Disqus - Friends of mrdoornbos

Re: Gen Y panel at AIAA: The Reaction

PWNED — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:06:04 -0000

I fear that there are some additional realities that are not always being considered in the discussion about what NASA is doing to attract Gen Y.

It is no secret that American students today are not interested in the hard fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Technical companies of all stripes have realized this problem and have been spending enormous amounts of money on trying to get kids excited about these STEM fields. The NIH, NSF, Dept. of Ed, and others have very generous grant opportunities available. Nearly every state in the union also has programs that try to address the shortfall of students in these fields. Indeed, it is a goal of my company, Exploration Solutions, to work with these programs to frame children's imaginations in the realm of science.

In 2006 & 2007, the Northrop Grumman Foundation, has given my former employer, Zero Gravity Corp, large sums of money to fly school teachers in districts where they have industrial facilities. The point: inspire teachers and their students to be excited about STEM fields. Northrop Grumman's main concern: if current trends continue, they may not be able to hire an American citizen in the very near future. Outsourcing our national defense and space programs is NOT AN OPTION.

This past weekend, a government agency called Space Florida also started a program to bring teachers and a select group of students' experiments to experience microgravity. Their concern is identical to Northrop Grumman's: how do ensure today's Floridian students become tomorrow's engineers (with employers who stay in Florida)?

Armed with these facts, one must then revisit what the composition of 'today's workforce' is. A deeper understanding of the workforce demographic will likely indicate that NASA and its contractors have limited choices. Think about it: the older, more educated, and experienced workforce is also much more expensive and less productive over time. Does anyone seriously think that these corporations (NASA Contractors) are actively choosing to avoid the more profitable workforce?

So before we continue to blame NASA for the composition of its workforce, let's realize that the statistics reflect cultural and societal problems with our education priorities, problems that pale in comparison to a return trip to the moon.

Re: How Many Users does Twitter Really Have?

PWNED — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:15:46 -0000

Well, I did a little homework myself, and found the following:

11,200,000 is the number Google gives me when I change the search preferences in Google for just Spanish and English pages (I don't know if this is a bug with Google, but in the past it has given me both larger and smaller numbers). Changing to other languages has no effect on this search number.

Asking Yahoo gives me 6,573,494

So, I'm thinking the twitterholic is probably right.

Re: How Many Users does Twitter Really Have?

PWNED — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:34:10 -0000

Also just checked twitdir and searched myself (motorbikematt) and found two accounts

The primary one I use (@motorbikematt) and one that I had inadvertently setup via a test of the IM function, (@motorbikematt1). I do consider myself a fairly capable webuser and this mistake was an easy one to make. Given that I cannot logon to this account since it was added via IM, I also cannot delete this account. Therefore I think it's a safe assumption that while there may be a maximum of 12 million accounts, there is most certainly a lower number that are relevantly active.

Re: How to Make Participatory Exploration Happen at NASA

PWNED — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:12:41 -0000

Thanks Tim,

I do have some documentation that I am putting together, including a proposal, that I am not prepared to release online..yet..as they are part of an unsolicited proposal I'll be putting forward, likely in April. Indeed, I was hoping to gain some insight through comments to this post...but so far the folks that have contributed ideas have chosen to do so in private. Nonetheless, I do appreciate this positive comment.

With regarding to 1.0 thinking in a 2.0 world, I'd have to say that's perhaps an over simplification. To further the analogy, I'd say NASA is at least 1.5, and the only way to advance the Agency forward, we have to work within the parameters that exist today, not the parameters that we imagine for tomorrow.

Re: Phish: An LA Fan's Defense in the Wake of the Hampton, Virginia Reunion Shows

PWNED — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:55:00 -0000

Very good points that I can support with my own story.

I'm actually a convert from a Phish, we'll say "dismisser" to now an ardent fan. During my electronica music phase in college, all I wanted to hear on MTV was AMP. When Down with Disease came on, all I wanted to do was make it Stop stop stop stop....very annoying video.

Then my girlfriend handed me Junta, and what a mistake, I could not get into it.
When I readily handed it back, she tried again and had me listen to A Live One, and after playing You Enjoy Myself on loop for a few hours, I was hooked.

I've since come to love Junta and especially Down with Disease (live), but I would never suggest giving either to anyone as their first exposure to Phish.

Re: Rebalancing NASA’s Workforce

PWNED — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:23:52 -0000

You know every time I see topics like this come up, I kinda want to yank my hair out. I've publicly called into question data presented on fancy Powerpoint presentations that are claimed to show age-discriminatory bias in NASA's hiring practices. I believe that the conclusions presented in the past and in this blog post are flawed.

I propose that the data does not reflect discriminatory hiring practices, but that the problems is that there are fewer younger people available to hire.

With that in mind, I invite everybody to read what Northrop Grumman spent MILLIONS of dollars doing to improve their problems with the workforce:

http://www.northropgrumman....

and reconcile the following statement:

Across the country, there is a growing concern regarding the number of students entering science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers. We know that one way to reverse that trend is to make science and math fascinating and applicable for the students.

with the notion that NASA is purposefully NOT hiring young people.

Re: Photos: Phish Festival 8, Scenes from Indio

PWNED — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:54:13 -0000

So cool to see my photos on your site! How exciting!

Glad they could be of use!

Re: Cheaper, Better Satellites Made From Cellphones and Toys

PWNED — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 01:16:04 -0000

@blehtastic:

The points that you raise are all legitimate ones that we're paying attention to. Please keep in mind that this launch was a demonstrator for fundamental technologies, notably the smartphone components such as the accelerometers, magnetometers, GPS, etc.

Indeed, one concept I would love to see implemented is the creating of mini-Hubble space telescopes that Girl Scout troops or students running sims at Challenger Learning Centers could use from, well, their very own phones as well.

We're getting there one step at a time so stay tuned...there is definitely much more to come ;)

Re: Cheaper, Better Satellites Made From Cellphones and Toys

PWNED — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 14:12:48 -0000

@tsport100 Actually, SmallSats will SOLVE the space debris problem.

Stay tuned.

Re: Nexus One Phone Rides a Rocket Up 28,000 Feet

PWNED — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:38:44 -0000

The cool cats at NoiseBridge already did this with SpaceBridgeAlpha.

Rockets are necessary to get a bit higher though.

Re: Nexus One Phone Rides a Rocket Up 28,000 Feet

PWNED — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:40:09 -0000

When Apple decides to open up the iPhone platform to Open Source App development, then you'll have a point.

We didn't launch this on the rocket to just take pictures and look pretty...we launched it do DO something.

Re: Nexus One Phone Rides a Rocket Up 28,000 Feet

PWNED — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:42:07 -0000

No typo, it was ~28k feet.

Sure the forces are well documented, but there were other things going on with our payload that made the launch environment necessary to evaluate

And no, nobody from Burning Man was out when we launched the rocket, and we are all safely back in our homes over 6 hours away.

See ya on the playa.

Re: 80-year old jazz pianist can't get paid because his name sounds terrorist-y

PWNED — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 10:23:04 -0000

This is a VERY misleading article and Boing Boing summary. This Swiss publication decided to take an obnoxious European tone with the US over this situation. This has NOTHING to do with him the name 'sounding too Muslim'. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that his name is spelled EXACTLY the same as a terrorist on the FBI's most wanted list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

I'm certain that this publication also didn't appreciate that the US had to force Swiss banks to open up their bank records because they were hiding our domestic and international criminal's cash.

As for Boing Boing...would be nice if you stopped to think about these little details before becoming a echo chamber for ignorant Anti-American rhetoric. You guys know better.

Re: Comcast Explains (and Complains About) NASA.gov Blackout

PWNED — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:59:51 -0000

So this was in the end NASA's fault. Interesting, they fixed that DNS problem, but not their WWW problem:

http://nasawatch.com/archiv...

Re: Test 1

PWNED — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:01:44 -0000

Testing

Re: Survey Discussion Example 1

PWNED — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:58:54 -0000

Comment Test #1 Survey Discussion Example

Re: Survey Discussion Example 1

PWNED — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:59:23 -0000

What kind of lousy comment is that?

Re: Technology Needs: Aeronautics – H. Tran

PWNED — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:40:46 -0000

Airplanes.

Re: Technology Needs: Aeronautics – H. Tran

PWNED — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:17:16 -0000

I think it should be this way

Re: Angry Birds in Space

PWNED — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:25:42 -0000

I'm 34 and I can promise you I'll add this one to my Android tablet when they release it on my 35th birthday!

Re: International Space Apps Challenge

PWNED — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:15:09 -0000

@_MadeInSpace too

Re: International Space Apps Challenge

PWNED — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:37:19 -0000

Some ideas for images could come from: http://astronautix.com/, or perhaps even Jane's Defense.

Re: International Space Apps Challenge

PWNED — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:39:38 -0000

The scope for this project might be a bit unclear, too broad? A creative artist would be needed for sure. Could there also be a leveraging of http://www.ustream.tv/chann... ISS webcams?

Re: International Space Apps Challenge

PWNED — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:41:47 -0000

This dataset could be of use: http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.u... and these sensors could be used to collect data realtime: http://www.pasco.com/produc...

Re: International Space Apps Challenge

PWNED — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:49:08 -0000

The Pineapple Project could be a good first step for this: http://spaceappschallenge.o...