Excerpts

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DragonCon starts next week!
Once again, I’ve been invited to speak in both the Space and Science tracks (which are over in the Hilton, across the street from the truly crazy stuff). I have three presentations:
What the Heck Happened to Our Space Program?
Friday, 11:30 am
Weren’t we supposed to be orbiting Jupiter by 2010? Some history [...]

It’s a beautiful country! Mostly, I’m going to let pictures speak for themselves on this page. If you like what you see here, don’t miss the whole gallery at http://photos.stephenandcissa.com/Travel/China2010.
Click on any image to embiggen.

Lantau Island

Flowers on Lantau Island

Rice Paddies

FengHuang

River Scene

Yellow Dragon Cave

Bailong Elevator

Zhang Jiajie Park

From He Long’s Tomb

Three Sisters Rocks

Purple Flowers

Mountain Stream
View: The [...]

Some thoughts on my recent trip to China, broken up into blog-sized posts.

Things that don’t fit anywhere in the rest of this series of blog posts…

“Chinglish” is fun. Here’s a sample from the Web site of the hotel we stayed at in FengHuang:
“You can taste that they are the mysterious terrorist Xiangxi up the corpse, compelling music on the Hmong’s delicious sliced, under fire, also will [...]

Darwinism
I don’t care if they call it capitalist or Communist, China is building a Darwinist society. The attitude appears in all sorts of places.
Fleets of scooters all over the place — rural, urban, everywhere. There are plenty of cars and trucks, and still a non-insignificant number of bicycles, but the gasoline-powered scooter seems [...]

I didn’t expect this trip. The opportunity came unsolicited from the Hunan Provincial Department of Education and one of the local universities. But I’ve learned that when the Universe says “Would you like to?”, the right answer is usually “Yes!”
And so it was this time. It was an extraordinary trip to a [...]

Public Displays of Affection
An interesting mix of public displays of affection.
Lots of teenage and twenty-something girls holding hands. I suspect most of them were just demonstrating friendship, but who knows? For what it’s worth, there were zero guys holding hands with each other.
Male-female couples seemed to hold hands until mid-twenties, then [...]

Diversity
One of the first things I noticed in mainland China was the diversity of the people. Not “diversity” in the sense we use it in the United States — I saw precisely two black people on my entire trip, both in Hong Kong, and zero who we’d categorize as “Latino” — but in the [...]

I’m going to be writing mostly about Hunan Province and its capital, the city of Changsha. But, on the way to Hunan, I was lucky enough to spend 48 hours in Hong Kong. I’m not going to focus on that other than this one page. First, lots more Westerners have already been [...]

August
Don’t go in August. Look, I live in Atlanta. I understand heat and humidity, okay? But South China is a whole different world. Imagine Savannah in August. Now, imagine Savannah in August without the ocean breeze.
I went through three shirts a day. Thank goodness, the local business community [...]

China is different.
That sounds like a completely obvious statement, but it’s worth starting with it. I’ve travelled all over the world, and I’ve never felt the sense of being on an alien planet as much as last week in China.
Partially it’s the language. I don’t speak Chinese. Heck, I’m an American, I [...]

Cheating
It’s easy to despair of the language problem. And, indeed, I didn’t find anything that would help me with reading the pictogram language. But I found a way to cheat in trying to converse with people.
I downloaded a bunch of utilities for my iPhone. Two stand out as being actually useful: iTranslate and Eng-Chi [...]

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

According to the Mayan calendar, the world will come to an end in 2012. Books and movies have been written about how this will happen… asteroid impact, alien invasion, hypervolcanoes, you name it.
Maybe they were just predicting the U.S. economy:
In 2012, every business, including sole-proprietorships, will have to issue a 1099 to anyone from whom [...]

I was asked to provide a list of ten books that everyone should read. (Not a list of “my ten favorite books” or “the ten best books ever written”… that’s hopeless.)
I didn’t put as much time into it as I’d like to, since the author is on a deadline, but here’s what I came [...]

I’m the first one to admit that Apple devices aren’t perfect. On balance, however, I find that they fit my needs better than competing products. Your mileage may vary.
But, usually, They Just Work™.
However, I’ve encountered a bizarre problem with one of my MacBook Pros. (Oddly enough, with the office unit, which I [...]

Dr. Arun Majumdar, Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, will be visiting Georgia Tech on Monday. In addition to private meetings, he will be holding a public lecture for the Georgia Tech community:
Monday, April 19, 2010
3:00 – 4:15 pm
Clary Theater, Student Success Center
(For those of you unfamiliar with the SSC, it is tucked [...]

I’d like to welcome Christopher Lee and AMAC to the Enterprise Innovation Institute, effective July 1, 2010.
The Alternative Media Access Center is an initiative of the Board of Regents University System of Georgia with a mission to improve system wide services for students with print-related disabilities. AMAC has expanded its services nationwide to include all [...]

Only a Democrat President, with the glitz and glamour of JFK, could possibly have gotten this far in killing the hagiography of JFK’s space program. No Republican would have a chance. As a lifelong space enthusiast and long-time space investor, I’m absolutely thrilled. Because, as I never cease pointing out to people… I don’t support “the space program.” I support the space industry. And you have to kill the former to allow room for the new industry to breathe.

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad yesterday, my first thoughts were “Ooooh! Shiny! I want one!”
Then I read the orgy of criticism that washed over the blogosphere last night about all the device’s perceived failings and, on mature and considered reflection…
I still want one.
(Maybe two, so I don’t have to fight with my [...]

The Apple faithful are all a-twitter about the possibility of Apple introducing a tablet computer at the end of this month.
Of course, this being Apple, nay-sayers abound. They seem to come from two different directions.

Since tablet computers have been around forever and have been resounding market failures, why should this one be [...]

The Science Channel released a video clip from its new show “The Future Of …” which includes a 10 minute segment about projects at the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, including Shimon, ZOOZbeat and others. The show will air this coming Monday, 2 November 2009, at 9:00pm.
Here is the clip they released as [...]

I’m at Melbourne International Airport (MLB)… the one in Florida, not the one in Australia! And I’ve been killing a couple of hours with a rain delay. The weather is fine here, but nasty back home in Atlanta.

This is my new favorite airport.
Take a look at the booths in the airport restaurant: [...]

Another of my letters-to-the-editor that will never be published, so you can read it here. This one was sent to Scientific American regarding their November 2009 issue.

In September 2006, you published a special issue on “Energy’s Future” with a well-reasoned mix of articles on energy conservation, renewable energy, and nuclear power. I’ve referred [...]

A funny thing happened at the various events last week (VentureAtlanta, Future Media Georgia, and GVU’s Demo Day…
I suddenly noticed how many music technology companies have recently sprung up in Georgia!Here’s a quick list, but I am probably missing some:

BandMetrics
BeatTweet
FreeAllMusic
Khu.sh (LaDiDa)
Maestro.fm
Music Intelligence Solutions (uPlaya)
Neurotic Media (Amplified.com)
Rank ‘Em
Vertical Acuity
Zooz Mobile

Some of these have raised substantial venture [...]

The Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2) seeks a highly proficient applicant to develop information technology applications including websites, databases, mashups and other web-based solutions. For additional information about EI2 see: http://www.innovate.gatech.edu/. The position will be located in the Technology Square area on 5th Street in Midtown Atlanta and will initially begin as a temporary [...]

The College of Management is seeking a highly skilled Web Developer.
Duties:
Reporting to the On Line Communications and Marketing Manager, the position will:
develop, test, and troubleshoot web applications and programs and assist with the maintenance of website files, graphics, systems, and equipment
work with multiple groups within the organization to keep the Website content current and provide web support [...]

I am a seasoned professional software engineer, with a tremendous amount of experience in multiple programming languages and operating systems. I’ve done software for both scientific and commercial applications, in areas ranging from accounting to race-car data acquisition.
I can pick up a new problem, develop an understanding quickly, and then rapidly produce [...]

I specialize in C++, .NET, C# and other OOP; with applications experience running the gamut from databases to accounting to scientific analysis to e-commerce.
Whatever your application, I can bring your software project to completion on budget, on time, and on spec. Don’t have specs yet? I can help with that, too.
Most importantly, the [...]

I specialize in microprocessor-based and embedded consumer product development.
Whether written on a napkin or detailed in a 40-page document, give me your product goals or specifications and I’ll turn your vision into tangible reality — from specification to design to prototyping to testing to production — on budget, on time, and on spec.
Only [...]