Updates: Canadarm Anniversary

Back again and one day late for the Canadarm 31st anniversary (since its first use since its deployment). A work horse for the Space Shuttle program and Canada's contribution to the space program in in the mid 1980's.


Have you ever dreamt of flying a space shuttle mission? Here's an official short little flash based mission simulator from the Kennedy Space Center that serves as an educational tool as well that's youngster friendly.


For a very detailed simulation of the space shuttle try Space Shuttle Mission Simulator a commercial program with a freely downloadable demo. It supports a wide number of features including head mounted displays and head tracking for those who want real immersion. Throw in technical support and a good library of expansions and you have a great program. I only got a short peek at it and its great indeed, with the most accurate instrument panel I've seen.




On a low budget? For those of you running a Windows based PC, you can download Orbiter, a great free shuttle simulation with a modern dynamics taking into account such factors as the buoyancy of the atmosphere and a highly accurate instumentation model. It would be perfectly rounded out with SpaceShip 2 a sub-orbital space craft in development and one of the pioneer craft of commercial spaceflight.


Looking for something a bit further into the future where we've already tackled all of the rough bits regarding space flight? You might want to check out Frontier: First Encounters on the PC. Its a bit more of a game than a simulation but it originated way back in the early days of computer as the first space simulation game known as Elite first released on the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64. Imagine that! There was a space simulation game that included IFR (Instrument Flight Reckoning) based and VFR (Visual Flight Reckoning) based space station docking in 1984. It was a completely ground breaking program at the time and will get its place on my links page. There were two sequels to the game, Frontier and Frontier First Encounters, both similar to each other but ground breaking in the sense that they simulated nearly the entire milkyway galaxy in 1993 on two 720KB 3 1/2" disks! 

Another first was the fact that you could seamlessly fly from ground to space without transitions that were common in most space games at that time. It pioneered all space simulations for the PC including Google Earth utilizing LOD (Level Of Detail) and icosahedron subdivision rendering for its geometric representation of planets and moons. Looking a little dated compared to most modern space simulation games, a group of programmers and artists in the FFE community combined forces in two teams to take on the monumental task of updating Frontier First Encounters to utilize modern 3D hardware, which required reverse engineering a few hundred thousand lines of machine code culminating in FFED3D and FFEGL. Highly recommended, and lots of information and resources out there from the Elite and Frontier community. Special thanks to David Braben and Ian Bell, the original creators of those programs. For more information on these great programs please check out Frontier Astro, a great site detailing all of the Elite series of games.

Lastly, for an updated version of Elite! Check out Oolite, a multiplatform version of the original Elite, with updated graphics and object orientation which translates to lots of expandability.

What space themed blog entry would be complete without Star Trek and Star Wars? Well this one certainly wouldn't. Have you ever wanted to command and fly a Federation starship? Have you ever wanted to lead an away team on a surface mission? You can with Star Trek Online, a massively multiplayer online Star Trek game. It lets you do all that and more in a huge universe with cameo appearances and mentions of the crew of all of the Star Trek series. The best part is that its free to play, you just need an internet connection. Highly recommended.

Last but not least is Star Wars Online, an online massively multiplayer version or Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic. Another excellent online game with a free to play version. You can join the Galactic Republic or the Empire, with four different classes and many different races to choose from in each faction. This game takes place a few thousand years before the Star Wars movies and includes many of the locations from the movies. Again, highly recommended.

That should be enough space food to keep your tribbles happy for while. 

Until then, may the force be with you at warp 9.

Thank You

To every armed forces veteran
both the living and the deceased
who have put at risk their own lives
to improve the quality of life in some way shape or form
whether here or in another part of the world
maybe you fought landlocked in a huge network of trenches in Europe
or stormed beaches against insurmountable odds and over the bodies of your fallen brothers
maybe you patrolled treacherous jungle in support of free society
acted as the neutral peace keeping friend between two warring enemies
maybe you provided emergency assistance 
recovery from homeland attacks or natural disasters
or fought for the rights of women and children to attend schools and use hospitals and vote
a large part of our freedom is because of your effort

Thank you always and on this Remembrance Day

Good day to everyone. Not doing much for a Saturday so here's to enjoying the weekend.

Watched a couple of great movies last night, Knowing and MI:4 Ghost Protocol. Both were enjoyable and I specifically liked Ghost Protocol, and to top it off it had a great ending.

I also noticed a news item concerning cyber-threats by the Public Safety Department and Vic Toews which is good news. The main thing that I hope that they address is the problem of illegal monitoring by civilians. For an idea of what this problem entails, see Van Eck Phreaking at WhatIs and here care of DefCon. This club or gang possess this technology in their apartments and use it against non-members of their club and will often walk up and down the street announcing this information (my particular harassers in that way seem to constantly blame it upon Oriental culture, mostly out of my affinity for it).

Until they take this threat seriously, there will be considerable problems for Canadians and others in the world whose private information is used illegally or even intimidatingly by perpetrators of this activity. In my neighbourhood it is used to protect crack cocaine.

I've had situations whereby my neighbours might announce specific lines from something that I writing as I am writing it, and without an internet connection whatsoever. They need to address the fact that there are Canadians conducting illegal monitoring against other law abiding Canadians, using means and technology that does not require the presence of an internet or network connection whatsoever, with some computers and phones being vulnerable to this.

I trust the companies asking for the information, but not the people in the next apartment who can read the information from my computer screen with illegal technology, often without me having an internet connection whatsoever.

I hope that Public Safety Minister Vic Toews addresses problems like this and that investigations are made with regard to this activity.

It would be great to watch a movie from one of the online movie rental providers or buy a dvd and watch it without having a neighbour say "you totally ripped up Knowing and Ghost Protocol".

Congratulatory Message

The American Election

I'd like to say congratulations to President Barrack Obama on his election win for the Office Of The President Of The United States Of America. The people have spoken.

Er... Happy Election Day, Eh!

I just wanted to say that I hope that the election goes well and without too much controversy. I'm not going to say who I'd vote for after all I'm Canadian, eh. Have a great and safe election and many congratulations to the candidate elected by the people.

Brian Johns

Ahhh Movember is here...

Movember is here, so if you want to grow a moustache or borrow one, and lend a whisker of support for Men's Prostrate Cancer and Mental Health, head on over to the web site and get all of the information you need in order to join.

Want to be involved in bring attention to some issues that need attention from you and others? Check out Care2, a place where you can lend your support for petitioning and earn points for doing so. Once you have accumulated enough points, you can buy a school book for a student in an impoverished country or offset a pound of carbon for the environment.

I recently watched The Avengers motion picture, based on the Marvel comic book of the same name, and let me tell you, what a great action movie it was, with a special emphasis on gelling as a team. Joss Whedon helmed the picture and kept pacing in a steady ascent right to the close of the picture. Highly recommended for movie fans, and great food for aspiring team players out there that need a little bit of inspiration to hang on a little bit longer before waylaying one of their team mates.

Speaking of which, it looks like the beta test phase of Marvel Heroes Online has finished and the game is ready for you to join. It's a massively multiplayer online game set in the Marvel universe. From a quick glance, it looks like you can play as an existing superhero or you can play as one of your own design. I wonder if they have Damage Inc. included in the game? Time to call on my buddies Myles, Pete, Buzz, Joe, Steve, Darrell and some other friends (oops, that was 25 years ago)! I guess I'm still a kid at heart.

Back Again With Smiles...

Good to see everyone again. It has been a hectic few weeks, though I haven't done a lot, but I've been practicing the keys, and doing a bit around the apartment. A fair bit of good food too and even a (non-religious) fast not too long ago just to kind of clean the system out.

Nobody should be made to feel afraid of the world: Put a stop to school bullying!

For my spare time in the evenings I've been watching some flicks and playing a couple of video games.

One of the movies I recently watched was The Departed, directed by none other than Martin Scorcese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga and Alec Baldwin. The movie of course is a great movie, definitely not family material but if you are a fan of Scorcese's previous work you won't be disappointed. Great performances by the entire cast and Mark Wahlberg turns in the most hilariously cynical performance as an Undercover Officer Handler. Two thumbs way up.

Another favourite that I watched, was The Player, a Robert Altman film and of course a masterpiece of film making en par with his usual style, starring Tim Robbins and an all star cast filled with cameos by many Hollywood legends, and is highly recommended if you are a fan of the Hollywood of the nineties. Not exactly family entertainment but a great film. Two thumbs way up again.

Beyond that, I've been playing two games produced by Bethesda Softworks, that have been around for about five years, the first being Fallout 3, the third game in the popular roleplaying saga Fallout, this time given a huge treatment via Bethesda's 3D engine technology used in the Elderscrolls series of roleplaying games. The second is from the Elderscrolls series itself known simply as Oblivion, a great first person rpg romp.

If there's some family out there and during the middle of October someone had a birthday. I didn't forget you so Happy Birthday and a Happy Halloween to you as well!

All of the best to everyone, and I should be back at the typewriter again soon, with an update to a couple of the stories as soon as I can get a window of opportunity with enough peace to work on them. I've been playing with some other ideas as well, but like I said, I need a window of opportunity.