"akeome" あけおめ which is really just a shortened form of 明けましておめでとう which functionally means "Happy New Year!!" And I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season.
For me, 2010 represents the real-world test of the past few years of prep. I'll be finishing school then looking for work and Pacific Spirit Wado Kai will be growing its student base and technical level. A lot (actually, almost all) of what I've been doing the past few years have led up to this point and while it's certainly not the end, everyone likes a good start =)
Besides that, I said last week that I'd try to put up some HDR's of the Festival Of Lights pics but for some reason they weren't turning out that well. Instead, I've just tone mapped two of them.
The last thing for the first post of 2010 is a look at Popular Science's Best Of What's New 2009. It's inevitable that everyone thinks technology can't possibly improve ("Something better than a telegram?! Impossible" or if you've seen Avatar), it's a great look at what kinds of things are in store for the future. Understandly, a lot of these are hideously expensive but in a few years time, they'll be more ubiquitous and affordable. Best of all, some of these things are simply new approaches to old solutions to prove that old dogs can indeed learn new tricks.
Here are my top 5 from their list of 100.
No really. It's a rollable sheet of Kevlar sandwiched by elastic polymer with an adhesive backing so you can literally stick it to your wall. Developed along with the US Army, it withstands impacts and helps keep walls intact after impacts. While it does say bombproof, it could very easily be applied to homes in hurricane threatened areas not only to add structural strength, but to help keep debris out.
A rather simple yet effective way of managing traffic flow, this intersection was put into place this past year in Missouri and it not only reduced the number of traffic accidents, it sped up the flow. It works by switching the traffic lanes at the overpass (see the two X's on either side of the green highway). This allows cars to both exit and enter the highway without having to make left turns across an opposing lane. After the overpass, the lanes switch back and it's traffic as normal.
Humans see in 3D because we have two eyes each seeing a slightly different image. The brain puts these images together to sense depth and it's this depth perception that creates a 3D image. This camera take 3D pictures by using two lenses and image sensors spaced 3 inches apart, mimicking human eyes. It can even playback images on the screen in 3D by flashing the images separately to each eye. Then there's 3D picture frames and computer software (with or without 3D glasses) so you can show them to your friends...
A refreshing break from the skyscraper race, the CCTV building is a neat architectural design. Conceived as a continuous shape (there's another L shaped corner on the ground pointed away from us), it's an amazing engineering feat to build. Built in an area threatened by earthquakes, the problem was not producing a building strong enough (which would shake itself apart), but rather strategically weak enough to dissipate earthquake forces (so it sways like an antenna) yet still strong enough to hold up the shape. The result is the diamond lattice structure where the number of numbers is higher in areas that require lots of strength and lesser in areas that don't. Then they made it visible for an attractive form following function design.
PS- This image, being an HDR shot of the CCTV building, fills my promise of something HDR in this post heh...
Lastly,
In Google's bid to take over the world, they've reinvented nearly everything and then made it accessible to all, by all. With Wave, they've taken online communication and merged it all into one interface. Part email, part instant messaging, part document sharing, each wave is an open conversation where users can contribute seemlessly. Start a new wave, invite the friends you want to speak with, and type in an email. If they're offline, they can read it later; if they're online, they can response in real time messaging even responding to specific parts of the message. Invite friends to join later and they're immediately privy to the entire wave, with a playback feature that shows the history of changes (much like Adobe's Buzzword). It's even hooked up to Blogger (since Google owns Blogger) and you can posted pictures directly from your wave and then comments will show up instantly. They've also made it open source so it will continue to expand as people develop new applications for it.
The most impressive part is that they've made all this work real time. Type and people can watch you type letter by letter, so there's no waiting and wondering. Even picture thumbnails show up instantly.
I'm not a big fan of being plugged in all the time (I loathe people who constantly text unrelated crap despite being at dinner with their friends), but I do love the streamlining of all the various communications type into one interface.
So thanks for reading this past 2009 and keep checking back in 2010 =)
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