View allAll Photos Tagged technologist
i took this photo of my friend at " The 2nd Radiological Technologists conference" in the break time :P
About Me:
I am Pranav Bhasin, a technologist by education, photographer by passion, cyclist and runner by desire, entrepreneur by choice and an ardent traveler.
My photography is an attempt to mirror the soul of places I have been to, people I have met and things I have experienced during my travels. Please visit Pranav Bhasin's Photo Gallery and Photo Blog for a collection of my best photos.
You can also connect with me at: My Product Management and Social Media Blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Foursquare.
In case you are interested in using my photos, please write to me and I would be happy to offer them for a price. Please do not use my photos without prior authorization from me. Thanks!
About Me:
I am Pranav Bhasin, a technologist by education, photographer by passion, cyclist and runner by desire, entrepreneur by choice and an ardent traveler.
My photography is an attempt to mirror the soul of places I have been to, people I have met and things I have experienced during my travels. Please visit Pranav Bhasin's Photo Gallery and Photo Blog for a collection of my best photos.
You can also connect with me at: My Product Management and Social Media Blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Foursquare.
In case you are interested in using my photos, please write to me and I would be happy to offer them for a price. Please do not use my photos without prior authorization from me. Thanks!
During the course of my travels (~100k flown miles per year on United), I've learned a few things. Being a technologist and a huge fan of gear, I've had the opportunity to field a variety of different bags, cameras, flashlights, laptops, tablets, e-readers, mp3 players, IEMs, etc. I thought I'd share a few tricks of the trade that have stuck over time and have made my travels simpler.
There are a few themes I follow when I travel - less is more, redundancy is good, lighter is better. If I pack something and don't use it after 3 trips, it comes out. There are a few exceptions to this rule - the most notable being a basic First Aid kit that I keep in my toiletries bag - Edit: per requests sent to me via messages, I will post the contents of the first aid kit in a future post - short version includes safety pins, emergency medications like Advil, Tylenol, Nyquil, Caffeine, Imodium), a small sewing kit, Neosporin, bandaids, a chemlight, small packable towel, etc.
L:R
Garmin GPSMap 62s handheld GPS. Mine has a 16gb Sandisk MicroSDHC card loaded with city and topo maps for just about every continent I could possibly end up on. Great for finding directions in a new city both on foot and in-car. I carry this vs a car-mounted GPS because this handheld GPS takes AA batteries (I load mine up with Energizer Lithiums), which can easily be replaced if I'm on foot. Can't say the same for most in-vehicle GPS devices.
SureFire Flashlight - The model varies because I have so many it's absurd, but it's always a 2xCR123 model. This time it's an L4 Lumamax. It's also always the 2nd SureFire I have with me (I carry a SureFire Titan T1A in my pocket everywhere). I always have spare batteries with me as well - usually 2 or 4 of them.
Doorstop - This hasn't seen much use in recent times because I mostly stay in Starwood properties (the W San Francisco for this trip) that at least provide a decent illusion of security, but it doesn't weigh much and I keep it around anyway because I like having it with me. This particular doorstop can be deployed in a variety of ways to keep doors open, keep them closed, etc. If you've ever seen how easily an older-style hotel door chain-lock can be bypassed - same for some keycard locks - you'll understand =]
Recyclable tote bag - This one came from a conference - they fold up nice and flat and don't weigh much and are handy to have for lugging around handouts, souvenirs, and just creating some extra storage if your main pack is full.
Radio - This one is a Yaesu VX-3R 2m Ham radio with a little stubby Maldol antenna. I think it's very handy to have. Cellular networks are among the first things to buckle during a disaster or even when under heavy load at a tech conference - having a radio is very handy.
Watch - Sometimes mechanical, sometimes digital - it really depends on where I'm going and for what purpose. This Suunto Core watch is nice because it has a compass, keeps track of temperature/barometric pressure, etc. Also, it has an alarm, which is really handy until the day comes when I wind up with a mechanical watch with minute repeater from Ulysse Nardin or Audemars Piguet ;]
Phones - iPhone 5 pictured here - I carry 3 phones. 1 work phone and 2 "personal" phones - of the 2 personal phones, one is always an unlocked phone ready to take a SIM that I purchase at my destination. I have AT&T and Verizon as my carriers - if you only have AT&T, you can probably guess why I have two different carriers. I included the phone here because of a specific trick I've been employing for years - I use the camera on my phone to capture quick photos of things I'd otherwise forget during my travels that may be important...like the # of the cab I get into (if I have to ride in a cab) just in case I leave something behind, or a map of my hotel's fire egress route. In the event of an emergency, just about everyone these days will grab their phone, so...
Retractable Cables - I love these. I carry a CAT6, 2x Mini USB and 2x Micro USB - two of them frequently get used with my:
Mini 802.11 AP - This one was a gift from my brother from his last trip to Taiwan, so the menu/firmware is all in Chinese - good thing "SSID" and the other basic things were easy to figure out. A similar American model is available on Amazon. This thing is fantastic - powered via Micro USB and has a WAN IN and LAN out port on it - instant wifi in a hotel room that otherwise only has CAT5E and wants to charge extra for wifi. I always SSH tunnel into my home network before connecting out when on any sort of a public network and use FoxyProxy in Firefox to send my web traffic through my home internet as well.
Location-specific items - I was in San Francisco during this trip and so I had a BART ticket with me as well as a FastTrak (bridge/toll road payment device). You can usually purchase bus passes, train tickets, etc online in advance these days - I like to go prepared whenever possible. The BART tickets ended up being really handy during this trip as I decided to cancel my rental car at the last minute when I figured out that overnight parking at the W hotel in SF is $60/night.
Verizon MiFi - Mine has the huge Mugen Power battery on it. This device is a godsend. I never leave home without it. At some point I had an AT&T 4G device as well, which gave me the redundancy I so badly long for (GSM and CDMA), but I no longer have that. I haven't upgraded to an LTE device because Mugen Power doesn't make a huge battery for the newer MiFis...yet.
Alfa high-power WiFi adapter - Because sometimes - just sometimes - I need to hit a wireless network that's far away and am getting unusable service from my Verizon MiFi. The Alfa gets it done.
Outlets - Another godsend - this one turns a single outlet into 3 + 2 USB. Fantastic in airports, hotel rooms, and just about everywhere else.
I have a few other little things I do that make sense to me but may seem absurd to others: an example would be that I never push out my TripIt/travel status (Aaron is leaving on a trip to _______ for x days) on Facebook, etc. And most of the time, I try to avoid posting my travel photos/details of my whereabouts until I'm nearly home or at home. Maybe it's paranoia, but as a former home burglary victim and a desirable target for all sorts of opportunity criminals, I just can't see a reason why I should make it easier for them by announcing that I plan to be away from my home.
Late last year my local airport implemented TSA's PreCheck, which is a great throwback to travelling pre-9/11. I get to keep my shoes, belt and jacket on and my toiletries and laptop don't need to come out of my bag. The only thing that goes in a bin are my mobile phones. My average time through security (including the "line") has been UNDER 1 MINUTE at the airports I've visited that have PreCheck. I qualified for PreCheck via my enrollment in Global Entry, which is also fantastic as it lets me bypass the lines to re-enter the US at customs.
Explored 4/2/2013
This is the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet beyond the Moon. It was taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit one hour before sunrise on the 63rd Martian day, or sol, of its mission. (March 8, 2004)
The image is a mosaic of images taken by the rover's navigation camera showing a broad view of the sky, and an image taken by the rover's panoramic camera of Earth. The contrast in the panoramic camera image was increased two times to make Earth easier to see.The inset shows a combination of four panoramic camera images zoomed in on Earth. The arrow points to Earth. Earth was too faint to be detected in images taken with the panoramic camera's color filters.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Texas A&M
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.
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About Me:
I am Pranav Bhasin, a technologist by education, photographer by passion, cyclist and runner by desire, entrepreneur by choice and an ardent traveler.
My photography is an attempt to mirror the soul of places I have been to, people I have met and things I have experienced during my travels. Please visit Pranav Bhasin's Photo Gallery and Photo Blog for a collection of my best photos.
You can also connect with me at: My Product Management and Social Media Blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Foursquare.
In case you are interested in using my photos, please write to me and I would be happy to offer them for a price. Please do not use my photos without prior authorization from me. Thanks!
About Me:
I am Pranav Bhasin, a technologist by education, photographer by passion, cyclist and runner by desire, entrepreneur by choice and an ardent traveler.
My photography is an attempt to mirror the soul of places I have been to, people I have met and things I have experienced during my travels. Please visit Pranav Bhasin's Photo Gallery and Photo Blog for a collection of my best photos.
You can also connect with me at: My Product Management and Social Media Blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Foursquare.
In case you are interested in using my photos, please write to me and I would be happy to offer them for a price. Please do not use my photos without prior authorization from me. Thanks!
Goddard technologist Nithin Abraham, a member of the team that has developed a low-cost, low-mass technique for protecting sensitive spacecraft components from outgassed contaminants, studies a paint sample in her laboratory.
To read this story go to: www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/outgas-tech.html
Credit: NASA/Pat Izzo
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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From: www.infuture.ca
Project Description:
Rob King’s Trillium Icosaflorum explores the symbolic presence of Ontario Place’s Cinesphere. Inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s Biosphere design at Montreal’s Expo 67, the Cinesphere is often mistaken for a geodesic dome (in fact, it is a triodectic dome, a related but different structure). King’s outdoor sculpture examines the techno-utopianism and mathematical purity the geodesic dome has come to signify, using interlocking angular forms to build a sculpture inspired by the Cinesphere’s unique form and geometrical playfulness. A compelling monumental form marked by elegant symmetry,Trillium Icosaflorum questions the origins of commonly-accepted ideas about beauty, exactitude, innovation and futurism.
Biography:
Rob King is an Toronto based New Media artist and creative technologist. He is the founder of XZZ Creative Technologies (xzz.ca), and his work has been shown worldwide in such diverse sites as Sao Paulo, MOMA New York, Belfast, Budapest, Weimar and Montreal. Rob has been producing art and technology since 2004. His work has ranged from acrylic laser sharks to bluetooth enabled diaper sensors. In 2011 Rob's work Tentacles (a collaboration with Geoffrey Shea and Michael Longford) was shown as part of the Talk To Me show curated by Paola Antonelli at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In 2009-10 Rob was selected as the as the COMEDIA artist in residence at the Sonic Arts Research Center at Queen's University in Belfast. In this position he developed a series of live performance visuals for improvised network music performance. In 2008 he created the Apiograph project, a visualization of the pollination activities of a nest of bumble bees installed in the *new* gallery in Toronto. Rob is the founder of Addi.tv Art+Code / XZZ, a company that develops provides creative coding services for commercial clients as well as artists and arts organizations. Some of his clients have included Lego, Nike, Scotiabank, Nissan, and We Day.
A detail view of a filament launch in the SDO AIA 304 band.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/SVS/SDO
To read more about this animation go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/first-light.html
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.
I was first tagged by Christian et Cie then by Thierry la Fronde, so I feel I don't really have a choice here... ;-) That's a fun game, I admit (because I learned a lot about my contacts), but I would never consider being tagged alone, as my partner in crime helps a lot with the pictures I post here. I'm talking about David of course (Birdman)... ;-)
So here are 16 random things about us (there will be less to say about me):
1. I'm 4 years older than David. Yeah, I know how to pick them! I spotted him in Cuba on 26 December 2003. What do you know... He was travelling with a friend but ended spending more time with me (sorry John!). ;-)
2. We live in Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire, England, a pleasant little town close to Stansted airport (convenient for our travels). People often comment about the amount we travel. I suppose it's become a bit of an addiction as it's easy and cheap for us to reach many destinations in Europe on 'no-frills' budget airlines (and sometimes the flights are even free! Not too expensive when you book an hotel with your Airmiles).
3. I used to be a legal secretary who always wanted to be a graphic artist. Now I'm a legal secretary who would like to be a professional photographer. David is a technologist who invents recipes for polymers, glues and all those fascinating things that you can buy in a tube at B&Q. As a teenager, he wanted to become a make-up artist for horror movies... oh dear! He used to ‘entertain’ his parents by entering the room with fake flesh wounds, missing limbs and eyes hanging out on stalks.
He tried that with me once, lying on the kitchen floor with ketchup on his jeans and a bit of hotdog on the floor, pretending he'd chopped off a finger. I was not impressed! I just stepped over him and went to the loo. Since then he says I'm very insensitive!
4. I'm not a sporty person (I much prefer my chair in front of the PC) as I feel I'm kind of jinxed: someone once threw a dart in my forearm, then at the 'school's Olympics', someone threw a discus into the back of my head, then later on it was a pool ball in the forehead, then my cousin tried to drown me under a rowing boat... David, on the other hand, is a football maniac and Manchester United fan. He played regularly up until a few months ago, but kept coming home broken after each game. "I'm too old, he said!". (Oops! Update here – He says he's going to try again this Friday evening!)
5. As you probably have realised by now, David is a keen birdwatcher. This fits well with my photography, as we get to see a lot of places I wouldn't normally think of visiting (such as the Scilly Isles). While he chases birds around, I have fun with my Canon! David has seen 407 species of birds in the UK, God knows how many worldwide...
6. What kind of music do we like? Well, that's not easy to answer. I remember the first two albums I bought at 13: Dark Side of the Moon and Saturday Night Fever... Yeah... ;-) A short while after that I bought the first five albums of Led Zep, as well as Abba and Beatles albums. But lets say that for a long time, you could classify me as a Rocker, as my gang and I were into Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, etc. Today I'm more into easy listening stuff, and I really like Amy Winehouse! ;-) As for David, he also likes all the above and Rush (a Canadian band... yeh!). His favourite album is Grace by Jeff Buckley.
7. David plays the guitar and sings (pretty well!) He should have joined a band when he was young but was always too lazy (some things never change)! ;-) Now he just plays for his own amusement. I'm the only person who ever hears him play (and sing) these days, what a shame! At least it gives him something to do while I play Flickr!
8. We both like good movies, especially on a lazy Sunday morning when the weather's too bad to go out to play! Our all time favourites are the French classics Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, by Marcel Pagnol. Other favourites include:
Anik: Frida, Gandhi, Catch me if you can, Forrest Gump and C.R.A.Z.Y. (a Québec movie that depicts what Québec was like when I grew up).
David: The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, Twelve Monkeys, American Beauty, Midnight Cowboy, March of the penguins (oh boy ... does he love March of the penguins!...)
9. Thanks to **Gwen**, I have discovered an author I really like these days, and I'm talking about Welsh novelist Ken Follett. One day Gwen suggested I read "Pillars of the Earth". It took me forever, but I finally read it in French (Les Piliers de la terre). I simply adored it. Then I read the 'sequel' (in English), World without End. David is now reading this but he keeps complaining that the book is too heavy!!!
10. Our current car is a gold coloured Peugeot 307 (which I chose by the way!). David does not like it much. It's an automatic, which I insisted we buy instead of the sports car he wanted! Anyway, being a Canadian, apparently I'm only allowed to drive automatics around here. David would be OK with that if only I would actually drive... but I don't! I never got used to the damn roundabouts and the narrowness of the roads in this country. To make things worse, I still need the GPS just to go to the grocery store, and I still manage to bump the curb every time (that's probably because I drive with my two eyes shut and I scream all the time...) ;-)
11. You know what annoys me most about England? ...the fact that they don't have screens in their windows here. I hate that because I'm terrified of spiders. Have you seen the size of the spiders around here? They're as big as mice and run as fast! I always try to make David kill them when I see one, but he systematically refuses! Instead, he carefully catches them (which can sometimes take half-hour) and puts them outside the door (so that they can easily get back in!)... HATE THAT!!! My solution is more radical. I Hoover them up whilst standing on the couch.
12. We both gave up smoking in October 2008 after I got very sick on our return from our trip to the Scilly Isles. I had a very bad chest infection and David, being the wonderful husband that he is, agreed to give up smoking with me from that day forward. Since we both love smoking and find it very difficult to stop altogether, we agreed that we could still smoke every now and then, but only when we're on holiday. Need I tell you I can't wait for the next one? ;-)
13. As a young man David was very accident prone. He once ran into a concrete pipe which caused such a deep wound on his head that he could touch his skull! He also broke his arm from sliding down the banister in his house and was hit by a motorbike which resulted in him having to have his earlobe stitched back on! I think it's just as well that he gave up paragliding when he did...
14. When we met, David had a nipple ring! I think you know what I think of piercings by now... ;-) Eventually I made him get rid of it (body-piercings on over-40's is very undignified I think!)
15. This photo is absolutely rubbish. I just wanted to try (without too much effort, I confess), my new Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens... I wanted to see what I could obtain in our dark living room without a flash. Not impressed so far! ;-))
16. Where does this story end? Hopefully in British-Columbia, Canada. This is one of the places I would like to retire to, if not in Québec (but this is very unlikely because David doesn't seem to be able to learn French). However, wherever we are in the world when we retire, one of our dreams would be to publish a book about all the places we visited, with my photos and David's texts. Yeah, dream on...
* * *
Now it's my turn to tag five of my contacts (but feel free to decline eh, no sweat!), I know some of you are really busy!... ;-)
Satellite image showing earth on March 6, 2010.
Credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.
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Our amazingly talented bff sent through the next wave of tees!
These are available in SD only but in more designs and colours than last time. There are 17 total and each tee is $22 + $5 shipping. Shipping is the same no matter how many you buy!
All seams are finished professionally by a qualified (human) fashion technologist in Scotland c:
If you'd like a specific design on a certain colour, that can be arranged but please message me for more info c: <3
About Me:
I am Pranav Bhasin, a technologist by education, photographer by passion, cyclist and runner by desire, entrepreneur by choice and an ardent traveler.
My photography is an attempt to mirror the soul of places I have been to, people I have met and things I have experienced during my travels. Please visit Pranav Bhasin's Photo Gallery and Photo Blog for a collection of my best photos.
You can also connect with me at: My Product Management and Social Media Blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Foursquare.
In case you are interested in using my photos, please write to me and I would be happy to offer them for a price. Please do not use my photos without prior authorization from me. Thanks!
Goddard technologist Vivek Dwivedi (right) and his collaborator, University of Maryland professor Raymond Adomaitis (left), are preparing to insert a sample inside a reactor that will apply a thin film using the atomic layer deposition technique.
Photo Credit: NASA/GSFC/Chris Gunn
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
Follow us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Find us on Instagram
Images taken immediately after the AIA CCD cameras cooled on March 30, 2010.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO
To read more about this image go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/first-light.html
To learn more about the SDO mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/sdo
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.
A legendary high-performance on and off-roader, the Benzino G 63 possesses qualities worthy of such a moniker: Perfectly tuned by~PI~ technologist. An exciting and innovating competition crushing bodystyle and a sporty, luxurious interior. Also equipped with TV's inside.
BLOG:
nee-nees.blogspot.com/2017/01/pibenzino.html
Store Location for Prestige Imports::
NASA GOES-13 satellite image showing earth on December 17, 2010.
Credit: NOAA/NASA GOES Project
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.
Follow us on Twitter
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“Moon man has controls for suit and vehicle.”
“After Apollo – Exploring the Moon
After the Apollo spacecraft lands its three-man crew on the moon and brings them back safely, what’s the next step in lunar exploration?
A 12-man expedition to make a 500-mile research trip across the surface of the moon is proposed by Allyn B. Hazard, an engineer at Aerojet’s subsidiary, Space-General Corporation.
It could be done in this decade, he says.
The spacemen would travel to the moon in four rockets – three round-trip passenger vehicles, the other a one-way cargo ship with 30,000 pounds of supplies to support the men and their scientific studies.
Each of the astronauts would be a highly trained scientist or technologist in some particular field; some would be experts in several areas. On the moon, only four of them would make the trans-lunar journey, while the others remained at the rockets’ landing site to conduct research.
The four explorers would wear special tub-like spacesuits in which they would have to live and work, eat and sleep, for the entire trip. They couldn’t get out of the suits because of the airlessness and super-cold of the moon.
That’s the reason for the suit’s peculiar shape – the wearer can slip his arms out of the sleeves to eat, adjust controls, make notes, or even to scratch his nose.
Umbilical connections would link each suit to a tractor-like “moon mobile” carrying the oxygen and life support system for two men. These would carry their passengers across the lunar landscape at five miles an hour. A 500 mile journey (for instance, from Crater Gruithuisen to Crater Aristarchus and back) would take 10 earth days. It would be made during the 330-hour lunar night, to avoid exposing the men to the sun’s radiation.”
All of the above is from the 1962 edition of “AEROJET-GENERAL SPACELINES AND ROCKET REVIEW”. Conscientiously made possible/available by Mr. John Sisson, at his absolutely WONDERFUL “Dreams of Space - Books and Ephemera” blogspot:
dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2013/06/after-apollo-exploring...
Specifically, the image (from the publication):
2.bp.blogspot.com/-1bVrH2BpGW8/UcCnYRYjBSI/AAAAAAAAFUw/jK...
Also. Wow. Note the umbilical. And, as if all of this wasn’t enough already…a “FLYING BELT”?! You’re kidding me! At least the risk assessment matrix for this would’ve been really simple, consisting of a single red cell at the intersection of the following column/row:
- Probability: HIGH
- Severity - Effect of Hazard: LOSS OF MISSION CAPABILITY, UNIT READINESS OR ASSET; DEATH:
3.bp.blogspot.com/-1yN70bdibrk/UcCndD9y9oI/AAAAAAAAFVA/pI...
So, now that the outlandish premise/proposal has been established:
An excellent photo looking into/at the control panel of the delightful, albeit preposterous MK-I Lunar Exploration Suit. At the controls is the man himself, Allyn Hazard. Per the Aerojet-General publication, the integrated space suit – moonmobile design concept is evident. Due to being confined to the suit, the Astronaut must “plug into/integrate” with the vehicle in order to control it.
I don't quite understand the handheld remote control to the left. If not for its voice communications functionality - requiring a breathable atmosphere in which employ it - I might've considered it to be for lunar use. Like maybe when walking along with the moon mobile if/when "unmanned"? If so, I assume the remote’s connectivity is also via the umbilical to the vehicle, it also serving as the primary source of power & life support?
Maybe it’s just for terrestrial testing/training?
Note the labeling, primarily the one at eye level, on the ‘helmet interface ring?’ – ”THINK”.
Ya ‘think’?!
Whether driving or walking, or both concurrently, AND if/when connected to the vehicle, it’s painfully obvious one had to constantly be alert, attentive and keenly situationally aware…over the course of traveling - up to 500 miles - at night!!!
Catastrophes waiting to happen.
Despite the obvious 'lunacy' of this whole thing, there’s something eminently likable about Mr. Hazard. Like Clarence when seeing the image of George Bailey the first time, from “It’s a Wonderful Life”:
“It’s a good face. I like it.”:
siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_393495
Credit: Smithsonian Institution Archives website
See also:
paleofuture.com/blog/2009/6/28/a-suit-for-the-first-man-o...
Credit: Paleofuture blog website
The zany & eccentric nature of Mr. Hazard and his ‘moon suit’ on full display at a home show held at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in 1965.
Per the original June 12, 1965 caption of the “Valley Times” newspaper:
“Home show queen Janice Johnson is helped out of a model of the Apollo spacecraft by Hap Hazard, space engineer, wearing the very latest design in suits for moon crawling. Cutaway model of Apollo is now on exhibit in Sports Arena, along with other aerospace features, 12:30 to 11 p.m. daily through June 20."
At:
calisphere.org/item/3b322fc826a4c1fa8152387936870fef/
Credit: The Los Angeles Public Library & University of California/CALISPHERE website
Regardless, continue to Rest In Peace Good Sir:
www.findagrave.com/memorial/87516589/allyn-b-hazard
Credit: “Find a Grave” website
Walking the ancient forests of Vancouver Island is an experience that seldom disappoints. My companions on this day were Washington state based environmentalist Joshua Wright (l), and Greg Herringer, a forest technologist who oversees the British Columbia Timber Sales (BCTS) Legacy Tree Program
About Me:
I am Pranav Bhasin, a technologist by education, photographer by passion, cyclist and runner by desire, entrepreneur by choice and an ardent traveler.
My photography is an attempt to mirror the soul of places I have been to, people I have met and things I have experienced during my travels. Please visit Pranav Bhasin's Photo Gallery and Photo Blog for a collection of my best photos.
You can also connect with me at: My Product Management and Social Media Blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Foursquare.
In case you are interested in using my photos, please write to me and I would be happy to offer them for a price. Please do not use my photos without prior authorization from me. Thanks!
I dyed my hair. Engineering technologists are expected to be plain and boring.
FUCK MY LIFE; I MADE THE WRONG CAREER CHOICE, AND I'M NOT EVEN THERE YET.
Dammit.
Also, my phone takes terrible pictures, I need a new one to take on dogs/woods adventures. That's what student loans are for, right? :D
EXPLORED? How can I be proud of that?! Thank you though :)
About Me:
I am Pranav Bhasin, a technologist by education, photographer by passion, cyclist and runner by desire, entrepreneur by choice and an ardent traveler.
My photography is an attempt to mirror the soul of places I have been to, people I have met and things I have experienced during my travels. Please visit Pranav Bhasin's Photo Gallery and Photo Blog for a collection of my best photos.
You can also connect with me at: My Product Management and Social Media Blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Foursquare.
In case you are interested in using my photos, please write to me and I would be happy to offer them for a price. Please do not use my photos without prior authorization from me. Thanks!
Investigation of the morphology and composition of an oxide layer formed on the surface of a steel X70 . Research conducted by the technologist Thais Mansur (Division of Corrosion / INT / MCTI ).
Courtesy of Mr. FRANCISCO RANGEL
Image Details
Instrument used: Quanta SEM
Magnification: 2000x
Horizontal Field Width: 149 µm
Vacuum: 70 Pa
Voltage: 10 kV
Spot: 3.0
Working Distance: 15.0
Detector: SE PLUS BSE
Listening to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s 60 Minutes interview in October 2021, the simplicity and impact of her allegation struck me: Facebook made its money from engagement (the more clicks and comments a post contained, the more money it made). And what caused the most engagement? Anger. Facebook was making millions of dollars financed by our anger. Haugen revealed that Facebook’s internal reports showed the company’s algorithms promoted political discord and anti-vaccination rhetoric, both domestically and internationally (in 2018, Myanmar’s military used Facebook to launch the Rohingya genocide). Company insiders warned Mark Zuckerberg, but he chose profit over the safety and well-being of its users. And despite numerous appearances before Congress, he consistently misled our legislators and us. I use Facebook to stay in contact with friends. I also moderate a cultural and political page as part of my work on the Chamomile Tea Party. I’ve created over 230 posters during the last decade that chronicle the devolution of American political discourse.
I don’t have to tell you, Americans are more polarized than ever. Donald Trump’s presidency and power were built on that divide. The Republican Party’s kowtowing to him, both during his tenure and even now, has created high levels of vigilance and anxiety. No matter where we stand on the political spectrum, we’ve had little power to do anything about it except to yell at each other. Our anger was and continues to be palatable. Trump’s defeat (even as he dangles a 2024 run for the presidency) has given us some room to breathe and to distance ourselves, if ever so slightly, from the precipice. But how have we fallen so far? How did we lose sight of what many believe is American Exceptionalism (a term I find a fabricated national myth)?
As parents of two young adults, my wife and I have found the “terrible twos” had nothing on the clueless early twenties. At 18, our daughters were legally adults. But they had little experience being adults. And with their prefrontal cortexes still developing, they rarely asked for help nor listened when we offered our expertise. Fair enough. I didn’t listen to my parents either at that age. But our challenge in helping them navigate adulthood is complicated because our twenties were so different from theirs. We cannot compare our pasts to their experiences as digital natives. As a technologist and a former teacher of technology, I never taught my students the philosophical and moral underpinnings of the net. In the late 1990s, teachers focused on using programs like Photoshop and PageMaker, not how to be good netizens. We didn’t have to. There was no need—yet.
At the beginning of the internet, the opportunity to meet new people to discuss ideas was a major attraction to me. As a teenager, I had pen pals in countries worldwide, and I saw the internet as an extension of that interest and my curiosity. As an artist, I saw the opportunity to bypass the impediments of gallery representation and the art market to convey my work to new audiences. But at a “town hall” back then, hastily organized to discuss a Washington Post article bemoaning DC’s lackluster arts community, I warned my fellow artists we needed to guard this new resource. If we didn’t make this concerted effort, companies and corporations would turn it into just another marketplace for their goods and services. I feel no pleasure in my prescience.
Enter social media. By the early 2000s, I was a technology strategist and frontend web designer at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where I helped shepherd our mission to new online audiences. And, in 2002, I proposed doing a blog as a way of posting current information about exhibitions and lectures weekly. Until that time, websites were static. They presented the basics and were rarely updated. But as we recognized the value of engaging these new audiences, we needed to find ways to interact and inform on an ongoing basis. The introduction of content management systems allowed us to create that fresh content easily. In 2005, my idea gained enough traction to launch the first blog at the Smithsonian, Eye Level. Everybody was trying to find ways to engage these new communities. In 2006, Facebook opened its membership to everyone. And in 2008, Twitter did the same. Both of these platforms became part of our museum’s toolkit for social engagement.
These apps heralded a revolution in social interaction. As these platforms grew, they looked to differentiate themselves from one another. When coworkers wondered if Twitter would supplant blogging, I told them, “you tweet to react and blog to reflect.” But the business of social media was developing too. As access and bandwidth increased, these companies grew exponentially. So did their power and their share prices. My ’90s prediction that capital would supplant real societal change came to be. There was money to be made, and by the late 2000s, the net’s fate was set. Net cognoscenti have been advocating for net neutrality ever since.
The internet’s future demanded a robust infrastructure to secure its future. Money poured in from venture capitalists. In Silicon Valley, just about every idea was a good one, that is until the bubble burst in the late 1990s. The wild, wild West was gone, but that didn’t stop the capital from flowing in, albeit with a little more restraint. And it began to coalesce. Companies bought up other companies. And as Yuval Noah Harari, a historian, and author of Sapiens, recently stated on 60 Minutes, platforms like Instagram and What’s App sold for millions. These apps had no tangible assets, so why were they valued so highly? It was their data that made those acquisitions so valuable. Their data on you and me. I decided if others coveted my interests, I wanted a piece of that pie. So, in 1999, I auctioned my personal demographics on eBay. When my children were young, I never mentioned their names or showed photos of them online. I wanted to protect their personal information for as long as possible.
Knowing all about our habits, companies could target content to each of us. Chris Anderson, the former editor of WIRED, called this “the longtail strategy.” Amazon may make a lot of money from the sale of their best sellers, but it was the other 90% of their inventory that made them rich. The number of small sales from a long list of niche books surpassed the volume of more well-known fare. However, Wharton professor, Serguei Netessine, found just the opposite. He felt people overwhelmed with choices would gravitate to bestsellers. The key was personalization. Develop algorithms that use your past searches to create a profile of your interests so that search results could show you precisely what you were looking for (even if you didn’t know what you were looking for).
This is exactly what Facebook does. It knows everything about us. Everything. Harai told Anderson Cooper, “I came out as gay when I was 21. It should’ve been obvious to me when I was 15 that I’m gay. But something in the mind blocked it. Now, if you think about a teenager today, Facebook can know that they are gay or Amazon can know that they are gay long before they do just based on analyzing patterns.” To understand the consequences such knowledge could reveal, Harai asked us to consider what that would mean to LGBT+ communities in Iran, Russia, or any other homophobic country where “the police know that you are gay even before you know it.”
The dystopian message of the film, Minority Report, is coming true. Based loosely on Philip K. Dick’s novel, The Minority Report, a special division of the police called “Precrime” uses “precogs”—psychics—to identify and arrest people before they can commit a crime. Substitute precogs with algorithms, and you have Facebook. The key is, as always, will this power be used for good or evil? Despite Zuckerberg’s assurances he is only interested in the former, Haugen’s purloined documents tell another story.
Before Haugen revealed herself on 60 Minutes, The Wall Street Journal published an investigation of these documents in a series called The Facebook Files. Here are a couple of the takeaways.
Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt. While Zuckerberg conveys Facebook’s role as neutrality-based, where the platform treats every user equally, the truth is just the opposite. A special class of high-profile users doesn’t always have to adhere to Facebook’s rules and algorithms. They are part of a program called “Cross Check” or “XCheck.” Facebook’s algorithms and content moderators can’t keep up with the abundance of user-generated content, so they wanted to give special attention to these very visible and vocal VIPs to ensure no PR problems for the company. Yet, many of these “special people” have used their privilege to harass and incite violence. As regular users, their posts would have been taken down and, as many of us have experienced for much lesser “crimes,” thrown into Facebook jail. This confidential review stated, “We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly,” and it called the company’s actions “a breach of trust.”
Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place. It Got Angrier Instead. In 2018, the company changed its algorithm to make its platform kinder and gentler. Its goal was to emphasize sharing and resharing posts amongst friends and family. Instead, it had the opposite effect. Political parties and trolls used the algorithm to sensationalize content.
In March 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would use the platform to promote COVID vaccinations. His goal was to get 50 million people to get vaccinated. Despite this altruistic hope, his app’s formula stymied even his efforts by prioritizing resharing. Anti-vaxx comments and mis- and disinformation inundated pro-vaccination content. The Wall Street Journal stated that Facebook's problem was “its users create the content, but their comments, posts, and videos are hard to control.”
In the lead-up to the 2020 elections, Facebook attempted to address these issues by forming the Civic Integrity working group. When Haugen began working at Facebook, she was assigned to this group to help manage the misinformation. But after the election, the company decided to disband this unit. Haugen said, “They told us, ‘We're dissolving Civic Integrity.’ Like, they basically said, ‘Oh good, we made it through the election. There wasn't [sic] riots. We can get rid of Civic Integrity now.’ Fast forward a couple months, we got the insurrection. And when they got rid of Civic Integrity, it was the moment where I was like, ‘I don't trust that they're willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.’”
As a moderator on a political page, I often bought ads to promote messages from the posters I designed. Defining my audiences for these ads, I wanted to get the word out without the back and forth animosity and name-calling that was so rampant in most social media “tit-for-tats.” To do that, Facebook allowed me to target my audiences extensively. Building an audience profile was an art form in and of itself. They provided very niche groups I could address. Combining these groups allowed me to pinpoint my messages. For example, I could focus on liberal or conservative movements and interests in many granular ways. However, after the 2020 election, this specificity disappeared. I was only allowed to target more general audiences (“interested in politics” instead of liberal or conservative issues). With the election over, they felt hostilities would cease or, at least, lessen. They have not. My ability to define my audience has taken a big hit. My messages must now be broadcasted to a more general group of people, just perfect for more anger and increased clicks. Sure, I’d like a larger following, but not at this cost. Instead, I’d like a more significant audience. Show me how I can accomplish that, Mark.
In 2017, Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, stated, “The thought process that went into building these applications was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’ And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you more likes and comments [and more money for the company]. It’s a social-validation feedback loop, exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”
I accept Parker’s reasoning. I know what I’m getting and giving up on the platform (and I’m constantly securing my data and watching what information I post). But it angers me that Zuckerberg et al. seem to have so much power with so little understanding and control over their platform. And I’m mad that he is misleading us, but not enough to yell and scream about it on Facebook. While everyone has a right to their opinion, no matter how distasteful or wrong I may think it is, no one has a right to spew that opinion on someone else. I live by that dictum. So I do most of my screaming into a pillow.
Above all, I will not let Facebook profit from my anger.
Feel free to pass this poster on. It's free to download here (click on the down arrow just to the lower right of the image).
See the rest of the posters from the Chamomile Tea Party! Digital high res downloads are free here (click the down arrow on the lower right side of the image). Other options are available. And join our Facebook group.
Follow the history of our country's political intransigence from 2010-2020 through a seven-part exhibit of these posters on Google Arts & Culture.