Geek Gestalt

The Cray X1E at Oak Ridge National Lab's supercomputer facility is the 175th most powerful computer in the world and the No. 1 vector supercomputer on Earth.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

OAK RIDGE, Tenn.--If you want to see someone's face light up, try talking to a scientist in a supercomputer lab about their machines.

I had that experience last week when, as the last major stop on Road Trip 2008, I visited the National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at the Oak Ridge National Lab to get a quick look at what is certainly one of the top facilities of its kind in the world.

My host was computational scientist Bronson Messer, and during a whirlwind tour of the center, he showed me several of the world's most powerful computers.

Oak Ridge National Lab, which is a Department of Energy research center not far from Knoxville, Tenn., is probably most famous for being the place where the first plutonium was processed for the Manhattan Project during World War II. But these days, it is a hotbed of research into materials sciences, energy efficiency and, of course, supercomputing.

A look inside one of the many panels of the Cray X1E at the Oak Ridge National Lab supercomputer facility.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Messer explained that the NCCS is a "user facility," meaning that it is designed for open scientific research by just about anyone who wants to use it. That means, practically speaking, ... Read more

VICE, from Dynamic Animations System, gives Army recruits a way to learn how to handle themselves in combat situations before they venture onto physical training grounds. Those who have gone through the VICE training seem to do better than those who haven't in head-to-head situations.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Updated at 8:20 p.m. PDT to correct name of the M1A1 trainer to Abrams.

FORT BENNING, Ga.--There must be a million ways the U.S. Army trains its newest infantry recruits, but when CNET News.com comes to town to do a story, the service rolls out the latest digital simulators.

Not long after I arrived at this giant military installation near Columbus, Ga., for one of my last stops on Road Trip 2008, I was escorted into a building to see VICE, the Virtual Interactive Combat Environment trainer. It's a system from Dynamic Animation Systems that puts recruits through what the Army hopes is a realistic set of battle-like exercises designed to get them ready for physical training later on.

It's hard not to mistake VICE for a big video game, since it runs on several large digital screens on which you can see animated battles that would look very familiar to anyone familiar with most any modern war game, especially those that are multiplayer.

When I walked in the room, a squad of soldiers was playing with VICE, each one with their own station.

The idea is that a drill sergeant ... Read more

Darryl Cannon of Killboy.com takes thousands of pictures daily of drivers and motorcyclists on U.S. Route 129 on the Tennessee/North Carolina border. The road is popular, especially with motorcyclists, and Cannon and others in his company make full-time livings selling the images they take. At least three other operations do the same thing in the area.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

FONTANA VILLAGE, N.C.--If you've got a fancy digital SLR and have been wondering how you could make money with it, I might have just the suggestion for you.

Head on out to the border region between Tennessee and North Carolina, just on the edge of Great Smoky Mountain National Park. There, you'll find a never-ending supply of people riding their motorcycles and driving their cars along one of the most famous and beloved stretches of road in the South.

Known as "The Dragon," the road is a longtime favorite, especially among motorcyclists, and hundreds, if not thousands, of people navigate its windy curves every day.

As a result, people like Darryl Cannon of Killboy.com have proliferated. They park their cars at strategic curves in the road where they can shoot pictures of drivers coming from either direction, and then they sell the drivers--at least some of them--the pictures.

And how?

At first, as I drove along this stretch of highway as part of Road Trip 2008, I was confused as to what was going on. But after seeing two such ... Read more

The six Blue Angels F-18s fly together in perfect formation during a practice performance at their home base in Pensacola, Fla.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

PENSACOLA, Fla.--If you've ever watched a Blue Angels show, you may not have known that when the F-18 pilots are screaming across the sky, less than 2 feet apart, they're probably not looking straight ahead.

Rather, they're most likely looking sideways at the fighter just off their side, ensuring that they know exactly where it is as they rocket forward at several hundred miles per hour.

That seems like a smart thing, even though it is kind of disconcerting to think the pilots aren't exactly looking where they're going, since no one wants these high-performance jets touching while in flight.

This week, as part of my Road Trip 2008 project, I stopped in at Naval Air Station Pensacola here for a chance to watch the Blue Angels practice their demonstration show from way up close.

In fact, when I was planning Road Trip 2008 and found out the Blue Angels are based in Pensacola, I rearranged the entire second half of the journey to attend one of the practices, which happen on a few specific dates in between the air shows all over the country.

I was invited to watch the show from the flight line, meaning I was able to get much closer than the public gets for the practices. This was nice since, while I'... Read more

This newly constructed levee protects an affluent neighborhood of New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain, which is just across the street. The levee is made out of a thick clay and will be seeded with grass in order to help prevent erosion of the wall by water that might overtop the levee in the case of a major storm surge.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

NEW ORLEANS--When I wrote Wednesday that large parts of this city are still severely damaged from Hurricane Katrina and, in some cases, potentially beyond recovery, I didn't want to leave the impression that nothing is being done to protect against the next big hurricane.

In fact, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is putting large sums of money and significant effort into helping to reduce the risk that a future storm of Katrina's magnitude will inundate New Orleans.

All told, the Corps of Engineers here are working to fix and/or replace 220 miles of levees and floodwalls; build new flood gates and pump stations at the mouths of three outfall canals; and strengthen existing walls and levees at important points. More than $1.2 billion worth of contracts have been awarded for such work.

Of course, the Corps wants New Orleans' residents to know that nothing it can do will guarantee their protection. In fact, Corps public information officer Randall Cephus told me that the agency's efforts have been rebranded as risk management rather than hurricane protection because of a ... Read more

Despite media reports that New Orleans is recovering nicely from Hurricane Katrina, there are still parts of town--like the poverty-stricken Lower Ninth Ward--where recovery is far from the reality. Instead, condemned houses like this one, or entirely overgrown lots, are the norm.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

NEW ORLEANS--Don't let anyone ever tell you that New Orleans is doing just fine three years after Hurricane Katrina.

Sure, it's true that some areas of the city, like the French Quarter or the Garden District, seem back to normal, with swarms of tourists, drinks flowing, and the leisurely pace and laid-back attitude the city is famous for on full display. And it's also true that there are parts of town where you'd never know anything bad happened.

But in the Lower Ninth Ward, the poverty-stricken part of New Orleans that took the biggest hit from the 2005 storm and the floods that followed, a sign I saw on Sunday perhaps sums up exactly what is going on there:

"Tourist," the sign exhorts, "Shame on you, driving by without stopping. Paying to see my pain. 1,600+ died here."

This sign, in the Lower Ninth Ward, is aimed at tourists who come through the neighborhood on bus tours and is meant to remind those visitors that Hurricane Katrina exacted a horrible human cost that was largely paid by residents of poor areas like this.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

The truth is, the Lower Ninth Ward ... Read more

Road Trip 2008 reached exactly 3,000 miles outside the boyhood home of music legend Hank Williams, Sr., in Georgiana, Ala.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

GEORGIANA, Ala.--After hitting both 1,000 miles and 2,000 miles on the dot at nondescript spots on Interstate highways, I finally had a chance to reach a milestone at somewhere meaningful.

As the odometer on the Subaru Outback 2.5 XT that I'm driving around in on Road Trip 2008 approached 3,000 miles, I saw a sign for the Hank Williams Sr. Boyhood Home and Museum.

Of course, I was tooling along on Interstate 65, heading toward Montgomery, Ala., on my way to Columbus, Ga., when I saw the sign.

Thinking that this was a chance to reach 3,000 miles at a significant place rather than on the shoulder of the highway, I took the exit and pointed myself toward the museum.

Quickly, though, I realized that the mileage wasn't going to work out exactly right. So, dear readers, in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit right here that in order to achieve what I finally did--hitting 3,000 miles on the dot just outside the museum--I had to drive around this little Alabama town for a few miles, my eye on the odometer, to make sure it worked out as I planned.

In other words, I cheated. Ah, well. What we'll do for round numbers.

It's not the first time I've ... Read more

The Crossroads, where legendary bluesman Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the devil in return for his musical talent, is at the intersection of US-61 and US-49 in Clarksdale, Miss.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

CLARKSDALE, Miss.--When in Rome, as they say.

As part of Road Trip 2008, my journey through the South in search of several weeks' worth of stories, I had accepted an invitation to come to this tiny town in northwest Mississippi for the opportunity to visit one of the most important Blues clubs in the country.

It turns out that the club, the Ground Zero Blues Club, is co-owned by actor Morgan Freeman and the father of a friend of mine. Lured by the opportunity to talk with the two of them about airplanes--since I'd heard that Freeman and his business partner were avid pilots--I'd not really thought too much about the Blues.

The truth is, I'm not much of a Blues aficionado. To be sure, I've seen a few shows in my day: B.B. King in Jerusalem; John Lee Hooker once or twice; and a couple of other concerts. And I'd certainly listened to my share of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The stage at the Ground Zero Blue Club in Clarksdale, Miss. The club is home to nightly Blues shows and is co-owned by attorney Bill Luckett and actor Morgan Freeman.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

But when I planned to come to ... Read more

For my video shooting needs on Road Trip 2008, I used Qik's software on a Nokia N95 phone and a Flip Video Mino.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

CLARKSDALE, Miss.--As I've worked my way through the South on Road Trip 2008 throughout June, I've been a one-man multimedia production team. That means that I've been writing stories, taking pictures, Twittering, shooting video, and even doing a little podcasting.

Since I'm on my own, and can only carry a backpack with me as I move from story to story, carrying a notebook, a digital SLR, and several lenses--since text and photos are the major part of this project--it's crucial that for video I have something small and light, yet flexible and somewhat powerful.

And most important of all, it's got to be easy to take video and then easily embed it in blogs.

That's what led me to Qik's streaming video service and to Flip Video's Mino.

These are entirely different products, the former a software package that runs on a series of smart phones and the latter a small, low-fi, but low-cost camcorder.

With Qik, the special sauce is its ability to take video and stream it instantly--when there's a 3G cellular or accessible Wi-Fi signal available--and live, onto a Web-based Qik channel and, if you set one up, to an embedded video player that can be put on almost any site.

Even better, if you're ... Read more

This is the flight control room used for the Gemini 3 and Gemini 4 missions, as well as for most of the manned Apollo missions, including the first to the moon, Apollo 11, and Apollo 13. It is now a Historical Landmark.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

HOUSTON--"Houston, we have a problem."

If there is a five-word phrase more recognizable than that in the annals of modern science or space exploration, I want to hear it.

For my entire life, the "Houston" in that phrase was an abstract term, a reference to a disembodied place where people wield God-like powers--or don't, as the case may be--over the astronauts who were themselves abstract to me. I'd never seen them, and I wasn't old enough to have watched any of the mythical rocket launches prior to the Space Shuttle.

But earlier this week, I finally was able to put a face to this "Houston" name. That's because, as part of Road Trip 2008, I spent a big part of a day at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) here, the very center of everything in that science-fictional image of space exploration.

Today, JSC is in the middle of preparing for one of the biggest transformations that exists in the space business: the roll-over from one major program to the next. That's exactly what's under way, in one form or another, here and at every other NASA center, as the agency begins to move from ... Read more