100 Years of Photographic Technology...

...in a single snapshot.

My friends Ric and Kent visited Bandelier National Monument on Veterans Day last week.  Kent was using his Kodak 2D View Camera to take some 8x10 B&W photos of the ancient ruins there.  Meanwhile, I used Glass to document his process while Ric used his Canon DSLR to capture the beautiful fall scenery. 

The result was a photograph that I've long wanted taken:  a view camera next to Glass. 

Click to view larger image.

It summarizes all that has happened since 1921 when Kodak introduced their 2D.  Ric took the raw image through a Fuji Velvia filter and then applied a sepia effect, some random scratches, and a border. 

As monument visitors walked past Kent's set up, he would joke about the massive camera being his "point and shoot camera."  I just kept on filming. 

We had an interesting discussion about the differences between composing a photograph with both eyes (either a view camera or a digital camera/smartphone with LCD screen) and with one eye (traditional 35mm film camera or digital camera with a viewfinder).  If nothing else, a viewfinder makes it trivial to take digital photos in bright sunlight. 

Now time to build that "ground glass" app for Android--inverted, soft-focus images for the preview to mimic the effect of previewing an image on ground glass in a view camera.

Photographing the D&SNGRR

This week I rediscovered just how useful Glass can be.  The situation was trip to Durango, Colorado to ride the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

Use case #1:  Directions to the condo.  Navigation... no problem.  Actually, this is kinda ho-hum now. 

Use case #2:  Weather forecast.  With a 70% chance of rain forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, it looked very likely that we'd get an uncomfortably wet trip.  Flash flood alerts were posted for most of that time.  With Glass, the weather radar app gave me a useful animation showing the storms and how they were moving.  It was many times faster than using NOAA, iMap, or browsing to the Weather Underground.

Glass, Interrupted

I'm back in the blogging saddle again, having survived the run-up to retirement. 

June with Glass

The Graduation

After the trip to Berkeley and then to Portland, you'd think I'd be done for awhile.  Not so, on June 6-10 I flew out to Boston and took the bus to Hanover, NH for my nephew's graduation from Dartmouth.  It was my first trip back their in probably 15 years. 

The food was great, the wine flowed, nephews were amazing and amusing, and the people were great.  I was able to use Glass to take plenty of photos and videos of the entire weekend.  Lots of friends of the family were eager to experience Glass and, as usual, they were very positive. 

First, there was the Phi Beta Kappa induction...

Then an honors reception at the Physics Dept...

including a tour of the undergraduate lounge...

and Peter's lab.  

 There were shenanigans in the back seat of the car on the way to the farm...

followed by lots of great food.

All this led up to the big event, Commencement.  Here's a GG snap of the Dartmouth Green with the crowd of visitors.

The processional was led by a bagpiper...

and we watched from a shady hillside.  

Glass was a big hit at the after-graduation luncheon...

and it let me take some great candid shots.  

#goodtimes

Once Again...

Thanks, Glass, for letting me capture moments like this with my brother.  

 

3D Glass

Project Tango

It appears that Google is working on a small-format tablet that will do real-time 3D scanning.  That's huge.  I can't even image what this kind of technology can do to enable the visually impaired.

Now jump ahead a few years and bundle this kind of tech with Glass.  You now have a web cam/browser over your right ear and the 3D scanner/processor over your left ear.  Talk about situational awareness.

Feast

Looks like Glass and privacy is in the news.  I find that interesting because here in ABQ, I've not had any negative public experiences, even if my manager is uncomfortable when I use them for work-related tasks.  In bars, I ask the bouncer on entry if Glass is OK, for example, at Two Fools' Tavern. 

At Annie's Soup Kitchen, they ask, "Where's your Glass?" when I don't wear them. 

Aztec Animal Clinic are using my #throughglass pieces in their social media and want more.  Here's Dr. Barb, the best vet in the entire world. 

Even the local food trucks are happy with my Glasswork. 

The issue will continue to work its way out as society comes to grips with the implications of pervasive, ubiquitous cameras.  As it is, security cameras, traffic cameras, and just plain smartphone cameras make the case against Glass pretty weak. 

I'll Stop Counting Now

Der Bunker

Finally got the Sandia-owned set of Glass back and took it out to the ersatz weapons storage igloo.  Took some nice stills and a couple minute-long videos.  Again, I'll have to await formal review and approval before I post them here.

The Sandia Glass appears to be stuck in XE12, so I expect an upgrade will be pushed over sometime this weekend.  Still not sure how it's handling Bluetooth... the iPhone says it's connected; Glass says it has no data.  Hmmm? 

Der Trompetenbaum

It's summer at last with temps in the 80s during the day and in the upper 50s at night.  I took this quick snap between rain squalls late this afternoon.  For two weeks each spring this catalpa is glorious, framing the south view from our pool. 

Then for the rest of the year it sheds spent blossoms, seeds, seed pods, and, in the fall, a ton of huge leaves.

Memorial Day Weekend

I'll be visiting my brother who suffers from PSP this Sunday, dropping by the National Cemetery en route to leave flowers on Dad's grave.  On Monday I'll be having Mom over for lunch... hamburgers hot off the grill.

Stand by for plenty of family photos.

Day 102

Stop me before I Blog again

OK, I really should be taking a break from this 100 days of Glass thing, but it's a habit now.  In Glass news, the device discharged its battery while sitting in its case all morning.  The CPU segment of the device was oddly warm.

Meanwhile, the company-owned Glass is safely locked inside a colleague's lateral file cabinet.  The key is coming home with another colleague who was supposed to reach ABQ late this afternoon.  Instead, she is safely in Denver with cancelled flights due to severe weather.  Might have to do tomorrow's mock inspection with just an iPhone.

Late in the afternoon I received an e-mail from one of the participants at last week's INMM conference on Information Analysis in Portland.  He thanked me again for the opportunity to try on Glass.  I sent him some of the pics that I had taken through Glass, for example, here he is with Dr. Sullivan of the University of Illinois (the other speaker who was also a Glass Explorer). 

Day Whatever

T minus One for Field Exercise with Glass

Things are ready to go for our mock arms control inspection with Glass on Thursday.  Briefing materials are ready; the bunker has been prepped; website setup; online databases loaded.  Only one problem:  our Lab-owned set of Glass is locked up in a lateral file while my colleague is attending meetings at Argonne National Lab.  On top of that, the Lab-owned iPhone it's going to be tethered to is still with the Mobile staff here.  It's my first iPhone, so extra steps need to be taken to initialize it. 

Day 100

The Odometer Rolls Over

There it is, the big "100" in the title.  Although I'm three months behind on my Plone Metrics posts, I managed this effort with only a couple days that slipped over the midnight mark by a few hours. 

Now that I'm back from Berkeley and Portland, I'm concentrating on getting ready for our field exercise comparing mobile ICT with manual methods for arms control inspections.  With Syrian chemical weapons attacks still in the news and negotiations with Iran hitting a snag, it's clear that arms control and nuclear nonproliferation are still critically important issues.  The question is where does Glass fit and how can it help? 

On "All Tech Considered" tonight they discussed how the Internet and activist blogging is affecting the behavior of states and nations.  With Glass you don't have to hold up a cellphone camera or even have a GoPro's black box on your helmet in order to capture a moment.  While Glass is still clunky and geeky, in a crowd it can be difficult to spot (at least the black and beige styles).  I can see where Glass could really enable accurate and timely recording of events... in Afghanistan, in the Ukraine, in November.

In five more years, the functionality of Glass will fit within standard frames.  In ten more years, wearable systems will be more like embeddable systems with digital contact lenses and implants.  The great wave is here. 

Day 99

100 Days of Glass

Officially, it's over.  This is my hundredth day of blogging about my experiences with Glass.  Instead of spending it with Glass on my head all day, it ended up an almost Glass-less day:  a few mundane household chores this morning, lunch with Mom at Annie's Soup Kitchen (where they often ask about Glass), cooking up Chicken Dijonne in the crock pot, prepping for Thursday's mock arms control inspection, and finishing the day with Game of Thrones. 

Day 98

A "Normal" Saturday

Slept in, then had a shot of coffee and managed the daily cat pilling without losing too much blood.  The turtles were out, so they got strawberries for breakfast.  Then Kent came over to discuss various handyman projects around the house. 

The first grilled hotdogs of the season came off the propane for lunch.  Spent a bit of time moving the Gardenias out of the house and Plectanthrus out of the greenhouse and under the junipers.  Then the Pool Whisperer (Cal) came over to open the pool. 

Day 97

Fryday

After an uneventful day back at the office (first time since May 2nd), I had time to do some turtle herding in the backyard.  Found #10 and Trudy in the Iris bed.  Naughty, naughty.  Distracted them from their illicit affair with a couple raw shrimp, which they eagerly devoured.

Meanwhile, here's a collection of photos of the Dragon Boats that ply the Willamette River.  Taken Wednesday after lunch, by evening dozens and dozens of crews were rowing them up and down the river.

Day 96

Back to Blogger Desktop

Whew!  Finally back to a Blogger interface that will accept embedded photographs.  Time to bring this blog up to date with imagery. 

Had a great time in Portland at INMM:  made contact with one of my sponsors at the State Dept., met lots of new people, saw my first SafeCast radiation monitor in the wild,

gave a well-received presentation, and had a Glass trifecta.  Here's my colleague, Mike McDaniel, giving his presentation on the first day.

That evening there was a mixer and Glass made for great cocktail conversation, whether at the pasta bar, 

or just around the table.  

Here's Dr. Clair Sullivan, the other person who brought their Glass to the meeting.  

And here she is in action on the final day for the final presentation before the closing plenary panel discussion.  

Tamara Patton also has a pair and was present, but she left them in New York.  :-/  Either way that made for 3 people who had Glass in an obscure group of about 50 nonproliferation specialists.  Amazing. 

Day 95

INMM Summary
Had a fine last day at the INMM Information Analysis Conference.  More people wanted to know about Glass or try them on.  State Dept. rep was really glad we had included Glass in our project.  He was also impressed with the quality of the video and subject matter for next week`s field trial.  Photos tomorrow.

Day 94

A Gathering of Glass
I'm still amazed that out of 50 people at this little INMM Info Analysis  conference, 3 of us have Glass.  Tamara didn't bring hers.  Claire has a sky blue pair.  Mine are taupe.

Of course, Claire and I had a hero shot taken together in front of the conference room.  And we took #throughglass reciprocal portraits.

The problem Claire is having is that Glass has no way to connect to WPA2 without Bluetooth because you can't enter the network password. 

Day 93

Coming Down the Home Stretch
Gave my presentation entitled "The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and Safeguards Conclusions" this morning.  Very well received.  Must've given over a dozen Glass tours.  Never seen such an enthusiastic group when it comes to Glass.  Had a good discussion with Dan from State about all this technology.  #goodtimes

Turns out, two others here have Glass.  Amazing that in a group of 50 arms control/safeguards specialists, there are 3 of us thinking about things Glass.

Plenty of photos to share with interested parties and on his blog. 

Day 92

The Japanese  Garden
Has a grand time at Portland's Japanese Garden, a true jewel.  Glass was particularly good at capturing those fleeting images when a view became cleared of people.  That's the problem with visiting a garden on Mother's Day.

Straight away this morning the doorman and I talked about Glass. Then, while in line for tickets at the garden a nice fellow with a DSLR commented on my Glass.  We had a long chat and he tried them on.  By the end of 2 hours in the garden I was down to 34% power.

Glass was also handy when we took a long water front walk to Voodoo Donuts.  Great weather

Uploads to follow when I get home.

Day 91

Travel to Portland for INMM.  Learned that Jacques Baute won't be making it.  Photos from the Riverfront later.

Day 90

Almost There

Had an early Mom's Day luncheon with Mom today.  I didn't take Glass and regretted it.  Fortunately, I had my Droid.

This car was not only parked in the striped portion of a handicapped zone, but on the access ramp.  Mom (93 with a walker) had to climb down a 6" curb to get to my car.  Hope the management at Le Peep (good guys) tracked the driver down and then called 242-COPS.

Day 89

Blogging from the Desktop

Time to get caught up on embedded photographs now that I'm back at my desktop.  Funny how the Blogger app for mobile fails with my Droid whenever I specify a location or attempt to add a photograph.  It's not Glass's fault, but you'd think there'd be some level of compatibility between the desktop editor and the mobile editor.

Day 88

Societal Verification, Day 2
It was a good day for Glass.  Demo'ed it for sponsor and then had a good experience in a lovely local Italian eatery. 

Photos tomorrow.

Day 87

Societal Verification
I'm in Berkeley for a conference on crowd-sourcing arms control verification.  They use the terms "societal verification" and "public technical means" to refer to the concept of verifying treaties and agreements by the lay public.  It's sort of like what SafeCast is doing with privately collected, volunteered radiation data for post-Fukushima Japan.  A fascinating concept.

Glass figures into this as just a harbinger of what people will be using in a few years--technologies to witness, record, and comment on nuclear proliferation activities worldwide.  I shared Glass with several participants during the workshop, but generally kept them in their case since we were using Chatham House Rules of non-attribution.  One panel discussion member (no attribution) while talking about privacy law did say that Google Glass was not a passing fad.  #goodtoknow

However, this evening during the conference dinner, I wore them and, as planned, it sparked a lot of discussion about privacy and the capabilities of wearable technology.  Plus the view of San Francisco Bay from the cafe was glorious from high in the Berkeley hills.  I did get some great photos that almost match the panorama taken with my Droid.

As things were winding down, one diner remarked that she was going to walk the two miles down from the cafe to downtown Berkeley.  She wanted to get down before dark and asked what time it was and when was sunset.  The Glass default screen answered the first question, 7:35, and a simple voice query to Google ("What time is sunset?") returned the second answer, sunset in Berkeley (it correctly surmised my location, of course) was at 8:04. 

Day 86

Cinco de Mayo
A travel day, but first office e-mail to deal with in the morning before an easy flight ABQ-OAK.  Once here, I donned Glass for the cab ride and a quick walk around the UC Berkeley campus with Schlepp.  I found the conference venue--it looks very nice.

I particularly liked the way Glass suggested two different navigation options without my having to ask.  The number of suggested places of interest and photographic sites was quite remarkable.  Researching restaurants near the hotel was a breeze.  Good use case, Glass for travellers.

Still haven't found a way to link to my Glass photos from the Blogspot mobile app, so there may be some really poorly illustrated posts until I get home.  For now, all I can see is a Bold, Italic, and hyperlink control.

I did get a couple nice vignettes, which allow the traveller to tell their story in a very interesting way.  Expect updates when I figure this out.  It does look like there are add photo controls from the top-level post page.  Still no way to embed them in the correct location in the text.  Update:  Had numerous failures all evening trying to use the Add picture function.  In the end it may be a problem with the Add location feature.  Removing my location allowed me to publish this post.

Tomorrow I'll be wrapped up with the societal verification/crowdsourcing treaty compliance conference.  I look forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences with Glass as they apply to this domain.

Day 85

May the 4th be with you

Star Wars Day started out beautifully with time spent feeding and weighing turtles, watering plants, and getting in touch with the garden.  Below is a picture of the Columbines #throughglass. 

Day 84

The Garage Sale, Part 2

It's Saturday and technically the second day of the Great Matthew Meadow Neighborhood Association Garage Sale.  Up early and setting out tables for the first wave of buyers around 8:00.  Later in the morning I did a quick bike ride around the neighborhood and found these entrepreneurs.  Too bad I didn't have an extra 75 cents for a Krispy Kreme. 

Day 83

The Garage Sale

This morning saw the beginning of the Matthew Meadow Neighborhood Garage Sale.  We had a steady turnout...

Day 82

Take the Long Way Home

(Supertramp, 1979)

I left NISAC late and decided I'd head off base by one of the western gates.  When I got to the end of the runway, I took a left on the spur of the moment.  That leads to the South Gate, almost to Rio Bravo.

Day 81

Dust, Haze, Cinders

A cold front from eastern NM pushed an enormous air mass full of dust raised by the weekend winds into the ABQ area overnight.  The Sandia Mountains were barely visible and air quality alerts were issued. 

After lunch with my old college buddy McGoey, I paused for a couple photos on the way back to the office.  I took several and deleted all but one.  Now, while looking for the image to include it in this post, the pic appears to be gone.  Curious. 

Day 80

Four-fifths of the Way 

Another day without much actual Glass activity, but I did get an e-mail from Vienna asking about my participation in the IAEA symposium next fall.  Word is getting around that mobile technologies (Glass included) can make a difference in some serious domains, like nuclear nonproliferation. 

Day 79

The Wind

With winds topping 35 mph and often higher, I pretty much stayed inside and left Glass to its own devices, so to speak.  I worked on the Mobile of OSI paper, including the inserting of a photograph of OPCW chemical weapons specialists in Syria wearing GoPros.  The bunker photos were downloaded and burned to disk. 

All in all, a very un-Glass day.  In reviewing the contents of the last few days, I still notice that videos don't always have screen-grabs for icons.  That does make it very difficult to know which video you are manipulating. 

I did manage a couple shots of the tulips in the vase on the dining room table.  A pair of them together made a nice vignette. 

With the winds forecast to die down tomorrow, perhaps I'll get some outside photos.  Wednesday, my usual bike riding day, will be cut short by a meeting with my financial adviser.  Expect garage sale imagery this weekend and then Berkeley Monday through Thursday next. 

Day 78

Another Windy Day

More wind, a typical spring day in NM.  That's kept me off the bike, but I did run some errands to the grocery store.  Our co-op had some pretty photogenic veggies. 

Potatoes, carrots, and a pork butt roast will turn into a crock pot dinner tomorrow.  Tonight, though, it's leftover vegetables and pan roasted salmon.

The video du jour is the firetruck in the middle of 12th St. on the way back from John Brook's.  Not sure what they were doing, but a utility truck was nearby as well. 

I'm finishing the afternoon with some baking, #gfree cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Cheers! 

Day 77

Wind

Today was one of those days when there wasn't much in the way of esthetic opportunity for Glass's photographic capability.  Ultimately, it came down to the 50 mph wind gusts last this afternoon as a cold front blew through town. 

Day 76

Bunkers Revisited

Sorry, you'll have to wait for official review and approval.  Here's the external view.

Day 75

3/4

Three quarters of the way to my goal of 100 days of continuous blogging about Glass. 

The Veterinarian

Once again I'm at the vet's.  This time it's Henry Cat's annual physical and Bella's bp check-up.  Henry turned crazy feral on us when the vet came in, so there was little they could do but roll him up in 3 towels like a cat burrito in order to give him his vaccination.  Bella's blood pressure is perfect -- we've got the medication just right.  Below is a pic of a pre-vet happy Henry. 

Day 74

Iris

The view of the iris bed #throughglass...

Day 73

The Acequia Ride

The spring winds weren't blowing, so I took advantage of a warm, calm evening to take the North Long Loop on my mountain bike.  I was able to knock off 8 minutes from my previous time and my pulse was lower at the halfway point.  For details, see http://goatheadreport.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-north-long-loop.html.  This montage gives you some idea of the variety of road and trail conditions that one encounters in the North Valley. 

Day 72

Firenze Pizza

Plenty of other good Glass stuff going on this week, but tonight I'll just recap my lunch experience -- the Firenze mobile pizza oven.

The tent. 

The oven and the pizza meister.  

The result.  

More to come tomorrow:  drive-by photos and a ditch bank bike ride.

Day 71

Easter

After yesterday's cooking, we were well set to entertain Mom for Easter lunch. There were tulips on the table...

Day 70

Easter Prep

I thawed out the #gfree pie crust and the lamb meat for tomorrow's Easter dinner with Mom.  The dough rolled out fine and baked up great.  Good to know that #gfree pie crusts can be frozen.  I cooked up the lemon and egg custard, whipped up the meringue, and assembled the classic lemon chiffon pie for tomorrow's dessert.  The result: 

Day 69

Sampling

As an experiment, I loaded myself up with a close approximation of an IAEA swipe sampling kit and used Glass to capture it.

What I find interesting is that Glass is aligned straight ahead to capture activity in one's main area of close-up vision, naturally.  Meanwhile, yours truly with bifocals is looking downward out of the bottom of the bifocals for up close work.  The result is that it takes conscious effort to keep the swipe within the field of view -- continuity of knowledge, you know.

Here's the view from a camera on a tripod nearby.  Which angle captures the activity most convincingly?

Day 68

Issues with KitKat

Three times in the last two days I've had Glass lock up with a black screen after taking 2 pictures in succession with the manual shutter button.  The problem requires that I manually turn off and then restart Glass.  Hmm?  Not good. 

Also, this evening during a friend's birthday celebration (see below), Glass overheated with perhaps only 20 minutes of use.  That was after 5 photos and 6 video snippets, none longer than 10 seconds. 

Mobile for Nuclear Nonproliferation

I'm finishing up the study on mobile ICT devices for arms control verification and treaty compliance.  Many different angles to the problem, but none of them insurmountable.  Also getting ready to put the final touches on my paper for the INMM conference in Portland in 3 weeks.  That will be my first foray onto a public stage with Glass.  Stay tuna'ed.

At work today I did manage a couple photos #throughglass.  One was of our display area downstairs; the other of the Spanish Broom in the parking lot.

The Birthday Bash

On a much lighter note, I had Glass on when Ric and Marlene came over tonight for some serious sushi.  Aided by my friend Kent, we were able to take out a prodigious amount of nigiri.

Day 67

 Why you should never leave your Glass behind

 As I walked over to the building next door in search of their Pepsi machine, I heard a strange "coo, coo" bird call.  It took a few moments to locate the source, a roadrunner (Geococcyx) up in one of the 15' pine trees at the south edge of the parking lot.  Every minute or so it would make a strange motion with its neck and repeat the soft "coo, coo" sounds a few times.  After hearing it, I'm more than convinced of the roadrunner's placement in the cuckoo family, the Cuculidae.  Of course, their 2+2 arrangement of toes is also a dead giveaway. 

Alas, in my haste, I did not don my set of Glass.  I could only capture the sound with the video camera on my Droid.  :-/

Wearable Technology for IAEA Safeguards

In the afternoon I learned from my manager that the process for submitting abstracts to IAEA for their October Symposium on Safeguards had been changed this year to include a requirement of a USG pre-review.  Abstracts have to be in by COB tomorrow. 

Hurry, hurry!  Scurry, scurry!  What a worry! 

In the end I had a reasonable 300 words describing our work with Glass and other mobile tech for on-site safeguards inspections.  That cut into my time for finishing my Prezi for INMM in Portland next month.  That paper and presentation are nearly ready for review. 

Google Auto-enhancements

Below is a shot of Bella lounging on her bed after Google did a strong enhancement of it. 

Compare with the unenhanced version...

I'm impressed.  I also liked the way the recent upgrade to KitKat bundled the photos into an album to reduce scrolling to find pictures. 

One more pair of images... enhanced yardscape under a flood light.

And the unenhanced version...

This time I might prefer the original.  Similar comparisons can be done with enhanced and unenhanced videos as well, but I'll save that for tomorrow or Friday.