About the Talk
So when Santa delivered this pine box and electric screwdriver, I was very curious…And delighted to find a gonzo huge rocket motor… a bit over 8 ft. tall. For context, the largest motor I have launched so far is 1/8 the size, a sparky N.

And the Aerotech G motor in the foreground used to impress me… It’s the largest you can buy without a license, but now I see why theothers chuckled that they make good igniters.

The machined aluminum closures and graphite nozzle are on the left, as well as the infamous o-rings. Next step – anodizing the aluminum. Then we have to pour the solid propellant grains, just like the Space Shuttle boosters.

I’ll post some photos below of the rocket this baby will fly in… Should hit Mach 2.4 on a single stage… and Mach 4.3 and 250K+ ft. altitude with Tom’s two stage bio-sampling rocket.

About the Speaker
Steve Jurvetson is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a leading venture capital firm with affiliate offices around the world. He was the founding VC investor in Hotmail (MSFT), Interwoven (IWOV), and Kana (KANA). He also led the firm’s investments in Tradex and Cyras, acquired for $8 billion. Current Board positions include Synthetic Genomics, SpaceX, NeoPhotonics, Tesla Motors, and Wowd. Previously, Steve was an R&D Engineer at Hewlett-Packard, where seven of his communications chip designs were fabricated. His prior technical experience also includes programming, materials science research (TEM atomic imaging of GaAs), and computer design at HP’s PC Division, the Center for Materials Research, and Mostek. He has also worked in product marketing at Apple and NeXT Software.

Past Talks
TED2007 – Steve Jurvetson on model rocketry

About the Talk
There is very little in our world that is actually impossible – it’s just that a lot of the time, we are missing one of 4 key elements: attitude, approach, action plan or accountability. This talk addresses each of these elements in turn, suggesting methods that will guarantee success on virtually any goal! Time permitting, the talk will focus on bonus topics: dealing with procrastination and staying motivated.

About the Speaker
I am a professional multi-tasker and am passionate about what I see as the two “extremes” of humanity: surviving (grand human challenges) & thriving (innovation, technology and creativity), and how we can use the latter to address the former.

As to how that translates into “what I do,” depending on when and where we meet, that answer could be Chief Medical Evangelist for CiviGuard Technologies, lead for partnerships development with the TEDx Silicon Valley Media team, co-founder of Space Without Borders (using space technology for global development), motivational speaker, Singularity University & International Space University Alumnus, Canadian medical student gone rogue, martial artist (1st degree black belt in taekwondo), musician (piano, singing/song-writing), writer or expert in a field I like to call “rocket surgery” – the point at which space tech and medicine converge.

Previously, I have completed degrees in neuroscience and space studies, and am halfway through a medical degree. I have served as VP Research for an inner city free-clinic for high-risk youth, VP Research & Development for a national organization promoting youth involvement in space exploration and development and Co-founder/Director of a community-wide anti-bullying program for school-aged children.

Published works include papers on telemedicine for the developing world, a book chapter on space spin-off technologies for medical benefit and clinical neuroscience. I also conducted pre-clinical and early clinical testing for neuroArm, a neurosurgical robotic arm based off CanadArm technologies and worked with the Crew Medical Support Office at the European Astronaut Center in Germany.

About the Talk
You gaze into the Cloud Mirror, and it gazes deep into you. It will violate your privacy, especially if you carelessly litter the Internet with sensitive personal details.

The Cloud Mirror is an art piece which temporarily merges visitors’ online identities with their physical selves. It uses augmented reality, computer vision, and Internet web services to identify visitors by name; mine the Internet for photographs and facts (dirt) about them; and superimpose that data in an on-screen comic book thought bubble that follows the visitor’s motion.

About the Speaker
Eric Gradman is an interactive artist in Los Angeles, CA. His work often features computer vision, large-scale projections, unusual sensors, and custom electronics to produce fun environments that compel people to interact.

Past Talks
BIL 2009 – The Perils of Robotics
BIL 2009 – Demo: Brainwave Controlled iPhone App

About the Talk
I will discuss the yin/yang of Artificial Reality. Can we create virtual worlds as rich and interesting — or even more so — as the one we find ourselves in? Are the rules of reality themselves digital, discrete, and computable?

About the Speaker
Daniel B. Miller has led a varied career as a musician, computer guy, and serial entrepreneur. As a co-founder of On2 Technologies (now in the process of being acquired by Google), he championed the release of Theora, the open-source video codec. Recent ventures include Singular Robotics and Katalabs, Inc.

About the Talk
How well you sleep improves your waking life tremendously. Consistently getting a good night’s sleep will dramatically improve your productivity and mood during your waking hours, effectively adding years to your life. I’ll discuss a wide variety of sleep hacking techniques to understand and improve your sleep performance.

About the Speaker
Matt Bell is an inventor and entrepreneur best known for cofounding Reactrix, a company that used gesture interfaces to create immersive interactive spaces. Matt is also passionate about self-improvement techniques, practical life extension, the quantified self movement, computer vision, genetics, mixing art and technology, traveling around the world for months at a time, and more.

About the Talk
The North Paw is a compass anklet: it vibrates on your ankle to tell you which way is north. Because the stimulus is persistent, your brain adapts to the device, and you acquire an intuitive sense of north.

Sensebridge is a company I have started (with some friends) that aims to explore the space of wearable electronic senses. We bridge the world you can’t feel into the senses you already have: sensebridge. The North Paw bridges a magnetic sense, we also have projects to bridge ultrasonic sound (and thereby echolocation), heart beat, and “eyes in the back of your back”: feeling when things are coming up behind you.

Our approach is not visual: although vision is the most powerful of our senses, it’s also the most over-burdened already, and is actively used. We feel that the sense of touch offers the most possibilities for augmentation of new sensory stimulus.

If you’re interested in wearable electronics or sensory augmentation (aka augmented reality), come to my talk. I’ll give a short talk on wearable electronic senses, and then I’ll moderate a group discussion / Q & A session. I’ll also have a variety of devices on hand that you can try on! Check out our website

About the Speaker
Eric is an engineer and hacker, transhumanist and environmentalist. Lately he’s been building wearable electronic devices which augment his senses. Please join the noisebridge cyborg group: 1pm Sundays at Noisebridge (a San Francisco hackerspace), till the hacking stops.

About the Talk
This talk will address our need to find balance amongst the ever increasing desire to be constantly connected to our highly addictive shiny technology thingies. I will discuss how to find time in the day to meditate, bring up some breathing techniques, and propose how the simplicity of tea drinking can help us achieve mindfulness. I’ll also be touching upon some of the mental and physical disorders technologists suffer from, and what common sense wisdom we can all conjure to overcome them.

Mighty Leaf Tea has sponsored this talk and will supply attendees with free tea samplers, and I will provide as much hot water and cups as I can carry.

About the Speaker
Natalie Villalobos is a self proclaimed “teaist” who has explored numerous cultures and their ceremonies around tea. She consults for tea companies in the Bay Area where she provides consumer insights and adoption trends of tea culture through social media and technology. Her meditation focus is founded on Non-Violent Communication, Zazen, Native American principles, and the gift of a good hug. You can find her meditating and meeting strangers at Om Shan Tea Teahouse, Samovar Tea Lounge, and the Imperial Tea Court in San Francisco.

She works full-time at Google as the Community Manager for Sidewiki – a product that allows users to annotate any webpage on the internet.

You can find out more about Natalie’s feats and discoveries at natalievillalobos.com and on Twitter as @nataliaenvy.

About the Talk
Multimedia, Global voice conferencing, The KDE/GNOME love’s race, Mozilla, OpenOffice, DJ SW, Music making, Games, Internet, Netbooks, Android cell phones – GNU(Linux) is everywhere you want to be. And never stops improving. Freedom (& $Free$$) Software is owned by You! Learn & share about The World’s, & Your, Software.

Discuss your Freedom Software projects & interests. What would you like to see get created in 2010? What are you working on?

Bring your laptop & we’ll help you install GNU(Linux on your computer), or demo stuff for each other, in the “doing” on a special meeting on Saturday or Sunday.

About the Speaker
Giovanni Re is the founder of the global group for All Freedom Software, Hardware & Culture, with 4x/month global voice meetings – BerkeleyTIP. Join from home whenever convenient via voice connection from your computer VOIP, or even a regular land line or cell phone. Make new friends, work on projects, learn new things. TIP = Talks, Installfest, & Project & Programming Party. Educational, Productive, Social.

http://sites.google.com/site/berkeleytip