Geek Gestalt

One of the first things I did on my Road Trip 2008 project this summer was report on the landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

It was great to watch the shuttle land, but I was a bit disappointed I hadn't been able to make it to Cape Canaveral just a couple of weeks earlier to watch the launch.

Well, it turns out that all I would have needed to do to see the launch would have been to fly by. At least, that's how it seems, given a video that's going around the Web right now that purports to have been shot from an Air Canada flight that just happened to pass close enough by Kennedy Space Center for a passenger to shoot video of the shuttle rocketing into the sky.

It's not 100 percent clear that the launch in the video is Discovery, which went up on May 31. But it seems likely, given that that was the last shuttle launch and the video only just went up a few days ago.

Either way, it's a pretty cool video, and one of the things that's compelling about it--other than the fact that it's a space shuttle launch filmed from miles above the ground--is that you can get a very good sense of just how fast the shuttle is going when it blasts off.

Next time there's a launch--this fall, in fact--maybe I'll find out what flights might be in the vicinity at the time. On the other hand, given how hard it can be to book tickets on flights serving popular destinations on impacted dates, I might not be the only one.

Earlier this year, when I was preparing to head out on Road Trip 2008, my journey around the American South, I arranged for a loaner iPhone because I was curious how it would perform deep in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and the like.

Having watched friends and colleagues jump on the iPhone bandwagon, I was of course curious about the device, but given that I was still deep in my Verizon Wireless contract--due to whatever funny look I happened to give my phone that caused a re-up of the two-year contract--and because I already had an iPod and way more music than would fit on an iPhone, I was determined not be lured into the cult.

(Credit: Apple Inc.)

But my colleague Stefanie Olsen, herself an iPhone convert, didn't believe I would have the discipline to use the device for a month and not come home desperate to get one of my own. And with that in mind, she bet me five bucks that I couldn't resist the temptation upon my return.

Certain in my ability to withstand the peer pressure and the lure of a shiny and admittedly cool new gadget--and determined not to have to pay Verizon its extortionate early-termination fee (sorry, Declan)--I walked away from our handshake thinking of the many things I could buy with the five dollars I knew I'd be winning.

Shortly thereafter, I set on on Road Trip for what turned out to be 30 days driving nearly 4,600 miles through nine Southern states. All along the way, I toted my loaner iPhone, using it in as many ways as I could, and depending on it as my full-time cell phone.

What struck me right away was how nice the iPhone's user-interface is. The voice mail was so easy and intuitive, and it was little things like the phone's alarm clock feature, which is so simple and elegant--and frankly, pleasing--to use.

I had thought that the iPhone's larger size would deter me, but over time, I got used to it. And, yes, the mapping and easy Web surfing were very compelling.

Suffice it to say, by the time I arrived home, I knew I was won over. But by now, the iPhone 3G had come out, and so my only hope for not losing the bet was to hide behind my refusal to wait in long lines to buy consumer electronics. That seemed to be a winning strategy, as the lines stayed long for the first few weeks.

But this last weekend, I will confess, I finally crumbled. I drove to my nearest Apple Store, found that the line was only about 20 minutes, and I did it: I bought an iPhone.

I must say, however, that Apple's clever marketing of the phone as inexpensive (with AT&T's subsidy) didn't quite play out when I saw the bottom line. While the phone's retail price was indeed just $299 (for the 16 GB model), when tax, the $69 cost of AppleCare, and the $110 Verizon termination fee were all added up, I saw my bank account take a $518 hit.

Plus, of course, the $5 I had to pay Stefanie when I got to work this morning.

For my Road Trip 2008 computer needs, I used a MacBook Air, from Apple. At one point, Apple sent me a second machine, so I had two.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

TAMPA, Fla.--And so it ends.

After driving through nine Southern states and crossing innumerable borders, Road Trip 2008 has come to an end.

What began in Orlando, Fla., ended 4,593 miles later here in Tampa. Along the way, the trip has taken me to a Space Shuttle landing, to the Corvette factory, to watch the Blue Angels practice at their home base, to being banned from Graceland, and much, much more.

Through it all I carried with me thousands of dollars worth of tech gear, aiming to road test it all. The list of gadgets included some of the coolest new toys around, as well as some that have been on the market for many months.

And, unfortunately, I wasn't able to try them all out. The vagaries of driving hundreds of miles a day on top of reporting stories and writing them left me with little time to test the gear I'd brought, something I knew intellectually after last year's journey of 4,891 miles through the Southwest on Road Trip 2007.

Still, I did manage to use almost every pieces of gear I brought with me, and if you've been following the trip, then you've seen some of my stories about them.

Already, I've talked about how I used two different devices for shooting low-fi video. The first was a service called Qik, which runs on a number of smart phones, such as the Nokia N95 I had with me. The second was a Flip Mino, a dedicated video camera that allows for easy shooting and simple--though sometimes slow--uploading to YouTube and other video-sharing services.

Of course, visuals being as important as they are, a huge piece of this whole project was the thousands of photographs I took. I ran 27 different photo galleries during the trip, and with a couple of exceptions, I shot every single photo with a Nikon D60.

Nikon lent me the camera, as well as two lenses, a 70-200mm telephoto and a 16-85mm.

In addition, because Nikon wasn't able to provide me with an ultra-wide angle lens, I rented one from RentGlass.com, as I knew that that would be the lens that I'd use more than any of the others.

And indeed, that's exactly what happened.

As I mentioned, the camera was with me pretty much at all times. It had to be in order to shoot as many pictures as I did.

And I'm a Canon guy. My own personal camera is a Canon Rebel XT, but this year, I thought I'd try Nikon's new D60, just to see what it was like.

I have to say: it was great. It was simple to use, it was fairly light, its batteries lasted forever and, I think, it took great pictures.

To be sure, if I knew a little bit more about how to use it, it would have taken even better pictures, but it did just great thanks.

The Nikon D60 and 16-85mm and 70-300mm lenses I used on Road Trip 2008.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

The D60 has a very satisfying shutter action, an intuitive menu structure, and a satisfying feel in my hand. It is easy to swap lenses on and off, and I did so fairly regularly.

The telephoto lens was great. As I wrote early in the trip, I showed up for the Space Shuttle landing, telephoto lens in hand, only to find that some of the pros there were sporting huge lenses. I thought I was screwed. Yet, the lens did just fine, shooting a series of very serviceable shots, maybe nothing that would work in a magazine, but just fine for online.

I'll be happy to return to my Rebel XT, but I wonder if I'm going to enjoy it as much as the D60.

It is worth noting, however, that one very odd thing happened with the camera.

I was in Pensacola, Fla., standing on the tarmac at the Naval Air Station there where the Blue Angels make their home, and suddenly, without warning, the camera's LCD cracked. Not the glass, mind you, but the LCD under it. This made it impossible to see the pictures once I'd shot them or to make any kind of menu changes.

Luckily, the camera itself still worked fine, and I was able to take at least a thousand or so pictures after this.

But no one I've talked to has ever heard of the LCD cracking on a digital SLR, and even now, I really have no idea what happened. My contact at Nikon is looking into it, I believe.

Sprint's Compass 597, one of the two EVDO modem that I used on Road Trip 2008.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

There's no question that the most important piece of technology I had with me was the MacBook Air I had with me. But rather than go into my experiences with it here, I'll just mention that I've already written a story about that.

Beyond the computer, though, there's little doubt that the next most important set of tech I had with me were the two EVDO modems I was carrying, one each from Sprint and Verizon.

On Road Trip 2007, I had one from Verizon, and I loved it. I would say the same this time around about both the Sprint modem and the new one I had from Verizon.

It's really hard to differentiate between the two of them, though there were clearly places where one worked better than the other. I had all the best intentions of keeping track of where each one worked better, but that was one of the logistical things that fell by the wayside as the realities of the intensity of my daily routine on the trip set in.

Suffice it to say that overall, I would say that they performed equally well: In most places, they both worked great, while in some one would work well, while the other wouldn't. Over the course of the 4,583 miles, I'd say it was probably a wash as to which one worked better at any given time.

Each has a simple software interface. In ideal circumstances, it takes no more than a few seconds to get online and get working.

To be sure, there were places where neither one worked all that well, and when that coincided with poor Wi-Fi reception, that made for some difficult situations, as broadband connectivity is a crucial component of a project that involves sending more than a dozen photos over the Internet every day, as well as tons of Web-based research.

The Verizon USB727, the other EVDO modem I used on Road Trip 2008.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

Of course, none of the trip would have been possible without a good car, and so the Subaru Outback 2.5 XT I had for every mile of the journey--except for an overnight round-trip flight from Nashville to Houston and back--was a great solution. But you can read my story about that.

And that leaves the last device I used: an Apple iPhone.

I had been holding out on buying one, but I definitely was interested in trying out the famous smart phone.

Did I think I'd get hooked? No. But one of my colleagues bet me $5 that I'd return from Road Trip ready to buy my own.

And I think she's going to win the bet, especially now that the iPhone 3G is out.

The Subaru Outback 2.5 XT that I drove around the South on Road Trip 2008. All told, I drove 4,593 miles across eight states.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

To be sure, the device--at least the original version--has problems. The AT&T Edge network is painfully slow, as everyone knows.

Yet, the ability to get what amounts to a rich Web experience on the go, as well as to use the mapping tools and the extremely well-thought out iPhone interface won me over.

Despite it having a form factor that I think is a little too big to be comfortable--for me, at least--I'm prepared to fork over the $199 for an iPhone 3G, if only because I know that it has become essential in my life to have Internet as often as possible. I don't know if that's a good thing, but it is what it is.

One odd iPhone experience I had was at Fort Benning, the Army base in Columbus, Ga. In truth, the base straddles the border between Georgia and Alabama, and thus the dividing line between the central and eastern time zones.

At one point while I was on the base, my host and I were driving around trying to find something, both of us clutching our iPhones. I looked down and noticed that my phone had switched to central time, while his hadn't. Or maybe it was the other way around. But the point is that both phones were on the same network, and yet were registering different times. I found that very interesting, and neither of us could figure out why.

It doesn't really matter, of course, but it is worth mentioning.

Ultimately, I used the iPhone constantly, to check e-mail, to figure out where I was, to make phone calls, as my morning alarm clock and more. And yes, I suspect I will be paying off my colleague within a matter of days.

The last device I had with me was a Dash Express car navigator. Unfortunately, I was never able to find the time to get it set up, and so I wasn't able to evaluate it. I hope Dash will be willing to let me hold on to it for a little while longer to try it out in my regular life. But I do apologize for not getting around to using it. I truly was looking forward to doing so.

In the end, Road Trip 2008 was a success. I visited some of the most interesting places I've ever been to, and saw very large parts of a region of the country I'd never been to before.

And without many of the gadgets I was ferrying around with me, I wouldn't have been able to share it with you, and that would have been a shame.

Thanks for following along with me. I really appreciate it. And stay tuned for Road Trip 2009. Now, back to your regularly scheduled Geek Gestalt.

The two MacBook Airs CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman used on Road Trip 2008.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

SAN FRANCISCO--After working on an Apple MacBook Air for the last month while on Road Trip 2008, it was a real shock when I returned home and picked up my regular work MacBook Pro for the first time.

Compared to the Air, which I'd really gotten used to as I drove around the South, the Pro was really heavy. Shockingly so. And thinking back over the countless hours I spent with the Air in my backpack on my back as I visited endless places, I'm eternally grateful for all that weight I didn't have to carry.

And there can be no doubt that the thinness and the very light weight of the MacBook Air are its major selling points. That and its very bright, very clear LED screen. Several times during my trip, people came up to me to say how amazed they were by how bright the screen on the Air was, even in direct sunlight.

I also heard plenty of people saying to each other as they walked by me in one place or another things like, "Wow, look how thin that is," or "Hey, look, it's that new super thin Mac."

So having spent a great deal of time over the last month using this loaner machine--I'm writing this on the Air--I can say that, on the whole, I really enjoyed it.

As I mentioned, the weight--or lack of it, really--was a seriously wonderful thing, especially since I was always carrying the computer in a backpack full of camera gear, notebooks, magazines, and other things. In that regard, this is definitely the most impressive computer I've seen in a very long time.

The MacBook Air that CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman worked on throughout Road Trip 2008 resting on top of his everyday MacBook Pro.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

Of course, it's a fully functional Mac, so that means it's a much better computer than just about any PC I can imagine. Sorry, folks, but that's just the truth.

I found it to be fast, for the most part, easy to use, great to look at, and generally a touch simpler to use on a day-by-day basis than my MacBook Pro.

It seemed to recognize Wi-Fi networks more quickly than other computers, and to shut down faster, as well. As I said above, its LED screen was consistently brilliant, no matter how much light was shining on it. This is a big improvement over what I've used before.

I did have a few issues with the Air, some which will surprise no one, and another which I think caught even Apple off guard.

The first is that the machine is definitely a bit hampered by its size. The fact that it has just a single USB port and no optical drive is limiting, despite easy ways to work around that.

For example, I bought a small USB hub, and used it often. But many times, I was in a hurry and didn't want to go digging around in my bag for the hub and wanted instead to be able to just plug my camera and my EVDO card in. No luck. Similarly, not being able to play DVDs without the external drive Apple lent me was a bit frustrating.

Still, these are not new issues, and I know that before too long, Apple will come out with a MacBook Air that has additional USB ports and an optical drive. Lenovo already has such a computer--it's not a Mac, though--so it's clear that it can be done.

The more troubling problem I had was what at first seemed like an inexplicable slowing way down or even outright freezing up that happened some days when I was trying to watch rented movies in iTunes or videos on YouTube. It got so bad when I first encountered the problem--shutting down the computer and rebooting didn't seem to solve it--that I freaked out a bit given the prospect that I wouldn't have a working computer to use.

I managed to get past the problem over the next few days by judiciously turning off the computer when I wasn't using it instead of just putting it to sleep. That seemed to help, and I thought maybe I'd solved the problem.

But eventually, the slowing down and the freezing up came back, and I couldn't deal with it. So I called Apple, and after explaining what was going on, we agreed that they would send me another MacBook Air given that it sounded like something was wrong with this specific machine.

So, after I left New Orleans, where I'd been writing about how that city has fared since Hurricane Katrina, I drove toward Pensacola, Fla., where I was going to watch the Blue Angels perform at their home base. Along the way, I stopped at a UPS Store in Mobile, Ala., and there, waiting for me, was the second MacBook Air.

That night, I downloaded a film through iTunes, and the next day, after leaving the computer on all night and most of the next day, sat down to watch it. But before long I noticed it was behaving the same way: it was slowing way down, and acting like it would freeze up.

I asked my colleague, Tom Krazit, who covers Apple for CNET News, if he'd heard of such a problem. He said no, but did a little research and then sent me a link to an online forum where people were discussing this very issue. It appears that the MacBook Air suffers somewhat from overheating, and the result can be the slowing down and freezing I was experiencing.

That made sense, since the problem always seemed to creep up after I'd had the computer on for a day or more.

As a result, I began making more of a point to shut down both computers when they were not in use, and to elevate them, say, with a book under each side, when trying to watch movies. That seemed work, lending more credence to the theory that this was an overheating problem.

This also seems like a good time to weigh in with my thoughts on the movie rentals program iTunes offers.

First, let me say that I think it's a great idea. While the selection of films needs to grow--and quickly--there were plenty of good films on offer. But the limitation that once you begin watching a film you only have 24 hours to finish it has got to go.

I would say that two-thirds of the films I rented I was not able to finish in 24 hours. Perhaps my Road Trip schedule was a little more intense than that of the average iTunes movie renter, but it seems that there must be plenty of people for whom finishing in one full day is not realistic.

I'm not sure, then, why it can't be 48 hours. What's the difference?

In the end, however, despite some problems with the MacBook Air, I would have to say it's a worthwhile machine, and something I would enjoy using as my primary computer while on the road again. I certainly am looking forward to a future version of the computer that solves the overheating problems--if that's indeed what it was--and that offers additional USB ports and an optical drive.

But this computer really is what Apple is marketing it as: A machine for the wireless road warrior. With a little bit of careful preparation, you can make the Air do what you want it to do. And your back will hurt a lot less than it does if you carry around a full-size laptop. Trust me on that one.

This is the 2008 Subaru Outback 2.5 XT that CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman drove on Road Trip 2008. Here, the car is parked in front of the Hank Williams Sr. boyhood home and museum in Georgiana, Ala.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

SAN FRANCISCO--I was sitting in a Costco here Wednesday night, waiting to have four new tires put on my 2001 Subaru Outback--after literally having just spent $900 on a tune-up and several other items. Paradoxically, I was thinking that Subaru makes a pretty good car.

It was this very Subaru that I spent 16 days in two summers ago on Road Trip 2006, when I drove 3,279 miles around the Pacific Northwest. That year, CNET News let me try a driving trip in search of stories, but I had to take my own car and pay all my own expenses.

The trip was successful, though, and after my return, CNET suggested I should do it again the next summer--and that they'd pay my way the next time. Even better, we decided I should seek out a car company interested in providing a loaner vehicle to use on the trip.

Well, having taken my beloved Subaru with me in 2006, I thought the company might like to get involved for Road Trip 2007. I wrote Subaru, explained that I had taken my own 2001 Outback on Road Trip 2006, and asked if they were interested in giving me a loaner. The answer was an enthusiastic yes--particularly, it seemed, because they appreciated that I had done this project the first time in my own Subaru.

Without going into detail, we ended up going a different direction last year, with Infiniti as a sponsor. For Road Trip 2007, I took one of that company's SUVs as I drove for 25 days around the Southwest.

But when I was planning Road Trip 2008, we decided I should reach out to Subaru again. To my surprise, and pleasure, they said they were interested in getting involved this year, despite our having gone with Infiniti in the end last year.

So on June 8, just after I touched down at Orlando International Airport, I went to a nearby parking lot. There, waiting for me, was a brand new Subaru Outback 2.5 XT, just waiting to be taken off on a grand adventure.

And if you've been following Road Trip 2008, you'll know that's just what happened. For the next several weeks, I drove that Subaru all over the South, covering 8 states, 4,593 miles and at least 25 different destinations.

My wife worried that after driving this brand new version of our own car, I would come home and demand that we trade it in. It's an understandable fear, given that the new Subaru was a pleasure to drive and a very nice piece of automotive design.

The Subaru sits across from the power station at the Thurmond Dam in South Carolina.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

In many ways, the car was extremely familiar to me, given my own Outback. Many things, such as switches for moving the seats and opening the gas cap, as well as the general layout of the interior, were just like in my car.

But other things, such as the stereo, the cruise control system, and of course, the navigation system--there is none on my 2001 Outback--were quite different.

All in all, I really enjoyed the 2008 Outback. It is a very strong car that has an extremely smooth engine that is capable of quick acceleration at highway speeds or a nimble zig-zag around stopped traffic or a bottleneck in the road.

I'm no professional car reviewer, so my approach to sharing thoughts on the vehicle is likely very unlike that of someone who does this regularly would write. But having spent nearly a month in the car, and driven far enough to cross the United States and come halfway back, I certainly formed some impressions about it.

On the whole, I would heartily recommend this car, and it's only because my own Subaru is still in fine shape that I'm not about to run out and try to get a new one.

I always felt safe driving this car. It felt solid and in control, even at high speeds, and a couple of times when I needed to slam the brakes, it came quickly to a stop.

Being a Subaru, of course, it handled extremely well even in wet conditions and on rough roads. Occasionally, it did seem a little sluggish, but that was definitely the exception. For the most part, I always expected, and mostly got, a strong boost of acceleration when I needed it.

If I had any complaints, it would have to do with the car's navigation system. I hadn't planned on using this very much, since I brought another one with me. But in the interest of simplicity and because I was so busy I never was able to get around to using the other one, I relied strictly on the Subaru's onboard system.

During Road Trip 2008, CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman drove the Subaru Outback 2.5 XT a total of 4,593.8 miles.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

This turned out to be a mixed bag.

Now, I know that any car navigation system is going to have some hiccups. But the Subaru's system seemed a little bit more hit and miss than I would have liked.

It was actually quite odd. Sometimes, it would go for days and take me everywhere I needed to go with perfect precision. Other days, it would seem to really struggle.

On one leg of the journey, from Memphis, Tenn., to Clarksdale, Miss., the navigator took me on a route that turned out to be fairly well out of the way, and a longer drive. I had been in a real hurry to get out of town, so I hadn't checked the route on a map and so I didn't even realize.

Another time, when driving into Pensacola, Fla., instead of having me get off the freeway at the exit where my hotel was, it had me do a seven-mile circuit on back roads to arrive at the hotel. I couldn't even begin to explain that one.

Of course, you're always supposed to reality-check any route a car navigator gets you, so part of the blame is mine for not making sure it was sending me to the right place.

Still, after a rough beginning with the navigator--I was one more false route from "firing" it after a day or two--I came to expect it to steer me wrong, but still trusted it enough to use it. A contradiction, I know, but there you have it.

And to be sure, it got me where I needed to go much more often than it didn't.

I think, in the end, that built-in car navigators are simply not as good as the ones you can buy on the aftermarket. I haven't used them enough to prove that theory, but that's my sense. So it might have nothing at all to do with this particular model.

I also had a couple of other small quibbles with the car, particularly in comparison to my own Subaru.

When I first picked the vehicle up, I noticed the automatic gear shift didn't have a label for a first gear. So for the first day I had the car, I was running it in what I thought was drive, but it was revving extremely high. Only on the second day did I realize that I had been driving in first gear. If I hadn't figured that out, it could have been a very short trip. On my car, the first gear is shown on the gear shift, and so this was a little confusing to me.

Similarly, on my car, using cruise control, there is a button that allows you to decelerate. This car didn't allow that. Perhaps there's a practical reason for that, but I'm not sure what it would be.

But these are little things. As I mentioned above, this was a great car, and I really loved it. It was hard to lock it up for the last time and leave it in the parking lot at Tampa International Airport, where I flew home from.

I hope that when I do Road Trip 2009, Subaru will consider its involvement with Road Trip 2008 worth it and lend me another car for my next long journey.

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, that researchers from other labs and universities around the country and world migrate to Oak Ridge for time on one of the center's several world-beating machines.

And if the research being done is published in open literature, then scientists are free to do what they want on the computers with no payments to NCCS. Messer said that there is a procedure for scientists who want to do proprietary research to help cover the lab's costs, but that that hasn't really happened yet.

When you first walk into the lab, you see a pretty impressive looking machine known as the Cray X1E. This is the world's 175th most powerful computer, clocking 18 teraflops, or 18 trillion floating point operations per second. The X1E is so big that it has aisles that you can walk through, and it requires 16-inch water pipes built into the floor below to liquid-cool it.

Nearby the X1E is IBM's Blue Gene, the 74th most-powerful supercomputer in the world, rated to 28 teraflops, and clearly a study in efficiency, since it is orders of magnitude smaller than the Cray machine.

The IBM Blue Gene supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Lab. It is the 74th most-powerful computer on Earth, rated at 28 teraflops.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

But what really struck me about Blue Gene is how much it looked like the giant transport ship used by the Jawas in the original Star Wars film--except sleeker and smaller.

If you think about it, for any lab to have two massively powerful computers like the X1E and the Blue Gene is impressive. But NCCS is aiming higher.

Already it has another giant computer, the Jaguar, a Cray machine that, at 54 teraflops, is the fifth-most powerful supercomputer in the world. And now, Messer explained, the lab is going for what he called "petascale computing," or the use of computers capable of more than a petaflop--a thousand teraflops.

The Cray Jaguar supercomputer at the Oak Ridge National Lab is the world's fifth most powerful computer.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Today, Messer said, there is one petascale computer in the world, a machine at the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. But soon, NCCS will add its own such machine, and Messer said he thinks that when that happens, in a year or so, the Oak Ridge lab will at least be tied with LANL for the top computing spot in the world.

For now, however, NCCS has Jaguar, X1E and Blue Gene, as well as some smaller machines, and operates on an annual budget of between $80 million and $100 million. That money pays for about 60 full-time staffers who support the scientists who come from all over to use the machine.

Messer said NCCS has developed a very strong working relationship with Cray over the years and that there are some advantages to buying a machine like Jaguar, which has 7,832 AMD Barcelona Quad-Core Opteron processors.

"When you buy a computer this large," Messer said, "You get to pick the color."

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 can take a squad through various battle scenarios using the simulator, and each soldier will see their own avatar in the digital mission, as well as those of his squadmates, and working with a weapon that includes an Xbox-like controller. At least those, that is, who each would be able to see if they were on a battlefield in real life.

At the same time, the sergeant has access to a set of screens that can show him everything that's going on with the squad, in real time. This way, he can see exactly how each soldier is doing in the scenario training and, later, use what has been learned to help each recruit work on what he needs to do better.

Because it's digital, VICE (see video below) allows the Army to change up almost any imaginable variable: Terrain, enemy strength, whether it's Iraq or Afghanistan or almost anything else. Indeed, the system allows for running through digital versions of real-life missions.

All of this is aimed at two major things. First, getting new soldiers familiar with how to work together as a team before they ever set foot on a real-life training battlefield. And second, getting the recruits to that point without having to use any ammunition, which can be quite expensive.

Further, it can help insulate them against the shock of something like an IED--improvised explosive device--which is hard to do on a training battlefield. And even as I watched, the room shook with a loud boom as an "IED" was set off in the middle of the mission.

According to those who have used VICE, it is a great tool, even if it looks more like something you'd find in a video arcade than a high-level military training system.

"You can always tell the difference between" those who have used VICE and those who haven't, a private told me. That's because, he said, VICE-trained soldiers have better communications skills, both verbal and nonverbal.

But not every new Army recruit is getting access to VICE. Rather, it's limited to a single battalion at Fort Benning right now, due to budget constraints.

Finished with VICE, I was taken to another simulator on the base that is being used to help raw recruits with their efficiency.

This one was called the Engagement Skills Trainer, or EST.

At Fort Benning, two soldiers use the Engagement Skills Trainer, or EST, a simulator that helps soldiers learn shooting fundamentals without having to fire actual weapons.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Here Sgt. Darren Shavers demonstrated how the Army is using digital technology to help thousands of new soldiers become better marksmen and markswomen.

EST is a large-scale system that can accommodate up to 15 soldiers at once in training exercises designed to help them with their marksmanship, teamwork, and rules of engagement responses, otherwise known as "shoot/don't shoot."

Essentially, EST is a digital firing range. On one side of a long, dark room, a soldier lay on the floor, aiming a machine gun at a large screen with targets on the opposite end.

He fired several shots, which retorted loudly, but which weren't actually live-fire.

On the screen, however, Shavers was able to punch a few keys on his computer, and up popped a large-scale version of the soldier's target, showing how accurate he'd been.

With EST, the Army can learn exactly how accurate they're being, even down to how long they hold their triggers, how much they move their guns before and after they shoot, and whether they aim from the left or the right.

The idea is to drill fundamentals into the recruits, trying to get them to do things the same way every time, again without having to put them onto real training fields before they're ready.

Similarly, EST can be used to work on scenarios in which soldiers have to make split-second decisions based on the Army's rules of engagement. As Shavers put it, this way, recruits can screw up without having to be court-martialed for shooting a civilian by accident.

EST also helps teams of soldiers learn how to work together, since they can run through scenarios in groups--again, things that would be hard to do with traditional training exercises, Shavers said.

My last stop of the day was to the CCTT, or Close Combat Tactical Trainer. This facility at first looked like it just featured a bunch of large, nondescript yellow boxes and little more.

But look closer, and each of the yellow boxes contained a trainer for one kind of armored vehicle or another.

The idea here is that each trainer is equipped to look and feel almost exactly like the corresponding real vehicle.

That way, after a soldier has spent time in, say, the M1A1 Abrams trainer, they should feel right at home in a real M1A1 Abrams.

The inside of an M1A1 tank simulator at Fort Benning. The simulator, part of the CCTT, or Close Combat Tactical Trainer, gives soldiers a way to experiment with being inside a vehicle in such a way that everything is set up inside exactly how it would be in the real version.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

This is a common training system. NASA uses it for Space Shuttle crews, for example. The idea is to get people used to being in a vehicle, knowing where all the flips and switches are, how to use the weapons systems, and how to share the tiny spaces with fellow soldiers--all without having to deal with the reality of incoming fire.

You'd never know what was inside the big yellow boxes, of course, if you weren't told, but inside, you'd think you were in a real tank. And that's just the idea.

Plus, each of the training simulators is tied together through a networked computer system so groups of soldiers can run through exercises as if they were on a real battlefield, and a "commander" can put them through their paces, monitoring and measuring everything they do.

It's very much like what goes on with VICE and EST, and if one theme came out of my day at Fort Benning, it's that the Army is very much into using these kinds of systems as a way of increasing efficiency and saving a lot of money on the ammunition that would otherwise have to be expended during training.

This way, by the time these soldiers get their hands on live weapons, they actually know what they're doing, whereas generations of previous recruits were tasked with learning how to use real weapons on real training grounds.

And that's not to say that the old way wasn't good. But the Army clearly believes that there's a future in digital training.

Now, if only it can use digital systems to overcome 18-year-olds' natural aversion to authority and sense that they can do no wrong. Then technology would really be on to something.

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 vehicles at corners, each of which had a URL emblazoned on the side, I figured it out: the photographers were taking pictures of the riders and drivers, and then later posting them online, hoping that people will visit their sites, see pictures of themselves on the famous road, and decide to fork over a few bucks for a high-res image.

That's what Cannon, his wife, and a couple of friends are doing. Full time, he said.

I stopped at one of the curves along the way to talk with him about what he was doing and why.

He said that he routinely shoots thousands of pictures a day and sometimes, if there's a motorcycle rally in the area, can take as many as 17,000 in one shift.

This is definitely a business based on direct-mail type of response. After all, there is a steady stream of traffic, and there's a lot of competition. Yet Cannon said he's been doing this since 2003, so I guess he sells enough $6 CDs of digital images--as well as more expensive coffee mugs, prints, and other manifestations of peoples' ride along the famous road--to make it worth his while.

After he and his team finish taking their pictures--he uses a Canon 40D and has "whole pockets of" 4GB compact flash cards--they go home and laboriously sort them and post them. They organize them by date, and then by category: "Cars-Trucks," "Motards-Dirtbikes-Trikes-Scooters-Sidecars," "Touring Bikes," etc.

He said he works about 100 hours a week.

Cannon and others park themselves at strategic curves along the famously windy road to best capture drivers coming from either direction. They will also position a vehicle with a URL on its side so drivers can see where they can go to find their picture.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Cannon says that every day he sets up in a different place, something that's not hard, given that this stretch of road has seemingly thousands of tight curves offering the kind of two-way vantage point he needs. He's looking for good lighting and good background, so that he "might get a tight shot, but still get some of the background."

I had never seen an operation like this before, which surprises me. I heard afterward that this is something that's popular on river-rafting routes, but I'd not seen it on popular highways. And being from the San Francisco Bay Area, which is of course close to the Pacific Coast Highway, that surprised me.

But it's the extreme popularity of this stretch of US-129 with motorcyclists that makes Cannon's business possible. These are riders who travel great distances to make their way through the Dragon, and enough of them seem to like the idea of buying a picture of themselves doing so to create a business. I suspect the same is true in other parts of the country that bikers frequent.

For me, when I find myself being photographed without my consent, I usually make a gesture that I hope will render the picture worthless. It's not what you think. And I guess I'm not the only one who does things with his hands.

Cannon said that plenty of people do that, some just to say hi.

"It would be better if they wouldn't," he said, ever the photographer.

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've seen the Blue Angels fly probably more than a dozen times in San Francisco and once in Seattle, I was never very close to them.

This time, I was allowed onto the tarmac where guests get to stand, meaning I was probably a couple of hundred yards away from the planes when they were at rest (see video below for a view of the tarmac, the Blue Angels planes, and the maintenance hanger).

The show itself was spectacular, especially from up close and with many other planes as backdrops, including "Fat Albert," the team's C-130 that ferries its equipment and support crew to various stops around the country.

Afterward, I got a chance to sit down with Lt. Frank Weisser, the No. 7 Blue Angels pilot.

Of course, if you're a student of the Blue Angels, you know there are only six planes in the performances. Weisser, as the No. 7 pilot, serves a three-year term with the team--while the others stay for two years--because his first year is spent taking care of VIPs, organizational duties and talking to the press. After a year, he will step into one of the regular pilot's roles.

Two Blue Angels F-18s fly directly at each other during their practice performance at Naval Air Station Pensacola.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

I was curious how someone becomes a Blue Angels pilot, and Weisser explained that there's an application process, just like for any job. But the requirements are a little more stringent than for most: to qualify, you must have flown at least 1,250 hours as a pilot of an F-18 or F-14.

Each year, the team adds three new pilots, but there are probably only about 50 applicants, since the pool of people who have the required hours is pretty small.

Those selected as finalists then join the current team at air shows around the country so everyone can get to know each other.

"That's important for us because we're together for 300 days a year," Weisser said.

The front of a Blue Angels F-18 as seen from the side.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

The team's commanding officer, Weisser also explained, has even more strict requirements: he (or she, though the Blue Angels has never had a female member of the performance team) must have already commanded a squadron of F-18s.

One thing that surprised me is that the Blue Angels spend about two to three months training each year in the desert outside El Centro, Calif., a small town in the southeast corner of the Golden State. This was particularly interesting to me because they fly there from January to March, and for years, I traveled to near El Centro for the week between Christmas and New Year's. I guess I just missed the team when they were there all those years.

Back here in Pensacola, I was curious about whether the practice shows, both here and at various sites around the country, are any different than the formal shows they do.

Weisser said that the practices, no matter where they are, are identical, in fact, to the formal shows. And over the years, the shows have changed very little.

"We have to do it that way so we stay safe in the air," Weisser said. "There's such a small room for error, that we can't change the show...(And) one thing we pride ourselves on is our (consistency). Had you seen the show today and been on the team in the '60s or '70s, it would look very, very similar to you." (See below for a video of some of the Blue Angels' practice.)

After being on the Blue Angels, the idea is that the pilots return to whatever squadron they were part of before. The team is very adamant that pilots don't use the experience as a springboard to, say, getting a plush job flying for FedEx or some private carrier.

As I mentioned above, the planes can get as close as 12 inches during the shows, flying at speeds of between 300 and 400 knots. For a civilian who's never flown, this was a rather astounding fact. But to Weisser, it's just how things are for the team.

The team, of course, is actually two teams. The first is a group of four of the pilots who fly as part of the "diamond," always working together during a show. The second are the two solo pilots. Essentially, he explained, the Blue Angels fly two separate shows at a time.

But regardless of which team pilots are on, being able to fly as a Blue Angel is a boon for their careers, in large part because of how often they get behind the stick. They fly nearly every day, either in a formal show or in practices, and during their training months in the California desert, they fly as many as 15 times a week.

"You get to fly a ton," Weisser said, "and everyone who's a pilot loves to fly and wants to be in the air as much as they can."

Though I won't be in the cockpit of any high-performance fighter jets, Road Trip 2008 will continue for the next week or so. Please stay tuned to this blog, and to my Twitter feed.