This week in space & tech

http://www.space.com/28539-spacex-earth-space-rocket-photos.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/12/this-new-tesla-battery-will-power-your-home-and-maybe-the-electric-grid-too/

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/hiro-drone/

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/0209/NASA-names-crew-members-for-2016-space-station-missions-video

http://ideas.ted.com/18-companies-driving-the-new-space-age/

http://www.charitywater.org/blog/wanna-build-your-own-sensor/

http://scottkerman.imgur.com/

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150128-space-2020-what-happens-next

http://tass.ru/en/non-political/776758

http://spacenews.com/earth-pelted-by-more-than-600-large-debris-items-in-2014-nasa-reports/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2948421/Why-sun-sad-Giant-filament-turns-solar-surface-giant-sad-face-emoji.html

http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/blog/ohio-energy-inc/2015/02/drones-seen-as-boon-to-monitoring-energy.html

http://gizmodo.com/this-camera-is-going-to-hell-and-will-send-us-pictures-1685227698

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/11/successful-test-for-europes-mini-shuttle-prototype/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/12/science/on-third-try-deep-space-climate-observatory-launches.html

My personal live launch watching pics:

http://www.space.com/28515-orbital-atk-merger-private-spaceflight.html

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/02/ohio_wesleyan_university_profe.html

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-virgin-galactic-long-beach-20150212-story.html

This week in space & tech - linkdump; AND SPACE JOBS IN AUSTRALIA WOO!!

Personal updates:
Read Scrum & XP from the trenches - nice practical examples in a 'book'.
Read it as study for my exam - I can see CIG has implemented the manual acceptance testing as the PTU with testers not part of the team =)


http://www.space.com/28110-christmas-in-space-astronauts-celebrate.html

http://www.space.com/28117-james-webb-space-telescope-assembly-practice.html
-prototyping implementation in practice

http://aviationweek.com/blog/list-long-your-arm

http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/missing-aircraft-flight-tracking-data-streaming-back-agenda

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ceres-dawn-nasa-spacecraft-dwarf-planet-asteroid-20141230-story.html

http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/30/7470743/nasa-mars-opportunity-memory-loss

http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/30/7424343/nasa-kepler-telescope-rescue-mission-search-for-planets

https://www.deutschland.de/en/news/theory-of-relativity-under-test

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1671257/motion-detector-could-help-discover-microscopic-life-forms-distant

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20150101000065&cid=1204&MainCatID=12

http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/31/tesla-hints-at-automatic-wall-charger/
solid snake "For realz" xP

Russia launches 38 times to deliver 80 satellites, being the country with the most launches in 2014. More (not so up-to-date) info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_in_spaceflight
Also, SpaceX scrubs the planned year for future launches in their manifest: http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php (since they don't usually fulfil the planned # of flights for the current year).

http://qz.com/281619/what-it-took-for-elon-musks-spacex-to-disrupt-boeing-leapfrog-nasa-and-become-a-serious-space-company/
old but nice history lesson =P They're hoping to add the 1st people ever to land a reusable 1st stage on a floating platform soon (this year, as close as this next launch) =)

http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/the-elon-musk-interview-on-mars/ More Elon Musk 

Lastly, how SpaceX can disrupt the industry when they demonstrate a landing of their 1st stage (obviously)!
http://qz.com/320177/2015-will-be-the-year-of-spacexs-reusable-rocket/



And WOW! YES! I think I just found the 1st space related job in software/electronics that I'm really interested in, in Australia! Too bad I ain't graduated yet. >.> Still, makes me psyched for work and motivated to learn/work hard seeing there are these opportunities in Australia!
Albeit a academic job/employer ... See: http://hr.unsw.adfa.edu.au/_form/index.php

Here's some quotes just in case they pull the job postings off that webpage in the future.
Professional posting:

School of Engineering and Information Technology

Flight Software Engineer – Spacecraft R&D

Ref: SEIT 30626
Salary:

• Level 6: $75,373 - $80,406pa (+17% super)
• Level 7: $82,672 - $89,477pa (+17% super)

As a member of the UNSW Canberra spacecraft team, the Flight Software Engineer will lead and manage the development and participate in the software-and-hardware-in-the-loop testing of the on-board flight software and ground control software for single and multiple spacecraft cubesat-class flight missions.
For additional information about this position, please contact Russell Boyce on (02) 6268 8056 or email R.Boyce@adfa.edu.au.
Downloads:

• Position Description
• Information Sheet

(5 year - Fixed term)
Applications Close: 9:00 am on 12 January 2015
Important: Before you apply, please have ready your Application (addressing the Selection Criteria) and your Resume, combined into a single DOC, DOCX or PDF file no greater than 5MB, as this will be required for uploading when you have completed the online application form.

And another professional posting:

School of Engineering and Information Technology

Spacecraft Project Lead

Ref: SEIT 30627
Salary:

• Level 8: $92,416 - $104,126pa (+17% super)
• Level 9: $107,408 - $113,971pa (+17% super)

As the lead of the UNSW Canberra spacecraft flight team, the Spacecraft Project Lead will provide the overall systems engineering and technical leadership and management for the design, development, acquisition, integration, testing, launch, operation and decommissioning of cubesat-class satellites and satellite formations. This is NOT a broad banded position, please see the PD for more details.
For additional information about this position, please contact Russell Boyce on (02) 6268 8056 or email R.Boyce@adfa.edu.au.
Downloads:

• Position Description
• Information Sheet

(5 year - Fixed term)
Applications Close: 9:00 am on 12 January 2015
Important: Before you apply, please have ready your Application (addressing the Selection Criteria) and your Resume, combined into a single DOC, DOCX or PDF file no greater than 5MB, as this will be required for uploading when you have completed the online application form.

And the academic position:

School of Engineering and Information Technology

Research Associate - Space Surveillance

Ref: RA SEIT(SS)
Salary:

• Level A: $66,311 - $88,415 pa (+ 17% super)

As part of significant investment in a flagship research initiative, UNSW Canberra is developing the in-house capability to underpin innovative, routine and affordable in-orbit space research. This capability will focus on launches of cubesat-class spacecraft, initially single satellites but quickly moving to the development of distributed, networked experiments and sensors across formations or assemblies of such spacecraft. Please see the Information Sheet and Position Description for more details.
For additional information about this position, please contact Russell Boyce on (02) 6268 8056 or email R.Boyce@adfa.edu.au.
Downloads:

• Position Description
• Information Sheet

(5 year - Fixed term)
Applications Close: 9:00 am on 12 January 2015
Important: Before you apply, please have ready your Application (addressing the Selection Criteria) and your Resume, combined into a single DOC, DOCX or PDF file no greater than 5MB, as this will be required for uploading when you have completed the online application form.

VLC for lectures, talks with slides etc.

So for many lecture recordings where the video is recorded in low fps (around 2 fps) and especially when you're watching them at speeds other than 1x, I've found that VLC usually doesn't update the video with the new video when it should (e.g. slide change). It can be fixed by disabling video track, then enabling it again.

However, to fix it properly, you can goto Preferences (Advanced/All) -> Video
Then uncheck the "Drop late frames" checkbox. I did not need to uncheck "Skip frames". And that fixed it, yay!

The return of the ISEE 3

http://spacecraftforall.com/home


Great website with cool interactive documentary-like experience! Check it out! Also, it'll be live-streaming the fly-by of the moon in a few hours (Sunday, August 10th 10:30am PT - 12:00pm PT) , but I'll be asleep. Also includes live data anytime! =)

This whole project was crowdfunded and they (the hackers/makers) work in a hackerspace/mission-control in an old Maccas building! Lol! And with NASA's blessing =) Them talking about *SCIENCE* so much reminds me of stuff like Portal, xkcd, KSP (get them science points!) haha.

Also, great post about SoftwareDefinedRadio; been meaning to get my HAM radio callsign sometime soon ...

Also, the initial swing-bys to get to the 1st comet flown through by man is so cool and complicated, it reminded me of an epic version of this:

I mean, orbiting in one plane is hard enough to learn (in a fun way) in KSP. Add in polar plane and crazy manoeuvres and orbits like Quasi-Zenith and I have to spend more time wrapping my head around more simulations, models and reading.
P.S. My short-term goal is to build and launch a (nano)sat in one of them Quasi-Zenith orbits servicing Australia =P Hopefully I'll get to crowdfunding when I've actually done work on it xP.