Daily Archives: September 25, 2010

Star Walk: Awesome iPhone Astronomy Application

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I’ll admit to have been jealous of my good friend Xopher‘s Nexus One phone and its nifty Android-based, augmented reality Google Sky Map. But I knew I’d find a similar one for the iPhone.

Lo and behold, while in Seaside, a friend showed me Star Walk running on his iPad.

One thing the video doesn’t showcase is that the application makes use of the built-in compass, GPS and gyroscope. This lets you simply point your device anywhere and get a picture-perfect representation of what astronomical objects are in your field of vision as well as get all the details you could want about them.

At $2.99 for such a complete app, I think it’s a very good deal and entirely worth the expense.

Copernicus would be stoked. :)

Personality Analysis through One's Download Folder

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So let’s see:

  • Astrophysics @ NASA: what can I say, I like stars. Does show I’m not afraid to tackle subjects I most often have no understanding of. At least I’m trying! :)
  • Bonobo, Days to Come: One artist can’t begin to define the gamut of my music interests, but it’s a hint. See my previous post for a tip on buying music online (yes, I did pay for that).
  • Chase Hawk Edit: B… M… X… Oh yeah, baby! I do download video files when the original publisher lets us rather than view them in the browser. Quality is generally much higher, and I can archive copies when I want to.
  • Debian 5.03 Net Install ISO: Nerd alert! I always keep a GNU/Linux ISO around. You never know when it’ll come in handy.
  • elockd: Nerd alert #2, thanks to Demitrious: “…an erlang port of my php locking daemon…”.
  • Kids Photos for family: Yup, I’m a proud and happy dad, and loving every minute of it. But most of the rest of my family is spread across two continents, so sharing picts of the kids growing up is an inherent part of my responsibilities.
  • Recipes: I absolutely suck at cooking, but I’m trying to fix that. In that respect, I’ve started accumulating recipes to try and cook better, healthier meals for my hungry gang.
  • WordPress Trunk: I do enjoy some quality time with my favorite codebase. That’s not even nerdy any more. With WordPress powering around 8.5% of the web, it’s a fair bet you and those you know have dealt with WordPress at some point or another, be it for themselves or while browsing.

Does this make me a well rounded person? Not sure. But it does show how diverse my interests are. Balance is the key to a well lived life. :)