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"Crusher" controls
The Pentagon’s research wing, DARPA, has released information to the press regarding an unmanned vehicle that can drive over or through most anything. What caught my attention was the controls for the vehicle:
Surprisingly, the Crusher’s engine is ripped from a diesel Volkswagen Jetta. Its testers “drive” it with controllers for racing video games. A hacked Apple iPhone gives remote updates of the Crusher’s internal diagnostics. And a standard Xbox 360 controller raises the mast antenna, rotates the cameras and, given the situation, fires the weapons.
Soldiers “could finally put those ‘Halo’ skills to good use,” joked Welby.
So entertainment devices have found a more practical function. Once again, I would have thought that the progression of use for technology would have been reversed.
On a personal note, I miss the days of controllers with less than 10 buttons. I like the Wii for that reason: fewer buttons. Anyone want to buy me one? 
Far-East Web Access
We were having some problems with accessing our website a few months ago and had to jump through hoops to post blog entries; here’s an article describing why. Selected portions below:
Depending on how you look at it, the Chinese government’s attempt to rein in the Internet is crude and slapdash or ingenious and well crafted. When American technologists write about the control system, they tend to emphasize its limits. When Chinese citizens discuss it—at least with me—they tend to emphasize its strength. All of them are right, which makes the government’s approach to the Internet a nice proxy for its larger attempt to control people’s daily lives.
All of this adds a note of unpredictability to each attempt to get news from outside China. One day you go to the NPR site and cruise around with no problem. The next time, NPR happens to have done a feature on Tibet. The GFW immobilizes the site. If you try to refresh the page or click through to a new story, you’ll get nothing—and the time-out clock will start.
Since our website is hosted on a server in the USA, we were on the inside looking out. So apparently something that was written tripped something somewhere and someone thought we were potentially dangerous. Or something. Just part of living in China and keeping in touch with the other side of the world, I guess.
Mind-Reading Headphones
This is going on my Christmas list for next year:
Hands cramping up from too many video games?
How about controlling games with your thoughts instead? Later this year, Emotiv Systems Inc. plans to start selling the $299 EPOC neuroheadset to let you do just that.
The headset’s sensors are designed to detect conscious thoughts and expressions as well as "non-conscious emotions" by reading electrical signals around the brain, says the company, which demonstrated the wireless gadget at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
The company, which unveiled a prototype last year, says the headset can detect emotions such as anger, excitement and tension, as well as facial expressions and cognitive actions like pushing and pulling objects.
This is what’s funny about this to me:
Emotiv plans to work with IBM Corp. to explore applications beyond video gaming. The "brain computer interface" technology could transform not only gaming, but how humans and computers interact, said Paul Ledak, vice president of IBM’s Digital Convergence business.
So, they applied it to gaming first, then to useful endeavors. Maybe they have already started using this technology for helping people with special needs (if they haven’t, why not?), but this article says that the makers focused on entertainment first before finding a practical use for the technology. Shows where our priorities are…
ChunJie Holiday: the last day
The Chinese New Year holiday is not a one day affair; it’s a two week period. So though we have been at school since Monday, some Chinese schools had not returned. Today, is the last day of the holiday and is also known as the lantern festival. This is an opportunity for everyone to use up their remaining fireworks and throw parties on tennis courts, like this one:
This is also the day that families enjoy meals of Yuan Xiao and Tang Yuan, which loosely translates in English to glutinous rice balls. (Side note: some Chinese dishes here translate into English names that you wouldn’t think is good food. Beijing is trying to standardize the translations before the Olympics - maybe they will make the names sound good too!) Sarah and I had some with a Chinese family, and they were different… but all right. You’re supposed to eat 12 of them to have good luck for the year, one for each month; I only finished 9, so I’m alright until October, but we’ll see what happens after that.
School is back in full swing - the third quarter isn’t very busy, but 4th quarter is shaping up to be a hectic time again. With making plans for leaving at the same time, we are sure to keep ourselves hopping!
ChunJie pictures!
We’ve posted pictures from our Spring Festival break in Chengdu! Since we stayed in town, we took the opportunity to visit some places we hadn’t yet visited: WuHou Temple’s Lantern Festival, "Fun Street" and the WenShu Monastery, RenMin (People’s) Park, and the WangJiang Tower Park.
We also went to the Shangri-la hotel for a fantastic dinner buffet, but didn’t feel it was appropriate to take pictures there. There were dishes from India, South America, and the Middle East along with traditional Sichuan and Cantonese. To top it all off, they had three (yes, three!) chocolate fountains - dark, white and milk - so yummy!!
We’re back at school today, and are resisting the feeling that we have stepped onto a long slide leading all the way to June and Dallas. I think we will need many reminders to slow down and enjoy each day between now and then.
New Website Design
As promised, our site has gone through some changes over the past week. Most of the changes have already been made, though some small tweaks may still be in order. Thanks to Brian for his work on this template.
Other than the noticeable aesthetic changes site-wide, the major difference with the site now is that the blog is now accessed from the homepage, which means that there is a new rss feed for those who take advantage of this feature. The picture gallery can be accessed while still having access to links to the rest of the site. We still have information about us, as well as past newsletters and other files and contact information, which has been updated. We are using Windows Live Writer to update the site, but are still partial to the freedom that WordPress brings to the publishing process. (We could always do movies here, but have only recently started to do so - look for more in the future!)
That’s all for now, but one fact about Chinese New Year before I go: the fireworks are still going - more sporadically than before, but they’re still coming!
Currently Reading:
The Living: A Novel: Books: Annie DillardChinese New Year Fireworks
We survived the onslaught. Like I said from the war zone last night, the fireworks kept going from about 7.00pm until after 1am. We contributed to the madness with a couple of bottle rockets from our rooftop, but this was nothing compared to all the other craziness. Roman candles were being fired in arches from both sides of the road. No one really cared where they were, or what might get hit (some kids were aiming at passing cars) - they fired them off anyway. This shows a particularly busy moment close to midnight:
To give you another idea of the craziness, here’s another view of the fireworks from our bedroom window. You may be able to see one point where the camera pans to a family shooting fireworks from their second floor balcony. Wow.
The fireworks are pretty well done now, though occasionally you still hear the odd fireworks shooting. What’s funny about this is that people don’t turn off their car alarms; whenever there is an explosion you hear a couple of car alarms right after. You’d think they would learn…
I went out for breakfast late this morning - most things are closed, but McDonald’s stayed open - and piles of fireworks leftovers are lining the streets. Why does China have poor environmental conditions? It’s not because of their current industrial revolution. Oh, no. It’s because of the fireworks.
Happy Chinese New Year!
It’s almost 12.30 in the morning, and Sarah and I aren’t sleeping. We would be, except for all the fireworks still going on outside. Right outside. At varying levels of intensity for the last five hours. Pictures and video to come, after all the madness is finished and we get some sleep.
For now, we say goodbye to the year of the golden pig, and welcome to the the year of the rat! Interested in learning more about what the animals mean than what is given on a Chinese restaurant place mat? Check this site out. Want to see the true side of China? Check these pictures out. OK, no more links for now - goodnight!
UPDATE: It’s 1.15AM, and the fireworks are still going, though they’ve slowed down a bit. Apparently the year of the rat is a big deal, even for Disneyland. (Hong Kong, that is)