Web Inspirations

This month, Elon Musk‘s SpaceX launched the most powerful and first reusable space rockets with Buzz Aldrin watching from the Apollo 11 launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. People have already put down a deposit for a trip around the moon, and plans for a Mars colony in the 2020s. Musk announced in December that the Tesla Roadster will head to Mars, playing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” on full blast the whole way there. Keeping with the Bowie-inspired theme to this mission, Musk nicknamed the dummy “Starman” after Bowie’s 1972 hit. In the car, you can spot the phrase, “Don’t Panic!” — a line from Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” It’s true that the “Starman” was aboard the February 6th launch of rocket “Falcon” named in honor of the “Millennium Falcon” from Star Wars. Is he a multi-faceted freaking geek like me or what? Amazing stuff!

With over a billion dollars in funding, I feel big things coming from Magic Leap this year. Mixed reality (or AR) is ready to make a big splash. Having recently been blown away by the potential of VR. AR is where the future lies with most. I could not be more excited when people start experiencing it. Here is a fully working demo from over a year ago.

Apple Park in itself is a marvel of modern architecture and tech. As it becomes fully operational this spring with 12,000 employees (second only to the Pentagon), an interesting flaw was discovered in its design.

Digging into Van Anden lineage, New York Dutch from my mom’s side. I discovered I may have a Scottish great, great, grandmother who survived both Boers wars in Africa, had six children in the 19th century and raised my grandfather in New York after his parents died. Presumably from the wars. I’m thinking she fled the Orange Free State in Africa to the US around the turn of the 20th century. There is a pic of an unknown young lady named Elizabeth Hammond from the nineteen century that seems curious. This research comes courtesy of my cousin Keith and a conversation with a Jason Van Anden from New York City, all from social media. My twin sister Victoria is sending me notes my mother left, just before she passed on. Can’t wait to dig more into it!

Finally, I may have found a nice companion to Wall-e in my new office. Classicbot comes complete with a font suitcase and the first consumer mouse companion.