Engagement Parties in the Park

After a brief conversation at the last meet-up I gathered that one of my friends was getting engaged, she currently lives in Melbourne so I was not sure where the party will be. Anyway I called up to congratulate her and got myself invited to the party.

This led to my first drive all the way to the city with my P-plates. I have been making a complete fool of myself driving on my own. I have called up RAA for the following reasons:

1. I had not driven the car in ages and had a flat battery
2. I had parked the car with the steering twisted and had no clue what a steering lock was.
3. Best of all last night I left the parkers on and drained the battery and remembered in the middle of the night that I had done so. I went to the car , tried to start it and obviously it did not start so in frustration I got out and slammed the door shut with the keys inside.

In spite of all the drama and craziness I made it to the engagement. The photos are proof.

During the Christmas break I have also taught myself Python and used NumPy and Gdal Python bindings to some extent. It is surprisingly easy to use and powerful. I am looking forward to trying some of the object oriented features.

Christmas and Reflections

Over the last couple of years my life has changed quite a bit. I was tempted to use the word "dramatically" but I think "soap operatically" is more fitting. The Christmas and New Year period has seen quite some topsy-turvy. I had a great big mess up in 2004 on boxing day, another one on 2005-2006 New Years Eve. These added salt to my life, taught me how to live and how to die and brought excitement and fears I had not experienced before. I grew up to see the world from a new perspective in these couple of years. Learnt to control my needs and to conquer my fears. 2006 has been quite a good year in terms of personal achievement and community achievement in the various open-source projects I have been privileged to be involved.

This holiday period has so far been quiet and happy, but I never know what surprise hides behind the next corner.

26th of December, a day to remember
The day I nearly died.
The Blue Morpho took flight
And taught me what is death and what is life.
Dont hold the butterfly in a cage
Let it free
Love is like sand, the tighter your grip
The more you let it slip

Merry Christmas to All

After Graduation Party

Yesterday a lot of my friends doing Engineering and some other degree as a double degree graduated. So we had a small after graduation meet-up and it seemed to snowball into a reunion. After a few drinks I started ranting about World Wind and Google Earth and a few people tuned in, well they are all engineers anyway and everyone has an opinion.

A lot of them work in the defense industry and the pros and cons of data availability also popped up. It was fun and interesting. I got free beers after telling my sob story .... It's good to be in trouble. Just need the right friends to back you up.

Yahoo Maps, Nasa Worldwind Java and Lobethal Lights

It has been good the last few days. Worldwind 1.4 is getting massive publicity and views on You-Tube, just need to package it and release it. We also have the green light from Microsoft to package the Virtual Earth plugin in the default release with adequate license notice. This is shaping up to be a really data rich release with preliminary talks with Yahoo about them coming on board as Imagery suppliers, not just satellite but the massive archives they have built up on flickr.
This I guess will sort of add an on foot dimension to Worldwind.

I have also been running some design analysis on the Worldwind Java version under closed developement in NASA. So far the design looks consistent and good. With the addition of scripting support in Java 6. Plugin development for this platform seems like a reality.

On Sunday I had the first chance to have a stroll around Lobethal and look at the iconic Lobethal Christmas lights. I have not done this ever in the 3 years I have been working here. I am obliged to post a photo - of the state of our office during christmas. No wonder my boss hates the lights organizers.

Finally I am Licensed to ... Drive and Smite WW haters

I had my final driving lesson/test today. All went well and I passed with 87% and got my competency certificate. I can finally drive on my own.

As expected there has been mixed reaction to Bull's digg and you-tube posts on Worldwind 1.4 Release. I am glad to be part of a team that people take notice of and bother to lynch or praise.

Check out the videos and digg the posts. I am not linking to them. Find them yourself. That's what Google is good for ... search power and making sense of a random web.

Nah I will link anyway.

Digg
You-Tube