Podcasts about nasa jet propulsion lab

In this podcast series, we speak with friends of SSPI who recently made big executive moves. We'll find out what they're doing now and what they hope to achieve in their new roles in the industry. In the first episode of season 2, we hear from Kelsey Doerksen, Data Scientist with the Climate and Data Environment Unit at UNICEF and 2021 Promise Award Recipient. Passionate to do impactful work for Earth, in space, Kelsey Doerksen is currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Oxford in the Autonomous Intelligent Machines and Systems Centre for Doctoral Training Program, in the Oxford Applied and Theoretical Machine Learning Group under supervision of Yarin Gal. She is focusing her research on the uses of AI and Machine Learning to enable science discovery and understanding of climate-focused applications (expected graduation, 2025). Kelsey is a Research Affiliate at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab and a part of the Machine Learning and Instrument Autonomy group, working on the Scientific Understanding from Data Science Strategic Initiative. She is also a Data Scientist with the Climate and Data Environment Unit at UNICEF, building the data pipeline infrastructure and providing analysis necessary to create the UNICEF Children's Climate Risk Index. Kelsey recently completed her Data Science Research Fellow position with UNICEF and European Space Agency F-lab, working on the Giga Initiative to use Earth Observation and AI to map schools in the global south and their access to electricity and the internet. She is a former Space Systems engineer at Planet on the Mission Operations team, using space to help life on Earth, and co-led the commissioning of 48 satellites for the Flock 4S commissioning campaign, publishing the work as part of the SmallSat 2021 conference. Kelsey graduated from the Masters of Engineering Science in Electrical & Computer Engineering in the collaborative Planetary Science and Exploration Program at Western University in December 2019. Her thesis topic involved the utilization of machine learning algorithms for space weather applications, using in-situ satellite data. Kelsey's Bachelors degree was in Aerospace Engineering: Space Systems Design with a Minor in Business at Carleton University, in which she further fostered her passion for one day becoming an astronaut. Spacecraft operations, machine learning, climate change and solar physics are some of her research-focused interests.

It's not every day you get to chat with a true musical visionary, but that's exactly what happened on Wellness Wednesday when I welcomed Grammy-nominated artist Radhika Vekaria to The Debbie Nigro Show! Radhika's voice isn't just beautiful—it's healing. Her album Warriors of Light has earned her a well-deserved Grammy nomination in the Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album category, and let me tell you, this woman is redefining ancient music in the modern world. Born in London with Indian and East African roots, Radhika grew up surrounded by music—literally from the womb! Her father was a connoisseur of Indian classical music, and she found her voice through song, even overcoming a lifelong speech impediment. Now, she helps others unlock their own voices through sound coaching. Oh, and did I mention she's collaborating with NASA on a planetarium show? That's right—her cosmic vocals are about to be paired with stunning space imagery in a groundbreaking project with the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. Radhika's philosophy? “I don't make music for you to see me. I make it for you to see yourself.” Talk about deep! If you need some soul-soothing sounds in your life, you must check her out. Listen to our full conversation now—trust me, you'll feel inspired (and maybe even a little more zen).

Join Dr Sohee, the mindset expert, best-selling author, and leadership coach as she discusses how you can overcome the professional anxieties that disrupt your peace and hold you back.WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:Decision-making dilemmas, Feelings of overwhelm, fear of the unknown - we've all experienced these challenges as leaders and women sometimes experience these more often due to unhelpful scripts we've learn to believe are true about us. How do we flip the script? Dr. Sohee Jun will how to craft your own authentic definition of success, a framework to deal with fear, and strategies to navigate big decisions. We'll also talk about how to develop an Aligned Mindset, including how to recognize and distinguish your competing thoughts, reframe your mindset, give yourself grace, identify a direction that's authentic to you and to get to where you genuinely want to go.***ABOUT OUR GUEST:Sohee Jun, Ph.D., is a premier leadership coach for women, mindset expert, bestselling author, corporate leadership facilitator, TEDx and keynote speaker, and thought leader and contributor to Forbes Coaches Council. She combines a Ph.D and Master's in Organizational Psychology with invaluable executive and leadership experience at organizations ranging from the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab to Bank of America to Warner Bros. Entertainment. Dr. Sohee's 20+ years transforming the personal and professional journeys of highly successful women, leaders, and celebrity clientele have earned her a place among the world's most sought-after executive coaches and membership in the prestigious Forbes Coaches Council. Additionally, her work as a bestselling author, award-winning speaker, entrepreneur and podcast host have established Dr. Sohee as the go-to thought leader and solutions-based practitioner on the complex work and life challenges facing women today.***IF YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE, CAN I ASK A FAVOR?We do not receive any funding or sponsorship for this podcast. If you learned something and feel others could also benefit, please leave a positive review. Every review helps amplify our work and visibility as a small women-owned businesses. Thank you!***LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE:Guest: https://soheejunphd.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjunphd/https://www.instagram.com/soheejun_phd/ Our website: www.gotowerscope.comhttps://soheejunphd.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjunphd/https://www.instagram.com/soheejun_phd/:#mindset #keynotespeaker #leadershipcoach #drsoheejun #femaleempowerment #authenticity #TheHardSkills #LeadershipCoaching #LeadershipDevelopmentTune in for this empowering conversation at TalkRadio.nyc

Two years ago, energy companies scrambled for offshore wind contracts. At a recent auction, the demand was significantly lower. Plus, artist Sarah Rosalena uses Indigenous weaving, ceramics, and sculpture practices to create art that challenges tech's future, in a segment from earlier this year.Maine Offshore Wind Auction Draws Few BidsOffshore wind is coming to the Gulf of Maine. Earlier this week, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held an auction for eight leases to develop wind projects off the coast of Maine. But companies bid on only half of the available leases.Guest host Rachel Feltman talks with Casey Crownhart, senior climate reporter for MIT Technology Review about that and other top science news of the week including; bird flu found in pigs, AI's electronic waste problem, what's in your black plastic spatula, and giant rats fighting the illegal wildlife trade.An Artist Combines Indigenous Textiles With Modern TechWhen multidisciplinary artist Sarah Rosalena looks at a loom, she thinks about computer programming. “It's an extension of your body, being an algorithm,” she says.Rosalena, a Wixárika descendant and assistant professor of art at the University of California Santa Barbara, combines traditional Indigenous craft—weaving, beadmaking, pottery—with new technologies like AI, data visualization, and 3D-printing. And she also works with scientists to make these otherworldly creations come to life. She involved researchers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab to make 3D-printed pottery with simulated Martian clay. And she collaborated with the Mount Wilson Observatory to produce intricately beaded tapestries based on early-1900s glass plates captured by the observatory's telescope, which women mathematicians used to make astronomical calculations.And that's also a big focus for Rosalena: spotlighting the overlooked contributions women made to computer science and connecting it to how textiles are traditionally thought of as a woman-based craft. When she first started making this kind of art, Rosalena learned that the Jacquard loom—a textile advancement in the 1800s that operated on a binary punch card system which allowed for mass production of intricate designs—inspired computer science pioneer Ada Lovelace when she was developing the first computer program. “[They] have this looped history,” she says. “And when I weave or do beadwork, it's also recalling that relationship.”Read the rest at sciencefriday.com.Transcript for these segments will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. Każdy ośmiolatek chce tam być, on, Grzegorz Florczyk, tam pracował. O tym, jak doktorant z UW może dostać się na staż w Pasadenie, o związkach smogu z badaniami kosmosu i o dobrych czasach polskiej nauki – rozmawia z Bartkiem Pergołem.

Researchers in Michigan modeled a prehistoric land bridge and used AI to predict where caribou–and humans–might have traveled along it. Also, artist Sarah Rosalena uses Indigenous weaving, ceramics, and sculpture practices to create art that challenges tech's future.Using AI To Help Find Ancient Artifacts In The Great LakesAt the bottom of Lake Huron there's a ridge that was once above water. It's called the Alpena Amberley Ridge and goes from northern Michigan to southern Ontario. Nine thousand years ago, people and animals traveled this corridor. But then the lake rose, and signs of life were submerged.Archaeologists were skeptical they'd ever find artifacts from that time. But then John O'Shea, an underwater archaeologist based at the University of Michigan, found something. It was an ancient caribou hunting site. O'Shea realized he needed help finding more. The ridge is about 90 miles long, 9 miles wide and 100 feet underwater.“Underwater research is always like a needle in a haystack,” said O'Shea. “So any clues you can get that help you narrow down and focus … is a real help to us.”That's where artificial intelligence comes in. He teamed up with computer scientist Bob Reynolds from Wayne State University, one of the premier people creating archaeological simulations. And Reynolds and his students created a simulation with artificially intelligent caribou to help them make predictions.An Artist Combines Indigenous Textiles With Modern TechWhen multidisciplinary artist Sarah Rosalena looks at a loom, she thinks about computer programming. “It's an extension of your body, being an algorithm,” she says.Rosalena, a Wixárika descendant and assistant professor of art at the University of California Santa Barbara, combines traditional Indigenous craft—weaving, beadmaking, pottery—with new technologies like AI, data visualization, and 3D-printing. And she also works with scientists to make these otherworldly creations come to life. She involved researchers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab to make 3D-printed pottery with simulated Martian clay. And she collaborated with the Mount Wilson Observatory to produce intricately beaded tapestries based on early-1900s glass plates captured by the observatory's telescope, which women mathematicians used to make astronomical calculations.And that's also a big focus for Rosalena: spotlighting the overlooked contributions women made to computer science and connecting it to how textiles are traditionally thought of as a woman-based craft. When she first started making this kind of art, Rosalena learned that the Jacquard loom—a textile advancement in the 1800s that operated on a binary punch card system which allowed for mass production of intricate designs—inspired computer science pioneer Ada Lovelace when she was developing the first computer program. “[They] have this looped history,” she says. “And when I weave or do beadwork, it's also recalling that relationship.”But for Rosalena, there is tension and anxiety in her decision to combine new and ancient mediums. “We're at this point of the technological frontier and that's actually terrifying for a lot of people, especially for people from my background and my Wixárika background,” she says. “It's progress for some, but it's not for all.”Part of Rosalena's work is anticipating future forms of colonization, especially amid rapid change in our planet's climate and the rise of AI. “What happens when we bring traditional craft or Indigenous techniques with emerging technology to think about current issues that we are facing? Digital technologies are always chasing after ways that we could simulate our reality, which also produces this way that we could re-envision our reality,” she says.SciFri producer and host of our podcast Universe Of Art D. Peterschmidt sat down with Rosalena to talk about how she approaches her work, why she collaborates with scientists, and how she hopes her art makes people consider today's technological advancements through an Indigenous lens.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. To stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.Note: Happy New Year!A cat video highlighted a big year for lasers in spaceSummary: The final months of 2023 were big for laser-based space communication technologies, and a successful demonstration on December 11 featured an ultra-high-definition video of a cat that was sent from a spacecraft that's en route to an astroid down to a receiving station in Southern California, the video delivered at the record speed of 267 megabits per second.Context: The 15-second video clip featured a NASA Jet Propulsion Lab-based cat named Taters chasing a red dot produced by a store-bought laser toy, and this transmission rate represents a huge upgrade, the new technologies capable of rates 10- to 100-times greater than existing tech; this is important because NASA's space-based communications setup is straining under the weight of all the in-orbit and deeper-space assets the US and its allies have launched in recent decades, and this should help lessen that strain, but also because it should allow for higher-resolution and snappier streaming of images and video and other data to and from space.—Ars TechnicaOne Sentence News is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.China's military purge deepensSummary: An anti-corruption campaign within China's defense apparatus has been expanded to encompass new facets of the country's military, most recently sparking a purge of higher-ups in the Chinese Rocket Force.Context: Nine generals and three defense technology officials were booted from an influential Chinese Communist Party advisory body in late-December, most of them from the Rocket Force, which manages the country's various missile programs and which is in the process of modernizing as part of a larger effort to make the Chinese military a dominant global (rather than just regional) force by 2050; some analysts are seeing this as another component of Chinese leader Xi's purge of political opponents, as well, suggesting this and similar, recent purges might indicate weakness on Xi's part, while others note that it might be related to the Chinese government's recent efforts to make nice with the US government, especially in regards to the two country's activities in the South China Sea.—AxiosRussia launches fresh drone strikes on Ukraine after promising retaliation for Belgorod attackSummary: In a series of apparent tit-for-tat attacks, Russia launched a wave of suicide drones against Ukrainian targets on Saturday night, following an attack on the Russian city Belgorod earlier in the day, which was ostensibly Ukraine's response to an earlier, possibly record-settingly large missile and drone attack by Russia against major Ukrainian cities earlier over the weekend.Context: The attack on Belgorod is notable, in part, because successful attacks on Russian cities have been sparse up to this point, and dozens of people were reportedly killed in that attack, alongside more than 100 injured; that said, this back and forth launching-of-things style of warfare seems to be picking up as both sides find themselves locked into fairly static positions on the ground, and as both sides have started to invest more effort in asymmetric, economy-harming and terror-stoking approaches, like bombing supply lines and shooting sacrificial drones at each others' civilian centers.—The Associated PressThe total human population surpassed 8 billion in 2023, but population growth-rates are down in most wealthy countries, and the US has a growth-rate of about half the global average, growing by only 75 million people last year.—Axios40%Approximate portion of total US electricity that was produced by renewable sources like solar and wind in 2023.That's according to new data from the US Energy Information Agency, and though there are still some post-October numbers that need to be crunched, it's looking like renewables (in aggregate) have bypassed coal in the country, and that solar in particular is growing just silly fast, with wind a bit more slowly and natural gas (not a renewable) representing the only truly booming fossil fuel-based source of electricity generation last year.—Ars TechnicaTrust Click Get full access to One Sentence News at onesentencenews.substack.com/subscribe

In a world on the brink of climate catastrophe, one woman stands at the forefront of scientific discovery and action. "We found the highest microplastics in the world on Mount Everest, a sad Guinness World Record to hold," reveals Dr. Kimberley R. Miner in this gripping episode.Dr. Miner is a Climate Scientist and Program Manager at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, a Guinness World Record holder, and an adventurer who has braved the extreme environments of the North Pole, Antarctica, and Mt. Everest. Her groundbreaking research on climate risks has garnered international recognition, with features in the BBC, NYT, and GQ.This episode takes you on a journey from the icy slopes of Everest to the cutting-edge labs of NASA. It delves into the pressing issues of climate change, the surprising discovery of microplastics at extreme altitudes, the role of art in science communication, and the importance of diverse perspectives in tackling global challenges. It also offers a sneak peek into Kimberley's upcoming book on how younger generations can plan for climate change.This is a riveting exploration of our planet's most pressing issue, through the eyes of a scientist who has literally seen it from top to bottom. A must-listen for those seeking to understand the real-world implications of climate change and the solutions that science and innovation can offer.

Could there be life under the icy surface of Europa? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic Chuck Nice explore interplanetary missions, asteroid mining, and other exciting launches with the Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Laurie Leshin.NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://startalkmedia.com/show/cosmic-queries-the-future-of-the-nasa-jet-propulsion-lab-with-laurie-leshin/Thanks to our Patrons Statton Broxham, Ethan Codyre, Ron Lanier,Nathaniel England, and Roger Lee for supporting us this week.Photo Credit: NASA / Jet Propulsion Lab-Caltech / SETI Institute, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

An interview with Randy Pollock, Chief Scientist and Engineer for Space at the Robertson Research Institute at Victoria University,Wellington,  where he is working to adapt high temperature superconductor technologies for space applications.  Prior to moving to New Zealand, he was an Instrument Manager and Systems Engineer for NASA Jet Propulsion Laborary.  He had worked on numerous payload missions and spacecraft for NASA for over two decades including EMIT, CloudSat, and SHERLOC for the Mars Perseverance rover.   Resources:von Karman Lecture Series - aims to bring the excitement of JPL's missions, instruments and other technologiesHosted by: Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom, Co-Founder and CEO, SpaceBaseMusic: reCreation by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons (3.0)If you like our work, please consider donating to SpaceBase through The Gift Trust or RSF Social Finance (for US charitable donations) and indicate "SpaceBase" gift account. Or be a SpaceBase Patreon sponsor!Support the show

New details from the new Princess Diana documentary, Investigating Diana, ahead of the 25th anniversary of her death. Plus, a TODAY Exclusive with the first female head of the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. And, all the details on Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's lavish wedding weekend.

NASA Jet Propulsion Lab scientists Armin Kleinboehl and Marek Slipski lead a new project that is recruiting thousands of citizen explorers. They explain to host Mat Kaplan how this massive effort may help us finally understand how the once plentiful Martian surface water disappeared. Then we look back to the dawn of science as Bruce Betts closes out our latest What's Up space trivia contest. And there's a meteor shower around the corner! There's more to discover at https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2022-cloudspotting-on-marsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Small town girl, Donna Shirley makes it all the way as an engineer to the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. It's out of this world!

It's time to shoot for the stars with Dan Isla, VP of Product at itopia, to talk about everything from astronomical importance of reliability to time zones on Mars. Dan's trajectory has been a propulsion of jobs bordering on the science fiction, with a history at NASA, modernizing cloud computing for them, and loads more. Dan discusses the finite room for risk and failure in space travel with an anecdote from his work on Curiosity. Dan talks about his major take aways from working at Google, his “baby” Selkies, his work at itopia, and the crazy math involved with accounting for time on Mars!In this episode, we cover: Introduction (00:00) Dan's work at JPL (01:58) Razor thin margins for risk (05:40) Transition to Google (09:08)  Selkies and itopia (13:20) Building a reliability community (16:20) What itopia is doing (20:20) Learning, building a “toolbox,” and teams (22:30) Clockdrift (27:36) Links Referenced: itopia: https://itopia.com/ Selkies: https://github.com/danisla/selkies selkies.io: https://selkies.io Twitter: https://twitter.com/danisla LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danisla/ TranscriptDan: I mean, at JPL we had an issue adding a leap second to our system planning software, and that was a fully coordinated, many months of planning, for one second. [laugh]. Because when you're traveling at 15,000 miles per hour, one second off in your guidance algorithms means you missed the planet, right? [laugh]. So, we were very careful. Yeah, our navigation parameters had, like, 15 decimal places, it was crazy.Julie: Welcome to Break Things on Purpose, a podcast about reliability, building things with purpose, and embracing learning. In this episode, we talked to Dan Isla, VP of Product at itopia about the importance of reliability, astronomical units, and time zones on Mars.Jason: Welcome to the show, Dan.Dan: Thanks for having me, Jason and Julie.Jason: Awesome. Also, yeah, Julie is here. [laugh].Julie: Yeah. Hi, Dan.Jason: Julie's having internet latency issues. I swear we are not running a Gremlin latency attack on her. Although she might be running one on herself. Have you checked in in the Gremlin control panel?Julie: You know, let me go ahead and do that while you two talk. [laugh]. But no, hi and I hope it's not too problematic here. But I'm really excited to have Dan with us here today because Dan is a Boise native, which is where I'm from as well. So Dan, thanks for being here and chatting with us today about all the things.Dan: You're very welcome. It's great to be here to chat on the podcast.Jason: So, Dan has mentioned working at a few places and I think they're all fascinating and interesting. But probably the most fascinating—being a science and technology nerd—Dan, you worked at JPL.Dan: I did. I was at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, right, after graduating from Boise State, from 2009 to around 2017. So, it was a quite the adventure, got work on some, literally, out-of-this-world projects. And it was like drinking from a firehose, being kind of fresh out to some degree. I was an intern before that so I had some experience, but working on a Mars rover mission was kind of my primary task. And the Mars rover Curiosity was what I worked on as a systems engineer and flight software test engineer, doing launch operations, and surface operations, pretty much the whole, like, lifecycle of the spacecraft I got to experience. And had some long days and some problems we had to solve, and it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot at JPL, a lot about how government, like, agencies are run, a lot about how spacecraft are built, and then towards the end a lot about how you can modernize systems with cloud computing. That led to my exit [laugh] from there.Jason: I'm curious if you could dive into that, the modernization, right? Because I think that's fascinating. When I went to college, I initially thought I was going to be an aerospace engineer. And so, because of that, they were like, “By the way, you should learn Fortran because everything's written in Fortran and nothing gets updated.” Which I was a little bit dubious about, so correct folks that are potentially looking into jobs in engineering with NASA. Is it all Fortran, or… what [laugh] what do things look like?Dan: That's an interesting observation. Believe it or not, Fortran is still used. Fortran 77 and Fortran—what is it, 95. But it's mostly in the science community. So, a lot of data processing algorithms and things for actually computing science, written by PhDs and postdocs is still in use today, mostly because those were algorithms that, like, people built their entire dissertation around, and to change them added so much risk to the integrity of the science, even just changing the language where you go to language with different levels of precision or computing repeatability, introduced risk to the integrity of the science. So, we just, like, reused the [laugh] same algorithms for decades. It was pretty amazing yeah.Jason: So, you mentioned modernizing; then how do you modernize with systems like that? You just take that codebase, stuff it in a VM or a container and pretend it's okay?Dan: Yeah, so a lot of it is done very carefully. It goes kind of beyond the language down to even some of the hardware that you run on, you know? Hardware computing has different endianness, which means the order of bits in your data structures, as well as different levels of precision, whether it's a RISC system or an AMD64 system. And so, just putting the software in a container and making it run wasn't enough. You had to actually compute it, compare it against the study that was done and the papers that were written on it to make sure you got the same result. So, it was pretty—we had to be very careful when we were containerizing some of these applications in the software.Julie: You know, Dan, one thing that I remember from one of the very first talks I heard of yours back in, I think, 2015 was you actually talked about how we say within DevOps, embrace failure and embrace risk, but when you're talking about space travel, that becomes something that has a completely different connotation. And I'm kind of curious, like, how do you work around that?Dan: Yeah, so failing fast is not really an option when you only have one thing [laugh] that you have built or can build. And so yeah, there's definitely a lot of adverseness to failing. And what happens is it becomes a focus on testing, stress testing—we call it robustness testing—and being able to observe failures and automate repairs. So, one of the tests programs I was involved with at JPL was, during the descent part of the rover's approach to Mars, there was a power descent phase where the rover actually had a rocket-propelled jetpack and it would descend to the surface autonomously and deliver the rover to the surface. And during that phase it's moving so fast that we couldn't actually remote control it, so it had to do everything by itself.And there were two flight computers that are online, pretty much redundant, everything hardware-wise, and so it's kind of up to the software to recover itself. And so, that's called entry descent and landing, and one of my jobs towards the end of the development phase was to ensure that we tested all of the possible breakage points. So, we would do kind of evil Gremlin-like things. We actually—the people in the testbed, we actually call Gremlins. And [laugh] we would—we—they inject faults during the simulation.So, we had copies of the hardware running on a desk, the software was running, and then we'd have Gremlins go and say like, “Hey, flight computer one just went out. You know, what's going to happen?” And you watch the software, kind of, take over and either do the right thing or simulate a crash landing. And we find bugs in the software this way, we'd find, like, hangs in the control loops for recovery, and we had to fix those before we made it to Mars, just in case that ever happened. So, that was like how we, like, really stressed test the hardware, we did the same thing with situational awareness and operations, we had to simulate things that would happen, like, during launch or during the transit from Earth to Mars, and then see how the team itself reacted to those. You know, do our playbooks work? Can we run these in enough time and recover the spacecraft? So, it was a lot of fun. That's I guess that's about as close to, like, actually breaking something I can claim to. [laugh].Julie: Well, I have to say, you've done a good job because according to Wikipedia—which we all know is a very reliable source—as of May 9th, 2022, Curiosity has been active on Mars for 3468 sols or 3563 days, and is still active. Which is really amazing because I don't—was it ever intended to actually be operational that long?Dan: Not really. [laugh]. The hardware was built to last for a very long time, but you know, as with most missions that are funded, they only have a certain amount of number of years that they can be operated, to fund the team, to fund the development and all that. And so, the prime mission was only, like, two years. And so, it just keeps getting extended. As long as the spacecraft is healthy, and, like, doing science and showing results, we usually extend the missions until they just fall apart or die, or be intentionally decommissioned, kind of like the Cassini project. But yeah.Julie: Well, you've heard it here first, folks. In order to keep funding, you just need to be, quote, “Doing science.” [laugh]. But Dan, after JPL, that's when you went over to Google, right?Dan: Yeah, yeah. So, it was kind of that transition from learning how to modernize with cloud. I'd been doing a lot with data, a lot with Amazon's government cloud, which is the only cloud we could use at JPL, and falling in love with these APIs and ways to work with data that were not possible before, and saw this as a great way to, you know, move the needle forward in terms of modernization. Cloud is a safe place to prototype a safe place to get things done quick. And I always wanted to work for a big tech company as well, so that was always another thing I was itching to scratch.And so Google, I interviewed there and finally made it in. It was not easy. I definitely failed my first interview. [laugh]. But then try it again a few years later, and I came in as a cloud solution architect to help customers adopt cloud more quickly, get through roadblocks.My manager used to say the solution architects were the Navy Seals of cloud, they would drop in, drop a bunch of knowledge bombs, and then, like, get out, [laugh] and go to the next customer. It was a lot of fun. I got to build some cool technology and I learned a lot about what it's like working in a big public company.Julie: Well, one of my favorite resources is the Google SRE book, which, as much as I talk about it, I'm just going to admit it here now, to everybody that I have not read the entire thing.Dan: It's okay.Julie: Okay, thank you.Dan: Most people probably haven't.Julie: I also haven't read all of Lord of the Rings either. But that said, you know, when you talk about the learnings, how much of that did you find that you practiced day-to-day at Google?Dan: In cloud—I've mostly worked in cloud sales, so we were kind of post-sales, the experts from the technology side, kind of a bridge to engineering and sales. So, I didn't get to, like, interact with the SREs directly, but we have been definitely encouraged, I had to learn the principles so that we could share them with our customers. And so, like, everyone wanted to do things like Google did, you know? Oh, these SREs are there, and they're to the rescue, and they have amazing skills. And they did, and they were very special at Google to operate Google's what I would call alien technology.And so, you know, from a principles point of view, it was actually kind of reminded me a lot of what I learned at JPL, you know, from redundant systems and automating everything, having the correct level of monitoring. The tools that I encountered at Google, were incredible. The level of detail you could get very quickly, everything was kind of at your fingertips. So, I saw the SREs being very productive. When there was an outage, things were communicated really well and everyone just kind of knew what they were doing.And that was really inspiring, for one, just to see, like, how everything came together. That's kind of what the best part of working at Google was kind of seeing how the sausage was made, you know? I was like, “Oh, this is kind of interesting.” [laugh]. And still had some of its big company problems; it wasn't all roses. But yeah, it was definitely a very interesting adventure.Jason: So, you went from Google, and did you go directly to the company that you helped start, right now?Dan: I did. I did. I made the jump directly. So, while I was at Google, you know, not only seeing how SRE worked, but seeing how software was built in general and by our customers, and by Google, really inspired me to build a new solution around remote productivity. And I've always been a big fan of containers since the birth of Docker and Kubernetes.And I built the solution that let you run, kind of, per-user workloads on Kubernetes and containers. And this proved to be interesting because you could, you know, stand up your own little data processing system and scale it out to your team, as well as, like, build remote code editors, or remote desktop experiences from containers. And I was very excited about this solution. The customers were really starting to adopt it. And as a solution architect, once the stuff we built, we always open-source it.So, I put it on GitHub as a project called Selkies. And so, Selkies is the Kubernetes components and there's also the high performance streaming to a web browser with WebRTC on GitHub. And a small company, itopia, I met at a Google conference, they saw my talk and they loved the technology. They were looking for something like that, to help some of their product line, and they brought me in as VP of Product.So, they said, “We wanted to productize this.” And I'm like, “Well, you're not doing that without me.” [laugh]. Right? So, through the pandemic and work from home and everything, I was like, you know, now is probably a good time to go try something new.This is going to be—and I get to keep working on my baby, which is Selkies. So yeah, I've been itopia since beginning of 2021, building a remote desktop, really just remote developer environments and other remote productivity tools for itopia.Julie: Well and, Dan, that's pretty exciting because you actually talked a little bit about that at DevOpsDays Boise, which if that video is posted by the time of publication of this podcast, we'll put a link to that in the show notes. But you're also giving a talk about this at SCaLE 19x in July, right?Dan: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so SCaLE is the Southern California Linux Expo, and it's a conference I really enjoy going to get to see people from Southern California and other out of town, a lot of JPLers usually go as well and present. And so, it's a good time to reconnect with folks. But yeah, so SCaLE, you know, they usually want to talk more about Linux and some of the technologies and open-source. And so yeah, really looking forward to sharing more about selfies and kind of how it came to be, how containers can be used for more than just web servers and microservices, but also, you know, maybe, like, streaming video games that have your container with the GPU attached. The DevOpsDays Boise had a little demo of that, so hopefully, that video gets attached. But yeah, I'm looking forward to that talk at the end of July.Jason: Now, I'm really disappointed that I missed your talk at DevOpsDays Boise. So Julie, since that's your domain, please get those videos online quickly.Julie: I am working on it. But Dan, one of the things that you know you talk about is that you are the primary maintainer on this and that you're looking to grow and improve with input from the community. So, tell us, how can the community get involved with this?Dan: Yeah, so Selkies is on GitHub. You can also get to it from selkies.io. And basically, we're looking for people to try it out, run it, to find problems, you know, battle test it. [laugh]. We've been running it in production at itopia, it's powering the products they're building now.So, we are the primary maintainers. I only have a few others, but, you know, we're just trying to build more of an open-source community and level up the, you know, the number of contributors and folks that are using it and making it better. I think it's an interesting technology that has a lot of potential.Jason: I think as we talk about reliability, one of the things that we haven't covered, and maybe it's time for us to actually dive into that with you is reliability around open-source. And particularly, I think one of the problems that always happens with open-source projects like this is, you're the sole maintainer, right? And how do you actually build a reliable community and start to grow this out? Like, what happens if Dan suddenly just decides to rage quit tech and ups and leaves and lives on his own little private island somewhere? What happens to Selkies?Do you have any advice for people who've really done this, right? They have a pet project, they put it on GitHub, it starts to gain some traction, but ultimately, it's still sort of their project. Do you have any advice for how people can take that project and actually build a reliable, growing, thriving community around it?Dan: Honestly, I'm still trying to figure that out [laugh] myself. It's not easy. Having the right people on your team helps a lot. Like, having a developer advocate, developer relations to showcase what it's capable of in order to create interest around the project, I think is a big component of that. The license that you choose is also pretty important to that.You know, there's some software licenses that kind of force the open-sourcing of any derivative of what you build, and so that can kind of keep it open, as well, as you know, move it forward a little bit. So, I think that's a component. And then, you know, just, especially with conferences being not a thing in the last couple of years, it's been really hard to get the word out and generate buzz about some of these newer open-source technologies. One of the things I kind of like really hope comes out of a two-year heads-down time for developers is that we're going to see some, like, crazy, amazing tech on the other side. So, I'm really looking forward to the conferences later this year as they're opening up more to see what people have been building. Yeah, very interested in that.Jason: I think the conversation around open-source licenses is one that's particularly interesting, just because there's a lot involved there. And there's been some controversy over the past couple of years as very popular open-source projects have decided to change licenses, thinking of things like Elastic and MongoDB and some other things.Dan: Yeah. Totally.Jason: You chose, for Selkies, it looks like it's Apache v2.Dan: Yep. That was mostly from a Google legal point of view. When I was open-sourcing it, everything had to be—you know, had to have the right license, and Apache was the one that we published things under. You know, open-source projects change their license frequently. You saw that, like what you said, with Elastic and Mongo.And that's a delicate thing, you know, because you got to make sure you preserve the community. You can definitely alienate a lot of your community if you do it wrong. So, you got to be careful, but you also, you know, as companies build this tech and they're proud of it and they want to turn it into a product, you want to—it's a very delicate process, trying to productize open-source. It can be really helpful because it can give confidence to your customers, meaning that, like, “Hey, you're building this thing; if it goes away, it's okay. There's this open-source piece of it.”So, is instills a little bit of confidence there, but it also gets a little tricky, you know? Like, what features are we adding the add value that people will still pay for versus what they can get for free? Because free is great, but you know, it's a community, and I think there are things that private companies can add. My philosophy is basically around packaging, right? If you can package up an open-source product to make it more easier to consume, easier to deploy, easier to observe and manage, then you know, that's a lot of value that the rest of the free community may not necessarily need.If they're just kind of kicking the tires, or if they have very experienced Kubernetes team on-site, they can run this thing by themselves, go for it, you know? But for those, the majority that may not have that, you know, companies can come in and repackage things to make it easier to run open-source. I think there's a lot of value there.Jason: So, speaking of companies repackaging things, you mentioned that itopia had really sort of acquired you in order to really build on top of Selkies. What are the folks at itopia doing and how are they leveraging the software?Dan: That's a good question. So, itopia's mission is to radically improve work-from-anywhere. And we do that by building software to orchestrate and automate access to remote computing. And that orchestration and automation is a key component to this, like, SaaS-like model for cloud computing.And so, Selkies is a core piece of that technology. It's designed for orchestrating per-user workloads, like, remote environments that you would need to stand up. And so, you know, we're adding on things that make it more consumable for an enterprise, things like VPN peering and single-sign-on, a lot of these things that enterprises need from day one in order to check all the boxes with their security teams. And at the heart of that is really just increasing the amount of the productivity you have through onboarding.Basically, you know, setting up a developer environment can take days or weeks to get all the dependencies set up. And the point of itopia—Spaces is the product I'm working on—is to reduce that amount of time as much as possible. And, you know, this can increase risk. If you have a product that needs to get shipped and you're trying to grow or scale your company and team and they can't do that, you can slip deadlines and introduce problems, and having a environment that's not consistent, introduces reliability problems, right, because now you have developers that, “Hey, works on my machine.” But you know, they may have—they don't have the same machine, same environment as everyone else, and now when it comes to reproducing bugs or even fixing them, that you can introduce more problems to the software supply chain.Julie: I mean, that sounds like a great problem to solve and I'm glad you're working on it. With your background being varied, starting as an intern to now where you personally are being acquired by organizations. What's something that you've really learned or taken from that? Because one thing that you said was that you failed your first Google interview badly? And—Dan: Yes. [laugh].Julie: I find that interesting because that sounds like you know, you've taken that learning from failure, you've embraced the fact that you failed it. Actually, I just kind of want to go back. Tell us, do you know what you did?Dan: It was definitely a failure. I don't know how spectacular it was, but, like, [laugh] google interviews are hard. I mean—and that's just how it is, and it's been—it's notorious for that. And I didn't have enough of the software, core software experience at the time to pass the interview. These are, like, five interviews for a software engineer.And I made it through, like, four of them. The last one was, like, just really, really, really hard and I could not figure it out. You know, because this is, like, back in the day—and I think they still do this, like, where you're, like, coding on a whiteboard, right? Like, okay, right, this C code on a whiteboard, and it has to work. You know, the dude is, like, right, there compiling it, right? Like, “Okay, [unintelligible 00:23:29], boy.” [laugh].So, not only is a high stress, but it has to be right as well. [laugh]. And so, like, it was just a very difficult experience. And what I learned from that was basically, “Okay, I need to, one, get more experience in this style and this domain of programming, as well, as you know, get more comfortable speaking and being in front of people I don't know.” [laugh].So yeah, there's definitely components there of personal growth as well as technical growth. From a technical point of view, like, my philosophy as being an engineer in general, and software developer, is have a really big toolbox and use the tools that are appropriate for the job. This is, like, one of my core philosophies. Like, people ask, you know, ‘what language do you use?' And I'm like, “Whatever language you needed to solve the problem.”Like, if you're writing software, in a—with libraries that are all written in C, then don't try to do that in, like, Java or something, in some other language that doesn't have those language bindings. Don't reinvent the language bindings. You follow the problem and you follow the tech. What language, what tool will best solve this problem? And I'm always working backwards from the problem and then bringing in the right tools to solve it.And that's something that has paid off in dividends because it's very—problem-solving is fun and it's something I always had a passion for, but when you have a toolbox that is full of interesting gadgets and things you can use, you get excited every time you get to use that tool. Like, just like power tools here, I have a—I don't know, but it's like, “Yeah, I get to use the miter saw for this thing. Awesome. I don't have one? Okay, I'm going to go buy one.” [laugh].Julie: That's actually—that's a really good point, one of the talks that I gave was, “You Can't Buy DevOps.” And it was really all about letting developers be part of the process in choosing the tools that they're going to use. Because sometimes I think organizations put too many constraints around that and force you to use these tools that might not be the best for what you're trying to accomplish. So, I like that you bring up having the ability to be excited about your toolbox, or your miter saw. For me, it would be my dremel. Right? But what tool is going to—Dan: [crosstalk 00:25:39] cool.Julie: Yeah, I mean, they really are—what tool is going to be best for the job that you are trying to accomplish? And I think that that's, that's a big thing. So, when you look to bring people onto your team, what kind of questions do you ask them? What are you looking for?Dan: Well, we're just now starting to really grow the company and try and scale it up. And so we're, you know, we're starting to get into more and more interview stuff, I try to tell myself, I don't want to put someone through the Google experience again. And part of that is just because it wasn't pleasant, but also, like, I don't know if it was really that useful [laugh] at the end of the day. And so, you know, there's a lot about culture fit that is really important. People have to be able to communicate and feel comfortable with your team and the pace that your team is working at. And so, that's really important.But you know, technically, you know, I like to see a lot of, you know—you got to be able to show me that you can solve problems. And that can be from, you know, just work that you've done an open-source, you know, having a good resume of projects you've worked on is really important because then we can just talk about tech and story about how you solve the problem. I don't have to—I don't need you to go to the whiteboard and code me something because you have, like, 30 repos on GitHub or something, right? And so, the questions are much more around problem-solving: you know, how would you solve this problem? What technology choices would you use, and why?Sometimes I'll get the fundamentals, like, do you understand how this database works at its core or not? You know, or why is it… why is that good or bad? And so, looking for people who can really think within the toolbox they have—it doesn't have to be a big one, but do they know how to use the tools that they've acquired so far, and really, just really, really critically think through with your problems? So, to me, that's a better skill to have than just, you know, being able to write code on the whiteboard.Julie: Thanks for that, Dan. And earlier, before we started the official recording here, you were talking a little bit about time drift. Do you want to fill everybody in on what you were talking about because I don't think it was Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness?Dan: No. [laugh]. I think there were some—we were talking about um…clocks?Julie: Clocks skew.Dan: Daylight savings time?Julie: Yeah.Dan: Clock skew, clock drift. There was a time at JPL when we were inserting a leap second to the time. This actually happened all throughout the world, where periodically that the clocks will drift far enough because the orbits and the rotation of the planet are not, like, perfectly aligned to 365 days in a year and 24 hours in a day. And so, every so decades, you have to insert these leap seconds in order to catch up and make time more precise. Well, space travel, when you're planning, you have to—you're planning to the position of the stars and the planets and the orbital bodies, and those measurements are done at such a large scale that you have—your precision goes, like, way out, you know, many, many decimal places in order to properly plan to the bodies up big.And with the Mars Rover, one of these leap seconds happened to come in, like, right, before we launched. And it was like, oh my gosh, this is going to be to—change all of our ephemeris files—the data that you use to track positions—and we had to do it, like, synchronize it all, like, right, when the leap second was going in. And we tested this extensively because if you get it wrong with your spacecraft is traveling, like, 15,000 miles an hour towards Mars, and a one-second pointing error from Earth means, like, you missed the whole planet, you won't even get there. [laugh]. We're not talking about, like, missing the landing site of, like, a few kilometers. No, it's like thousands of kilometers in pointing error.So yeah, things are astronomical [laugh] in units. Actually, that's why they're called AU, astronomical units, when you're measuring the distance from the Sun. So yeah, it was a pretty fun time. A little bit nerve-wracking just because the number of systems that had to be updated and changed at the same time. It's kind of like doing a rolling update on a piece of software that just had to go out all at the same time. Yeah.Jason: I think that's really interesting, particularly because, you know, for most of us, I think, as we build things whether that's locally or in the cloud or wherever our servers are at, we're so used to things like NTP, right, where things just automatically sync and I don't have to really think about it and I don't really have to worry about the accuracy because NTP stays pretty tight. Usually, generally.Dan: Mm-hm.Jason: Yeah. So, I'm imagining, obviously, like, on a spacecraft flying 15,000 miles a second or whatever, no NTP out there.Dan: [laugh]. Yeah, no NTP and no GPS. Like, all the things you take for granted, on Mars are just not there. And Mars even has a different time system altogether. Like the days on Mars are about 40 minutes longer because the planet spins slower.And my first 90 sols—or days on Mars—of the mission, the entire planning team on earth that I was a part of, we lived on Mars time. So, we had to synchronize our Earth's schedule with what the rover was doing so that when the rover was asleep, we were planning the next day's activities. And when it woke up, it was ready to go and do work during the day. [laugh]. So, we did this Mars time thing for 90 days. That was mostly inherited from the Mars Exploration rovers, Spirit and Opportunity because they were only designed to live for, like, 90 days.So, the whole team shifted. And we—and now it's kind of done in spirit of that mission. [laugh]. Our rover, we knew it was going to last a bit longer, but just in case, let's shift everyone to Mars time and see what happened. And it was not good. We had to [laugh] we had to end that after 90 days. People—your brain just gets completely fried after that. But it was bizarre.And there's no time. You have invent your own time system for Mars. Like, there's no, it was called LMST, or Local Mars Standard Time, local mean standard time. But it was all, like, relative to, you know, the equator and where you were on the planet. And so, Mars had his own Mars time that counted at a different rate per second.And so, it was funny, we had these clocks in the Mission Control Room that—there was this giant TV screen that had, like, four different time clocks running. It had, like, Pasadena time, UTC time, Mars time, and, like, whatever time it was at the Space Network. And I was like, “Oh, my gosh.” And so, we were always doing these, like, time conversions in our heads. It was mental. [laugh]. So, can't we just all be on UTC time? [laugh].Jason: So, I'm curious, with that time shift of being on Mars time and 40 minutes longer, that inherently means that by the end of that 90 days, like, suddenly, your 8 a.m. Mars local time is, like, shifted, and is now, like, hours off, right? You're waking—Dan: Yeah.Jason: Up in the middle of the night?Dan: Totally, yeah.Jason: Wow.Dan: Yeah, within, like, two weeks, your schedule will be, like, upside down. It's like, every day, you're coming in 40 minutes later. And yeah, it was… it was brutal. [laugh]. Humans are not supposed to do that.If you're actually living on Mars, you're probably okay, but like, [laugh] trying to synchronize those schedules. I thought you were going from East Coast to West Coast time, working remote was hard. And, like, [laugh] that's really remote.Julie: Dan, that's just astronomical.Dan: [laugh].Julie: I'm so sorry. I had to do it. But with that—[laugh].Jason: [laugh].Dan: [laugh]. [unintelligible 00:33:15].Julie: With that, Dan, I really just want to thank you for your time on Break Things on Purpose with us today. And as promised, if I can find the links to Dan's talks, if they're available before this episode posts, we will put those in the show notes. Otherwise, we'll put the link to the YouTube channel in the show notes to check for updates. And with that, I just want to thank you, Dan, and wish you a wonderful day.Jason: Before we go, Dan, do you have anything that you'd like to plug? Any projects that people should check out, where they can find you on the internet, stuff like that?Dan: Yeah, thank you guys very much for having me. It was a great conversation. Really enjoyed it. Please check out our new product, itopia Spaces, remote developer environments delivered, powered by Selkies. We launched it last fall and we're really trying to ramp that up.And then check out the open-source Selkies project, selkies.io will get you there. And yeah, we're looking for contributors. Beyond that, you can also find me on Twitter, I'm @danisla, or on LinkedIn.Jason: Awesome. Well, thanks again for being a part of the show. It's been fantastic.Dan: You're very welcome. Thanks for having me.Jason: For links to all the information mentioned, visit our website at gremlin.com/podcast. If you liked this episode, subscribe to the Break Things on Purpose podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform. Our theme song is called, “Battle of Pogs” by Komiku, and it's available on loyaltyfreakmusic.com.

On this episode of Cinema Stubs with special guest, Chris Mattmann of the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, we discuss our favorite R-rated comedies, host Joshua gets his privates waxed to commemorate that hilarious scene in 'The 40 Year Old Virgin' movie, we draft a comedy movie, talk 'The Batman' sequel, news, & more!

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! On today's episode, we talk with Dr. Kimberley Miner, Scientist and Systems Engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab about Extreme Environments, Climate Change and Permafrost.   Read her full bio below.Help us continue to create great content! If you'd like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form Showtimes: 2:05 Nic & Laura talk about the Guinness Book of World Records14:27 Permafrost17:26  Climate Change20:10 Extreme EnvironmentsPlease be sure to ✔️subscribe, ⭐rate and ✍review. This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.Connect with Dr. Kimberley R. Miner at https://www.linkedin.com/in/drkimberleyminer/ Guest Bio:Dr. Kimberley R. Miner is a Scientist and Systems Engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in California, where she researches and forecasts climate risks. Her work has taken her to the most extreme environments in the world- from Antarctica to Mt. Everest- where her team secured a Guinness World Record for identifying the highest altitude pollutants. Dr. Miner's research has been highlighted by CBS, the New York Times, Washington Post, GQ, and Sports Illustrated. Before coming to NASA, she worked with the Department of Defense in Washington DC, assessing climate risks to national interests.Dr. Miner is a Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security and Co-chair of the NASA HQ Interagency Forum on Climate Risks, Impacts, and Adaptation. She is a graduate of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (MPA) and the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute (Ph.D.), where she was a Fulbright, Switzer, and Department of Defense fellow. She is a Black belt, certified Wilderness Firefighter and First Responder, and mom to a lively cattledog. Music CreditsIntro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace MesaOutro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller  Support the show

What's the point of NASA? Will Starlink end up funding Elon's Mars dreams? To discuss the US space ecosystem in both the private and public sector, I am joined by Casey Handmer (@CJHandmer), former NASA Jet Propulsion Lab system architect and founder of Terraform Industries.We also talk aboutThe potential for Starlink to improve internet access in developing countriesWhether the US immigration system is hurting its ability to attract the best scientistsMaking electricity from airHow much it would cost to send me into spaceCheck out Casey's blog here: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.comOuttro music: To The Moon by Jnr Choihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzrbpG6UI7c Get bonus content on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What's the point of NASA? Will Starlink end up funding Elon's Mars dreams? To discuss the US space ecosystem in both the private and public sector, I am joined by Casey Handmer (@CJHandmer), former NASA Jet Propulsion Lab system architect and founder of Terraform Industries.We also talk aboutThe potential for Starlink to improve internet access in developing countriesWhether the US immigration system is hurting its ability to attract the best scientistsMaking electricity from airHow much it would cost to send me into spaceCheck out Casey's blog here: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.comOuttro music: To The Moon by Jnr Choihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzrbpG6UI7c Get bonus content on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What's the point of NASA? Will Starlink end up funding Elon's Mars dreams? To discuss the US space ecosystem in both the private and public sector, I am joined by Casey Handmer (@CJHandmer), former NASA Jet Propulsion Lab system architect and founder of Terraform Industries.We also talk aboutThe potential for Starlink to improve internet access in developing countriesWhether the US immigration system is hurting its ability to attract the best scientistsMaking electricity from airHow much it would cost to send me into spaceCheck out Casey's blog here: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.comOuttro music: To The Moon by Jnr Choihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzrbpG6UI7c Get bonus content on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What's the point of NASA? Will Starlink end up funding Elon's Mars dreams? To discuss the US space ecosystem in both the private and public sector, I am joined by Casey Handmer (@CJHandmer), former NASA Jet Propulsion Lab system architect and founder of Terraform Industries.We also talk aboutThe potential for Starlink to improve internet access in developing countriesWhether the US immigration system is hurting its ability to attract the best scientistsMaking electricity from airHow much it would cost to send me into spaceCheck out Casey's blog here: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.comOuttro music: To The Moon by Jnr Choihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzrbpG6UI7c Get bonus content on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey listeners! You might have heard an earlier version of this episode, but due to technology issues, we noticed some audio errors in our post-production. We've since removed that version and uploaded this episode. Thanks for your understanding! Enjoy, and thank you for listening. In this episode of CPR's Connect the Dots, host Rob Verchick and his guests explore industry sectors and jobs that are particularly vulnerable to climate change, as well as the potential for significant job creation in technology, infrastructure, adaptation, mitigation, and the just transition to a clean, carbon-free economy. Over the past year, we've watched millions of people lose their jobs, take pay cuts, even seek new career paths due to the cascading effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was — and still is — a tough time to make a living.  There are close parallels between this public health crisis and the climate crisis, and the job market sits directly in the center of the two. Certain business sectors are more vulnerable than others to climate disruption. On the other hand, there's a wide range of new jobs being established to support technology and infrastructure, and there's newfound interest in climate adaptation and mitigation. So, in the face of these dual global crises, the question is: Who is hiring? Guests in this episode include: Dr. Kimberley Miner, scientist and systems engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in California Lowell Chandler, Montana renewable energy attorney Valerie Mueller, assistant professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University Renata Brillinger, co-founder and executive director of the California Climate and Agriculture Network Sean Hecht, Co-Executive Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, professor and and co-director of the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic at UCLA School of Law 

In this episode of CPR's Connect the Dots, host Rob Verchick and his guests explore businesses industry sectors and jobs that are particularly vulnerable to climate change, as well as the potential for significant job creation in technology, infrastructure, adaptation, mitigation, and the just transition to a clean, carbon-free economy. Over the past year, we've watched millions of people lose their jobs, take pay cuts, even seek new career paths due to the cascading effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was — and still is — a tough time to make a living.  There are close parallels between this public health crisis and the climate crisis, and the job market sits directly in the center of the two. Certain business sectors are more vulnerable than others to climate disruption. On the other hand, there's a wide range of new jobs being established to support technology and infrastructure, and there's newfound interest in climate adaptation and mitigation. So, in the face of these dual global crises, the question is: Who is hiring? Guests in this episode include: Dr. Kimberley Miner, scientist and systems engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in California Lowell Chandler, Montana renewable energy attorney Valerie Mueller, assistant professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University Renata Brillinger, co-founder and executive director of the California Climate and Agriculture Network

In Episode 2 of our season on climate resiliency, host Rob Verchick and his guests explore how parents, families, and communities are adapting their lifestyles to the realities of climate change.  Rob is joined by: -Dr. Kimberley Miner, scientist and systems engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in California  -Lowell Chandler, a Montana renewable energy attorney  -Kristy Dahl, senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists  -Christian Møller-Holst, founder and CEO of Goodwings

Kelsey joined Planet in February 2020 after completing a series of internships at the Paris Observatory and NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. In her current role at Planet, she is responsible for identifying, triaging, root causing and resolving satellite anomalies and performing fleet-wide health check-ins for the largest Earth Observation satellite constellation in the world. Kelsey also has extensive experience in using Python to develop tools for autonomous satellite operations and in creating and aggregating performance metrics to provide insight into constellation health and productivity. While working at Planet, Kelsey also serves as a Paris Observatory Researcher and Summer School Lecturer, a position she has held since 2018. She is enrolled to begin her Ph.D. in Autonomous Intelligent Machines and Systems at the University of Oxford in October 2021.

This episode covers how Preston Miller, NASA JPL's CISO, aligns cyber risk in accordance to his business risk, what is their number #1 out of the CIA triad, and what is considered as risk against NASA's mission success. Preston also talked through his current campaign of security being the office of 'KNOW', explaining his approach with the business leaders, and on the importance of having a robust disaster recovery plan. To unpack his top tip for aspiring CISOs or CISOs who are taking up new roles in different industries, check out this session (full recording released). Discussion Points: * Preston's journey as a CISO in NASA: 1:02 * Key things he had to do to adapt/ do security differently: 02:51 * Aligning cyber risk according to the business understanding of risk: 07:16 * What keeps the NASA CISO up at night: 12:29 * How a DR plan looked like in NASA JPL's context: 15:53 * Preston's top tip for CISOs & Security Professionals: 20:31 Preston Miller, NASA JPL's CISO - https://www.linkedin.com/in/preston-d-miller/ Shamane Tan, Chief Growth Officer, Author & Cyber Risk Meetup Founder - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamane/

On July 30th, 2020, the Perseverance Rover embarked on NASA's Mars 2020 mission. The main purpose of the mission is to seek signs of ancient life on Mars, and collect samples of rock and regolith for possible return to Earth. The Perseverance Rover is set to touch down on the surface of Mars on February 18th, 2021. On this episode of Frank Buckley Interviews, we are joined by two crucial members of the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab team. Katie Stack Morgan is a research scientist and Deputy Project Scientist of the Mars 2020 rover mission. She shares details about Perseverance Rover's mission to search for signs of ancient life on Mars. Also joining us is Allen Chen, who is in charge of Perseverance's entry, descent and landing. He describes the 7-minute long autonomous sequence that will take place during Perseverance Rover's harrowing landing.

Timestamps(2:55) Chris went over his experience studying Computer Science at the University of Southern California for undergraduate in the late 90s.(5:26) Chris recalled working as a Software Engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in his sophomore year at USC.(9:54) Chris continued his education at USC with an M.S. and then a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Under the guidance of Dr. Nenad Medvidović, his Ph.D. thesis is called “Software Connectors For Highly-Distributed And Voluminous Data-Intensive Systems.” He proposed DISCO, a software architecture-based systematic framework for selecting software connectors based on eight key dimensions of data distribution.(16:28) Towards the end of his Ph.D., Chris started getting involved with the Apache Software Foundation. More specifically, he developed the original proposal and plan for Apache Tika (a content detection and analysis toolkit) in collaboration with Jérôme Charron to extract data in the Panama Papers, exposing how wealthy individuals exploited offshore tax regimes.(24:58) Chris discussed his process of writing “Tika In Action,” which he co-authored with Jukka Zitting in 2011.(27:01) Since 2007, Chris has been a professor in the Department of Computer Science at USC Viterbi School of Engineering. He went over the principles covered in his course titled “Software Architectures.”(29:49) Chris touched on the core concepts and practical exercises that students could gain from his course “Information Retrieval and Web Search Engines.”(32:10) Chris continued with his advanced course called “Content Detection and Analysis for Big Data” in recent years (check out this USC article).(36:31) Chris also served as the Director of the USC’s Information Retrieval and Data Science group, whose mission is to research and develop new methodology and open source software to analyze, ingest, process, and manage Big Data and turn it into information.(41:07) Chris unpacked the evolution of his career at NASA JPL: Member of Technical Staff -> Senior Software Architect -> Principal Data Scientist -> Deputy Chief Technology and Innovation Officer -> Division Manager for the AI, Analytics, and Innovation team.(44:32) Chris dove deep into MEMEX — a JPL’s project that aims to develop software that advances online search capabilities to the deep web, the dark web, and nontraditional content.(48:03) Chris briefly touched on XDATA — a JPL’s research effort to develop new computational techniques and open-source software tools to process and analyze big data.(52:23) Chris described his work on the Object-Oriented Data Technology platform, an open-source data management system originally developed by NASA JPL and then donated to the Apache Software Foundation.(55:22) Chris shared the scientific challenges and engineering requirements associated with developing the next generation of reusable science data processing systems for NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory space mission and the Soil Moisture Active Passive earth science mission.(01:01:05) Chris talked about his work on NASA’s Machine Learning-based Analytics for Autonomous Rover Systems — which consists of two novel capabilities for future Mars rovers (Drive-By Science and Energy-Optimal Autonomous Navigation).(01:04:24) Chris quantified the Apache Software Foundation's impact on the software industry in the past decade and discussed trends in open-source software development.(01:07:15) Chris unpacked his 2013 Nature article called “A vision for data science” — in which he argued that four advancements are necessary to get the best out of big data: algorithm integration, development and stewardship, diverse data formats, and people power.(01:11:54) Chris revealed the challenges of writing the second edition of “Machine Learning with TensorFlow,” a technical book with Manning that teaches the foundational concepts of machine learning and the TensorFlow library's usage to build powerful models rapidly.(01:15:04) Chris mentioned the differences between working in academia and industry.(01:16:20) Chris described the tech and data community in the greater Los Angeles area.(01:18:30) Closing segment.His Contact InfoWikipediaNASA PageGoogle ScholarUSC PageTwitterLinkedInGitHubHis Recommended ResourcesDoug Cutting (Founder of Lucene and Hadoop)Hilary Mason (Ex Data Scientist at bit.ly and Cloudera)Jukka Zitting (Staff Software Engineer at Google)"The One Minute Manager" (by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson)

Timestamps(2:55) Chris went over his experience studying Computer Science at the University of Southern California for undergraduate in the late 90s.(5:26) Chris recalled working as a Software Engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in his sophomore year at USC.(9:54) Chris continued his education at USC with an M.S. and then a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Under the guidance of Dr. Nenad Medvidović, his Ph.D. thesis is called “Software Connectors For Highly-Distributed And Voluminous Data-Intensive Systems.” He proposed DISCO, a software architecture-based systematic framework for selecting software connectors based on eight key dimensions of data distribution.(16:28) Towards the end of his Ph.D., Chris started getting involved with the Apache Software Foundation. More specifically, he developed the original proposal and plan for Apache Tika (a content detection and analysis toolkit) in collaboration with Jérôme Charron to extract data in the Panama Papers, exposing how wealthy individuals exploited offshore tax regimes.(24:58) Chris discussed his process of writing “Tika In Action,” which he co-authored with Jukka Zitting in 2011.(27:01) Since 2007, Chris has been a professor in the Department of Computer Science at USC Viterbi School of Engineering. He went over the principles covered in his course titled “Software Architectures.”(29:49) Chris touched on the core concepts and practical exercises that students could gain from his course “Information Retrieval and Web Search Engines.”(32:10) Chris continued with his advanced course called “Content Detection and Analysis for Big Data” in recent years (check out this USC article).(36:31) Chris also served as the Director of the USC’s Information Retrieval and Data Science group, whose mission is to research and develop new methodology and open source software to analyze, ingest, process, and manage Big Data and turn it into information.(41:07) Chris unpacked the evolution of his career at NASA JPL: Member of Technical Staff -> Senior Software Architect -> Principal Data Scientist -> Deputy Chief Technology and Innovation Officer -> Division Manager for the AI, Analytics, and Innovation team.(44:32) Chris dove deep into MEMEX — a JPL’s project that aims to develop software that advances online search capabilities to the deep web, the dark web, and nontraditional content.(48:03) Chris briefly touched on XDATA — a JPL’s research effort to develop new computational techniques and open-source software tools to process and analyze big data.(52:23) Chris described his work on the Object-Oriented Data Technology platform, an open-source data management system originally developed by NASA JPL and then donated to the Apache Software Foundation.(55:22) Chris shared the scientific challenges and engineering requirements associated with developing the next generation of reusable science data processing systems for NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory space mission and the Soil Moisture Active Passive earth science mission.(01:01:05) Chris talked about his work on NASA’s Machine Learning-based Analytics for Autonomous Rover Systems — which consists of two novel capabilities for future Mars rovers (Drive-By Science and Energy-Optimal Autonomous Navigation).(01:04:24) Chris quantified the Apache Software Foundation's impact on the software industry in the past decade and discussed trends in open-source software development.(01:07:15) Chris unpacked his 2013 Nature article called “A vision for data science” — in which he argued that four advancements are necessary to get the best out of big data: algorithm integration, development and stewardship, diverse data formats, and people power.(01:11:54) Chris revealed the challenges of writing the second edition of “Machine Learning with TensorFlow,” a technical book with Manning that teaches the foundational concepts of machine learning and the TensorFlow library's usage to build powerful models rapidly.(01:15:04) Chris mentioned the differences between working in academia and industry.(01:16:20) Chris described the tech and data community in the greater Los Angeles area.(01:18:30) Closing segment.His Contact InfoWikipediaNASA PageGoogle ScholarUSC PageTwitterLinkedInGitHubHis Recommended ResourcesDoug Cutting (Founder of Lucene and Hadoop)Hilary Mason (Ex Data Scientist at bit.ly and Cloudera)Jukka Zitting (Staff Software Engineer at Google)"The One Minute Manager" (by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson)

Top-notch Python courses for you: https://bit.ly/2S6DJC3 Jim Cantrell is the former VP of Business Development at SpaceX and founder of several entrepreneurial start-ups, including Vector Launch developing affordable small launch capabilities aimed at the Micro Spacecraft market & Stratspace with a long history in pivotal technical and financing roles in the aerospace industry. Jim's career also includes assignments at the French Space Agency CNES, the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab and has resulted in experience in over 46 satellite flight missions including the Iridium Next space telephone system. He is a world recognized technical innovator and has received numerous professional awards, he has pioneered the concepts of software defined satellites, micro launch vehicles and space situational awareness sensors. ————————————————————————————— Connect with me here: ✉️ My weekly email newsletter: jousef.substack.com

Jim Cantrell is an American entrepreneur, mechanical engineer and road racer. He was the CEO and co-founder of Vector Launch, Inc.. After working at the French Space Agency CNES (Centre Nationale D’Etudes Spatiales) and the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, he worked as an independent consultant to aerospace companies for fifteen years and was on the founding teams of SpaceX and Moon Express.

Chris Mattmann is the Deputy Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, where he has been recognised as JPL's first Principal Scientist in the area of Data Science. Chris has applied TensorFlow to challenges he’s faced at NASA, including building an implementation of Google’s Show & Tell algorithm for image captioning using TensorFlow. He contributes to open source as a former Director at the Apache Software Foundation, and teaches graduate courses at USC in Content Detection and Analysis, and in Search Engines and Information Retrieval. Enjoy the show! We speak about: [00:30] About Chris Mattmann [02:30] How Chris started in the data space [08:15] The transition to management [10:00] How does IT navigate different life cycles of people? [12:35] What’s an example of a bottom-up project? [15:10] How have you seen the importance of machine learning rise? [17:20] Do you have large amounts of data? [21:25] What are the hardware challenges of space? [24:45] About Machine Learning with TensorFlow, Second Edition [30:00] About the Hidden Markov model [34:10] What kept you going through the first edition? [35:40] Why is TensorFlow your favorite framework? [39:00] How do you find time to write? [39:30] What other activities do you do for the community? [41:20] What are you working on at the moment? Resources: Chris’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismattmann/ NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/jet-propulsion-laboratory/ Chris’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrismattmann Machine Learning with TensorFlow, Second Edition (For 40% off use code poddatafuturology19). Check out other books from Manning Publications, use code poddatafuturology19 for a 40% discount. Quotes: “TensorFlow is everything you need to know about machine learning.” “The thing that kept me going was the realization that AI was the future.” “Python is the data science framework nowadays.” “I see the future.” Thank you to our sponsor: Fyrebox - Make Your Own Quiz! And as always, we appreciate your Reviews, Follows, Likes, Shares and Ratings. Thank you so much for listening. Enjoy the show! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/datafuturology/message

When we think of Renaissance men or polymaths todays guest certainly fits that mold. Jim Cantrell was on the founding team at  Elon Musks’ SpaceX and was on the  founding team of Moon Express. Jim is the founder of several entrepreneurial start-ups, including Vector Space, StratSpace and Vintage Exotics Competition Engineering.  If that wasn’t enough Jim speaks four languages and spent several years each working in France and in Russia on joint US and Russian defense programs. Jim’s career also includes assignments at the French Space Agency CNES, the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab and has resulted in experience in over 46 satellite flight missions. During this wide ranging conversation you’ll hear about what it’s like to work with Elon Musk, what you can learn about running a business from racing, space exploration and so much more! Checkout my Newsletter Connect with us! Whatgotyouthere Exclusive opportunities: http://whatgotyouthere.com/sponsors/ MCTco Collagen Protein Bars www.mctco.com 20% off with code “WGYT” http://www.jimcantrell.com/

IFE Distinguished Visitor Lecture, recorded at QUT on 17 July 2019. Dr Scott Davidoff from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab discusses virtual reality (VR), artificial reality (AR), data science, and other discoveries and technologies of the digital age, and how these achievements can be used with prototyping techniques to overcome obstacles and become a force multiplier for research.

IFE Distinguished Visitor Lecture, recorded at QUT on 17 July 2019.Dr Scott Davidoff from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab discusses virtual reality (VR), artificial reality (AR), data science, and other discoveries and technologies of the digital age, and how these achievements can be used with prototyping techniques to overcome obstacles and become a force multiplier for research.

The Internet really loves NASA. Specifically, it loves NASA's social media presence. Today, David-Michel Davies chats with the woman who started it all, Veronica McGregor, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab's News and Social Media Manager. They dive into the agency's first Twitter account for its 2008 Mars Phoenix mission, and how her team is using interactive, digital experiences to educate the public on planetary exploration.NASA JPL has so many ways for you to keep up with its missions. For starters, follow @NASAJPL, @MarsCuriosity, and @MarsRovers to learn more about the robotic explorations of planets.Follow us everywhere @TheWebbyAwardsKeep up with David-Michel @dmdlikesOur Producer is Terence BrosnanOur Writer is Jordana JarrettOur Editorial Director is Nicole Ferraro Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Celes Beesley and Scott Cooper of BYU unpack the Ukraine and Russia conflict. Christopher Douglas of the Univ. of Michigan reveals more on the closing of GM factories. Dennis Coates of the Univ of Maryland talks about subsidized sports. Tom Hoffman of NASA Jet Propulsion Lab discusses Mars Insight's mission. Dennis Wall of Stanford Univ. describes how Google Glasses can help kids with autism. Sacoby Wilson of Univ. of Maryland reveals the impact of farms on their environment.

2018-08-24: I was walking pretty fast so I was a bit out of breath. Fairly short briefings about getting ready for the final semester and applying to the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Krys Blackwood is a Senior Lead UX Designer at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. With her design team, she is creating a cultural change in an 80-year-old organization that's used to shipping things in a very waterfall way, "which makes sense when you're working with a billion dollar space craft." Blackwood has even gone so far as to travel to places like Spain and Australia to physically sit and work with the engineers who control space craft far out in space, to get a better understanding of their UX. "We are inserting a user-centered approach into robotic exploration of the solar system," she says. In her presentation at Agile2018, she shares case studies of work ranging from using AR/VR to drive rovers on Mars to making operations of the upcoming Europa Clipper mission simpler, faster and more pleasant for the human beings who have to do them. Accenture | SolutionsIQ's Howard Sublett hosts at Agile2018 in San Diego. To reach our guest and learn more:Twitter @NASAJPL and @shodoshan hi.jpl.nasa.gov/ The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. Together, we are advancing the impact of business agility. Podcast library: www.agileamped.com Connect with us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/AgileAmpedFacebook: www.facebook.com/agileampedInstagram: www.instagram.com/agileamped/

Siqi Chen is the VP of Growth at Postmates, the leading on-demand logistics provider.  He was previously the co-founder and CEO of Hey (acquired by Postmates), maker of Heyday, an automated journal app, Stolen (the short-lived, but incredibly viral Twitter hit), and Famous.af (Stolen’s less controversial successor).  Siqi previously served as the GM at Zynga after an acquisition of his Facebook app startup, Serious Business, maker of the ridiculously viral Friends for Sale, as well as stints at Powerset, Veoh, and NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. In this episode, we learn how Siqi leverages data to drive growth and build viral products, why the ability to build rapidly growing businesses failed to make Heyday stick, and how he applies these lessons to give super powers to everyday people. Learn more about Siqi Chen and Postmates! Follow Siqi on Twitter @blader. Siqi's favorite book: The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are Something Siqi spends too much money on that he doesn't regret: Travel & food Siqi's favorite travel destination: Osaka, Japan Siqi's favorite restaurant (in the world): Saison _____ Executive producer & host: Joe Mahavuthivanij Edited by: Debra Lin Theme music by: Music for Makers Logo design: Debra Lin

Adam Steltzner went from being described (by New Yorker Magazine) "as a dropout and small town playboy with few skills and fewer prospects" to someone who made history. This episode is about how Adam took that kind of history and made history.  And, not only history, but history that each and every one of us followed in the news.  If you ever wondered how the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab successfully landed a 2,000 pound, 2 and a half billion dollar Curiosity Rover on the surface of Mars a very special historian is here to enlighten us and teach us that we can be called many names in life, and we always have the ability to prove others wrong.  Adam Steltzner is the lead NASA Engineer and manager for entry, descent and landing on Mars. He has also written a book about this experience and his own entitled, The Right Kind of Crazy,”  and we are lucky enough to have him tell us all about what it takes to make our passion(s) a reality. 

Accent ON! host Ilona Europa interview with guest Corby Waste Mission Artist who shared with us his very interesting and out of the space life story. Also he told us about December visit at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab aka JPL from his friend actress Dawn Wells who played Mary Ann on the 1960's TV show Gilligan's Island. AND SURPRISE DAWN WELLS was a guest on channel2 on SHEENA METAL show same time as our show.

Accent ON! TV the Best Of Poland and Europe host Ilona Europa and our co-host Marek Bacik interview with guest Corby Waste Mission Artist who shared with us his interesting life story. Also he told us about December visit at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab aka JPL from his friend actress Dawn Wells who played Mary Ann on the 1960's TV show Gilligan's Island. AND SURPRISE DAWN WELLS was a guest on channel2 on SHEENA METAL show same time as our show.

Accent ON! TV the Best Of Poland and Europe host Ilona Europa and our co-host Marek Bacik interview with guest Corby Waste Mission Artist who shared with us his interesting life story. Also he told us about December visit at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab aka JPL from his friend actress Dawn Wells who played Mary Ann on the 1960's TV show Gilligan's Island. AND SURPRISE DAWN WELLS was a guest on channel2 on SHEENA METAL show same time as our show.

Accent ON! host Ilona Europa interview with guest Corby Waste Mission Artist who shared with us his very interesting and out of the space life story. Also he told us about December visit at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab aka JPL from his friend actress Dawn Wells who played Mary Ann on the 1960's TV show Gilligan's Island. AND SURPRISE DAWN WELLS was a guest on channel2 on SHEENA METAL show same time as our show.

Greetings, Captains! You're listening to Episode 150 of Priority One Podcast (that's right, 150!)- the premier Star Trek Online podcast! This episode was recorded live on TrekRadio.net on Thursday, November 14th, 2013 and published for download on Monday, November 18th at PriorityOnePodcast.com! That's right, Captains, 150 episodes, the big one-five-oh, and we couldn't have done it without your support! Unfortunately James got a little too into the celebratory mood with the Cardassian Canar, and so Tony and Elijah take the helm whilst wearing party hats! We celebrate this milestone episode with plenty of special guests & plenty of content! This week we Trek Out the science behind a Dyson Sphere when NASA Jet Propulsion Lab’s scientist, Dr. Robert Hurt joins us again on Priority One Podcast. In STO News, Season 8 has finally hit Holodeck, and we’ll be giving you our first-impressions of the new content. Several Dev Blogs have been published as well (19, 20, 21 and 22) - so we’ll be highlighting those for you too! Later, we’re joined by Star Trek Online’s Community Manager, Brandon “Branflakes” Feltzer to share his insights on community feedback for Season 8, and of course as always, we’ll open hailing frequencies and see what’s incoming from you, our lovely listeners. Are you awesome at articulation? Brilliant at blogging? Crazy for creating content? Then join our team! Email us at incoming@priorityonepodcast.com Topics Discussed Mac Client Open Beta Now Live Free Solanae Tribble Lifetime Sale, New Vet Rewards ARC Development Upate #2 Season 8, Dev Blog 19 Season 8, Dev Blog 20 Season 8, Dev Blog 21 Season 8, Dev Blog 22 Season 8 Patch Notes This Week's Community Questions What is your idea for a feature that Perfect World could build into ARC that might make it a more acceptable - or even useful - addition to your gaming experience? What are your thoughts on the new Federation tutorial? Do you think it remedies the barrier to entry for incoming players? Does it do a good job of teaching game-mechanics whilst immersing you in the Star Trek mythos? Captains, what do you think of the new Voth Bastion Cruiser? Is this a ship you want to fly? Is it more attractive than the other available Flight-Deck ships in-game? Let us know your thoughts in the comments! We are Live on TrekRadio.net every Thursday at 10pm ET / 7pm PT! If you’d like to join us live, during the show, Trek Radio has a built in IRC Chat client. Just click on the Community menu tab and select IRC Chat - input your desired screen name and enter! The Priority One Network is always looking for new team members that have a passion for Star Trek. Please know that all of our positions are volunteer, but we do offer a well known outlet for your work. If you have a particular skill that you believe could enhance our content, then send your contact information and experience along with a few writing samples to incoming@priorityonepodcast.com Did you miss any of our great Blogs last week? Stop by this link and see for yourself! How about our latest Video Release? You can also follow us on the social media sites! We’re on Facebook! Head over to www.facebook.com/PriorityOnePodcast and say, "Hi!" Or, Check us out on Twitter via @stopriorityone for show times and other cool stuff. Liked this episode? Totally hated it? Leave a comment below, Contact Us using our handy web form or leave your comments on the STO Forum thread for Episode 149! Enjoy the show!

Greetings, Captains! You're listening to Episode 150 of Priority One Podcast (that's right, 150!)- the premier Star Trek Online podcast! This episode was recorded live on TrekRadio.net on Thursday, November 14th, 2013 and published for download on Monday, November 18th at PriorityOnePodcast.com! That's right, Captains, 150 episodes, the big one-five-oh, and we couldn't have done it without your support! Unfortunately James got a little too into the celebratory mood with the Cardassian Canar, and so Tony and Elijah take the helm whilst wearing party hats! We celebrate this milestone episode with plenty of special guests & plenty of content! This week we Trek Out the science behind a Dyson Sphere when NASA Jet Propulsion Lab's scientist, Dr. Robert Hurt joins us again on Priority One Podcast. In STO News, Season 8 has finally hit Holodeck, and we'll be giving you our first-impressions of the new content. Several Dev Blogs have been published as well (19, 20, 21 and 22) - so we'll be highlighting those for you too! Later, we're joined by Star Trek Online's Community Manager, Brandon “Branflakes” Feltzer to share his insights on community feedback for Season 8, and of course as always, we'll open hailing frequencies and see what's incoming from you, our lovely listeners. Are you awesome at articulation? Brilliant at blogging? Crazy for creating content? Then join our team! Email us at incoming@priorityonepodcast.com Topics Discussed Mac Client Open Beta Now Live Free Solanae Tribble Lifetime Sale, New Vet Rewards ARC Development Upate #2 Season 8, Dev Blog 19 Season 8, Dev Blog 20 Season 8, Dev Blog 21 Season 8, Dev Blog 22 Season 8 Patch Notes This Week's Community Questions What is your idea for a feature that Perfect World could build into ARC that might make it a more acceptable - or even useful - addition to your gaming experience? What are your thoughts on the new Federation tutorial? Do you think it remedies the barrier to entry for incoming players? Does it do a good job of teaching game-mechanics whilst immersing you in the Star Trek mythos? Captains, what do you think of the new Voth Bastion Cruiser? Is this a ship you want to fly? Is it more attractive than the other available Flight-Deck ships in-game? Let us know your thoughts in the comments! We are Live on TrekRadio.net every Thursday at 10pm ET / 7pm PT! If you'd like to join us live, during the show, Trek Radio has a built in IRC Chat client. Just click on the Community menu tab and select IRC Chat - input your desired screen name and enter! The Priority One Network is always looking for new team members that have a passion for Star Trek. Please know that all of our positions are volunteer, but we do offer a well known outlet for your work. If you have a particular skill that you believe could enhance our content, then send your contact information and experience along with a few writing samples to incoming@priorityonepodcast.com Did you miss any of our great Blogs last week? Stop by this link and see for yourself! How about our latest Video Release? You can also follow us on the social media sites! We're on Facebook! Head over to www.facebook.com/PriorityOnePodcast and say, "Hi!" Or, Check us out on Twitter via @stopriorityone for show times and other cool stuff. Liked this episode? Totally hated it? Leave a comment below, Contact Us using our handy web form or leave your comments on the STO Forum thread for Episode 149! Enjoy the show!

Veronica McGregor, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab’s News & Social Media Manager, is my guest this week on the Inside Social Media podcast, as my journey to connect with the biggest brands in the world and share with you how you can model and adapt their social media insights and strategies continues. Click to Listen Click here to subscribe... The post ISM 030: Bringing Personality to Your Social Media with NASA Jet Propulsion Lab’s Veronica McGregor appeared first on RickMulready.com.

Veronica McGregor, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab’s News & Social Media Manager, is my guest this week on the Inside Social Media podcast, as my journey to connect with the biggest brands in the world and share with you how you can model and adapt their social media insights and strategies continues. Click to Listen Click here to subscribe […] The post ISM 030: Bringing Personality to Your Social Media with NASA Jet Propulsion Lab’s Veronica McGregor appeared first on Rick Mulready.

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Helen Greiner Co-founder and Chairman of the Board, iRobot Corp. Date: June 11, 2007 NCWIT Interview with Helen Greiner BIO: In the early days of iRobot Corp. (Nasdaq:IRBT), co-founder and Chairman of the Board Helen Greiner envisioned robots as the basis for an entirely new class of products that would improve life by taking on dangerous and undesirable tasks. Greiner's vision has been brought to life by products such as the iRobot Roomba® Vacuuming Robot, which has sold more than 2 million units to consumers throughout the world, and the iRobot PackBot® Tactical Mobile Robot, which is helping to save soldiers' lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Greiner's nearly 20 years in robot innovation and commercialization includes work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, where she met iRobot co-founders Colin Angle and Rodney Brooks. Before founding iRobot in 1990, Greiner founded California Cybernetics, a company focused on commercializing NASA Jet Propulsion Lab technology and performing government-sponsored research in robotics. Greiner holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a master's degree in computer science, both from MIT. In 2005, she led iRobot through its initial public offering. She also guided iRobot's early strategic corporate growth initiatives by securing $35 million in venture funding to finance iRobot's expansion in the consumer and military categories. In addition, Greiner created iRobot's Government & Industrial Robots division - starting with government research funding leading to the first deployment of robots in combat in Operation Enduring Freedom. Currently, the division is shipping iRobot PackBot robots for improvised explosive device (IED) disposal in Iraq. In part because of the success of these initiatives, Greiner has helped enhance public acceptance of robots as one of today's most important emerging technology categories. Greiner was named by the Kennedy School at Harvard in conjunction with US News and World Report as one of America's Best Leaders and was recently honored with the Pioneer Award from the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) in appreciation for her work in military robotics. Greiner has been honored by the World Economic Forum as both a Global Leader for Tomorrow and a Young Global Leader. In 2005 Good Housekeeping Magazine named her "Entrepreneur of the Year," and Accenture honored her as "Small Business Icon" in its Government Women Leadership Awards. In 2003, Greiner was recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of its "Top 10 Innovators of 2003" and named the Ernst and Young New England "Entrepreneur of the Year" with cofounder Colin Angle. Greiner won the prestigious "DEMO God" award at the DEMO 2000 Conference. In 1999, she was named an "Innovator for the Next Century" by Technology Review Magazine. Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders. I am the CEO of the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT. This is part of a series of interviews that we are having with fabulous IT entrepreneurs, women who have started IT companies in a variety of different sectors, all of whom have absolutely fabulous stories to tell us about being entrepreneurs. With me doing these interviews is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. How are you? Larry Nelson: Well, hello. Boy, am I happy to be here. Lucy: Why don't you tell us a little bit about w3w3 because these will be podcasts on w3w3 as well as on the NCWIT website. Larry: Well, just briefly, we started in 1998 before anybody knew what radio on the Internet was all about. And finally we learned a number of interesting lessons. We started doing podcasting a little over a year ago, so that's a big leap since then. We have been very fortunate to have a number of interviews with top‑notch heavy hitters, but after I saw the list that Lucy put together I was just absolutely stunned. Lucy: To really just get right to it, the person we are interviewing today is Helen Greiner. She is the co‑founder and chairwoman of iRobot. I have to admit up front that I am an iRobot stockholder, and Helen knows I am one of her best salespeople ‑‑ maybe not her best sales person but certainly one of her salespeople. Helen Greiner: I hope you are not just a stockholder, but I hope you are also a Roomba owner. Lucy: I am a Roomba owner. It's getting double duty now because we're doing a kitchen renovation, and we set it loose in the house at night to pick up all the dust and stuff so it's getting a workout, Helen. Helen: You'll be needing the Dirt Dog model for wash ups and construction areas. Lucy: Absolutely. Larry: We're going to have to have a link to all of these on the website. Lucy: Absolutely. We are really happy to have you here, Helen. We are really looking forward to talking to you about entrepreneurship. Larry: You know, I can't help but wonder: we have four daughters, and how did you, Helen, get really involved and interested in technology? Helen: Well, I think this is a common story in technology, but I was inspired by science fiction. I went to see "Star Wars" when I was 11 on the big screen, and I was enthralled by R2‑D2 because he was a character. He had a personality and a gender, and he was more than a machine. I was inspired to start thinking about, can you build something like that? As I was hacking on my little TSR 80 personal computer, obviously I had no idea just how complex it would be. Lucy: What are you thinking about those new mailboxes that are R2‑D2 mailboxes, Helen? Helen: I think they're pretty damn cool. Lucy: I think it's pretty cool. As a technologist you obviously look at a lot of different technologies. I am sure you have some on your radar screen that you think are particularly cool and compelling. Maybe you could share some of those with us. Helen: Well, of course, the coolest is robots because they are just on the cusp of adoption today. Other than the robots and ones that very well might feed into the robot, are large scale memories, multiple core processors, cameras on cell phones. Technologies as they go to mass market are getting cheaper and cheaper which enables them to be bringing them into other applications, like on the robots. Larry: I just want to make sure that the listeners do understand that you are talking about robots everywhere from the kitchen to Iraq. Helen: Yes. We have over two million Roombas out there in people's homes doing the floor sweeping and vacuuming. We have a floor washing robot, the Scooba, that you just leave on your floor and when you come back it's clean. We have a robot for the work shop called the Dirt Dog, and what most people don't realize is we also sell a line of robots for the military. Our Packbot model was used for the first time in cave clearing in Afghanistan and now is being used for bomb disposal over in Iraq. One of the neat new developments we have is we just put out a version of this with a bomb sniffing payload, so it can actually go out and find improvised explosive devices. Lucy: Well, I've heard you speak about the robots over in Iraq, and it's very compelling to know that we can use technology like this to really go on these types of missions instead of our young men and our young women. Helen: The robots allow a soldier to stay at a safe, standoff distance. He doesn't have to go into unnecessary danger. Lucy: Right. Helen: Our servicemen and women, you know, are exposed to a lot of danger when you send them to roadside bombs when a robot could do the job instead. We think that's really something that should be changed quickly, and it has changed very rapidly. Just two years ago they would suit up a soldier in a bomb suit and send them down range, and now you have to get permission to do that. The common operating procedure is to send a robot into the danger. Larry: That sounds like iRobot is doing everything from saving backs in kitchens to saving lives in dangerous situations. Let me see if I can migrate to the entrepreneur part of you. What is it that made you become, or why are you an entrepreneur? Helen: I was deeply interested in making robots into an industry. People have been talking about robots. They have been in science fiction for decades and decades. Yet, when I started in this field I looked around and there were very few robots that people could actually purchase and could actually use. When I was at the university at MIT the people worked on wonderful robot projects. It was really, really cool technology, but when the PhD got done or when the project ended, all of it would kind of stop and then somebody would start a new project potentially building on some of the results. But the actual robot that was built. many times progress stopped on it. Just like the computer industry, I believe it takes a company that can reinvest some of the profits back into the next generation and the next improvements on the products that really has started the industry to take off. Lucy: Well next the definition that I carry in my head of true innovation is taking research and the types of projects you are talking about, Helen, and driving them out into the consumer space and into the mass market. That is what innovation is all about. Larry: You bet. By the way, what is it about being an entrepreneur, what is it that makes you tick and turns you on as an entrepreneur? Helen: Being an entrepreneur is creating something out of nothing. You know, when you start it, it's all consuming. It takes your whole focus. It is very compelling to me. I tend to be someone who when they jump into something they jump into it with absolutely full force, and it allowed me to learn so much along the way. Everything from how to hire people, how to apply for and win a military research contract, how to raise venture capital, how to set up a management structure and, very recently, how to take a company public. Lucy: Helen, tell us, obviously, entrepreneurship makes you tick. You love to create things from nothing, and along the way as you chose this career path, who influenced you? What kind of mentors did you have? Helen: I have had a lot of advisors who I could talk to about the different stages of the business, and that's been an incredible gift. That is one of the most valuable things you can give: the benefit of your own experience. Early on I was influenced by my dad having founded a company, so entrepreneurship was part of my culture growing up. Larry: So, it's not genetic. It's part of the culture, right? Helen: I believe that. Larry: You, I'm sure, like all of us entrepreneurs ‑‑ you know, Pat and I, we have been in business together and entrepreneurs for over 30 years. There are a lot of bumps and things along the road. What would be some of the most challenging things that you have experienced? Helen: Well, iRobot has been in business for 17 years, and it's a lot different company today than when we founded it. Early on, this was a bootstrap company, credit cards filled to the max. Larry: So you made money right away? Helen: Yeah. Larry: You were profitable right away? Yeah. Lucy: Like many of us. Helen: No, we really had a bumpy beginning because in part the technology wasn't ready yet upon time. So we came up with a method to develop the technology and to develop business plans so when the opportunity was right we could capitalize on it. Lucy: So, as we shift a little bit now toward the future entrepreneurs, if you were giving advise to people about entrepreneurship, young people, about the career path you have chosen being an entrepreneur, what would you tell them? What advice would you give them? Helen: I would say, definitely do it, because it's probably one of the most rewarding career paths you can take. One of the most challenging, but one of the most rewarding. I would say very strongly, don't do it like we did it at iRobot. IRobot, we didn't do it with a business plan. We didn't start a real crisp idea of what these robots would used for. We basically started with the future of the technology and it happens to have worked for us, but it was a long haul in the early years. I think if I had it to do over again, it would be done a lot more efficiently. Larry: When did you finally get the real management team put together? Helen: In 1998 we decided to take venture capital for the first time. And that was a big decision because that's what took it from being more of a lifestyle company, somewhat of a research lab. Folks were building any kind of robot, because they were passionate about it. Some of them are quite frankly cool to a real business concern. You could almost consider the company a re‑start in 1998. It only took the first venture capital, which allowed us to invest in the management team and take it to the next level. Also to invest in our own product lines, rather than relying on government contracts coming in or strategic relationships with larger companies. Larry: Well, you have been very passionate about iRobots and you've also been very humble in terms of what you have done, what you have been through. What are some of the characteristics that maybe have been a benefit to you in becoming a successful entrepreneur? Helen: I'd say the biggest one is persistence. There will always be speed bumps along the way. And generally being able to say, OK, I might not have the solution to this problem right now, but I know that there's a way. And either by talking to people, getting advice, by brainstorming with people, by being creative, by thinking out of the box. There is always a way to get through any problem that presents itself. It's takes persistence to do that because you will get knocked quite a few times along the road. Being able to pick yourself up, dust off and say, I learned from that experience, I won't do it again. We don't look at anything at iRobot as failed. This got us to the next step and the next step was different, but they were all stepping‑stones to where we are today. And many of them were necessary. Larry: I have heard that persistence is omnipotence. Lucy: Sometime we refer to it as relentlessness. Larry: Oh, is that what that is. Lucy: Yes. I also have to say something about Helen how and just as a sidebar: Helen gives one of the best talks on robotics I have ever seen. Helen, your talk at the Grace Harper Conference was outrageously good. Helen: Oh, well I appreciate that. One of the things that I would like for folks listening to know that it is important to be able to grab the microphone and get your message across. My personal background is: I was extremely shy, terribly afraid of public speaking. You know, reports that people who would rather do anything else sometimes than get up in front of a group of people and speak. I was one of those people. It doesn't come naturally to me. But I recognized that it was important in getting the message of the company across. I really worked on how to improve and just by taking speaking opportunities I got better and better at it. Which doesn't mean I will ever be a natural just really, really want to jump out and do it. If I can do it, anybody can learn to be a better public speaker. So they can take advantage of the opportunities to get their message out that it provides. Larry: It might not be natural but you certainly are unique and passionate. Lucy: The best talk I've heard, a mix of computer science and business and humor, it's wonderful. Helen: That is very nice of you. It means a lot because I did have to work harder than people who are naturals, "Yes, I want the mike!" Lucy: One of the things that our listeners will be interested in. The entrepreneurial life is a tough life. It is a lot of work and yet it is important to bring balance between our personal lives and our professional lives. So what kinds of hints do you have to pass along? Helen: I don't think I'm a shining example of balance in my life, but I can say the philosophy I've always had is: work hard, play hard. So, when I do take off from iRobot, being able to go out snowboarding, being able to tight‑board, being able to go scuba diving. I'm just learning how to tight‑board. I have a goal to learn one new sport each year, because it's good to take up something new and to me I like doing it in the athletic arena. Lucy: Well, it sounds like fun to me. Larry: Lucy likes to go out there and jog every day after... Lucy: Well, you're right I'm not that good at it either, but I still get out there. Larry: I can't help but ask this. You know, you have had a very exciting and challenging ‑‑ and obviously with the persistence and the talent ‑‑ you really accomplished a great deal. I know you want to accomplish a great deal more with iRobot. What's next for you? Helen: Well, the challenges that iRobot faces today are different than when we were a start up company. Now we have over 350 people. In 2006 we did just about $189 million in revenues and now it's about making the organization click, to function as a team, and making sure that things work like clockwork at the organization, while still keeping that innovative flair, so you can get the next generation of products into the pipeline. Lucy: So, I have to ask, just because I love iRobot so much, what's the next great product? Can you spill the beans? Helen: I can't tell you what the next consumer robot products are, but on the military side, we have a hugely exciting robot that can run over 12 miles an hour, that can carry a soldier's pack. It's got a manipulator on it that can pick up a Howitzer shell. That thing picked me up the other day. Lucy: Oh. Larry: Wow. Helen: We're very excited to get that type of capability also into hands of our soldiers. Lucy: Wow, that's pretty exciting. Larry: Nothing like getting picked up. Boy, that's for sure. Lucy: I don't know what I would do if a robot picked me up, but I guess one of these days maybe we'll experience ‑‑ we'll get you to bring that to one of our meetings, Helen. That would be very cool. Larry: I'd love a picture of that for the website. Lucy: Yeah, thank you. OK. Larry: Helen, I want to thank you so much for joining us. We are so excited about this program. When we get to talk to people like you with your background and your experience, it makes it just that much more exciting and motivating to a number of young people. Helen: Well, I appreciate it. Lucy: Well, and we want everybody to know where they can find these podcasts. They are accessible on the NCWIT website at ww.NCWIT.org And along with the podcast, his information about entrepreneurism and how people can be more involved as entrepreneurs and also get resources on the web and also from other organizations, should they be interested. Larry: Yes, and thank you for all of the great hints and probably more than that, some really golden nuggets in there. One that's sticking out in my mind right now is the mass‑market adoption. I guess that is what we all want to charge for. Helen: It's not where we started out, but it is where we're fully focused at. Lucy: Well, thank you very much. Helen: OK, thank you. Have a good one. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Helen GreinerInterview Summary: Helen Greiner is co-founder and Chairman of the Board of iRobot Corp., maker of the Roomba® Vacuuming Robot (over 2M units sold) and the iRobot PackBot® Tactical Mobile Robot, which deactivates mines in Iraq and Afghanistan. Release Date: June 11, 2007Interview Subject: Helen GrenierInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 15:30