NorthStarNerd.Org

My Aerospace Life ... from the DC-3 to the 787!

Imagine, my Grampa watched barnstorming biplanes over Iowa Cornfields. Today, I just saw the first flight of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner live via the web. Very cool!

I can remember watching the first moon walks of the Apollo missions, and the grainy TV broadcasts from Gemini. My family even has leftover food from a Gemini mission. It shall never be consumed!

My own first airplane flight was in a North Central Airlines DC-3 ... a model of which sits on my office desk. I also have a framed and autographed photo of the first two Space Shuttle astronauts (photo taken at liftoff).

Hats off to Boeing! Here are a few links and photos: (click upon any image to view full sized)

• Boeing First Flight

• Track the first flight in the air
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• Photographs from today's flight

DARPA Red Balloon Challenge

Early this morning (around 7 am) before church I read about DARPA's red balloon challenge. As my mind wandered during Pastor Mark's sermon (sorry!) I thought ... gee ... between my corporate Yammer network, and the Yammer Best Practices network ... I could put together a virtual team that would reach across the USA into hundreds of large corporations and involve their techies!

Thus, when I got on my computer after church and got ready to set my plan in action. Darn! Wouldn't you know ... a bunch of MIT students set a network into action and located all the ten balloons in under ten hours. I was already too late before I even started! Next week I'll pay more attention in church!

One of DARPA's goals was to see how quickly social networks could be utilized to achieve a common goal. In this instance the answer was "fast". For an interesting analysis, link on over to General Electric's Global Research Blog. They have a nice post with links which will fill you in on the competition.

The map below shows where the balloons were found (click to view full sized). Thus, as you can see the task was both difficult and a geographical challenge.

Has Wikipedia Lost its Mojo?

Back in August, 2006 I attended Wikimania (my blog post from 2006). At the time, this conference and Wikipedia were "where it was happening" in terms of the web. However, if you fast forward to December 2009, has Wikipedia lost its mojo? In a recent article posted by the Industry Standard's managing editor Ian Lamont, he notes:

"Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia built on the backs of a seemingly never-ending supply of free labor, is in a bit of a bind: Many contributors are throwing in the towel. As reported in a page one story in Monday's Wall Street Journal, "unprecedented numbers of the millions of online volunteers who write, edit and police it are quitting." And, the article adds, not enough new blood is coming online to replace the quitters."

Let's return to Wikimania. This conference is Wikipedia's annual event. Back in 2006, attendance was free and the presenter list read almost like a "who's who" of the web. I took time off from work and hung out in a Harvard Law School dorm for $20 per night. Friendships I developed during that conference are still maintained today, and I've even built schools in rural China thanks to Dj. Since the Summer of 2006, the conference has never again been held again in the USA.

While I understand the need for Wikipedia to be a global organization, they need a big annual event in America. In my professional life I lead collaboration projects for a Fortune 100 company. While virtual collaboration is nice, it is critical to physically bring together design teams on an occasional basis. In the corporate environment, we understand this fact (i.e. the need for face to face interaction). Does Wikipedia understand this need? Although I've never contributed a huge number of edits to Wikipedia, unlike most netizens I have contributed. Organizations need to grow and expand their user base, and by this I mean more than those folks who just read Wikipedia's content online.

I wish Wikipedia good luck, and if they ever have another Wikimania in the USA, I would seriously consider attending. 2010 is scheduled for Gdansk, Poland.

Football in Outer Space (NASA Engineering at Play!)

It's Thanksgiving weekend 2009, and if you've overdosed on the more run of the mill standard football fare shown on TV, I invite you to experience Football in Outer Space! See NASA astronauts play their 1st annual Thanksgiving classic at the International Space Station. Thus, while they were the visiting team, and therefore playing the ultimate road game, you'll enjoy some classic flying tackles ... both literally and figuratively! Make certain you watch the full Atlantis STS-129 mission highlights. It was while watching the Day #5 Highlights from NASA Television I first saw this football game. The technology on the Space Station and the Space Shuttle never ceases to amaze me.

In case you're interested in more than NASA's football prowess, here are a few great technology links:

• NASA Technology Gateway
• NASA Langley CTO's Tweets

MIT and Split Personalities

For a number of months, I've occasionally tracked the progress of the Personas project at MIT. Inspired by a LinkedIn status update by Francois Gossieaux where he wondered whether his MIT profile was accurate, I decided to perform a test of my two web personas. The results are shown below. Interested in seeing your own web persona? Here is the MIT link.

Click upon either image to view full sized.

• MIT Personas Test #1 (profile: Northstar Nerd)

• MIT Personas Test #2 (profile: Rich Hoeg)

Engineering Trivia

Tomorrow it's back to work after a mini-vacation that allowed me some time to hike in the Lake Superior wilderness. Before that return to work focused activities, I though I would let everyone know about a blog (EngCom.Net) which has a neat series on engineering trivia ... a good way for me to get serious once more, but not too serious! Although I don't normally review technology blogs which have a profit focus, in this case I'll make an exception. Given them a link, and test your knowledge!

However, if you need some more serious engineering, link to my engineering learning section. You'll find hundreds of links to engineering academic seminars, courses, custom engineering search engines and even Lego engineering!

 

LinkedIn, Not Just for Breakfast Anymore!

I've been researching the capabilities of LinkedIn's recent upgrade. While all the BIG press has been focused upon the integration of LinkedIn and Twitter, just as important a new feature is the ability to have threaded conversations (a microblog) with your connections status updates. However, the thread is not limited to just one's own connections.

Take a look at the screenshot shown below. Ross Mayfield, Chairman and Co-founder of Socialtext is part of my LinkedIn Connections, but Konstantin Guericke is not! The implications are HUGE. I am able to see the status updates of my connections, and anyone who comments ... whether they are part of my network or not. Some of the bigger complaints of mine over Twitter have been:

• Very difficult to create a high quality network of Followers
• There is often a high signal to noise ratio in Twitter

I believe the threaded conversation capability of LinkedIn will be very important. Via LinkedIn I have much more data about whom I am conversing with ... and can filter. (see my blog post from last June: Twinked-In)

Chief Twitter Correspondent Roland Needs Help!

The Northstar Nerd needs to add a new follow! (click to maximize ... via GoComics). Link to my Tweets.

Droids Shall Inherit the Earth

I don't normally post YouTube commercials, but my curiosity has definitely been piqued by the "anti Apple". Android from Google, Verizon and Motorola has major buzz. In addition, this commercial is wicked cool. Enjoy the graphic, also! (click to maximize)

 

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Adding Yourself to Your Own Twitter List

My thanks to C|Net which is where I learned this feature ... it's not obvious. I was one of the lucky (?) ones recently who Twitter gave access to their new feature, Twitter Lists. This ability allows me to create lists along whatever topic lines I desire. My first list is people who work in the collaboration space for large corporations and organizations. Just like Twitter accounts, you may "follow" Twitter lists. Hopefully this ability will make it easier to filter content on Twitter. Here is the link to my list.

• Twitter List: Collaboration 2.0
  
Focus: Individuals within organizations who work upon internal collaboration projects ... thus not consultants, not Web 2.0 companies, etc.

One darn inconvenient task, and hard to find is ... adding yourself to your own Twitter list. After all, why would I not add myself to the list given above? The task was not obvious ... once again, my thanks to C|Net for their post. I've improved upon their content by adding the screenshot given below. Click to maximize. (Learn about our benchmarking council's Google Wave test)