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I captured the following video of a nighttime Atlas V rocket launch I witnessed, along side my father, while in Central Florida on Thanksgiving vacation with my family.

Note that I've modified the audio a bit to try an enhance the interesting bits while muting distracting background noises. That is, I've boosted up the countdown from a nearby radio scanner while muting the sound of cars passing by on the highway. Given the distance between the pad and the viewing location, the sound of the rocket boosters are not noticeable until about 1:35 mark.

The launch occurred at 1:55 am EST on November 23rd, 2009 from pad SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral. The video was shot just north of Florida Highway 528, about 13 miles south of the launch complex.

Red Marker denotes Launchpad 41, Green Marker denotes Viewing Location

The Atlas V rocket launch was preformed by United Launch Alliance and contained an international telecommunications satellite, Intelsat 14, which is slated to replace the Intelsat 1R satellite currently in operation. Intelsat 14 was successfully launched into a transfer orbit that will eventually place it into a circular geostationary orbit over the equator at 45 degrees west longitude.

In addition to bridging commercial intercontinental telecommunications, Intelsat 14 contains experimental equipment on behalf of the Department of Defense designed by Cisco known as Internet Routing in Space (IRIS). The "space router" is designed to test routing IP traffic in orbit, eliminating the need to send data to and from additional ground stations for network routing and in turn promises to allow U.S. military, allied forces and possible future commercial operators to quickly communicate using the Internet protocol for voice, video and data relay to remote locations all over the world.

Thanks for stopping by.

I am out on vacation in Florida until November 28th. During this time I will have little access to the Internet and will not be adding new entries until my return.

If you require immediate satisfaction, relax and enjoy this little slideshow from my last trip to Central Florida.



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One of the cheap thrills of social networking is the ability to map out a social graph of one's own friends and family. I recently came across this overview on Mashable of a couple of nice visualization apps and well, I couldn't resist.....

My Facebook Network via Nexus, Click Image to View Fullsize.

This first graph is via Nexus. The static image doesn't quite do the complete app justice, since it not just maps out the graph, but labels individuals and provides functions for traversing the network interactively to identify individual and group relationships.

For example, in the case of my social network as managed on Facebook, one of the largest group of individuals, bottom-half-right of the graph, are friends from the Obama campaign. Unsurprising this group is tightly interconnected with relationships between various individuals who all worked together on the campaign.

Related to this group, bottom-half-left, are friends from the Inaugural Committee. Naturally the two groups have many people in common.

The second largest group, upper-half, are friends and family starting with my wife, Katie. Again not too surprising, after nine years of living together, we share a number of friends and family in common. Nor is it as surprising that these relationships are not as tightly integrated as between those who worked on the campaign.

But what is interesting is something we discovered a while back, that besides me, there are a few other individuals that connected our loose group of friends and family with the tight grouping of former campaign staffers.

My Facebook Network via Friend Wheel, Click Image to View Fullsize.

Friend Wheel provides the same social graph, but as a radial graph. Nexus can do the same thing, but Friend Wheel can also do the same thing for Twitter:

My Twitter Network via Friend Wheel, Click Image to View Fullsize.

Of course with Twitter one doesn't have to approve a relationship for the connection to exist, which helps one reach outside of one's social network. So this isn't so much a graph of shared social connections as it is a graph of shared social interests.

So, unsurprisingly there is some sort of relationship/shared interests between NASA, The White House, the U.S. HSF Committee.

Oddly, there doesn't seem to be any shared connection/interest between "Barack Obama" and Ozzie Guillen, Jr. Go figure!?! And yes, I do have an odd little assortment of people I'm following on Twitter at the moment, thanks for noticing..

I know given the last great post it has been at little silent on this blog. Well it's hard to top something as random as SciFi poetry and frankly it is not always fun and games here at Zoomshare. I mean we've been quite busy rolling out a new set of features for our photo album tool and addressing user feedback.

Given that, I want to take a moment to seriously reflect a bit on what's been going on since my last post.

To best reflect I offer samples of two conversations from the past two weeks involving myself and a few others touching a bit on the deeper meanings of life:

sare: back now
pdw: hey I'm back too
peenworm: this is great, everyone's back
pdw: alright!
peenworm: not that i went far, just to the kitchen, and Dexter is inventing traps for ghosts
sare: i am not sure i was ever truly "here" till i joined irc chat.
sare: "do i exist outside of irc channel?", is my existential question of the day...
pdw: Do I exist inside of irc? Or is this some digital bit of a whole me?
pdw: Or, if an IRCbot crashes and no one is around, does it make a sound?
sare: woah. i'm afraid my brain is too mushy to even try to fathom that level of depth.

Or if you're looking for morality in the physical world instead of souls in the virtual one:

Brandon: Oh okay. I was just wondering. Hey if you were in a 7-11 and there was a fire, do you think it would be a dishonest act to take a slice of pizza and eat it?
Me: depends, am I in the 7-11 on July 11th?
Brandon: Ha! Yes.
Me: well then no, its a sign from the Gods of Kobal, and I'd take the pizza and run
Brandon: That's what I would do. It is going to burn up anyways, yet my parents think it would be stealing when I asked them.

Discuss amongst yourselves...

I have this love/hate relationship with the Sci Fi channel, I love to hate their commercials. Nothing drives me crazy more than watching Battlestar Galatica or Dr. Who - which given its BBC origin isn't even filmed for commercial breaks - to be force to watch the 100th ad in the last hour for the monster movie of the week staring Kevin Sorbo.

In these tough conditions one has to keep their wits about them and find any value - entertainment or otherwise - whenever possible. Luckily for me, I'm not the only one who finds the Sci FI network's commercial breaks so grating. My two partners in crime, my wife Katie and my best friend Brandon have teamed up to create the Sci Fi Poem Project featuring haikus and other stylings using the titles from various monster of the week movies.

Without further ado, I give you the first - of maybe a series:

A lone "Dragon Fighter", From a "Dragon Dynasty" with his "Dragon Sword" in a "Dragon Storm"

Or

This "Man-thing" leader of "Interceptor Force" shall "Encrypt" this "abominable" "absolon" "Aztec Rex"

Or this variation

"They Are Among Us"
this "Deadly Swarm" of "Man with the Screaming Brain"
Shouting "Do or Die"at thy "Fire Serpant", "Infected" with "Harpies"
These "Fallen Ones" believed the "Sabertooth" from "Beyond Loch Ness"
Soon after battle, "Pumpkin head vs. Demonic Toys" in which this "Savage Planet" was changed
A new "Epoch Evolution" begun as "Skeleton Man" and "Painkiller Jane" begat "SS DoomTrooper"
This "Headless Horseman" on "Raptor Island" in peace, no more the "Pumpkinhead: Blood Fued"

Now you know you want to

The more things change, the more they stay the same, as they say. This year is the wedding year. So keep an eye on http://wedding.weinstein.org as the details come together.

Not a trick, but a serious treat: "A White Sox Winner and World Championship!" Take a look at the video from Game 2.

Red Line to 35th St

White Sox 2005 World Series Game 2 Starters

Taking in Game 2

Paul Konerko's 7th Inning Grand Slam Off of Chad Qualls with 2 Out

Memories of Game 2

Back on the subject of personal travel sites, friend Jason Raddenbach has the following personal site which focuses on his family's volunteer work in Guatemala. As the site says "It's a good story".

Of course I would be remiss if I forgot to mention Katie's collections of photos while mentioning John's or my own. There are travel photos, photos of a new home being made and of course photos of friends and family and everything in between.

If you've notice my humble little collection of travel photographs you need to check out this site from John Walkoe. Most of John's traveling has been around Europe, with a large amount of time in Russia. More importantly, John has taken the time to digitally process all of his photos, some with obvious visual effects. Check it out and Enjoy!