Kurt's Weblog

Since Mac OSX 10.2 (back in 2004), Mac OSX has had screencapture to grab the screen (man screencapture), but it has always bothered me that the mac does not have a built in command line interface to grab frames from an attached or built in camera. A number of people have written this type of program for the mac over the years and a number of companies sell this. I just ran into ImageSnap, which is a public domain program. It's built around XCode and after using XCode a bunch of the last two years, I have to say that XCode drives me nuts. The UI is always changing and it hides what's going on (not a good thing for C, ObjC and C++). And that makes building much more complicated than it needs to be. I've taken version 0.2.5 and reworked it a bit to create macframegrab on github. I created a super simple Makefile and did a first pass on cleaning up the formatting of the code (XCode makes a mess of tabs/spaces/indents). Now I just need to rework the command line arg parse to do GNU style command lines and package it in fink. I also want to re-organize things a bit.

All this from bumping into OS taking a photo with the iSight using a command-line tool? because of Dr. Drang posting aobut screencapture in his Snapflickr update

Frame grabbing in linux with a BT848 chipset back in the late 1990's was soooo much easier. Just open /dev/somethingorother.ppm and read the image from the camera. Apple, are you listening? You could make grabbing frames from the camera that easy. Really.

Now I need to find time to go play with my GoPro and FitPC.

I did some time lapse movies back 7 years ago: Core 1 sample photos and movie...



And check out Core on Deck!:The Journey of how the Samples travel from the Rig Floor to the Core Lab

I know, I know. I work for Google and I should be making "decks" in Google Docs with the Presentation tool. I've been doing that, but life would not be complete if I never tried making a LaTeX beamer presentation. Beamer, LaTeX, org and related are for those people who truly value the concept of creating content without worrying about the form. Content over form for sure. Sometimes the planets align (or I just had enough red wine) to step from the known to the undefined of the new. That, plus a blip in my RSS feeds, Using Beamer Animations to simulate Terminal Input and OutputSo, I've finally taken the step. I was really impressed with Dan Pineo's thesis presentations done with Beamer while he was doing his PhD. Now I need to take the plung and get emacspeak sending org to my Google docs account.

I used A Beamer Quickstart by Rouben Rostamian. Latex is not my favorite markup as I definitely prefer org-mode, but I feel more complete now.

% -*- compile-command: "pdflatex helloworld-beamer.tex && open helloworld-beamer.pdf" -*-

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{default}
\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{A universal law}

Hello world!

\end{frame}
\end{document}

Hello world is the universal constant. Put the above into a file called helloworld-beamer.tex in emacs and use M-x compile (if you are on a Mac), so view the results. On linux, change open to xdg-open.



And yes, you can do beamer right from org mode. Just ask it to!

#+LaTeX_CLASS: beamer

* A universal constant

-Hello world

Then just do C-c C-e d and you'll be looking at a PDF of your presentation. I expected there to be an export to beamer under the latex options, but alas, I was surprised to see that you have to set beamer as an option.

I finally got around to making a time lapse movie for 2011 and a 2nd movie for the first month and a half of 2012 for the USCGC Healy ice breaker. The 2nd video includes the Healy providing an escort for a fuel ship into Nome, AK.

All of 2011:



A month and a half at the beginning of 2012:



The USCG has a video online showing the escort work from down lown that includes audio of ice breaking.

I just finished spending way too many hours correcting the speech to text captioning generated by YouTube/Google for my first research tools video on emacs. Emacs speak is probably pretty hard as any AI assists to guessing words is going to be trained on regular speech, which is nothing like talking about "Meta x" and such. But, it is done and it looks great. Only 7.5 more hours of speech text left to edit. Ouch. If anyone wants to volunteer for those additional videos or translate to another language, please go for it!

So press the "CC" button and enjoy text that is pretty close to what I say. You can even follow along as I've got the text in bitbucket. sbv is just a text file with timestamps. If you upload a video to YouTube, it will automatically generate one of these files that you can download.

video-01.sbv

I have being trying to get a handle on the GNU autotools (autoconf, automake, libtool, etc) for quite some time. I've gotten the very simple helloworld figured out in my own way and I'm hoping that by blogging what I did that it will stick a bit more to my brain.

The source files built in this post are available here:

tryautotools-0.1.tar.bz2

I'm doing this on mac osx 10.7 with fink. Hopefully your milage will not vary.

fink list -i autoconf autogen automake libtool

i   autoconf2.6      2.68-1       System for generating configure scripts
i   automake1.11     1.11.1-3     GNU Standards-compliant Makefile generator
i   libtool2         2.4.2-1      Shared library build helper, v2.x
i   libtool2-shlibs  2.4.2-1      Shared libraries for libtool, v2.x

I am starting out by using autoscan with a very simple helloworld C program. Can't get much simpler than this.

cd ~/Desktop

mkdir -p tryautotools/src
cd tryautotools

# Dump a helloworld.c program into the src directory
cat <<EOF > src/helloworld.c
#include <stdio.h>

int main (int argc, char *argv[]) {
    printf("Hello world from %s\n", argv[0]);
    return 0;
}
EOF

autoscan
mv configure.scan configure.ac 

Do not call the configure input configure.in. ".in" is the old style. The newer documentation says to use configure.ac. We now need to edit the starting configure.ac input file. I edited AC_INIT and commented out AC_CONFIG_HEADERS as I do not have any need for a header file in this overly simple case.

AC_PREREQ([2.68])
AC_INIT([tryautotools], [0.1], [schwehr@gmail.com])
AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([src/helloworld.c])
#AC_CONFIG_HEADERS([config.h])

# Checks for programs.
AC_PROG_CC

# Actually generate output
AC_OUTPUT

Now run autoconf to try creating the build system. It will not yet do anything, but we are on the way.

autoconf

ls -lF
# total 200
# drwxr-xr-x  5 schwehr  eng    170 Feb  7 07:47 autom4te.cache/
# -rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng      0 Feb  7 07:45 autoscan.log
# -rwxr-xr-x  1 schwehr  eng  95692 Feb  7 07:47 configure*
# -rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng    467 Feb  7 07:47 configure.ac
# drwxr-xr-x  3 schwehr  eng    102 Feb  7 07:45 src/

Now we con run the configure script that was generated. It won't really do anything as we have work ahead of us to get this to build a Makefile.

./configure --help

`configure' configures tryautotools 0.1 to adapt to many kinds of systems.

Usage: ./configure [OPTION]... [VAR=VALUE]...

To assign environment variables (e.g., CC, CFLAGS...), specify them as
VAR=VALUE.  See below for descriptions of some of the useful variables.

Defaults for the options are specified in brackets.

Configuration:
  -h, --help              display this help and exit
      --help=short        display options specific to this package
...
  --pdfdir=DIR            pdf documentation [DOCDIR]
  --psdir=DIR             ps documentation [DOCDIR]

Some influential environment variables:
  CC          C compiler command
  CFLAGS      C compiler flags
  LDFLAGS     linker flags, e.g. -L<lib dir> if you have libraries in a
              nonstandard directory <lib dir>
  LIBS        libraries to pass to the linker, e.g. -l<library>
  CPPFLAGS    (Objective) C/C++ preprocessor flags, e.g. -I<include dir> if
              you have headers in a nonstandard directory <include dir>

Use these variables to override the choices made by `configure' or to help
it to find libraries and programs with nonstandard names/locations.

Report bugs to <schwehr@gmail.com>.

./configure

checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking for suffix of executables... 
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed
configure: creating ./config.status

The is the shortest configure run that I've every seen. Usually they go on for page after page of mind numbing checks.

ls -l

total 248
drwxr-xr-x  5 schwehr  eng    170 Feb  7 07:47 autom4te.cache
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng      0 Feb  7 07:45 autoscan.log
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng   7032 Feb  8 17:28 config.log
-rwxr-xr-x  1 schwehr  eng  13366 Feb  8 17:28 config.status
-rwxr-xr-x  1 schwehr  eng  95692 Feb  7 07:47 configure
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng    467 Feb  7 07:47 configure.ac
drwxr-xr-x  3 schwehr  eng    102 Feb  7 07:45 src

The configure run created a "autom4te.cache", a config.log, and a config.status.

Time to start creating a Makefile for our little hello world program. Create a Makefile.am:

cat <<EOF > Makefile.am
bin_PROGRAMS = helloworld

helloworld_SOURCES = src/helloworld.c
EOF

We have to tell the configure.am that we want to have a Makefile build. Add these two lines to the configure.am:

AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile])
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE

We also need to add some missing files and ask the tools to add other missing files.

touch NEWS README INSTALL AUTHORS ChangeLog
automake --add-missing  
aclocal
autoconf
automake --add-missing
autoconf
./configure
make
./helloworld # Yeah!  We have a binary
# Hello world from ./helloworld

If you change the configure.ac or Makefile.am, you need to rebuild the whole deal. Typically this is done with the autoreconf command in a "autogen.sh"

cat <<EOF > autogen.sh
#!/bin/sh

autoreconf --verbose --force --install
EOF

chmod +x autogen.sh
make clean
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
./helloworld

Final config

Here is what the files look like at the end:

ls -lFR
total 704
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng       0 Feb  9 08:24 AUTHORS
lrwxr-xr-x  1 schwehr  eng      31 Feb  9 08:24 COPYING@ -> /sw/share/automake-1.11/COPYING
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng       0 Feb  9 08:24 ChangeLog
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng   15578 Feb  9 08:34 INSTALL
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng   20458 Feb  9 08:34 Makefile
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng      65 Feb  9 08:29 Makefile.am
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng   20567 Feb  9 08:34 Makefile.in
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng       0 Feb  9 08:24 NEWS
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng       0 Feb  9 08:24 README
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng   34611 Feb  9 08:34 aclocal.m4
-rwxr-xr-x  1 schwehr  eng      50 Feb  9 08:34 autogen.sh*
drwxr-xr-x  9 schwehr  eng     306 Feb  9 08:34 autom4te.cache/
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng       0 Feb  7 07:45 autoscan.log
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng    9292 Feb  9 08:34 config.log
-rwxr-xr-x  1 schwehr  eng   29298 Feb  9 08:34 config.status*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 schwehr  eng  134473 Feb  9 08:34 configure*
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng     361 Feb  9 08:22 configure.ac
-rwxr-xr-x  1 schwehr  eng   18615 Feb  9 08:34 depcomp*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 schwehr  eng    8936 Feb  9 08:34 helloworld*
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng    2572 Feb  9 08:34 helloworld.o
-rwxr-xr-x  1 schwehr  eng   13663 Feb  9 08:34 install-sh*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 schwehr  eng   11419 Feb  9 08:34 missing*
drwxr-xr-x  3 schwehr  eng     102 Feb  7 07:45 src/

./autom4te.cache:
total 904
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng  107508 Feb  9 08:24 output.0
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng  134926 Feb  9 08:25 output.1
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng  134926 Feb  9 08:34 output.2
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng    9563 Feb  9 08:34 requests
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng   12333 Feb  9 08:24 traces.0
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng   32558 Feb  9 08:25 traces.1
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng   20135 Feb  9 08:34 traces.2

./src:
total 8
-rw-r--r--  1 schwehr  eng  118 Feb  7 07:45 helloworld.c

configure.ac:

# -*- Autoconf -*-
# Process this file with autoconf to produce a configure script.

AC_PREREQ([2.68])
AC_INIT([tryautotools], [0.1], [schwehr@gmail.com])
AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([src/helloworld.c])

AC_PROG_CC

AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile])
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE

AC_OUTPUT

Makefile.am:

bin_PROGRAMS = helloworld

helloworld_SOURCES = src/helloworld.c

autogen.sh:

#!/bin/sh

autoreconf --verbose --force --install

src/helloworld.c:

#include <stdio.h>

int main (int argc, char *argv[]) {
    printf("Hello world from %s\n", argv[0]);
    return 0;
}

Where next?

My next goal is to slowly build out examples on how to add features in my own style. This feels like I am rewriting the autobook, but I had a hard time trying to follow those and I really want to be able to use the pkg-config programs to get the correct flags for each program. e.g. the gdal-config shown below.

I just ripped through the process of building gdal, qgis, and grass for linux. That renewed my commitment to get there with the other tools I use that are not there on the packaging front.

gdal-config --help
Usage: gdal-config [OPTIONS]
Options:
        [--prefix[=DIR]]
        [--libs]
        [--dep-libs]
        [--cflags]
        [--datadir]
        [--version]
        [--ogr-enabled]
        [--formats]

gdal-config --cflags
-I/sw32/include/gdal1

gdal-config --libs    
-L/sw32/lib -lgdal

When downloading data from other sources (portable drive or the Internet), it is important to verify all files that you have received everything you expected and that all the bytes are exactly as they should be. There are many problems that can sneak into transfer processes that people often do not normally think about. For example:

• Incomplete transfer of bytes from a broken connection
• Bit errors that are not detected (this is extremely rare buf happens when you have huge amounts of data)
• Extra junk added to a file by poorly crafted software
• And ...

It is good practice to calculate a check number for each file transfered. There are many algorithms to choose from, but at this time, the most commonly used one is "MD5".

A MD5 sum is a number computed for a chunk of data (e.g. a file). It is similar to the old CRC32 or checksum that computes a small number used to verify a block of data. While the MD5 algorithm is no longer safe to use in cryptographic algorithms, it is still very useful for checking that data being downloaded is the expected set of bytes. There are stronger check algorithms such as the SHA-2 (e.g. SHA-256) that work well, but these take longer to compute.

An example of compute times with a 887MB file on a Intel Xeon X5650 at 2.67GHz Linux box with enough ram that the file should all be cached. I used the linux time command (man 1 time).

Algorithm	time real (s)	time user
md5	2.015	1.790
sha1	3.421	3.310
sha224	6.180	5.980
sha256	6.184	6.000
sha384	4.393	4.260
sha512	4.395	4.140

An example of the use of use of md5 hashes to validate files might help. Pypi is the distribution site for Python software libraries. Take the Shapely module for GIS vector operations. Release 1.2.14 is here: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/Shapely/1.2.14 I can download the source and check against the md5. The checksum is part of the URL or available as the text from a link: http://pypi.python.org/pypi?:action=show_md5&digest=be8efc68e83b3db086ec092a835ae4e5

wget "http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/S/Shapely/Shapely-1.2.14.tar.gz#md5=be8efc68e83b3db086ec092a835ae4e5"
md5sum Shapely-1.2.14.tar.gz 
# be8efc68e83b3db086ec092a835ae4e5  Shapely-1.2.14.tar.gz

And now I know that what I downloaded is an exact match to what is on the pypi server.

MD5 sums help the world of data transfer detect errors and allow for attempts to correct these problems. This is especially important for any process that mirrors data from one location (e.g. a ship where the data is collected) to another (e.g. a data center).

There are many ways to calculate md5 sums. Sometimes this is done as a drag-n-drop (DND) windows program. I stipulate that if your workflow contains a manual MD5 checksum calculation, something is seriously wrong. The software you are using should be fixed to automatically produce a md5 checksum file when writing data files and automatically check a checksum on read if a checksum file is available. There are md5 libraries for just about every programming language and command line programs such as md5sum.

See also:

• RFC 1321: The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm
• ResearchTools hw 2
• Research Tools video 18 - Reading a HDF5 BAG

Today the Google LatLong blog announced the new bathymetry update in Google Earth. I'm having a blast working on Oceans in the Geo group at Google. The work on this release was done before I got to Google, so I had very little to do with the release, but I'm super excited to work with the community at making Google Oceans even more useful than it already is!

Read the whole post here! A clearer view of the seafloor in Google Earth [ Google Lat Long Blog ]

Google Earth Ocean Terrain Receives Major Update - Data from Scripps, NOAA sharpen resolution of seafloor maps, correct "discovery" of Atlantis [ SIO ]



The bathymetry goes well with the just released better look for land: Google Earth 6.2: It's a beautiful world

You can try out the historical image button to see before and after at the moment (this might not be available down the road).

Thanks go to Roland for catching some bad code in libais that has been in there the entire time. I was masking the parents member data with child definitions of the same member variables. Not good! This is an awesome demonstration of getting more eyes on code.

This libais build system is definitely a mess, but at least the code base is getting better.

libais in github

The emacsrocks channel on youtube looks pretty awesome. The first episode shows you C-x r t <RET> for retangular region replace. Nice!

John did an excellent job describing what was going on with the Costa Concordia based on what is visible in the AIS vessel tracking data. gCaptainâÄôs John Konrad Narrates the Final Maneuvers of the Costa Concordia. He was on a small sail boat at the time so there is some wave noise in the video. I hope John makes another video once the details are out. The vessel should have the maritime equivalent of a black box recorder called a Voyage Data Recorder (VDR). These devices are supposed to record the thruster and rudder commands along with a voice recording of the bridge.

Reconstruction of the Costa Concordia Tragedy, Narration by John Konrad from gCaptain.com on Vimeo.

Learning new programming languages, especially if they are very different from what you are accustomed to, is good for the mind. Hoever, IMHO, the only reason to learn GNU m4 is help with understanding GNU autoconf. There are so many "better" templating systems out there that you can now use. My current favorite is to write python with the format string method. e.g.

'{0} for position or {name} to use var name'.format('by number',2,3,4,name='var name')

gives

'by number for position or var name to use var name'

And it gets easier when you use "**locals()" to expand everything into your template environment for initial development. Warning the locals function can end up being super slow.

I just spent some time with Michael Breen's Notes on the M4 Macro Language. This was a good way to get familar with the language and I added what I built to my github template repository: overview.m4

#!/usr/bin/env m4 
dnl -*- compile-command: "m4 --define=REPLACEME=Rascal --define=CAT=yes try.m4" -*-
dnl the first line ends up in the output if you ./try.m4
dnl The second line tells emacs how we want to run this command with M-x compile
dnl SEE ALSO: http://mbreen.com/m4.html

dnl This file should be considered public domain. -Kurt Schwehr 2012-Jan-21

NOTE: why would be use m4 rather than python?  Outside of GNU
autoconf, I really think we should not be using m4.  Please use python
with the string ".format" method instead.

# This is a comment in m4 that goes through
dnl is do not print to the end of the line
dnl
define(AUTHOR, Kurt Schwehr)
`AUTHOR' is AUTHOR and there is a newline in there???

define(TITLE, M4 language by example)dnl
This TITLE has no newline dnl

`#' is not a comment hash.  Macros will still work... TITLE

dnl The next line comes from the --define command line
This REPLACEME is comes from outside the file

define(MacroWithNewline, `line with
newline after the first with')dnl
Use MacroWithNewline here.

define(PARENS, ())dnl
brackets: PARENS
undefine(`PARENS')dnl MUST quote the value
PARENS

define(LPAREN,`(')dnl
define(RPAREN,`)')dnl
LPAREN bracketed RPAREN  dnl -> ( bracketed )
define(`LEFT',`[')dnl
LEFTSQUARE
define(`LEFT',`{')dnl
LEFTCURL

define(`plus', `+')dnl
plusplus # oops!
plus()plus # works!

define(`oper', `plus')
oper()oper # oops!
oper`'oper # best 

define(`oper',`plus`'')dnl safest
oper()plus

ifelse(`provides
multiline
comments')dnl

CAT
ifdef(`CAT',We have a cat)
ifdef(`HORSE',We have a horse) # No. We do not have a horse

define(a,1)dnl
define(b,1)dnl
define(c,3)dnl
define(d,4)dnl
a b
ifelse(a,b,c,d)

define(`b',2)dnl
a b
ifelse(a,b,c,d)

We have math
1+1 => eval(1+1)
2**8 => eval(2**8)
incr(41)
bools:
0 || 1 => eval(0||1)
0 && 1 => eval(0&&1)

len(`string length')
substr(`my string',1,3) counts start at 0 and includes the character at position [3] (4th)

dnl You can call external programs
syscmd(`ls -l')

I feel like I have a much better handle on what it is to be m4. The parts on looping demonstrate how constrained/annoying the language is.

This makes me wonder what happened to my juggling pins! Yeah, I was never even close to this level.

Protect IP and SOPA are just out and out dumb. I have lots of respect for people who create content, but non for the MPAA, RIAA, the software equivalent thing called the BSA.



I am glad that wikipedia is doing this, but ouch! I needed to look something up this morning. Dear congress, make the insanity stop.



Google's End Piracy, Not Liberty.

I'm glad someone else was doing an AIS time series plot. I've done enough of them to last a life time.

Brian Fitzpatrick posted on G+ about the Costa Concordia. The track makes you wonder what in world was happening on the ship! Was there a mechanical failure or something to seriously distract the bridge crew (like small non-AIS vessels in the way)? It would be better visualized with a chart rather than just shorelines.

Dale, Monica and I tested Google Hangout today to make sure we could do video, chat, screen sharing etc. I even tried the Reindeer button. I wish I were able to actually be there for all the MB-System discussions, but a handout is the next best thing.



On my list of things to do is to fix my code that handles science and image data from the USCGC Healy. Dale pointed out that the Aloftcon camera has snapped some spectacular images in the last few days.

First, the Healy showing the ship it is trying to get to Nome, AK: 20120111-0101.jpeg



Nightime view of the ice with the lights of Nome off in the distance:

20120111-1601.jpeg

If you are new to using fink on the Mac for installing software, I hope this helps you get more comfortable with the process!

While it is just coincidence that I started working at Google on Monday, it is pretty awesome to have a Geology Google Doodle today!

If you missed it, here is a screenshot and the link is to Nicolas Steno. I didn't know that he thought about fossils.



And yes, I will still be blogging while I am at Google. Some people worried that I would drop off the face of the earth into the backends of the geo systems once I got here. This post is to say, that I'm still around, but it's going to take me a while to recover from the transition to the point where I'm blogging again. I've been meeting tons of fellow Nooglers and lots of well established Googlers. I've been getting a serious workout on the G-bikes trying to get everywhere that I'm supposed to be... it's a huge campus.

Driving across the country was quite the experience. I ended up having a cold last week, so I avoided trying to drop in on anyone. The trip started off with temps randing from 8-20 F and then I got to Nebraska and found 72 F in January!! Crazy!



I even snagged a short video of the The Tree of Utah. Thanks to Tyler Erickson for telling me what this crazy thing is called.



Also, to get to know more about how Google's advertising systems work (now that I'm not teaching where I was telling my students to go watch my videos), I am enabling some of the AdSense features. I've never hit the point where any of my stuff reached the point where it was enough to generate a check... I'm up to $13.62 after 3 years. I'm not much of an advertiser and my blog hasn't been much of a good place for advertisers

Coast Guard goes to rescue of 40 aboard research vessel (CNN; two days ago). Thanks to Ashton and Monica for this link.

A Coast Guard rescue swimmer boarded the 186-foot research vessel
Kilo Moana and three pumps were delivered, according to a Coast Guard
news statement.

I don't know any more about this thank the CNN article. Sometimes these things are a big deal, other times not. I'm reminded of the time that I was IM'ing with Art T. while he and Roland were in the Black Sea and I got the IM saying they were abanding ship because the captain finally admitted that the shaft seal had gone and the pumps were not keeping up. I believe the last IM I got before they disconnected was "Roland says to tell his wife that he loves her." Needless to say, they were transfered to Bob Ballards ship and treated to fine dinning, so they never were in any real danger, but the ship they had been on was definitely a mess.

Update 7:10PM: Thanks to Scott F. for an update. Punctured research ship safely back in port (Honolulu Star Advisor)

The 186-foot vessel began taking on about 400 gallons of water an
hour Friday morning while about 60 miles north of Oahu, the Coast
Guard said. 

The hole appeared behind some pipes in the starboard hull of the
catamaran and was difficult to reach, said Brian Taylor, dean of the
UH School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, on Friday. He
said partial flooding in a compartment caused a pump to fail, and the
Coast Guard was called for help. He said the crew was able to patch
the hole and slow the leak.
...

Today's blog post is coming to you from scenic Elko, NV. Driving across the country is a reminder that our nation's infrastructure is not very good. It's definitely way better than the last time I drove across the country in 2005 heading east. In my trip west, I would have expected excellent 3G coverage all along I-80 with it being one of the key arteries of our country. The sad fact is that I've mostly been in Edge with my AT&T iPhone and there were even a few dropouts. Hotel and rest stop wifi is seriously bad for a business user. If you just want to surf simple web sites, these wifi setups sometimes work, but good luck if you want to VPN in or use SSL. My current hotel in Elko, NV tries to block you from using more than one device at a time on the wireless, but at least, the key is just your room number, so I can steel entries from other rooms until all my devices are online as I my basic setup is 3 wifi devices. One thing that is totally awesome while driving is Waze. I have a garmin Nuvi GPS up in the window, but I keep Waze running on the iphone and my music/podcasts have been interupted a few times for alerts about upcoming cars in the shoulder. I just wish waze had an easier way to flag these things while driving. I'm not going to use the screen keyboard while driving. I really hate the iphone for now having more controls I can use without looking. Siri has trouble with the wind noise from the canoe on top of my car

What did I really stop to write about? Slashdot has: A Whale's Virtual Reality. This is Colin Ware's work with Dave Wiley and company at the Stellewagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

The actual article is in Science NOW: A Whale's Virtual Reality

He showed those maneuvers to the audience using video animations
made possible by new software from Colin Ware, a computer scientist at
the University of New Hampshire in Durham who specializes in
visualizing very large amounts of information. The program, "Track
Plot," incorporates the tag data and approximates the path of the
whale underwater.

Grrr... No embeddable video?

I don't have time before I hit the road to read the article, but it looks interesting. I've been listing to a lot of great podcasts that I hope to write about when I'm not behind the wheel all day.