Check out my new SparkFun github repository.
You too can build electronics that will put you above the rest at work or allow you make your craziest ideas into a reality without an engineering background.  Dwight Eppinger works in the marketing department at Copper Mountain. He developed an LED lit, wireless controlled trail map at Copper Mountain. I woke up this morning and started browsing the headlines like I always do.  One headline caught my attention from telegraph.co.uk: Nasa satellite 'blinded by biggest ever star explosion in space' Whoa!? (almost choking on my Captain Crunch). They did not capitalise NASA! ;) Biggest star explosion ever? Really? Yeah right! Notice in the headline, 'blinded by biggest ever star explosion', is quoted. Someone actually said this? I really wanted to know who this credible source was, so I read the article. At the very end the author ironically quotes the lead scientist for the mission. Here is what he said: "This gamma-ray burst is by far the brightest light source ever seen in X-ray wavelengths at cosmological distances." Biggest-Star-Explosion-Ever. I don't see any one of those words in the quote by the scientist. I did a google search for the telegraph.co.uk headline. What I found surprised me. The headline went viral. Many blogs and news outlets picked up on the original misquoted telegrpah.co.uk headline. For instance, Huffington Post reports: "NASA Satellite Blinded by 'Biggest Ever' Star Explosion." Is this how online journalism works these days? Reporting like middle schoolers spreading rumours? Yellow, I tell you, yellow! I emailed the author of the telegraph.co.uk article. It went something like this: Can you cite to me who said specifically, "blinded by biggest ever star explosion"? The lead scientist did not say this, so who did? There is a difference between "brightest...ever seen" and "biggest ever". Duh. Five minutes later, he responded and CHANGED the two day old headline! Holy shit! It now reads: Nasa satellite 'blinded by biggest ever star explosion seen in space' The author added the word 'seen' into quoted text. What? I thought a quote was supposed to reference what someone has (previously) said? And the author is changing text in a quote? Is this legal? Something ain't stirrin' the cool aid. UPDATE 7/22: Huffington Post changed their headline! EDIT 2/20/11: Power Balance Australia *honestly* admits there is "no credible scientific evidence" that supports their claims! Links are cached pages since Power Balance has removed them.  Here is Power Balance USA's crooked response:  6/7/10: I came across a booth at this years Boulder Creek Festival that was selling magnetic healing bracelets. People in my group were interested in the godly like healing power of these bracelets and we stopped for a demo. The demo the "healer" performed on me was obviously a scam. Here is how it went down. Here is the trick: He asks to put my arms apart, straight out, and stand on one foot. He then pushes down on one of my arms at the elbow and I fall over, expectedly. I put on the magical power bracelet and do the experiment again, although this time I feel him pushing me, slightly inwards towards my center of gravity, but enough to counter my fall. I called him out but maybe I was wrong, his partner did another experiment. I stand on one leg with my arms straight down by my sides. He then grabs my wrist and pulls down on my arm, although I feel my arm come away from my body and away from over my leg just enough to pull me over. On goes the bracelet, he does it again, and this time he pushes my arm into my body to where the force is over my standing foot then pulls down, and I don't fall. I think the people that buy these things are sold by the demo and are so wrapped up in the pictures of proton matrices and sudo science literature, that they forget to be critical of the demo. I even asked the guy to explain to me what a proton and the only think he know was that it was in the center of an atom, that was it. I then asked if my Mom could perform the test on me, they said she was not "trained" to do so and therefore it wouldn't work. HaHa! That's hilarious! I went home and tried it on an unsupecting person and it turns out I am a highly trained magnetic bracelet healer! A street salesman claiming to exhibit godly like healing powers for $20 is rarely trustworthy. BINGO!!! (see below) Here is a GPS Tracking Tutorial I wrote for SparkFun. If you want to know more about how GPS works, check it out.  Here is what I think is a power circuit for a fusion reactor.  In April, most of the ski resorts close. You would think they close due to snow melt, but I have heard it is actually in part because of migration patterns of certain animals. Anyway, most years the resorts could easily stay open until May. ABasin is at a higher elevation than the other 5Mountain resorts and stays open regularly into June. This spring, the CO high country (primarily east of the divide), keeps getting good amounts of snow. ABasin is a bit west of the divide, but has been getting in on some of this as well. In the last few weeks, I have been up to ABasin twice after a couple of good spring snows (luckily I can miss work at the drop of a hat). Both times I hiked the upper east wall and the conditions were epic for this time of year! It is still very much winter at 13,000 feet.  The upper east wall at ABasin is some of the best in bounds couloir skiing I have found (other than Silverton Mountain of course), especially during spring. The hike up isn't too bad and the first gate is about 20 minutes from the lift. Here are some pictures from the last few weeks. 5-13-10 This is the hike along the ridge line. To the right - out of bounds wilderness for miles, To the left - steep in bounds avalanche controlled chutes.    View from one of the summits. Its almost June! It looks like the middle of winter!   4-26-10 Straight Blowin!       The players in the open source hardware movement are summarized in the video below. SparkFun is leading the pack in revenue with some heavily advertised companies right behind like Paralax and Seed Studio. |
RSS Feed