If We Could Send a Man to the Moon, Why Couldn't We Fake It?

When I was younger, I can't tell you the number of times someone started a gripe with the words, "If we could send a man to the moon, why can't we (insert gripe here)..."

I haven't heard that saying for quite some time now, but a few years ago, there were a few people who began claiming that we never even went to the Moon, but rather our government faked the whole thing to freak out the Russians with our superior technology.

I'm not going to repeat the claims of the "Moon Landing Hoaxers" or the hoax debunkers here, you can do a quick search and see what they're saying, but a friend sent me a link to this creative video where a photographic expert explores the issue from a unique perspective.  His basic premise is, we probably had the technology to go to the moon in 1969, but we certainly didn't have the technology to fake it.

Anyway, it's worth a watch.  I certainly enjoyed it.

What Was There

It looks like the feud is cooling down for the moment as PJM appears to be promising the moon to his readers over on the Old Picture of the Day blog.  In response to reader requests for a domestic update (launched by DADD), he's now saying maybe he'll do something about it next week.  People are so eager to believe the best – they're now content with a maybe.  I swear that rascal nemesis of mine should run for political office.  With his silver tongue, I'm sure he'd win!

Well, some good did come from this latest cyber spat.  I did find a wonderful new (or new-to-me) website that I'm enjoying.  Yesterday, in response to the photo of oxen lined up along Main Street in Sturgis, Dakota Territory, Dave 107 wrote in that he wished he knew what it looked like today, so I went about seeing if I could locate it for him.  This was when I stumbled upon a great website called, What Was There.  Basically, they take old photos from the past and with a nifty map interface, place them over Google Street View maps from today.  By happy chance, they even had the exact photo of old Sturgis.

Although, the site isn't yet extensively well developed, their interface is amazing.  The best feature is the ability to fade the photo over the street view and see what it looks like today.

And for those with an iPhone/iPad, there is even a free What Was There app you can use when when you're on the go.  It is a little different than the online version in that it shows you the original picture with GPS navigation and then when you get there, it uses your camera to allow you to fade the old photo into the modern scene with your camera phone.  I think I may try and partner with our local historical society and see if I can get them to release some old photos of our town and have my high school students find the modern locations for those images.

Thanks to my long time readers who have written and expressed their support for me in this latest tussle with PJM.  I hope my more recent readers have picked up on the notion that it's all in fun.  The feud has a long history and it really started when PJM ran a Mystery Person contest every Saturday morning.  Ah, good times.  You relive one of my more favorite mornings HERE, but here were so many.

And just to end on a note that ties it all together, if I were to run the "What Was There" way back machine on our Super Villain, of course he'd be out in the West Texas countryside wearing the black hat and looking a lot like this:

Percolator App Winners

The contest is now closed and the winners of the Percolator App giveaway have been determined.  Based on the generosity of Percolator author, John Balestrieri, I didn't even have to choose!  Free promo codes to everyone who entered:  Isabel Caraos, Judi, and Gina.  Just e-mail me and I'll fire a promo code off to you.

After playing with it for a while, if you like it (and I know you will), please consider giving Percolator a good review on iTunes.  Thanks!

Percolator App

I'm a big fan of the startup business entrepreneurs, especially ones with creativity.  And since the launch of the iPhone, I've been watching the iTunes App Store with interest.  With very little overhead, a talented software developer can write a program for the iPhone or iPad and if they're good enough, maybe even quit their day job.

Today, I want to highlight one of my favorite such apps and the genius behind it.  Percolator was created by John Balestrieri, founder of Tinrocket, LLC.  It's a wonderful little program that can take a guy like me (someone with the inclination to be a talented artist – just without the talent part) and make his images look interesting and fun.  Here are some examples from John's iPhone:

 

(Original iPhone photo on left and with Percolator magic on right)

Percolator made it's debut in August of 2010 and back then it was a fun little program.  I enjoyed taking snapshots with the iPhone and seeing what it would do.  Unlike a lot of neat programs where the developer creates something fun and just forgets about it, since it's original release, John was hard at work tweaking and improving Percolator to make it even better.  A couple weeks ago, Tinrocket released a new and improved Percolator 2.0!  And it's more beautiful than ever and loaded with more awesome features to satisfy my creative impulses!

Photo using Percolator's Superstar filter

Percolator's easy to use interface on an iPad screenshot

Here's one I took of my son (using a different Percolator filter) headed to the surf yesterday (yes, we live in California):

Kudos to John for producing such a great program.  Percolator is on my short list of must buys for the iPhone/iPad.  I'm looking forward to seeing what Tinrocket comes up with next!

John Balestrieri, author of Percolator

Oh, and let me know if you have an iPhone/iPad.  John has told me, he'll give me some promo codes to hand out and I'm giving it to the people who post the nicest comments about his program and how they might use it.

Could Blurry Photos Be History?

I love photography, history, and technology.  And while some might find that technology incongruous with my other interests, I believe that advancing technology often helps the historian better understand the past.  Think for a moment about what satellite or multispectral imaging has done for archaeology.

There are two new technologies currently being developed that should dynamically change the way people enhance photos and in my mind have plenty of applications for historic photos.  The first technology which has more modern application can be found in Lytro cameras (not yet available) under development.  A company called Lytro has announced that they have developed a technology they call "light field" where the camera will not just capture the light and focal information for a specific point, but all the points within view of the camera lens.  What this means is that after a shot is taken, you'll have the ability to change the focal point of the shot after it's taken.  The camera will store all possible shots you can take and then allow you to tell it what part of the picture you want to be in focus.

(A single shot with Lytro technology focused on the foreground or background)

If you'd like to see a simulation of Lytro light field technology, see HERE.

And while this all sounds wonderful for the future, what about those photos in the closet that are already wrongly focused?  Well, the latest thing to hit the digital photography world has been the rapid development of improved de-bluring algorithms for digital enhancement.  That's why I was very excited to see a YouTube clip from the Adobe MAX conference last week, where a new unblur Photoshop tool in development was previewed.  People already use Photoshop for photo retouching and enhancement, but I can see that slightly blurry historic photos might greatly benefit from this technology.  For example, Virgil asked last week what the blurry words above the mantle in the Goodner family photo read.  Maybe with this technology, I could know.

Check out the video below.  The resolution is not great, but it does give you a good idea of what's coming:

Tobacco Mosaic Disease

Did you know that the first virus was discovered by the Dutch microbologist Martinus Beijerinck in 1898?  Beijerinck used filtration experiments to prove that something smaller than a bacterium caused tobacco mosaic disease in plants.

(Beijerinck in his lab)

The tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) infects a variety of plants including tobacco, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and many more, but does not infect animals.  It has been responsible for up to two percent of North Carolina's tobacco loss every year and is particularly terrible for greenhouse crop growers.

(Tobacco Mosaic Disease)

Although this virus has been known for over 100 years, recently scientists have discovered a new use for this terrible pathogen.  You see, TMV nanorods are the right size and shape to bond to lithium battery electrodes, thereby dramatically increasing the surface area of the electrode.  TMV is self-replicating, self-assembling and can bind to metal without a bonding agent.

So what does this mean in practical terms?  It may mean that we could produce batteries of the same size that can hold 10 times the charge.  Your cell phone could run for a week or more without needing to be charged.  You could use your laptop all day without plugging in and it could stay running in sleep mode for the better part of a year.  Environmentally, it means that we might need much less energy production for the same result!

Bubble Art

Yesterday I was checking out some computer art programs, when I stumbled upon a new iPhone app called Percolator.  It takes your pictures and turns them into bubble art.  Pretty cool!  It reminds me of the funky late-1960s art that my mom dabbled in when I was a kid.

What do you make of it?