NASCAR in the sky: will ‘augmented reality’ replace the real thing?

            By Dave Stancliff/ For the Times Standard
 I suspect cavemen raced wild dogs. There’s no way to know if  they bet their best club on a swift dog, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Man’s need for speed started somewhere.
Canines evolved into Greyhounds that streak around man-made tracks today - the product of generations of men breeding them for speed.
We like speed so much we’ve run against one another in foot races since we learned to stand upright. Modern man has resurrected ancient man’s need for speed by bringing back the Olympic Games every four years to who are the fastest man and woman in the world. Another ancient form of speed competition is horse racing. The sport is still really popular. A recent movie was made about a horse named “Secretariat” who won the fabled Triple Crown in American horse racing.
The invention of cars allowed for speeds men never dreamed were possible. The biggest sport in America today is NASCAR racing. Millions of fans gather to see their heroes steer sleek racing machines to victory.
We have speed boats, snow machines that roar over frozen landscapes, and roller-coasters that go so fast you can get a nose bleed. There are Ostrich races. My wife and I almost went to one near Solvang a month ago. People race crabs every year in Trinidad, California.

I’ve seen guys in the military bet on rapid roaches with ridiculous names like “The Torpedo,” and lose an entire month’s pay. Planes have raced for years. So have yachts and sail boats.
I thought I was aware of nearly every form of racing until I read about the soon-to-be-launched Rocket Racing League. This is not to be confused with our historic “race to space” during the Cold War. That was serious business.

This new approach to racing has real pilots who will race planes that are supposed to be rockets in a virtual sky racetrack. We can thank “augmented reality” for this video game-like, 3-D course that audiences will watch on giant Jumbotrones and computer screens.

In an interview with TechNews the league’s chief operating officer, Michael D’Angelo said, “The plan, in essence, is to take football’s yellow “first down” line - another classic example of augmented reality - pump it up on steroids, and make it so “players” and fans will be able to see it.”

Pilots will wear helmets equipped with a projector screen displaying data on a transparent safety visor across their eyes. They’ll be able to see the colored gates and boundary markers with those hi tech racer helmets developed for military use by the Israel-based defense electronics company Elbit Systems Ltd.

 From accounts in TechNewsDaily, this new system doesn’t have to look pretty because it’s capable of laying the “wow” factor on you. Viewers will see these colorful gates and boundaries and when pilots successfully fly through them they’ll light up screens with “a beautiful cascade of fireworks,” according to D’Angelo.
Try to imagine rockets executing aerobatic loops and rolls at 300 miles-per-hour. The pilots will fly a specially equipped Cessna 402B plane. The new Rocket Racing League feels they will be ready to become the airborn version of NASCAR or Formula 1 racing by late 2011.

I want to emphasize that these will be real races. Well, sort of. They’re designed to make you think you’re at real rocket races. I can see where this augmented reality is going,  and it’s no surprise. “Imagine a virtual billboard in the sky,” D’Angelo gushed, “you could have a thousand-foot Coke can for advertising.”

As It Stands, virtual raceways may attract some speed enthusiasts, but I wonder how they’ll stack up against all the other forms of racing in the real world? 

Online at the Times-Standard

As it Stands: if you ever go to Texas see Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Museum

I’m just saying…

Artist Barney Smith, a retired plumber, has been named "The King of the Thrones" thanks to his very unusual canvases. Proving that plumbing can be an art, his passion is painting and decorating toilet seats, which he displays in his Texas garage. You'll find toilet seats decorated to commemorate Super Bowl victories, one emblazoned with license plates and others painted to depict his travels. Address: 239 Abiso Avenue, San Antonio, Texas
Photo courtesy of David T. Cole/Glark.org via Flickr.

Weird 911 Call: 'As soon as I saw the squirrel, I knew I needed backup'

Police respond after Okla. woman calls 911 to report rodent in her toilet

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The owner of an Edmond home discovered a squirrel swimming in the toilet. It was one of the most bizarre requests for help the 911 dispatchers had ever heard.

DISPATCHER: What's going on there, ma'am?

CALLER: I have some kind of animal in the toilet in my bathroom.

DISPATCHER: Like, what's it look like?

CALLER: Well, it's gray. That's all I can tell you. I didn't look real good because it scared me to death. I'm sorry.

DISPATCHER: But it's not like one of your animals like a cat or something?

CALLER: No. My cat is in my office, behaving herself.

Read the rest here.

Anonymous donors spent $132M on 2010 campaign ads

Here’s the result of the Supreme Court's so-called Citizens United ruling. Anonymous people with political agendas accounted for 15 percent of all federal spending in 2010. Who were these people that were trying to influence election results? We’ll never know thanks to the Supreme Court’s criminally stupid ruling.

That ruling cleared the way for companies and labor unions to spend unlimited funds to influence elections, often using money from anonymous donors. It’s only going to get worse in 2012 when it’s time for elections again.

“Independent groups that do not disclose the identity of their donors spent $132.5 million to influence elections nationwide this year, accounting for about a third of all spending by outside groups in the 2010 election cycle, a report released Friday found.”

“Anonymous or unlimited corporate spending allowed by the Citizens United ruling represented 15 percent of all federal political spending in 2010.

Blast from the Past: I’m ‘Going up the Country’ with Canned Heat

This is my favorite Canned Heat hit. Brings back a lot of memories. Rock on!

Funny Video for Friday: Einstein the Parrot talks and squawks

Sit back and enjoy if you’re a bird lover!

This whimsical wrap-up of TED2006 -- presented by Einstein, the African grey parrot, and her trainer, Stephanie White -- simply tickles. Watch for the moment when Einstein has a moment with Al Gore.

About Einstein the Parrot

Einstein, the African grey parrot, has a vocabulary of more than 200 words and sounds; she can perform nearly half on cue. Full bio and more links

Discovery Channel documentary set for Saturday: Amelia Earhart's final resting place confirmed?

Tiny fragment of a human finger bone was found on atoll and is believed to be pilot's final resting place:

“A tiny bone fragment could provide crucial information about the fate of Amelia Earhart, the legendary pilot who disappeared 73 years ago while flying over the Pacific Ocean in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator.

Collected on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, the bone has raised the interest of  The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has long been investigating the Earhart mystery,  as it may be from a human finger.”

Their findings, along with historical reconstructions of Earhart's disappearance and the futile massive search that followed, are detailed in "Finding Amelia," a Discovery Channel documentary  that airs Saturday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The Discovery Channel.

The helpful hippo that rescues helpless animals from the Mara river

Visitors to a safari camp close to where the film Out Of Africa was shot stood in awe as they witnessed the annual wildebeest migration.

Here we go again: The hippo nudges the tiny zebra through the river to the safety of the rocky shore in Kenya (Michael Yule/Sanctuary Olonana)

As they watched thousands of animals cross the raging Mara river they were astonished to see a hippo come to the rescue of two drowning stragglers.

The strong current separated a wildebeest, or gnu, from her calf and she watched helplessly as it was swept away.

Good Samaritan (right): The hippo gets closer as she sees the wildebeest struggling
‘To everyone’s amazement the hippo came to the gnu’s rescue and pushed it gently to the river bank,’ said Abdul Karim, the head guide at Sanctuary Olonana in the Masai Mara, Kenya.

The infant panted for a moment before getting up and running to its watching mother.

But the female hippo’s work did not finish there. Within ten minutes she spotted a little zebra crossing the same stretch of water and pushed it across, its tiny head struggling to keep above the torrent.

I’ve got gnu, babe (left): The young animal is guided to the bank by the hippopotamus
Maternal love can be so strong it can even surpass species boundaries,’ he added.

Huge concentrations of game move between Kenya and Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park every year in the constant search for fresh grazing.

Thanks to Metro for story & photos

Sick Westboro Baptist Church to picket Elizabeth Edward’s funeral

Nothing is sacred with those sickos from Westboro Baptist. Once again they’re showing the world the face of naked prejudice and hate. 

I recently devoted a column to this group of hate mongers I don’t consider them a real church. You have a world class-hater, Fred Phelps, his children, grand children, and in-laws. They amount to 80 people. An extended family that has been raised to hate others. Fred’s bleak vision of the world, and twisted religious dogma, has not attracted outsiders to join them.

Westboro Baptist is a cult. An inbred cult that lives in a world that hates America, the very country that allows them to get away with spewing their filth outside private funerals. His loathsome world view is spread by his family. They’re also all-purpose haters, as Elizabeth Edwards was not in the military, but they’ve decided to profane her funeral anyway. Why? To get more publicity of course. Their cruel, evil, message will reach more ears. They have no sense of civility. They do not practice what the Christian God says. Their message is coming from the Devil that springs from all religions. 

Westboro Baptist, which is at center of Supreme Court case, also pickets military funerals

“A church that pickets funerals to protest what it calls American immorality says its members will be picketing the service this Saturday for Elizabeth Edwards, who died of breast cancer on Tuesday.

Based in Topeka, Kan., the Westboro Baptist Church said it would be outside the Edenton Street United Methodist Church in Raleigh, N.C., during the funeral for the former wife of one-time vice presidential candidate John Edwards.

Signs like "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" have been raised at military funerals, and the church announced its latest action with a press release titled "God hates Elizabeth Edwards."

Crocodile attacks kayakers, drags guide away

South African Hendrik Coetzee presumed dead; two Americans paddled to safety

“An acclaimed South African outdoorsman who was leading a kayaking expedition from the source of the White Nile into Congo was dragged from his craft by a crocodile as two Americans watched, horrified. The guide is presumed dead.”

The two Americans involved:  Ben Stookesberry and Chris Korbulic

Korbulic is from Rogue River, Ore., and Stookesberry is from Mount Shasta, Calif.

PHOTO: This undated photo supplied by Fluidkayaks shows South African Kayaker, Hendri Coetzee, posing with a monkey on his shoulder.

I’ll never look at storks the same after reading they fed on real-life hobbits

Bones of small humans and giant birds, found together, tell chilling tale

“In the "Lord of the Rings" books, hobbits were rescued by giant eagles, but real-life hobbits might have been hunted by giant storks, scientists find.

The fossil remains of what may have been a hobbit-like species of human were discovered in 2003 at the Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores. In that cave, scientists also unearthed a large number of bird fossils — including 20,000- to 50,000-year-old wing and leg bones from what appears to have been a stork nearly 6 feet tall (1.8 meters).

"From the size of its bones, we initially were expecting a giant raptor, which are commonly found on islands, not a stork," said Hanneke Meijer, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.” Story here.