Now, do we go to the Dick Clark's American Bandstand, or the Lawrence Welk Show!

Post Update: Watch the Airshow!

(Design) Engineering the Enterprise

Joel Mowers has a new blog, Engineering the Enterprise. His blog seems to indicate that he welcomes guests posts ... and more importantly he is picking an area where the concentration of blogs on the net is way to small ... engineering software.  Please link, subscribe, comment, read. etc. He is fighting the good battle. I will add his blog to the Engineering Learning Wiki Blogroll. His blog rules note the requirement for neutrality... which is super. We already have enough company blogs.

Update on April 22nd: Apparently certain corporate firewalls do not like Joel's url (www.ethee.com). In fact, the classification that comes up is definitely undesirable (p<o<r<n). His site is innocent, but it shows that one needs to be careful when choosing a domain name. In Joel's example ... we have a choice that goes with "engineering" (the first "e") "the" "e" (for enterprise). I contacted Joel with this information.

Boston ... 26.2!

Way to go Karen (my daughter) and Molly (my wife)! Started together, ran together, finished together.
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Project Polar Bear

For years I have tried to make education (science and engineering) a bit more fun via my work with Lego League. Well, these folks from Ely, Minnesota ... make the Northstar Nerd proud. Read, watch (video link) and learn about Project Polar Bear (Hundred mile journey by dogsled and ski to Hudson Bay and Churchill ... but linked to the classroom):

• Project Polar Bear
• Expedition Blog
  
• Boundary Waters Blogger

Project Polar Bear on PhotoPeach