http://ben.telemuse.net Ben Jolitz on art, science, and life 2009-01-10T23:29:10Z http://ben.telemuse.net/36 Ok, so I have been a bit quiet. Perhaps too quiet, but lets leave that to the internet tough guy for a final judgment (which coincidentally, by definition, not matter). Last time on this blog, we saw that I was accepted to UCLA, waiting for AP scores...... ben 2009-01-10T23:29:10Z http://ben.telemuse.net/35 It is that wonderful time of year for AP students at high schools everywhere. A time you have spent the school year preparing for, where two to three hours of testing will determine whether or not you learned the material. Never mind the enormous gap...... ben 2008-05-02T06:28:25Z http://ben.telemuse.net/34 Congratulations to Professor Andy Fraknoi of Foothill college for winning "California Professor Of the Year". We've enjoyed his Foothill astronomy lectures and series for many years, hope to see more! ben 2007-12-02T04:52:09Z http://ben.telemuse.net/33 Better than Google Sky, the Minolta Planetarium gets the new Infinium S projector. With new features, better details, and a faster rendering engine, the Infinium S and the control mechanisms are ready for sky exploration in the twenty-first century. The Minolta Planetarium, located at De Anza college, has finally reopened three long years. In 2004, the MS-15 used was becoming antiquated and less useful. The challenge of maintaining it was rapidly growing, much to the chagrin of De Anza. After contacting Minolta, De Anza decided to renovate the planetarium and replace the projector. The new guy is the Infinium S, and it offers many new features. The most strinking lies in the rendering of the Mily Way. Instead of a static image, the Infinium draws every little dot with varying intensity to simulate the three dimensions of the sky. ben 2007-08-22T02:53:48Z http://ben.telemuse.net/32 I attended BarCampBlock this week. BarCampBlock is the anniversary of the first BarCamp, originally held at SocialText, and for BarCampBlock, it was held not only at SocialText, but spread out among several other buildings (IDEO, Edgeio, ...). I arrived after the end of most tracks on the first day. I talked with many developers and technologists after the last track ended. One man wrote a flash application that would allow people to "leave" their voice mark on their friends social network page. Another, from Restaurant Breeze, revealed CrazyMenu, a web-2.0 interface for collaborating on dining and places to eat... ben 2007-08-21T22:21:40Z