Robin Sloan wrote a book and then Emily Cooper remixed it to produce some amazing 3D renderings

You can enjoy them in their original goodness or get a glimpse here if you have Silverlight installed.

To navigate around drag and drop using your mouse or you can select an individual image from the drop-down in the top left hand corner. Zoom in and out using the -/+ icons or your mouse wheel and you can select the full screen experience using the icon in the top right hand corner (just press [Esc] to go back to normal mode)

Okay. this is quite a departure for me. I don’t normally get the urge to write these days and when I do I don’t feel it’s good enough to share publically but this… well, it just felt like it wanted to get out.

So please enjoy. Comments welcome (be gentle) – hopefully they will inspire some improvements (but I probably won’t be giving up my day job any time soon).

Image credit: Amy Kane

As I move slowly along the beach I can feel the wind from the sea trying to blow me from my path. The gusts are sometimes forceful and I have to lean into them, often glancing out over the water as I do so. At my age I try and stay away from the water.

Despite the incessant wind I continue on my patrol looking, as I do every day, for signs that others have been this way. Today, as yesterday and for many days before, the only marks on the sand are from the crabs and the birds that prey on them, and the traces of my previous passages.

The wind whips up a flurry of sand and, momentarily blinded, I turn away from the sea towards the dunes. The spare grass that helps keep them in place is fighting a losing battle. Over the years the sand has moved further up the rise and is piling up against the low wall that separates the beach from the tended land beyond. I wonder how long until the wall, and then the pristine lawn, succumbs.

I reach the limit of my endurance and turn to seek refuge, and as I do I catch sight of a a stick embedded in the sand. No. Not a stick. The color of an old tea stain and long scoured and polished smooth by the action of wind and water, it stands both as memorial to my charges and testament to my failure.

Rotors tilting into the wind I return to my roost to recharge, pondering the irony of an airborne autonomous sentinel defeated by a virus borne over the sea on the very winds that outlasted mankind.

I have to add a note of thanks to Robin Sloan and Hugh Macleod for inspiring me with their daily creativity. I suspect growing up reading books by William Gibson, Iain M Banks, Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams probably had something to do with it as well.

Updated: Just for fun I published this as a Kindle eBook … I will be very confused if anyone actually buys a copy…

A few weeks ago I came across a really intriguing short story and an even more intriguing idea…

The idea was simple. If Robin could raise enough pledges to buy the story he would write and publish a book. It seemed like a great idea so I made a pledge – partly out of curiosity, partly because I really enjoyed the short story and wanted to read more and partly because I really like the idea of independent artists making it without needing big business.

Robin quickly raised the minimum and set out to create the book. Along the way for supporters he gave us insights via Kickstarter, email and twitter into the creative process and even opportunities to help shape the work as it evolved.

After an amazing short time a mysterious package arrived through the post – my copies of Annabel Scheme and the really cool this was seeing my name in the credits along with the other contributors.

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(oh, and I’ve started reading and it’s everything Robin promised and more…)

At PDC this year Vivek Kundra announced the launch of a new site from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that a couple of folks I work with were heavily involved in (and I got drafted in to help out which was amazing fun).

Tim and Marc from Microsoft, the folks from JPL and the MondoRobot team are very smart. Real smart. Seriously… how often do you get to talk with folks who think nothing about sending robots to another planet just because they’re curious?

Because they understand that kids (of all ages… 5 to 50, 9 to 95) are curious as well they came up with a really smart way to combine that thirst for knowledge with the huge amount of data that they’ve yet to analyze and combine them in fun and new ways.

Hence Be A Martian was born. A site that allows anyone view documentaries on the Mars rover missions, explore the surface, ask questions and help with the process of scientific discovery by looking at images and finding craters or helping line different pictures up… and it’s only the beginning.

The site is presented using Silverlight – which allows a slick user experience – and the data is hosted using the Windows Azure Platform to allow it to support the scale required efficiently.

You can do anything you like without registering, but … if you do register then you can earn points for various tasks to enhance your reputation on the site. You can check out my profile and see how I’m doing.

Oh, and don’t forget… a little curiosity goes a long way. In fact, Curiosity is going to Mars in 2011… by helping map craters today you’re helping improve NASA’s understanding of what the Rover will be facing when it gets there.

It must be a mid-life crisis, or the summer air, but I got a Mustang. I know it’s a gas guzzler and something that I shouldn’t do both for the planet and my wallet but it’s not going to be an every day driver (I’ll continue to ride and bus to work unless the weather is great!)

It’s a really nice car, but pretty low tech. No GPS, no leather, no electrically adjusted seats etc… but that’s all to the good as I intend to experiment over time and upgrade and update bits to make it more comfortable and environmentally friendly (maybe one day there will be a practical Hybrid conversion!)

So far the only changed have been the addition of LoJack, Sequential tail lights and a ZuneCORE adapter for music while I’m rollin’ … other minor electronic and cosmetic tweaks to come…

I still have a stack of my official business cards but I wanted something a little different to try and explain what I do as an evangelist.

I was thinking about using one of the Blue Monster images that Hugh MacLeod (Gaping Void) and Steve Clayton have done such a good job of unleashing on the world but while I love the message (“Microsoft - Change the world or go home”) I wanted something a little different.

Hugh talks about these conversation pieces as social objects so I felt it was important to find an image and a message that summed up how I feel about what I do.

Microsoft has some amazing job titles. But at the end of the day a title is a label that can be used to pigeon hole you and how people perceive your role and function. Sure, waving the Senior or Technical parts of the title, or the descriptive blurb that defines your role in 3 words can be useful in some situations, most of the time what I do is is evangelize. So my card just say “Evangelist”

One of my first presentation courses (besides pointing out you never learn anything by showing a Powerpoint) pointed out that I have two ears and only one mouth and in any conversation that’s the ratio I should use them in. Over the years I’ve also learnt that while you can sell someone something that’s not what they need you’ll have a much better relationship if you help them find what they need. Sometimes you’ll sell them something. Sometimes you’ll help them find a different solution. Sometimes you’ll help them realize they didn’t understand the problem. Whatever the outcome I want them to feel they can trust Microsoft a little bit more than they did before (and then do my best to make sure they continue to have that experience).

I’m not sure if the dinosaur and meteor metaphor is always right – I don’t want people I talk to thinking that I feel they are doomed – but I want to make sure whoever I talk to I’m helping them find the right solution. In the case of the dinosaur it was evolution.

A big “thank you” to Hugh for a great image that really appealed to me.

FrankArr pointed out it was Star Wars day, and Clone Wars are coming soon… but watching it projected from R2D2s head would be just perfect

I so want one! Shame it doesn’t work as a Media Center Extender ;)

Check out Nikko America for more info.

On May 3rd 2008 that is the challenge. Will you be able to join with people from around the world, turn off your computer and spend Saturday unwired?

The goal is both to reconnect with the physical world, and at the same time try and save some power - or at least raise awareness of the number of devices we have plugged in draining current every day.

I’ve got quite a list of devices to shut down (and we’ll try to include the TV and Xbox in the list as well). Just doing a quick count at home we have 2 PCs, a Media Center, a Server, 3 (yes, 3) laptops, one UMPC as well as assorted printers, scanners, monitors, external drives, WiF gateways, switches etc. It probably adds up to quite a few watts consumed every day.

I’m not sure I can totally disconnect – I’ll make sure my phone is charged up :)

Oh, and on Friday night before you go home from work… don’t forget to turn off everything you can in the office as well.

Spread the word before the countdown reaches zero… find out more a ShutdownDay.org

I wonder if enough people turn off their transformers will it cool the planet. At least it might remind us to flick the switch every now and then :)

I just got pinged by FrankArr to post 8 random facts about me.

The background/rules:-

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog

So… here are my 8 random things (well, more random that this blog usually contains)

1. The difference between my brothers age and mine is the same gap between my Dad and my Mum.
2. I have one tattoo and 5 piercings. Unless I know you quite well you’ll only ever see four of them!
3. My first car was a Vauxhall Astra Mk1. The first car I bought my brother was a Mk4.
4. I was born in the UK but my US Visa is in an Australian passport.
5. Until I left the UK in 1996 I lived in the same house that my parents had owned from 4 years before I was born. Since them I’ve had 10 different addresses (and stayed at a lot of hotels!)
6. I once sat next to Douglas Adams on a flight from Sydney to Heathrow. It was the most enjoyable flight I’ve ever been on! Luckily I didn’t realize at the time “Doug” was my favorite author (otherwise I’d have been a tongue-tied fool!)
7. I’m afraid of heights but I have cliff jumped and been on a trapeze (both more than once!)
8. I’m been trapped in Cyberspace since the days of CompuServe (I was an administrator) and the first website I build ran on GoServe (on OS/2!)

Now because the rules say I need to spread the meme to 8 more folks…

1. Michael Coates
2. Fred Wilson
3. Nishant Kothary
4. Thomas Lewis
5. Mike Swanson
6. Kip Kniskern
7. Joshua Allen
8. Paul Walsh

As anyone who has ever visited a rack room or looked down the back of a home PC can testify... cables get tangled.

If you've ever wondered while passing the time trying to sort out the mess if there's a better way to untangle them.... wonder no more, but get in training as a speedcabling athlete.

This new sport has just crowned it's first winner in a competition in LA that saw contestants battle to de-tangle a dozen ethernet cables of varying lengths... with the added twist that they still had to carry data at the end of the race!

These cables were not just tangled by time and chance. There was method to the madness! To get them to replicate the conditions of the wires found snaking and choking their way around hard drive units, monitors and printers in offices worldwide, Steven Schkolne (creator of this new sport) first started by tangling them in a figure eight. Then he threw the bundles in a clothes dryer for 3 minutes.

The first winner was Matthew Howell - and as well as the fame of being the first crowned champion in the sport he got a $50 voucher for a local restaurant.

Finally, a sport I might have a chance at.... check out the rules and other details at the official site...