Just a little progress report on the code I’m writing for the Ambient Orb…

I have just finished the calculations needed to process the Clear Sky Clock. The orb will basically show a sky forecast for the next 48 hours (more details below for those interested). Right now that’s the only one I am playing with, but I’m also going to be creating a windows service wrapper with scheduling capabilities so I can have the orb, for instance, show sky data on nights and weekends while showing some other data during the day. That’ll all be pretty easy to do, and writing “plugin” data providers for the orb will be a piece of cake.

Back to the calculation… I take the data provided by that website, then calculate each hour’s weighted average (sky transparency, cloud cover, and ‘seeing’). Those values are then averaged over a configurable calculation window (hard coded to 3 hours right now) since I don’t want the orb to show me that the sky is fantastic when it is only going to be that way for an hour (setting up the scope and letting it cool down takes about an hour). The code then takes the calculation window with the greatest average as the one to report on. A window value of 100 is blue, 0 is red. I then take the forecast time of that window divided by the window size to determine the animation. Fast flashing would indicate the forecast is for the next 3 hours in my case. No flashing basically means that it’s 20 hours away or so.

Next step is to have all of the options and threshholds configurable, then move on to the windows service. I’m pretty excited about having it almost done, especially since I haven’t spent much time with it at all!

As of yesterday I am now 26 years old. We celebrated with a trip to Alexander’s Steakhouse so I could get my free meal (when you bring in 3 others). Mmmmm…. steak.

My gifts were fantastic. Jay and Katherine are getting me the wireless access point I’m going to need when we construct the Trans-Palisades network later this month, Ana got me some clothes (including a “Keep out of Direct Sunlight” t-shirt) and something I’ve wanted for a long time…. an Ambient Orb! Just upgraded to a premium account and plan on exploring their “developer” stuff this evening. Right now it’s sitting on my desk doing its default reporting of the Dow status. Pretty cool.

And finally, my parents tracked down a Rummy Royal game. For those who haven’t played, it’s a fun way to spend a few hours. I’m sure it’ll be used plenty.

Where the heck did the long weekend go?? Painting, that’s where. Ana and I decided to brighten up our house a little bit by painting the family room, kitchen, and foyer. It took the better part of 3 days to get it all done, with the help of Jay and Katherine, and we are exhausted and not looking forward to getting up for work in the morning.

Photos are up in the gallery. You may notice that all of the house related pictures are hidden from view. Just didn’t feel right essentially having an entire blueprint and inventory online for the world to see. If you would like the login, shoot me an email or IM me and I’ll send you the information. Sorry for the inconvenience.

If/when you get a login, the photos are here.

I typically don’t comment on current events, but I have just been astounded in the past 48 hours at the breakdown of society in New Orleans. I never imagined I would be seeing a disaster in the U.S. unfold on television where the rescuers and authorities were essentially paralyzed out of security fears.

I can understand people taking food, water, and other necessities (I’m certain I’d do the same in that situation) from stores – but the rampant theft of everything else is insane. Electronics? Sports jerseys? WTF? I have viewed crime as something done for personal gain. But in this situation, what the hell is to be gained? Every one of them is in the same cesspool.

And the stories of murder?? Rape?? Growing up, and until 2 days ago, I often wondered about why the National Guard was called in after natural disasters. It’s vividly clear now – boy was I naive.

Our prayers go out to all those suffering, hopefully the pain will lighten.

Today my department has a day off, with a picnic at the lake starting at 11:30. I was excited to learn that this coincided with the annual Perseid meteor showers which peaked at predawn this morning. Unfortunately the clouds didn’t cooperate this morning so we weren’t able to see any and were forced to head to bed at 4am.

Today we went and purchased a pair of Schwinn Suburban Sport Comfort Bikes (men’s and women’s)! Also picked up a few accessories for riding like water bottles, bike pump, etc. Our first impressions of these bikes are very positive. The seats have springs underneath (as you can see in the pictures) and are made of gel which make for a pretty comfortable cushion.

In an effort to lower my blood pressure (along with eating less garbage), we’ve been trying to become a little less sedentary in our free time. Often this has taken the form of walking and racquetball at the courts at work, but there have been a few times when we didn’t feel like driving all the way back across town to play. So having bikes will allow us to quickly get some exercise. We live very close to the Lost Bridge Trail (map here) which is a paved bike path between Springfield and Rochester, so I imagine we’ll be making quite a few trips on it in the future.

I have the NASA TV internet feed up, just about 23 minutes until launch. Here’s to hoping the shuttle gets off to a successful flight.

Retired the Myth TV box tonight, and it is the new webserver. Its processor is a couple generations newer than the old one, so things should be a lot snappier.