Streaming video from a RC Helicopter onto UStream.tv

Posted by admin on Sep 3, 2010 in General, New Media, Tech, iphone | 0 comments

Today I had an incredible opportunity to go down to Gyro Hobbies in Laguna Hills, CA to visit with Chris Cloutier of f-Stop Aerial Media to run a few tests for an upcoming event with OCMMA. I recorded 2 streams for this test one with my iPhone and another on my laptop hijacked from the receiver that the helicopter transmits to. At the end of the second video I had Chris talk about his setup and how he make all this tech work together to make some awesomeness happen.

Stream from the Helicopter:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9315586

Stream from my iPhone

I’ll have these 2 videos up on Youtube soon.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9315469

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Gangsta’ Lawn Care Business Dad and Posse

Posted by admin on Aug 18, 2010 in Funny Stuff, General | 0 comments

Gangsta lawn care business dad and posse.

My wife Jen posted this on Facebook today and I thought I’d share….. it’s a DadLife!

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The iPhone 4 shrinking battery

Posted by admin on Aug 2, 2010 in General, apple, iphone | 0 comments

I’ve been experiencing some battery related issues lately with my iPhone 4. I’ve gotten pretty frustrated with how crappy the battery life has been and being the good geek that I am I started investigating more into this matter. I’ve tried a number of changes on the phone to see if I can figure out exactly why my battery life has been so crappy.

When the iPhone 4 first came out I had just my one GMail account enabled using IMAP. I also had push notifications on (I don’t get that many of them during the day at work) and after learning how background processing works I closed every app that I was not using religiously. Later during the week of owning the phone I added on my corporate exchange account and noticed my battery went to crap fast. After reading the event logs on the exchange server there was a misconfiguration on it for mobile devices (we’re a blackberry shop with a BES) so I made a few changes to be made so it would stop my iPhone from getting beat down. A few changes later and the battery life was satisfactory, this change also addressed the same issue with a co-worker’s Android Evo. After the latest update my battery life started going downhill fast. It was typical for my 100% battery at 8:30am to read 75% come lunchtime with little to no usage. I’ve tried restores from backup, starting from scratch and DFU restores / from scratch with no change to my battery performance. I have a feeling this is a hardware issue so I made an appointment with the Apple Store.

So after visiting the Apple Store yesterday and having the Genius at the bar do a DFU wipe my phone he stated that I should go home and plug the iphone in and to not restore   my settings on the phone from a backup. I reluctantly obliged and went home and did jsut that, started from scratch… again. I haven’t seen any improvement after doing this as show in the screenshots above.

Are my findings typical for an iPhone 4 battery? Is a new iPhone 4 the next step to solving this? How is your battery life? Leave me a comment of hit me up on twitter @jasontucker

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World of Color

Posted by admin on Jun 16, 2010 in Disneyland, Family, General | 2 comments

Last night we got a phone call from my Jen’s friend Christie telling us that she got fastpasses to see World of Color at Disney’s California Adventure for her whole family but they got tired and didn’t want to use them. She invited Jen to go with her and I asked Jen that if they had an extra that I’d be interested in going  too. You see,  Jen broke her ankle 8 weeks ago so she’s stuck using crutches or a wheelchair to get around I’m use to pushing Jen around Disneyland so I had no problem with going and helping out with getting Jen to the event.. that and I REALLY WANTED TO SEE WORLD OF COLOR!  When Christie and her oldest son arrived at our house we had about 30 minutes to get to Disneyland from our house in Whittier so we had to haul butt make it on time. With Jen and her wheelchair we piled in the car and did the 12 mile drive to catch the 11:30 showing. Due to our lack of planning and lateness we opted to be sneaky and park in the Downtown Disney parking lot, our thinking behind this was that by doing so we’d have more control over how fast we get to DCA, people power vs waiting for a tram and riding it in. By the time we parked we had roughly 10 minutes to get in DCA and find the area needed to be at. While attempting my best to recreate Mr Toads Wild Ride for Jen by zig-zagging around late night visitors at Downtown Disney we made it to the gate in record time. With our hearts racing we showed our passes at the gate and hauled even more butt to the our Blue Line which was located next to the Sour Dough factory. Zig-zagging yet again with Jen this time with the opposing traffic of the exiting guests we arrived and spoke to a CM who stated that if you had a fast pass you line up here (end of the line was now at the entrance to the sour dough factory) and if not you lined up elsewhere. Jessi, the nice CM we ran into noticed Jen in the wheelchair and asked for us to follow her to the wheelchair viewing area. Accompanying us is was another group with a wheelchair as well. As structured as this lining up system was it was quite a mob of people to navigate through to get to the wheelchair viewing area. We departed ways with Jessi once we arrived at the viewing area and were told that with the wheelchair we should move to a special area that was quite a bit back from where all the action happens.
Also we noticed in our viewing area was one of the sphere shaped lights that we thought would be in the way of our viewing. Christie noticed some other wheelchairs have moved down to a level lower and closer to the action and said she was going to go down there. We thought the same thing and moved down to the center area too.
The “center area” was a few feet lower than our previous location which put Jen with her wheelchair at a disadvantage. So we moved back a bit to near the right side of the big circle on the ground and gave that a try. A few manual adjustment by Jen and she got the best view she could at the area we were at. There were lots of people in front of us and their heads were blocking lower fountains for Christie and I. Jen on the other hand was able to most likely missed the majority of the lower parts of the fountains including some of the smaller ones and the pop up round screens. Luckly the majority of the show occurs quite a bit high in the air so all of us could see that. The people blocking the lower  field of view for us were at least 30 feet in front of us. Without having been at the location we started with I’m unsure of how well the viewing would have been. I’d imagine that Jen most likely would have seen a bit more lower into the field of view but I’m not sure if she would have been able to see the base of the water jets on the platform in the water. We’ll have to give it another try soon and see.
I’d have to say my favorite part of the show would have to be:
  • Up – the water screens in your whole field of view light up in color as the balloons from the movie UP fly past you in an upward motion.
  • Little Mermaid – The whales moving about the water screens were just amazing.
  • Toy Story – The only true “3D” looking vector graphics generated from what I can tell to be lasers use the mist from the water to create Zirg in an awesome 3D looking animation. I think I mentioned to my party “I love living in the future” while that was playing.
  • Trees – There is this jaw dropping scene where the water screens fill up with trees and the scene moves through an opening in the forest as the trees move past you. It’s amazing how water and a HD projected image can make such a great scene come to life.
If I had to pick one cool technique they used it would have to be the way in which they play with light and the mist from the water jets. Disney has figured out how to trick your eyes into thinking that 3D orbs and globs are floating in thin air. Also using this same trick they can make rays of light shine out from an object or scene. The light beams are so thin you cant tell if they are lasers or pin point accurate lights.

As a techie this stuff gives me the chills watching this show, it’s awesome what can be done with water, lights, lasers and a crap load of money. As a Dad to a 4 year old it makes me want to take her and see this time and time again. You bet our family will be seeing this show many time this year and for years to come.
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Whittier Earthquake – March 16, 2010 & October 1, 1987

Posted by admin on Mar 16, 2010 in Family, General | 2 comments

I have lived my whole life in Southern California and I’ve felt quite a few earthquakes in my time living here. The biggest one I’ve been involved in was the Whittier Narrows earthquake which was a 6.1 back in 1987. I was 10 years old at the time and my 5 year old brother and I were staying at my Grandmothers house the quake happened in the morning while we were all still sleeping. Both my brother and I were on beds that had casters so they could be rolled when the earthquake hit our beds moved around quite a bit. I ended up on the other side of the bedroom and so did my brother it was pretty amazing how much it shook. After watching the news we found out that the 3 story parking structure at “The Quad” was leveled luckily no one was injured since the stores there were not so early in the morning.

Fast forward 23 years later to March 16th 2010 and at 4:04am we had more seismic activity which woke me everyone in my apartment complex including me. I went to bed kinda late after watching TV and falling asleep on the couch. I crawled into bed at 1am and only had a few hours of sleep when our bed began to shake violently. I heard kids screaming across the courtyard and Caitlin popped up out of bed with a fright. Jen and I got out of bed and rushed into the bedroom to check check on the kids. Jessalyn (4) woke up but quickly went back to sleep. Caitlin (15) work up and was quite shaken up stating “I’m too scared to go back to sleep”. I had work in the morning so I told her everything was going to be all right and I went back to bed. I wasn’t about to go to bed without knowing the magnitude of the quake so I went to Twitter and the trending topic was “Earthquake” which I think was still ranked under “Justin Bieber” or something. Anyhow All my twitter friends flocked there to update their statuses stating if they felt it or not.

I then went over to the USGS “Did you feel it” website and posted that I indeed felt it and answered their 10 or so questions. Not many people posted to that site 3-4 minutes after the event so it was kinda cool to be one of the firsts to do so. After that I tried my best to go back to sleep.

Below are some postings from various websites that I copied from WWU.edu and Wikipedia so save you the trouble or finding them yourself.

From Wikipedia: Whittier Narrows earthquake

On Oct. 1, 1987, at 7:42 a.m., the Whittier Narrows earthquake struck, the epicenter six miles (10 km) north by northwest of Whittier. The seismic event, which registered 5.9 on the Richter scale, resulted in eight casualties and massive damage to uptown Whittier’s historic buildings. In the years following the earthquake, the city’s deteriorating uptown business district, which suffered substantial damage in the earthquake, became the focus of renewed development, which has met with opposition from many Whittier citizens. Out of the rubble of the earthquake the Whittier Conservancy was formed in 1987 in an effort to stop the demolition of many historic buildings and residences after the disaster. The city also created a Historic Resources Commission to oversee the approval of historic designations and Mills Act proposal.

From WWU.edu: Partial Collapse of Parking Garage, Whittier, CA, 1987 Earthquake Earthquake of October 1, 1987, Whittier Narrows, California. Partial collapse of the May Company’s three-level parking garage at Quad Shopping Mall in Whittier. The structure, built in 1965, is located at the corner of Whittier Boulevard and Painter Avenue.

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“No Dancing” sign on Disneyland rides

Posted by admin on Mar 11, 2010 in Disneyland, Funny Stuff, General | 1 comment

My four year old daughter Jessalyn and I have this funny thing we say each time we get on a Disneyland ride: “No dancing”. We’ll hop on a ride and instantly we both look for this warning sign and once one of us finds it we’ll say to each other “Hey, no dancing” and we’ll point to the sign. The result is lots of silly laughter for the first couple seconds of the ride.

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