Wrap Up

I've now returned to Lancaster after my trip to Berkeley and I felt that my blog needed some closure before I scrap it.

It was a great experience both personally and professionally thanks to all the folks at Berkeley and those at Lancaster who were kind enough to send me.

Now, its back to 'the real world' and work which, for now at least, I'm enjoying.

I'll leave you with a couple of photos of my final snowboarding trip to Tahoe and waiting in Reno airport for my flight home .

Long time, no blog...

I'm in Cafe Royal, my favorite Internet bar and 'Dancing With Myself' is playing on the stereo. My time here grows short. It will be hard to leave the city .

Its been a while since I posted because I've been busy with work stuff... which I'm now going to bore you with for a bit!! First of all, this is what a Dust Networks kit looks like:

You get 12 sensor nodes which have two analogue sensor inputs (e.g. for pressure-based depth sensors) and RS232 which allows them to act as (very) low power network interfaces. Despite being low power the nodes can susutain links of up to 2KM in open space. The kit also comes with a Linux manager that gives you an easy to use XML-RPC management interface:

The manager might look heavy-weight compared to the motes but it doesn't actually consume that much power -- being roughly comparable to a single GridStix! So what are we doing with all this Dust Networks hardware?

In the first instance, I have connected Dust motes to Lancaster's GridStix platform. This gives us the option of switching between a 'traditional', very low power sensor network or activating the GridStix, which allow suppport for complex computation (such as image-based flow modelling). In the second instance it allows us to seperate the concern of data gathering from wirless sensor network development. Allowing our partners in Environmental Science to gather data quickly at new deployments, while leaving us free to experiment with more edgy software.

What else have I been doing? Well, I saw a couple of movies. 'Cloverfield' was good and I watched my 'other favorite comedian' Marc Maron at a comedy club in Sunnyvale. I'll leave you with a bit of Maron, discussing Jesus and Judaism with an audience member...

Sausalito

I went to the Dickies gig at the Red Devil Lounge on Friday, which was pretty cool. The weather this weekend was great. On Saturday I went to AT&T park to watch the 'Mavericks' surf contest live on the big screen, which fun. Then today, I finally hired a bike and rode from Fisherman's Wharf over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. The scenery were spectacular... just one more reason to love San Francisco Bay.

Looking out to the Pacific

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge

Alcatraz from the Ferry

My research is also going well at the moment. I finally have full access to Dust Network's Research Development Kit and I spent last week building a Java interface to the Dust Network Manager, which I hope to finish tomorrow. Once that's done, I intend to integrate it with one of our pressure sensors and give our partners in Environmental Science an online demonstration.

My time here is growing short and I still have a long list of things that I want to do... I guess I better get back to work for now! ;-)

Happy Birthday Dad

It's my Dad's birthday today - here he is with my mum in Paris:

Happy Birthday Dad!

It was interesting to see Clinton's comeback in New Hampshire last night. It mostly seems to have been a sympathy vote after her tearful post-Iowa press appearences. Nonetheless, I'm convinced that Obama will win and I think he will do so based almost entirely on his charisma and skills as an orator. For example, this is how one gives a 'consession' speech:

Back to Work

I'm settling back into work after my Christmas travels. I spent last week reading papers and learning XML-RPC in preperation for working with the Dust Networks research innovation kit... I got word that I should get access to the Dust research development kit tomorrow, and then the real work begins ;-) I'm looking forward to it!

Also, I've noticed that American brewers tend to have more fun when naming their brews:

Three Thieves Wine "Kick 'em in the Teeth!"

He'brew - The Chosen Beer

The Audacity of Hope

I enjoyed watching the results of the Iowa caucuses come in tonight and Barak Obama's speech in particular was inspiring stuff.

I recently read Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope" and to be honest, I found it a little dissapointing. It seemed calculatingly centrist and, for me, didn't live up to the standards of his speeches.

Its easy to be cynical about politics these days, but what if Obama is just what he looks like? An intelligent, principled and inspiring leader capable of uniting a country... wouldn't that be cool?

Party Like A Rock Star

Well with Rock Stars :-) I went to the Me First and the Gimme Gimme's gig at the Parkside in Potrero Hill on New Year's Eve.

I drank far too much but really enjoyed the gig and I even got to meet Fat Mike and Eric Melvin from NOFX -- my two favorite musicians.

Eric Melvin

Fat Mike

And yes, I was hammered ;-) I'm starting to worry that I'm building up a big Karmic debt... why is it that I keep getting all of the things I want?