The original article is on IndiaTimes here.

Mistry demonstrates some amazing technology including projector and camera systems that the user can wear transforming any flat surface into a computer system. He started by pulling apart 2 ball-based mice and transforming their physical rollers with some string and springs into a gesture based input device. You know those wearable gloves that let people manipulate 3D objects on a computer? Yeah, that – from spare parts!

If Mistry can bring this kind of tech to live, then we’re going to be living in some amazing times. What’s cool is that Mistry and his team have actually developed this tech. It’s not just theory, but actually working! He even plays PONG! on the floor of a subway. He’s promised to release the open source code to all of his development, which means just about anyone could pick it up, build on it and start releasing consumer products for a fraction of the cost.

Thanks to Susan and Pardeep for sharing this with me.

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So Chris and I are big fans of the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory with Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons. I haven’t mentioned it before for some reason, but it’s true. We have seen every episode, we have Seasons one and two on our phones etc. I love being able to say we have 2 seasons of a TV show on our PHONE! 2010 rocks tech geek hard.

I’ve downloaded the theme song from The Big Bang Theory partly because it’s fun, but also because it’s by Barenaked Ladies! There’s way more than the first 30 seconds we hear on the show each week.

The cast is a great ensemble with the aforementioned Parsons and Galecki, joined by Kaley Cuoco (8 Simple Rules), Simon Helberg (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) and Kunal Nayyar (um, he’s new). They’ve done some great stunt casting ranging from Summer Glau through Wil Wheaton to Stan Lee.

Stan Lee was the guest star last night making a special appearance at the boy’s favorite comic store. Must be nice to be in L.A.

My favorite part of the show was the beginning when Raj was wearing his Personal Soundtrack Shirt. It was pretty geek-cool and it’s real!

Basically it’s a t-shirt with a speaker in the middle, and a remote control. it comes pre-loaded with a variety of music and sounds, but it also has an SD slot to let you load it with just about any sound or song you can think of!

You really can have your own personal soundtrack to life. Raj plays everything from Darth Vader’s theme to the Jeopardy theme. He also punctuates with a buzzer and the “duh duh” sound from Law & Order! It’s awesome.

If I don’t get one of these for my birthday I’ll just have to find a way to go on with out it.

However, if you want one for yourself, or someone you like, simply click here to buy one from ThinkGeek.com

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Anybody who knows me even a bit knows I’ve got a Starbucks addiction, but I’m trying to kick it.

In Downtown Vancouver, there is a Starbucks location within a few (read 2) blocks of just about everywhere. In the last 3 places I/We have lived, there’s been one within a block. And there is one within a block of my office.

Seriously, I didn’t plan it, but I think Starbucks did.

A few years ago I went to Yuma, Arizona for Christmas to visit my dad and step-mother and was tired most of the time I was there. I came up with my Starbucks Conspiracy Theory. Basically, the reason I was tired wasn’t that I wasn’t drinking coffee but rather, in Vancouver the air is so saturated with caffeine from one coffee shop or another (Starbucks, Blendz, Cafe D’Artigiano, etc) that you live in an artificially caffeinated state whether you like it or not.

So, this past weekend Starbucks finally released a store locator app for the iPhone into the Canadian iTunes store!

For me, it’s not about locating a store in Vancouver, it’s about remembering which stores are good (clean bathrooms, friendly staff) among the 100s there seem to be downtown.

And of course it will come in handy when we’re out of our comfort zone and I need a fix.

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So, this was the second weekend of the Olympics in Vancouver and things have certainly kicked up a notch or two!

Holy cow it’s so busy everywhere. We spent hours standing in line to see some of the Olympic pavillions or “houses” as they’re called.

By and large, they have NOT been worth the time spent in line. Here’s the ones that we saw and a rating…

• Royal Canadian Mint – 25 minutes for the non-medal line up. Time inside 10 minutes. Rating: 5/10
  We saw the $1,000,000 gold coin, and lifted the gold ingot. Whee!
• Maison Du Quebec – 25 minutes for the lineup before they opened. Time inside 2 minutes. Rating: -50 / 10
  Inside was another line to buy food/drink ($10 for a beer) and an empty stage with the promise of “entertainment” coming up soon. Uh – pass.
• Sotchi House – 2 hour lineup before it opened. We left.
• Ontario House – 2 hour lineup. We’ve been to Ontario, nothing they can do to tart it up will make us stand in line.
• Saskatchewan House – 15 minute line up. We could see it from the minute we got there and we saw it behind us as we left.
  Yes, that’s my take on the “My dog ran away 2 days ago and I could still see him” joke.
• Costco House – not an official house. 5 minutes in line, 2 minute wait for fried “pub” food. Failure to see what the fuss is about. Rating: 7/10, because were were hungry.
• Turner-Rose House – No line-up, good company, cheap food, comfortable surroundings and no crowds. We strongly advise you visit this one. Rating: 10/10

  We also recommend our Welcoming Emissary! He’ll make you feel welcome!

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For the non-techies out there, this website or blog runs on the WordPress platform. WordPress is a tool that makes blogging easier by simplifying a lot of the “tech” bits.

That said, I like my “tech” bits, so I dig a little deeper.

I run several (over 10) WordPress blogs, and even started looking at WordPress MU to build communities.

I also started developing plugins, or add-ons, to give it even more functionality. My first attempt was a good idea, poorly implemented, that I haven’t been back to revisit.

Recently, I’ve been working with a commercial or premium plugin with my friend Alex called Standout Comments and it’s nearly ready. We’ve designed it to be an all-in-one comment plugin with lots of great features for your average site owner, but also for Internet Marketers who want “everything”. It’s not perfect, but it’s “good enough” for a beta release.

Alex has lined up Vancouver blogger and big-man-on-campus, John Chow to help us (awesome) and given a couple of people a private beta copy. I’ve installed it on all of my main blogs (including this one) but am looking for more testers.

You can test Standout Comments in one of 2 ways.

1. Leave comments here and/or tweet about posts using the Tweetback URL provided – this is the function I’ve tested least. Tweetbacks should be tracked and show up in comments automatically.
2. Request a beta copy by leaving a comment below. I’ll take a look at your site and make a decision. Ideally you get a bunch of visitors and comments daily to put the plugin through it’s paces.

Beta testers will get free access to the software when it’s launched.

Vancouver is alive with people. It’s pretty crazy how busy things are. Even tiny hole-in-the-wall places that locals avoid are busy with tourists. And of course the popular places are even busier.

Sunday, Chris and I took advantage of the gorgeous weather (Yep, sunny and warm in February) and took in some of the Olympic sites. We’d been out Saturday but other than Robson Square didn’t “do” anything Olympic.

We went down to the jail cauldron to see what all the fuss was about. Wow, did someone screw that up. “Too keep people safe” they erected an 8 foot security fence over 100 feet away from it, completely obscuring the view. People were climbing on concrete crash barriers to get a 1/2 decent photo that didn’t look like it came from Guantanamo Bay.

We tried to visit the Royal Canadian Mint display, but it was closed for a private function, so we hopped on the Canada Line Skytrain and went to Olympic Village with the intention of taking the Olympic Line train to Granville Island. 45 minute line up. No thanks, so we walked the seawall – a much better choice.

Granville Island is known as “Place de Francophonie” or “The fake French area” during the Olympics. Honestly, I wasn’t feeling it. The eastern end of the island is blocked off and there’s a large area devoted to French culture and displays, but they were pretty uninteresting. I hear Quebec House is worse. That’s for next weekend.

We then did get on the Olympic Line train (courtesy of Bombardier) since there was no lineup to get BACK to the Skytrain. Cool. It was a nice ride, but not all that exciting. The Canada Line Skytrain back to downtown was lined up out of Olympic Village station! What!

So we walked over the Cambie Bridge and Chris got some great photos of the athletes village and Sochi House on False Creek.

We actually forgot we couldn’t get home our usual way from the Cambie Bridge and detoured up Beatty Street past BC Place, Alberta House and the Bell Ice Cube (huh?) and a huge crowd of people gathering around that area.

On the way home, we encountered a fleet of Mini’s that we had seen before. Canon has outfitted a fleet of 12+ Mini’s with camera lenses on top, and for some reason they really intrigue Chris and I.

After 4 hours on our feet and moving constantly, we finally got home and crashed. The dog was happy to have us back.

This week, we’re going to try to get out in the evening and enjoy some of the excitement and crazy during the evening. This will be “tricky” with having the dog at work, and the fact that Chris is working at 6:00am during the Olympics.

On the weekend, we’re hoping to make it to even more venues. Canada House, Northern House and a bunch of province ones too. I’d like to visit Sochi House as it’s supposed to be impressive, but Chris is disinterested. Considering the Russians tried to kill him last time he encountered them, I don’t blame him, so I may have to go with someone else. We’ll see.

Twitter Code Swarm from Ben Sandofsky on Vimeo.

Today marks the 2 week point before the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and the signs are popping up everywhere.

It feels like every open lot or parking area in downtown Vancouver has had a tent or bigger building erected in it and most buildings have had a bit of sprucing up done. Power wash, new signage or paint has really given the downtown a facelift, and it’s quite nice. Too bad it’s probably a one-off. It would be great if the building owners and tenants continued to take this amount of pride in their appearance.

Too many buildings in downtown (business mostly) look like they were nice about 10-20 years ago, but the owners forgot you can still buy paint, or hire a pressure washer for a few bucks. With the annual Vancouver Rains buildings get this dirty streaking where the water runs down and very few people ever clean it up.

There’s a travel office 2 doors from my office (Creatively named ABC Travel) who have been getting a facelift. What was once an older building with classic features is being updated to be a nice fully-glassed in front. Very modern/contemporary. Unfortunately the business inside hasn’t caught up. They moved in 2 years ago (moving down 4 doors) and the place is a disaster. I swear all they did was carry everyone’s desks covered in years of detritus down and drop them in. So here’s this lovely new glass front, giving you a nice view into a filthy, messy, dark office full of desks covered in 5 year old travel brochures.

Meanwhile, outside our home here on Abbott Street, we’ve finally been cut off from the rest of the city. Well, mostly.

When I took Rumble out for his nightly walk, they’d basically created a corridor of giant traffic cones leading into and out of our garage, but preventing traffic from going anywhere else.

This morning, they’ve been allowing 1 or 2 vehicles past (Casino shuttle for one) and turning away a bunch of pissed off motorists because they’ve also closed Expo Blvd and Pacific Blvd from Quebec to Nelson! They’re in the final stages of putting up the concrete dividers and chainlink fence to completely block the intersection of Expo and Abbott here and should be done when Rumble and I leave for work shortly.

The Olympic “garbage collectors” have started appearing. Basically 2 pinch rings attached to various light posts around the city, with transparent green garbage bags hanging out of them. Not a very “pretty” sight, but as Chris pointed out, they are anti-terrorist friendly. The can collectors will also be thrilled to be able to see which ones to target.

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Yes, I’m fine.

We have no clue what caused the hospital visit last weekend. All those tests were clear, and so was my cardiac-stress test on Tuesday. Boy what fun that was.

Anyway, it’s been almost a week, I’ve been tested, poked and prodded a few times and nothing happened. Which is good and bad. Good because it means there’s nothing big and obvious wrong. Bad because it means we don’t know what caused it. I would like to know – no matter what it is, knowledge is power.

Today was an amazing! day. Chris and I grabbed a ZipCar to take Rumble for his bi-monthly haircut so he was less of a furry little monster. It also helps with the “post-walk grooming” shall we say.

Right now, we’ve been home about an hour and Rumble is curled up on his bed, happily sound asleep knowing that his dads aren’t going to mess with him any time soon. He’s also exhausted from the playtime he got while waiting for his turn at the groomers.

Fetch in North Vancouver is a HIGHLY recommended place. They keep to their timelines, the dogs are always happy and comfortable. We tried the Kerrisdale location once and they were great too.

We also found a pop-can crusher! We’ve been looking for one everywhere we go. We found them online, but they’re expensive. HomeSense at Park Royal had them for $12.99. They’re supposed to be wall mounted but we don’t trust our walls and it seems to work just fine (if awkwardly) by hand! Yeah recycling.

By the way, Chris expounds on Rumble and the trip to North Van on his blog. Give it a read.

Sunday morning started like any other. Relaxing wake up around 8:00, husband lying beside me, dog sleeping at the foot of the bed, smell of coffee brewing from the other room, man-servant bringing us breakfast. Oh, no, wait. No coffee, no servant.

But then I noticed a “fluttery” feeling in my chest. I’d felt it before (several months ago) and it usually went away fairly quickly. So I dismissed it.

Finally we get up around 8:30 and discover that all the water in the house is brown. It’s happened once before when the turbidity levels were high in the local reservoirs and we’ve had rain recently so we assumed that’s what it was. Turns out there was a burst pipe/leak in the building and we had no clean water.

Fine, we hiked down to the brand new Nester’s Market in the brand new Woodwards development, bought some water and other groceries and hiked back home. My chest was still fluttering from time to time.

I made breakfast (egg McMuffin type things with turkey bacon) while Chris walked the dog and then we watched some TV while deciding what to do for the day.

I finally told Chris around noon that I was having these “flutters” but that it wasn’t anything major. Being Chris (wonderful guy), he insisted we go to the hospital ASAP and figure out what’s going on. And we headed off to St. Paul’s Hospital.

That’s where I got Lucky.

Dr. S. Lucky was the name of the doctor in the RAZ (Rapid Assessment Zone) when we got there. After a very brief wait in the chairs, I was whisked in for an ECG, then got blood drawn, then a little medical history and finally a chest x-ray. From there it started to slow down. We were now in the waiting game.

Nurse Jennifer was awesome in the RAZ and kept a close eye on me. Eventually, the first round of tests came back clear and they suggested Chris and I go for a walk, and we did. But I got some tightness in my chest afterward, prompting them to hold me for a second round of Troponen tests at 6pm.

Chris had to go home and walk Rumble. We hadn’t anticipated this taking ALL day of course.

During this time, Dr. Lucky basically disappeared. At least I didn’t see her again until about 4:45, but her mysterious doctoring kept putting notes into the computer and more things happened. I got Aspirin and was prepped to be moved to a room with better monitoring equipment.

My new temporary home was “Acute Stretcher 5″ as pictured above. Tres chic. I had to leave Jennifer behind and was introduced now to Gemma (or Jemma), a wonderful nurse from the UK. Unfortunately my stay here was brief, like 30 minutes and I was move “somewhere quieter” that I never did find the name of. It was quieter, but I liked the ER feel of Stretcher 5.

Now I was in the able hands of Kristen (or Kirsten) who eventually brought me dinner. Turkey dinner from a hospital on Sunday isn’t the worst thing out there, and considering I hadn’t had anything but a bit of water in 6 hours, I was glad for it. It actually wasn’t too bad and it certainly hit the spot.

In the end, I was sent home a little after 8pm with not much to show. A few sticky spots from the monitoring pads, a little less hair on my hand from the IV tube they never used and orders to go for a stress test on Tuesday morning at 8.

Nothing showed up in anything, and the fluttering never re-occurred. We have our theories as to what it was, and I’ll be talking to my family doctor about them once I can get an appointment.

Chris was with me the entire time, which was VERY much appreciated. He was very nervous and worried about me, but kept calm and helped me relax too. It freaked him out more than he let on. His father passed away from a heart attack so Chris has, if not reason then history, to cause him to worry. I’ve promised to outlive Chris so I have to do everything I can to make sure that happens, or he’d never let me live it down.

See – nothing to panic about. I’m taking today off to relax and make sure everything is up to speed before heading back tomorrow.