Ian's Home Page

News, Features and Opinions

Sun, 28 Jun 2009

Photos of fireworks in Cameron Park, June 27, 2009

I posted my photos of the fireworks at Cameron Park's Summer Spectacular 2009.

Sat, 27 Jun 2009

"Flying GPS-direct is simple - but still no substitute for thinking"

I posted "Flying GPS-direct is simple - but still no substitute for thinking" on my flight instruction blog at PilotQuest.com.

Thu, 18 Jun 2009

Getting to the Black Rock Desert

I added a page "Getting to the Black Rock Desert" which has information including the current I-80 road construction over the Sierras and alternative routes.

Sat, 13 Jun 2009

get-twitter-rss 0.4 - bug fix update, parsing improvement

I posted get-twitter-rss 0.4, an update which fixes a bug and improves the method of parsing Twitter text to add links. get-twitter-rss gets a Twitter user's updates via their RSS feed and formats it for display on a web site. I use it on my own site.

Sun, 31 May 2009

get-twitter-rss - a Perl script to get and format Twitter updates

I posted the code for a Perl script get-twitter-rss 0.3 which gets a Twitter user's updates RSS feed and formats it as desired using the Perl Template Toolkit. This script is now running every 5 minutes to update my Twitter status on my home page.

Sun, 24 May 2009

Atlantis landing at Edwards on May 24, 2009

I went to Southern California to see the space shuttle landing. Here are my photos of the landing.

Wed, 20 May 2009

Recollections on the 5th anniversary of the CSXT Space Shot

Stratofox posted recollections (including mine) of the CSXT Space Shot 2004. That was the first amateur rocket launched to space. It took place at Nevada's Black Rock Desert. I led the search teams which recovered the spacecraft.

Sat, 09 May 2009

Photos of Masten Space Systems VTVL rocket flight test, May 8, 2009

I posted my photos of Masten Space Systems' first flight test of a vertical takeoff/vertical landing (VTVL) rocket at the Mojave Air & Space Port on May 8, 2009.

Sat, 02 May 2009

Stratofox presentation at EmCommWest/Pacificon 2009

The slides have been posted from my presentation about the Stratofox Aerospace Tracking Team at EmCommWest/Pacificon 2009, the ARRL Pacific Division Convention, in Reno, Nevada on May 2, 2009.

Sat, 11 Apr 2009

Soaring (glider flying) photos at Hollister on April 11, 2009

I posted photos from soaring (flying in a glider) at Hollister on April 11, 2009. This time I got more pictures because I rode in the back seat while another glider pilot Gabriel Flores flew.

Thu, 09 Apr 2009

Photos from open house at new NASA Dryden facility in Palmdale

I attended the open house of the new NASA Dryden facility in Palmdale on April 9, 2009. This is where they'll keep the SOFIA airborne telescope and other NASA aircraft. I posted pictures.

Photos from Space Access 2009

I posted photos from Space Access 2009 in Phoenix on April 2-4, 2009 and the flight home on April 5.

Soaring (glider flying) photos at Hollister on March 16, 2009

I posted photos from soaring (flying in a glider) at Hollister on March 16, 2009.

Photos from SVWUX meeting Feb 5, 2009

It took a couple months but I finally downloaded the photos from the February 2009 SVWUX meeting out of my camera.

Thu, 02 Apr 2009

Stratofox presentation at Space Access '09

The slides have been posted from my presentation about the Stratofox Aerospace Tracking Team at the Space Access 2009 Conference in Phoenix, Arizona on April 2, 2009.

Tue, 17 Feb 2009

SVWUX mail list for state alerts affecting Santa Clara County

The ongoing storms from the past week have had a lot of us emergency responders waiting and watching. I made a mail list and an automated tool for SVWUX to forward alerts affecting Santa Clara County from the California OES (Office of Emergency Services) to subscribers of the mail list.

Fri, 23 Jan 2009

Outline found for suspected impact crater at Black Rock

We finally have an outline that we can have confidence in for the suspected impact crater. I found a circle that fits a succession of mountain ranges/peaks/etc all the way around, marking fragmented remnants of the rim of the suspected crater. It turns out to be a lot bigger than any of us expected at over 50 miles across, surrounding the entire Black Rock region. In hindsight, it was a big hangup for us - none of us were looking at that big a scale. The 30-mile scale circular feature we previously thought was the rim (which includes the Kamma Mountains) is apparently the remains of an uplift ring concentric within the larger structure.

I posted the outline with a link to a Google map with an overlay that you can use to explore the terrain features for yourself.

Sat, 03 Jan 2009

"State of the Research 2009"

I posted the "State of the Research 2009" summarizing the current progress, plans for the upcoming year and some answers to frequent questions in the research of a suspected impact crater at Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

Fri, 28 Nov 2008

Stratofox recovers missing Japanese CanSat research payload at Black Rock

I was a member of the Stratofox team who recovered the missing Japanese CanSat research payload from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada on November 23. The odds against finding a soda can sized object in the vast desert would have made a needle in a haystack search look good. Fortunately, as has been the story before, a little intuition about where to narrow down the search and quite a bit of luck led to success.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008

Discover Magazine mentions my Black Rock crater research

The December 2008 issue of Discover Magazine mentioned my research about the possible impact crater at the Black Rock Desert. Though the scarce print-column space only mentioned me, of course many friends have helped me with the project. I wrote an article to acknowledge everyone's help.

See my blog for an archive of older features.

My Pages

Ian's Links
Ian's Open Source Software Pages
Ian's Cycling Pages (w/ GPS tracks)
Ian's Humor Pages
Ian's Black Rock Pictures
Ian's Space Shuttle Pages
Mission to Cape Canaveral ('97)
Mission to Cape Canaveral '99
Friends' Pages

Organizations I Belong To

South Bay Community Network
Stratofox - SVWUX (WiFi) - Direxant
AOPA - SSA - NAFI - SAFE
AeroPAC - TRA
San Jose RACES - San Jose Prepared

Other Sites I Maintain

Slauth - RadioExam
Liamtog - WebFetch
Kluft Family Home Page

Social Networks

Twitter updates as of Sat 4-Jul-2009 14:45:04 PDT

RT @FunFlying: Celebrate Independence Day + your freedom to fly by taking a non-pilot flying, sharing the joy of flight http://bit.ly/tSqYV
Fri 3-Jul-2009 10:00:06 PDT

AeroNews/AeroTV: "XCOR Aerospace -- An Innovative Route To Space (Part 2)" http://is.gd/1muMQ #mojave
Fri 3-Jul-2009 09:55:09 PDT

Ben posted pics http://twitpic.com/93eyd w/ melted concrete after 3 rocket hover flights by Masten Space at #mojave
Thu 2-Jul-2009 20:31:17 PDT

AeroNews/AeroTV: "XCOR Aerospace -- An Innovative Route To Space (Part 1)" http://is.gd/1lciT #mojave
Wed 1-Jul-2009 22:53:42 PDT

new topo DEM data by NASA+Japan cover 99% of Earth, replaces SRTM data, huge for mapping and aviation http://is.gd/1jglg
Tue 30-Jun-2009 09:39:33 PDT

posted my photos of Saturday evening's fireworks at Cameron Park's Summer Spectacular celebration http://is.gd/1hiGb
Sun 28-Jun-2009 14:12:06 PDT

blog entry: "Flying GPS-direct is simple - but still no substitute for thinking" http://is.gd/1g8Ie
Sat 27-Jun-2009 10:16:39 PDT

I'll be attending SFF's NewSpace 2009 conference at NASA Ames (Mtn View) on July 18-20 http://is.gd/1cQ92
Thu 25-Jun-2009 01:25:03 PDT

RT @ARRL: Field Day Blog RSS Feed: http://bit.ly/5Vlsh
Tue 23-Jun-2009 13:09:46 PDT

June 27-29 is Amateur Radio Field Day: emergency-drill & demo radio stations everywhere, visitors welcome http://is.gd/1aNwB
Tue 23-Jun-2009 12:50:07 PDT

AvWeek: Boeing #787 first flight delayed several weeks to fix problems found in ground testing http://is.gd/1aMI4
Tue 23-Jun-2009 12:40:56 PDT

SMH article: A380 rough time settling into service at Qantas, problems w/ automation of aircraft http://is.gd/19Qsu
Mon 22-Jun-2009 21:58:50 PDT

rocket launch at Black Rock Desert rained out but still an adventure - photos: http://is.gd/18rDH
Sun 21-Jun-2009 10:10:19 PDT

I posted "Getting to the Black Rock Desert" including I-80 construction info and alternate Sierra crossings http://is.gd/15mur
Thu 18-Jun-2009 07:16:10 PDT

In an FAA meeting this evening at Reid-Hillview Airport for local flight instructors and examiners
Tue 16-Jun-2009 20:26:25 PDT

updated get-twitter-rss 0.4 script posted: bug fix, parsing improvement http://is.gd/115X9
Sat 13-Jun-2009 14:54:30 PDT

new blog entry by @mastenspace: Propulsion Systems Technical Update http://is.gd/10qON #mojave
Fri 12-Jun-2009 21:08:42 PDT

added info on workaround for failure to auto-detect Novatel USB760 cell modem on #fedora 11 #linux http://is.gd/10mSF
Fri 12-Jun-2009 19:37:44 PDT

Today is 20 years since my original Private Pilot license; upgraded since to Commercial ASEL/AMEL/glider + CFI; working on CFII
Wed 10-Jun-2009 10:03:15 PDT

[Tux the Penguin]
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