My Word with Douglas E. Welch

Taking Things Apart: A workshop for kids and adults

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via Taking Things Apart: A workshop for kids and adults.

Anyone can LOOK at Christmas lights, but can you PLAY your Christmas Lights?

Ric Turner of Santa Clarita ups the ante from last year’s Christmas Light Hero by creating an interactive video game — Snowball Blaster — using the Christmas lights on his house. Players sit in a moving rocket seat and try to blast the snowballs to help Santa make his rounds. The garage door is the play field and the entire house interacts with the game. Old school arcade fun on an entirely new scale!

Ric adds…

“The Christmas Light video game – Snowball Blaster! Hop in Santa’s electric training sled and grab the game controller for an adventure in snowball dodging. Press the left button to move left and the right to move right. Make it past all the snowballs for a big light show! (nobody has made it yet!) Game is easy enough for kids and challenging for adults… and quite addictive. High score so far is 910.”

The game is designed around the limitation of having very few positions to light up. The timing of when they light up is more versatile, so that’s where the game lives. It’s easy to learn, starts easy and gets harder pretty quick. The audio is broadcast on FM so people watching in cars get a good show too.

You can stop by and play Snowball Blaster – The Game on Philbrook Avenue in Santa Clarita most nights after dark.

Our friend, David, is on the navigation team for this project — Douglas

NASA to Host Live Events for November 4 Comet Encounter

Nov. 1, 2010

NASA TO HOST LIVE EVENTS FOR NOVEMBER 4 COMET ENCOUNTER

WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a series of media and educational events about the EPOXI mission’s close encounter with comet Hartley 2 at approximately 7 a.m. PDT on Thursday, Nov. 4. The spacecraft will provide the most extensive observations of a comet in history.

Live coverage beginning at 6:30 a.m. from mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., will be broadcast on NASA Television’s Media Channel and the agency’s website. A post-flyby news briefing is planned for 1 p.m. For NASA TV streaming video, scheduling and downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

Media who would like to cover the event at JPL must RSVP in advance to the JPL Media Relations Office at 818-354-5011. Valid media credentials are required. Non-U.S. citizens must also bring passports. From 6:30 to 8:30 a.m., media can watch live coverage of the control room via a feed to JPL’s von Karman Auditorium. The auditorium will remain open through the day for working media. Reporters who won’t be at JPL may call the Media Relations Office to make arrangements to ask questions during the briefing.

The timeline for mission coverage is (all times PDT and subject to change):

6:30-8:30 a.m. — NASA TV commentary begins from mission control and includes coverage of closest approach, an educational segment, and the return of close approach images. 1 p.m. — News briefing following encounter. Participants may include:

Ed Weiler, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington Michael A’Hearn, principal investigator, University of Maryland Jessica Sunshine, EPOXI scientist, University of Maryland Tim Larson, EPOXI project manager at JPL

Activities will also be carried live on one of JPL’s Ustream channels at:

http://www.ustream.tv/user/NASAJPL2

The public can watch a real-time animation of the EPOXI comet flyby using NASA’s new “Eyes on the Solar System” Web tool. JPL created this 3-D environment that allows people to explore the solar system directly from their computers. Visit:

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes

EPOXI is an extended mission that utilizes the already “in-flight” Deep Impact spacecraft to explore distinct celestial targets of opportunity. The term EPOXI is a combination of the names for the two extended mission components: the Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the Hartley 2 flyby, called the Deep Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI). For more information about EPOXI, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/epoxi

-end-

I get the majority of the books I read from the LA Public Library and today they made it even easier to find and manage their holdings – LAPL to Go. Mobile apps are available for iPHone, Android, Palm and more. The screen shot here is from the iPhone app. You can download this app from the Apple App store for free or visit the link below for other mobile devices.

Get “LAPL To Go“, a mobile application that allows you to search the Catalog and Photo Collection, place holds and renew items, find libraries, and receive RSS feeds of recommended books! Available for iPhone here.
Android, Palm, Blackberry and MS Mobile users should point their mobile devices to http://lapl.boopsie.com.

It seems many of my friends are huge fans of the Netflix movie service. A while ago, Netflix started offer and “instant play” option which allowed you to watch movies on your computer without waiting for the DVD to arrive.

While watching on your computer is ok, most people would like to get the movie up on their big screen TVs. I have been recommending and advising people on how to plug their laptop into their televisions, but for many there are simply too many technological hurdles. Now, though, if you own any number of other devices from a Tivo DVR to a Nintendo Wii, you really don’t have an excuse anymore. Netflix can use these devices already connected to your television to put your movies back where they belong – on your (big screen) TV!

I knew that Netflix supported a wide variety of systems, but it was only when a friend brought over his recently released software for the Wii that is was brought home to me. I have a Wii connected to an older 40” projection HD Monitor. Since the Wii is already in place, all it took was loading the Netflix software CD into the Wii and verifying the Netflix account to get us started. Within minutes we were browsing his Netflix collection using out Wii remote.

While the Netflix software for the Nintendo Wii doesn’t support full HD, the picture and sound was excellent. I am using the component cable to connect my Wii to the television, so that gives you the best picture possible. This might be an excuse to upgrade your Wii connection cables if you are currently using the composite connectors. Don’t let this stop you, though. The Netflix software is free and if you are a current member, you might have already received it in the mail.

(Netflix supports a wide variety of other devices beyond the Ninendo Wii. See a complete list at this page – “TV episodes & movies — instantly to your TV” – on the Netflix site.)

There are other ways of connection your computer to your television. Most HD televisions now include HDMI and VGA connections which allow you to display anything from your computer directly on the screen. This can be a bit more difficult to set up, but nothing that a half hour of my consulting couldn’t solve. While Hulu doesn’t really want you displaying it on your television, it is very easy to do when your computer is connected.

Looking to connect your game console or computer to your big screen TV? Drop me at line in the comments here or at me@douglasewelch.com and we can discuss what it might take. You might have a device connected to your television that can already do the job.

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