A long standing project, and a big part of the open PAW concept, is controlling braking with software (on board arduino or android). As a quadriplegic I don’t want to take my hands off the wheels to apply the brakes because this throws off my balance (especially on uneven ground or with muscle spasms to contend with). When adding power assist motors, a user must have the ability to stop even if that motor is malfunctioning. So to ensure safety we over-designed this prototype to account for every kind of worst case scenario (steep hill forces and motors stuck on full speed).

We had a good look at the only other disk breaks available on the market, but found them lacking. Their patented design to fit existing wheels is just not good enough because it involves a simple friction fit to get the hub to mate with the disk. The other flaw is the use of the same calipers for the left and right sides. Mountain bikes can do this because wheels are inline: front and back. Wheelchairs need mirrored parts (right and left), but this is difficult to source.

Our design only currently only fits the Elevation Wheelchair, but is solid and will stop anything. I like over kill because I can trust it. Something else will fail long before these brakes do!

Short video of the initial tests done at the shop (unltddesignltd.com).

be sure to try it in different resolutions. the 720p and 1080p version look really good. youtube’s on stabilization took out most the bumps, pretty good for wheelchair castors on rough cobbles.

I think I’m the worst person to ask about dating in Vancouver. I think she missed my dragon boat joke, quads certainly do not go dragon boating to “meet chicks”, just doesn’t happen. So, if you’re at a party, and everyone is smart, funny and good looking… if you’re on wheels, well chances are you’re probably not getting laid that night (happens, but less often). It’s common to be “in the friend zone” (by Tiffiny Carlson), or to assume this is the case (which is even worse). In the radio show I ask, just which date do you start explaining the limitations and details of getting it on with a wheeler. How much information do they need for it to be comfortable and safe? Is this a turn off, or is it interesting to try something different?

You can follow Maureen McGrath’s tweets with @backtothebedroom.ca, or see her new website backtothebedroom.ca.

Here is one of the three videos I made with my GP and Dr Elliott at the ICORD building. I decided to make these how too videos after getting lots of email asking for more information. The reality is that I’m no doctor and certainly am not qualified to be giving advice. I can point people to the best information, but only a sex health professional can prescribe treatments.

They wanted to know how it works and “is this cheating”? This is a loaded question in my mind. There are many ways to gain some kind of an advantage in sports. With anyone with an injury above T6 there is the risk, and the option using, Autonomic Dysreflexia (AD) to increase blood pressure and heart rate. “Winner’s always want the ball” is the aphorism that comes to mind. So, what do you think? I recommend this documentary film about steroid use before making up your mind.

In this blog article, Dr. Andrei Krassioukov is quoted as being against the practice. What I noticed was:

It’s called “boosting.” And while it serves as a natural doping strategy that can boost athletic performance by up to 15 percent, it also comes with life threatening risks to the athlete.

So, where does this 15% number come from? Maybe from the apparelyzed blog were DR K is again quoted? How can one arrive at performance increase value anyway? Do they mean wattage of output, or speed on the court or what?

When I get AD, my blood pressure (BP) can jump to near double (from 100/60 resting). Now that is more than a 15% change so maybe the article means heart rate (HR)? Well often boosting can suddenly drop in reaction to the BP spike before it bounces back up (above the max of 120 beats per minute).

Limits on max HR is the most frustrating for quadriplegics like me. We simply can’t just “try harder” and expect the HR to respond by speeding up. Boosting can make one very dizzy, or even nauseous, because of the blood pressure swings. So, sometimes it can even work against the person too. There is an optimal amount to boost, but there is no fine grain control when dealing with AD.

I think some of these articles for non-experts, written by non-experts can really get things wrong when trying to carve out the “take home message”. It makes me wonder how often the blogs I’m reading are throwing out a value without fully understanding what what it means. The readers just need to know how much better, faster, stronger these athlese are when doing this crazy boosting thing.

Well, there is no one out there really studing it because it is considered unethical. In my own data collection efforts.. well, I never had the time to do proper experimentation where I only changed one thing at a time and removed all confounders possible. That is a huge ask, and with a case study only, even that doesn’t mean a heck of allot. I know I could lift more and I could wheel or bike at a higher wattage (power output)… but, it doesn’t always work. Actually it can often work against you. Anecdotal evidence only because when I was doing these tests with boosting I was fat, but really strong. My diet was different and I wasn’t looking after myself as well. Too many variables. Far too many to control well enough to really find out, unless you had many dedicated athletes that were really into record keeping.

If this doesn’t get your fat butt off the couch, well.. you just might be part of the walking dead. (And if that is the case, consider loaning me your spinal cord, I’ll go climb mountains with what you’re taking for granted.)

c4 meet the superhumans from envy post on Vimeo.

Do we sometimes pay too high a price for our dreams? Or worse, pick the wrong ones to follow? I remember having many conversations like this while making all the gear for rock climbing. It was NOT at all a practical goal (given all my limitations) to be spending tones of time and money on — pretty hard to justify anyway. But.. What about about this “feeling of knowing” that Lehrer talkes about in the video? I knew that climbing the chief was going to be horrendous. Surely enough, every milestone was both a reward and a wake-up call about how much further it was to go. It took insane amounts of effort, from many people, over many years. Worth it.

This talk by Lehrer is really well done and it made me remember why it’s import to be inspired. It’s rare that we find projects worthy of a decade or more. So as my Father said to me, “choose [them] wisely … because a life well lived consists of overcoming as many as of them you can.”

So, what is next project or gadget to build? I think it’s building an electric, self driving “car”, maybe I can do this with my bother’s boys and my Dad doing some welding? Or more power assisted wheelchair action (project stalled and begging for some new ideas)? Or that fun laser project with my buddies? Or the ROV robot, yea that needs to go up stairs, or fly even? You see, the problem of choosing never goes away, and I don’t think I’m getting too much better at the choosing part. I’ve had one big win, and then some ‘feel good’ time since then. Time for some more stubbornness I say.

Update, Jonah Lehrer quits the New Yorker!

update: personal best for distance in a day with hills. I call this ‘red route four’, and going over the bridge this way is a brutal left arm workout.

It’s finally summer and I am happy to trade in the computer screen radiation for sunshine. After all the rain I am loving the evenings on the seawall. my ukrainian/scottish skin just turns from turn white to red, so I need to avoid the peak hours. Moreover, quads like me can’t thermoregulate, so heat feels good at first, but can get dangerous fast. Like today. After setting a personal best a few days before, today, I was working hard for every meter when the sun came out from behind the clouds.

Wheels, or feet? which side of the seawall am I supposed to be on? I got yelled at the other day from a bike that was whipping through the same narrow part of the seawall that I was rolling down. “wrong side”, was the complaint, but i was moving faster than the foot traffic. Where is it fair for me to be? See, I have to often tack in and out of the bike lanes to get the most optimal line up a given hill. I merge in as best I can, but sometimes that is difficult with bikes, dogs and old people too. So it draws a few strange looks, but the only way to climb up any real grade is to tack, like a sail boat, back and forth. This means crossing lanes and sometimes cutting people off. Everyone is friendly, but when down hill and going up to 10km/h, it’d almost helmet time. So, I bomb the hills at night instead, way safer right? The goal is to collect enough data to model how I wheel on uneven surfaces. My stronger right arm certainly creates my own style of wheeling. It’s taking forever, but I will be able to match this motion with a power assist motor one of these summers. Creating more left/right symmetry will save my neck and back from torquing when needing to make big corrections.

Here is a map of my route, all 5.9KM of it. One lap around Science World is further than I’ve ever used as a weekly training route. It’s one of Vancouver’s well known sights and it always reminds me of being a kid during expo ’86. So, I call this “red route two” after one of my favourite 80′s movies… anyone know it? (hint, Clancy)

My friend CJ, who took most of the climbing photos on my blog, broke list leg kite boarding in Squamish few months ago. He was pushing a chair for awhile and got see what it is like. He said it was ok to copy part of an email here:

Hey there dude, leg coming along, walking in the cast, hoping soon to be hobbling without cast

Getting injured is good cause it humbles ya and reminds ya what you take for granted.

You’re hardcore dude – wheelchairing around is HARD!

chris

Can that be achieved in an online classroom? Is a forum and videos enough interaction to have that magic happen? Probably not, not yet. But what if you paid to get TA help via skype chat or similar? I’d take a job TA’ing my own labs to online students and mark their code for a small fee. Problem there then becomes quality control and fair practices with private schools, but maybe the Udacity group will actually crack this problem and change education forever.

The tech sector in Canada has been dying slowly since Nortel, and RIM will be harvested for her organs next. It is time to back to that well of creativity we all knew as kids. Everyone should have access to information, and at no cost, because it is innovate or die time. No one knows who will have that next big idea. So encouraging creative thinking, learning “just cuz”, is the only way get us out of our technology rutt. My friend at xaxxon technologies wrote a heck of a lot of code for oculus with no formal training. He solved a few tricky robotics problems just because he didn’t know it was considered extremely difficult by experts. I thought it would be near imposible and was chicken to even try coding, but Colin just chipped away at it and made it work (self docking robots).

There are several good resources online: Udacity, The Khan Academy, and MIT.

This week I’m learning more about Python so I can get the most out of this course (video below):

** Two good PyDev introductions are at code academy and at vogella.

Climbing Slides (20mb) or as pdf
Science Slides (20mb)

more at http://www.squamishmountainfestival.com/

As a follow up to the blog on using good old telnet to control oculus, I’ll give a few examples of how you can test your own scripts.

A standard telnet session from my OSX machine follows, note the password can be plain text or the “hashed” or “salted” string you’ll find in the config/settings.txt file.

Last login: Mon May 14 21:25:43 on ttys001
macbook:~ brad$ telnet 192.168.1.45 4444 
Trying 192.168.1.45...
Connected to 192.168.1.45.
Escape character is '^]'.
oculus version 552 ready for login.
brad:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
override : true
1 tcp connections active
state
[0] echo: state
floodlight : false
firmware : oculusDC
override : true
spotlightsetbrightness : 0
localaddress : 192.168.xx.xxx
boottime : 1337025399058
lightport : COM8
serialport : COM4
externaladdress : 24.85.247.196 

Here I’ve only entered one command after logging in. “State” simply dumps the current shared variables back to standard output. Each command will be accounted for each session and you will always get an immediate echo. So, you’ll see a rolling and unique reply in the square braces, easy to parse out. All this echo tells you is that the command was received and dispatched. Any output from the command manager will be sent back in an asynchronous manner, so you can enter commands as fast as you like and the replies can come back in any order. An example is the “dockgrab” command, it can take up to 45 seconds to give up searching for the dock. In that time, several other commands can be serviced. You can rely on the state object to do atomic operations on any values stored in it! Threading on the oculus platform is mandatory because there is so much user interface, web and streaming video going on that no one operation should hold up tomcat or the web application.


So, you can do things like this to store your own, thread safe, storage on the robot itself.

[7] echo: red
state red true
[8] echo: state red true
red : true
state
[9] echo: state
floodlight : false
firmware : oculusDC
override : true
red : true
spotlightsetbrightness : 0

Once you are logged in, you can always ask for the command lift with the “help” command. If you just want to get into the bot quickly to test or monitor a certain field, simply use the SWING app built in. This will log you in using the admin user’s credentials in the settings file. See the runtime configurations in eclipse below:

The time saver is that you can up and down arrow through the valid command set from the input field. Again, I would say this is a very useful de-bugging and scripting tool, but you wouldn’t want to use this GUI to control the robot yourself.. but is ideal to control the robot from another programming language or to automate your testing.

In the above screen shot, note that the IP addresses are different and only one login was successful. If you are developing on the laptop that oculus is running on, then you don’t need to enter a user name and password. This is ideal because then you are not duplicating your password in the development environment. If your bot and development are on separate machines, then you must give the credentials. So, please use your salted strings, not plain text, if you are keeping these passwords in eclipse. Doing a factory reset will kill the salt value in settings.txt and then all the passwords will be invalidated.

Here is a one line script to restart the bot, note that you can add a list of commands after the password.. but they must be commands that don’t take any arguments. See the developer page in the code site’s wiki.

# reboot oculus
java -classpath $CLASSPATH developer.terminal.Terminal $HOST $PORT $USER $PASSWD restart bye

Now, from your preferred scripting language, just open a socket in the same manor and start sending messages back and forth. If there is interest, I’ll write a wrapper in C/C++ or Ruby etc.

Performance Boosting with Autonomic Dysreflexia

This page will hold data and evaluation of “boosting” experiments that I’m doing in order to get my heart and blood pressure to respond appropriately while climbing.  See ramp wheeling tests to learn more about post exercise hypotension (EH) , and why this limits performance in most quadriplegics.  First some background on what “boosting” is and why Doctors are trying to STOP this in sports. Basically put, Boosting is a way to increase Blood Pressure (BP) via a condition known as Autonomic_dysreflexia (AD).

Baseline BP for me in a normal resting state is 100/60 and heart rate between 50 and 60 beats per minute. When a pain stimulus is applied, a very fast response is seen. Believe it or not, in this example I was using electricity on my testicles while doing weights at home. Notice that in general, BP increases and HR decrease as the AD intensifies. If you think about this for a second, it makes sense. The volume of the blood will not change in this short time, so your heart must slow down.. or you’d die. This is playing with fire, take this warning seriously. A normal Baroflex response would show heart rate and blood pressure rise together but in quadriplegia, this EH is the limiting factor. Without higher pressure and heart rate, we simply can’t clear the acid from muscles fast enough.

The take home message here is that AD is not a proper/safe response for exercise, but it sure can help win medals.

Numbers in the 200′s even for a short time can cause strokes, retinal bleeding or even heart attacks. When sleeping deeply, I get an overly full bladder and
will get AD. Some nights I’ve seen my heart rate be as low as 35 for about ten minutes — very bad news, because this means my BP was very high and damage was done (limiting the ability of the arteries to deal with this over time).

So, the goal is to induce AD in a way that only gives a BP boost, but not so much that it lowers the HR.  A lower HR will mean less circulation overall, and less energy being delivered to muscles. Worst sill, the blood must carry away waste products — ACID. “Feel the burn” is a common phrase in the gym, and most say this is from the Lactate (H+) building up in the muscle. Now… How to “trick” a quadriplegic body into a normal response to exercise? (Bring up the pressure, constrict the veins, increase circulation and respiration)

So, in the spirit of “shoot first, ask questions later”, we tried to get samples of acid levels on the ramp tests. Most quadriplegics will have a hard time getting acid levels much higher than 2.5 because we just can’t get enough speed and heart rates. We’ll need to take many, many finger pokes of blood over the summer to see just how my acid levels correlate to heart rate and time. See, Lactate Levels on the Ramp Spreadsheet.

This page will soon link into all my workout logs. Currently we are trying to get a better system to log all this data automatically.  While a dedicated test subject, I am getting sick of paper and devices that can’t stream directly to my own gmail account.  New techniques have proven to work much better than “zapping”.  A term I use is,  “Further to Fall”,  referring to a way to mitigate OH (othostic hypotension) as well as EH.  In order to maximize the AD spike (boost) just do what some coaches tell you not to do before a big game.

Please be safe, and remember that I have a small pharmacy and devices to measure with.  You should not be messing with boosting if you have not discussed it at length with a specialist — and that Doctor should tell you “No”!

A good example of riding along the edge of what is safe. “don’t know you are in danger until it is too late”.

Cool new 3d sensor for Oculus is available for developers. More information on the new page at xaxxon.

More info, examples on jondev.net

Call in your Activity like this:

if (!BackupToServer.sendFileViaFTP(context)) {
    new Mail("FTP backup failed", mailBody).send();
}

import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Properties;
import javax.activation.CommandMap;
import javax.activation.DataHandler;
import javax.activation.DataSource;
import javax.activation.FileDataSource;
import javax.activation.MailcapCommandMap;
import javax.mail.BodyPart;
import javax.mail.Multipart;
import javax.mail.PasswordAuthentication;
import javax.mail.Session;
import javax.mail.Transport;
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeBodyPart;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMultipart;

import android.util.Log;

/**
 * 
 * uses this jar: http://code.google.com/p/javamail-android/
 *
 * 
 * @author brad.zdanivsky@gmail.com
 * 
 */
public class Mail extends javax.mail.Authenticator {

	private static final String PORT = "465";
	private static final String PORTS = "465";
	private static final String HOST = "smtp.gmail.com";
	private static final String USER = "xxxx";
	private static final String PASS = "xxxx";
	private static final String[] TO = { USER }; 
	private static final String FROM = USER;

	private Multipart multipart = new MimeMultipart();
	private String subject = "subject";
	private String body = "body text";

	public Mail(String sub, String txt) {
		subject = sub;
		body = txt;
		MailcapCommandMap mc = (MailcapCommandMap) CommandMap.getDefaultCommandMap();
		mc.addMailcap("text/html;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.text_html");
		mc.addMailcap("text/xml;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.text_xml");
		mc.addMailcap("text/plain;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.text_plain");
		mc.addMailcap("multipart/*;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.multipart_mixed");
		mc.addMailcap("message/rfc822;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.message_rfc822");
		CommandMap.setDefaultCommandMap(mc);
	}

	public void send() {
		final Properties props = setProperties();
		final Session session = Session.getInstance(props, this);
		new Thread() {
			public void run() {
				try {
					
					MimeMessage msg = new MimeMessage(session);
					msg.setFrom(new InternetAddress(FROM));
					InternetAddress[] addressTo = new InternetAddress[TO.length];
					for (int i = 0; i < TO.length; i++)
						addressTo[i] = new InternetAddress(TO[i]);
		
					msg.setRecipients(MimeMessage.RecipientType.TO, addressTo);
					msg.setSubject(subject);
					msg.setSentDate(new Date());
					BodyPart messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
					messageBodyPart.setText(body);
					multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);
		
					// Put parts in message
					msg.setContent(multipart);
		
					// send email
					Transport.send(msg);
					Log.e("MAIL", "message sent");
				
				} catch (Exception e) {
					Log.e("MAIL", "fail to send:" + e.getMessage());
				}
			}
		}.start();
	}

	private Properties setProperties() {
		Properties props = new Properties();
		// TODO: enable debugging here
		// props.put("mail.debug", "false");
		props.put("mail.smtp.host", HOST);
		props.put("mail.smtp.auth", "true");
		props.put("mail.smtp.port", PORT);
		props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.port", PORTS);
		props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.class", "javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory");
		props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.fallback", "false");
		return props;
	}
	
	public void addAttachment(String filename) throws Exception {
		BodyPart messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
		DataSource source = new FileDataSource(filename);
		messageBodyPart.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(source));
		messageBodyPart.setFileName(filename);
		multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);
	}

	@Override
	public PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {
		return new PasswordAuthentication(USER, PASS);
	}
}

The bot has also made gizmag, and C-Net this week! Big tech blogs writing up reviews really helps.

And today, Colin added a great price on a bot bundled with a robot realm licence. Here is an example of tracking laser dots on a wall with robot realm.

Here is a close up view of the new sonar mounts. These make the sonar more reliable. I think one should avoid putting these types of sensors too close to the floor.

oculus with sonar

eth shield hack

async labs wifi web sever

Basically this is a developer API to control the bot. You can send commands and get notifications about changes. This lets a 3rd party application hook in even without the web based GUI. So, you are free to write your own add-ons in any language you like. Control the bot as a zombie, or have applications trigger on events and interact with the logged in users.

Things you can do via TCP connections include:
- state dump
- user list, both TCP and web users
- docking, undocking
- move commands
- factory reset
- reboot
- grab dock coordinates
- chat with all users and TCP connections

You can launch the client from Eclipse or export the project to a JAR (setting the launch class to developer.swingtool.client). Running the jar, build a simple bat file like:
start javaw -jar oculus.jar 192.168.1.xxx 4444 brad +tVfDvTicIG5chk8ibFy34L63A8=


Or on osx/linux do this instead:
java -jar oculus.jar 192.168.1.xxx 4444 brad +tVfDvTicIG5chk8ibFy34L63A8= &


The parameters are, robot’s local ip, port number, user name, hashed password. You can send a plain text password if you like also.

As an example of how the TCP connections are sent updates, see below. We can chat with the logged in users and any TCP connections as well.

watch in 480p if you want to be able to actually read the text on screen

One example is sonar steering. The sonar values get updated and sent to all TCP connections. These listening services can stop the bot and write messages to the web screens too. Or, you might want to get going on your own auto-docking algorithm. This is easy because your module can just ask for the dock coordinates by sending a “find” command. These API’s will grow besed on need and hacks I’m most certainly going to do. So get in touch with ideas or things you want access to. More info is available on the code site wiki.

There are a few youtube videos in the works on how to manage user accounts and settings if you are developing on oculus. Stay tunned..

Testing android GPS and wheeling around my block. Will use this course as the base line for testing openPAW.

My friend Colin has project that I’ve been helping him test for the last few months.. and now oculus finally ready for market! Colin has made bikes and my custom climbing rig in the past, but he has always wanted to make affordable wifi robots. The key to oculus is the low cost but fully featured mini laptop. The telepresence robot itself is powered via USB and runs on Java, Java Script, Flash and the open source web server tomcat. The real selling point for me is the android application to drive it from anywhere in the world. Pretty fun as just toy, but doing two way calls over the web means you can check on kids, pets or even your business or office at night. Yes, oculus has as a set of headlights that will be available. Of course we know it needs to fire darts etc. Oculus could be the office mascot that takes aim at slackers. This is the reason for supporting hacks and mods in the discovery mechanism and using the arduino bootloader.

See the USB powered headlight for Oculus, prototype circuit on breadboard on Twitpic

Geeks can check out the code here: google code project. I’m adding some developer level hooks into the bot as well as sonar. Colin is the Flash and Java Script wizard, but many of the visual recognition features will be exposed in the developer API. If you’d like to help with some mapping and position algorithms, please do get in touch. Also note that the motors and sensors connect to a custom arduino. The firmware and board designs are all open to developers, but simple pin header gives hackers access to extend the hardware (as I’ve done with a sonar range finder as an example).

I have setup a guest account on the bot in my living room. Anyone can log in with:
http://24.85.241.92/oculus/
USER: tron
PASS: user

So, this week, use Colin’s bot:
http://goo.gl/KS2jY
login: guest, password: guest

This little guy is now available at robot shop, but he isn’t low cost.

http://www.healthandfitnessjournalofcanada.com/index.php/html/article/view/51/25

and Dr Warburton’s supporting write up here:

http://www.healthandfitnessjournalofcanada.com/index.php/html/article/view/52/24

Summer is in full swing and we are going to set up the climbing rig in Squamish on August 21st. We have done this route several times, but with everyone in different jobs. I’m going to put all the details here because much of the planning is buried in email and will be best to keep it public.

We are going to hog the crag. Shamelessly. Once a year or so the wheelchairs get to have a go on the easy to get to bluffs.. I don’t think anyone has ever complained, but email me a rant or post it here if there are any issues. We’ll try to throw up a few top ropes for helpers to get some climbing in close by. It should be smooth transfers in and out of the rig and we’ll have everything we need to belt, strap, or tape you into the rig to get you comfortable.

Parking and volunteers.. We can drop off near the cliff (go up hospital road and follow it along to the bluffs). So, this means have a person doing the valley parking gig. Must move cars to lower parking lot (aka the climber’s parking lot across the street from McDonald’s basically). Then they can walk few minutes back up to the trails to were we are. I’ll send out cell phone numbers before the day, so we can help a few people with rides up.

Heat.. It will be hot, or rain.. be ready for both. Pretty sure is there is shade by cliffs too. If hot, it will be hot early, so.. starting at 9:00 isn’t going to help much. Please try to pick times here by adding a comment.. or email me.

Rigging and photos.. Brenton is taking over CJ’s photography job. So, I’m posting the basic diagrams here. Everything is safe and backed up. The whole system can be lowered to the ground at any time if there is any problems. Note that assistance can be from above, or below, but friction at the top is the killer.

More here on TED

Some technology that came from eye tracking has seen new use on tablets and phones. See full review of Swype at arstechnica.com. I think this is going to solve many disability related text input problems. Voice dictation is king, but to manage most applications, we need a pointer. A quadriplegic needs to keep a finger on the screen and not lift it. Hunt a peck is too problematic and nearly impossible if moving, say on the bus.

Now, my next phone/tablet won’t be an Apple — as much as I do love there products. Android is gaining ground, and as long as they don’t get the same fragmentation that J2ME had, well.. I’m betting an open development platform will eventually win out. slowly eating away at RIM, Nokia, J2ME too. As a developer, you are forced to choose what platform to build your app for. This why companies like PhoneGapare getting lots of attention. New frameworks for doing HTML5 and Java Script continue to improve and touch/gesture commands as well.

So, the future is bright for better input devices for quadriplegics.

If a terrorist bomb goes off, no one knows how allegiances will shift. Lots of books (Tom Clancy) play out the scenario of a nuke or dirty bomb going off and the super powers not knowing who to attack. Religious extremism, oil futures and legacy relationships.. very ugly mix. How would the USA, Russia and China manage relationships in the middle east after an attack? Would the USA just stick with Israeli interests as Russia continues to backs Iran ( in order to maintain oil prices?) Israel has been thumbing her nose at the USA lately knowing that any American President is automatically beholden to her interests… so would Israel strike first in the middle east with a nuke?

I don’t care how smart you are, what books you wrote, if you saw every episode of The West Wing, or even if you ran many simulations on a supercomputer. Watch The Fog of War and see just how close we have come to “the brink” (Terminator reference) while the MAD Doctrine fueled the arms race. Now everything is even more complex! There is no way to even place a smart bet on what would happen if the legendary Jack Bauer didn’t save the day with some good old fashion torture. Pretty cool show, too bad it just completely ridiculous. But.. that is the treat of the day, the bomber. No government can keep you totally safe, so give it up.. do other things. So if we can’t do big JFK’esque things, why not do few obvious little ones? I’m a fan of Bill Maher’s common sense.

My only point here: We are less safe from nuclear weapons than when during cold war. Regan won the cold war right? So we can all relax about threats from countries, so we need to be afraid of something else. I’d bet we’d all sweat blood if we knew what was really going on (in real time vs years after like in “Fog of War”).

What would this little animation look like in the next 10, 100 years?

(More from Tyler himself) Or see this chart of nukes thus far.

Watch this, and can even ignore everything but Baker’s one point… there is only 40 seconds of time before these super tankers runs aground in this channel!

Accidents happen even when vigilant and is no room for error in this situation. Go ahead.. call these folks “tree hungers”, “hippies” etc… I’ll bet my next meal that these are the people that remember how to actually grow food (compared to the suits that actually make all the decisions behind closed doors). Now green power will take some time yup.. but lets start with some regulation on an industry that makes more profit than anything else on the earth?

And look at open ocean:

Personally speaking, it won’t be my kids going to the next war over oil. Nor will it be my kids asking why we so obviously short sighted and greedy/comfortable? Maybe give this film a try too, then ask yourself why “we” never held a few cooperation’s feet to the fire.

This is so disappointing to see Obama hedge on oil. could have given a JFK style speech about doing great things… but the land of the free is pretty comfy with the status quo. So, let the oil flow in the gulf — for years is not unrealistic the way it is going. Something my Dad said to me really stuck. “The longer the war, the sooner the revolution.” Without angry voters, nothing changes.. so lets watch an entire ecosystem die, I’ll get the popcorn you count the oily bodies (that BP is trying hard to collect at night when no one is watching). More here too.

Get involved if you can, but even talking about this helps. Just discussing it with a friend or even a random on the bus helps. tweeting helps. These things get counted, trend, and lets everyone know the rest of the world is watching too. Save the world one text at a time.

http://www.thecanadian.org/k2/item/143-oil-supertankers-video

“Nothing is impossible. You just have to chip away at it and know it’s going to take a long time and work really hard at it. Committing yourself to something, that’s the hardest part. Once you do, the journey begins. …. “Sometimes I lose track of how far I’ve come since my injury, because my life is pretty awesome these days.”

So, not the best choice of words in places, but I guess I did say this during the phone-in interview. You can read the whole thing in the national post: Between a rock and a hard place — no problem.

I really dislike this photo, but seems that editors like it. I will continue to milk my one big win, but sure makes me think I’ve been slacking some to re-read these articles (updated Aug 2012).

“What does it mean to be chosen for this great honor?” Well, I didn’t really know until I saw how much it meant to the others. Started out as just a cool event and reason to go to my favorite pub, but ended up as a lesson in humility. Sometimes I loose track of how far I’ve come since my injury because my life is pretty awesome these days. But these guys were pumped up and I found it really infectious! I’d like to thank them and invite them climbing one day. I was really proud to be selected and I’ll never forget it. Thanks to all involved!

More photos in the “media” area too.

Paralympic Relay shot by my Friend Ivan (the best bar tender you’ll ever meet too)

And a second one done by Chris Wheeler:

More an the Chief News Paper, and more bloggers writing about the event at www.themidwestperspective.com

Disability research integration is not happening. Not like it needs too. I’ve seen the problem from several points of view now and feel justified in a little rant. Scientists generally hate mixing with business, but this is the reality. The business of keeping a lab open and publishing regularly is difficult and in direct conflict with the new buzz words: “Community Driven, practical solutions” which are ignored when the main funding sources want cures worthy of the cover of Time Magazine.

I raised money and ran for Rick Hansen back in the 80’s. The talk back then was “one day soon, they’ll be able to fix spinal cords.” My injury was in 1994 and I still hear “five, ten years guys, stay healthy because the cure is coming.” Showing the above video to a friend got this response…”but on side note they did seem genuine, and nice people (for whatever that means or is worth)”. The reason solutions take so long is simple: follow the money. Sad but true.

The SCI community requests are simple. Blader, bowel, and sex. Motor control almost always comes after these basic human functions. We want to feel normal again. There are lots of web forums where SCI communities can share information and personal experiences, but rarely will there be a real doc or even a PhD in there to bring the newly published info to the group.

What to do when community needs are ignored because the research funding goes to the “glamorous science?” Tough spot. My point is that we are getting slowed down for the wrong reasons. We should be much further along by the year 2010, but political pressure needs to be applied to science and educational organizations. The scientific community is well known to have a horrendous record for conflicts of interests so despite good intentions talk will continue to be just talk. So screw the jet pack, I’d just like to feel normal on date nights again, which if anyone cared to look it up was far above walking when you ask people living with SCI.

So, what we are really looking for is publications this from DHRN

Early days on this project, but will be testing all winter on the icord ramp.

Presenter 2: Brad Zdavinsky (VerticalChallenge.org)
•Overcoming Obstacles: The Story of a Tetraplegic’s Drive to Beat the Odds and Challenge Beliefs in His Pursuit to Climb (15:00-16:00)

(not my title)

My slides as a PDF (NOTE: is 30mb file, so “save as”)

I found this to be a very well run event (great staff really makes the difference). My slides were more of a story about living with SCI and having goals outside of the normal rehabilitation parameters. So I chopped out many charts and graphs.. and glad I did. The hour went quickly and had just enough time to take a few questions. (Thank you Candice for running my slides)

Thanks again to Dr. Warburon for the invitation to present my point of view on rehab, education and risk taking.

http://www.webcommunications.ubc.ca/ubc2010/2009/04/28/researcher-aims-to-end-paralympic-boosting/

DR ANDREI KRASSIOUKOV

Dr. Andrei Krassioukov wants the International Paralympic Committee to change how athletes are evaluated – Photo by Martin Dee

If Dr. Andrei Krassioukov gets his way, the days of some Paralympic athletes putting their lives in danger to increase their athletic performance may be over.

Despite an international ban on the practice, some Paralympic athletes with spinal cord injuries are using a dangerous technique called “boosting” to increase their blood pressure in the heat of competition.

Dr. Krassioukov, aDr. Krassioukov studies autonomic dysfunctions, which are dysfunctions in the parts of our bodies not under our conscious control. People with spinal cord injuries experience not only paralysis and loss of sensation, but often have trouble with autonomic functions such as blood pressure, heart rate and bladder and bowel control.
Consequently, during competition a wheelchair athlete’s heart rate doesn’t increase according to the body’s demands, leading to low blood pressure, fatigue, poor performance and a loss of endurance.

“That’s a big disadvantage to people with spinal cord injuries,” he says.

Yet many athletes learn they can subvert these cardiovascular dysfunctions by causing some pain or discomfort in the area below their injury. Known as autonomic dysreflexia, the process stimulates the spinal cord and boosts arterial blood pressure.

It also puts their life in jeopardy.

Some athletes will tighten or block their catheter, a tube used to drain urine from the bladder through the urethra.

Some men will break their big toe before the competition. Others will sit on their testicles during a match.

“They know if they sit on their genitalia, their blood pressure will go up,” he says.

Others use less dramatic methods: abdominal binders or pressure stockings on legs that help increase blood pressure.

Despite documented deaths and the potential for a stroke or intracranial hemorrhage, some Paralympic athletes injure themselves just to improve performance, Dr. Krassioukov says.

“Unfortunately the physiological condition of the body predisposes them to poor cardiovascular responses to exercise, but they’re trying to ameliorate or improve their exercise with these horrific measures.”

The International Paralympic Committee condemns the practice, yet it’s difficult to enforce.

Last year, Dr. Krassioukov and his colleagues submitted a proposal to the International Paralympics Committee to develop additions to Paralympic classifications that would include an evaluation of a Paralympic athlete’s autonomic functions. (Presently, the committee reviews only a person’s physical capacity, such as hand functioning, range of motion and balance in a wheelchair).

To this effort, researchers last year examined five Paralympic rugby teams, from Canada, Germany, Russia, Britain and Australia, during competitions in Burnaby, just before the Beijing Games. Basketball players are next on the agenda.

This year, Dr. Krassioukov has proposed an assessment of members of the sledge hockey and curling teams at the upcoming 2010 Winter Paralympic Games.
The findings will be used to make recommendations to the International Paralympic Committee regarding the addition of autonomic components to athlete classifications.

“If we will introduce an autonomic component to classification, maybe this will allow a more fair and safe competition for all Paralympians,” he said.

I’ve been following Boston Dynamics awhile now. They seem to be the most sable legs around.

Never has there been so much attention from Microsoft to the details for disability users. The “ease of access” configuration is really good for my fellow one finger, one hand users! Sticky keys and a track ball in the early years were pretty brutal. Try keeping up with the class in the computer lab. Even with all the input tricks, and I know them all, it is still slow going and coding speed (time) is money. There are new features to control the mouse that made my wrist very happy. It is easy to control the focus, cursor and text input all with the mouse alone. This is key for those with even less function than me. Two thumbs up here, a nice surprise.

I never even considered Vista and stayed with XP and its 3gig of RAM limitation. I saw my friends suffer with Vista and waited for Windows 7. This version not only manages 32 and 64 bit code, but added what was missing in XP (leaving 3rd parties doing these applications). Basically all the stuff built in to all Mac’s and found free in Linux communities for years:

• Backup Utilities
• Screen Sharing
• Network Monitoring tools
• Bluetooth Stack Service

Stability wise, I’ve been running Win7 on two totally different computers for few weeks now and not one crash, nope.. just a few application hangs and the OS dealt with them fine. One touch I really was surprise to see was in the audio controls. Now you can scale the max volume for each app, something I’m sure we all find really useful. Youtube plays too loud, VLC to quiet and there is a volume slider in three different locations — now you get a handle on this in one place.

OK enough gushing, it’s getting embarrassing. Don’t get me wrong, I cut my teeth on PC’s and C++ and Java. What made me change over to Mac was really just video editing and the OSX back end. After short time with Apple products I was won over because things just worked and I never had to tinker much. Apple computers also come in a pretty box that don’t make a sound — something you’d actually want to have in your living room!

Now the question is… If Microsoft is can install on any type of hardware and run like OSX… then why will people keep forking over the extra cash for a Mac? More bang for your buck on PC’s, always has been, always will.. making for an interesting time in the OS business. The new smart phones and Zune running Windows Mobile just might be stable enough to win back the developers dealing with Apple’s iron grasp on iPhone/iPod Touch. I’ve personally decided not to go with the $100 iPhone just because of the restrictions on connecting to it’s USB and BlueTooth.

Now things that broke…

All my file shares broke… I was not pleased. Windows has new ways of detecting other PC’s and doing password file shares.. but I think goes out of its way NOT to see the iMac. Note that iTunes shared music over all platforms without a glitch, so seems like a finger in the eye from Microsoft! So, all you can do is connect from the Mac to the shared windows folders (windows will not find your Mac). But you need to use static IP’s and connect Samba manually as seen below. (more in file sharing issues) I don’t really mind the static IP’s, but lame to not support Samba properly.

must connect manually so best to use fixed IP addresses

… and more on snow leopard on engadget

Nokia 5800

Is Symbian going to make it on mobile devices? I’ve used java a long time now and hoped the fragmentation would be sorted out for by now. My first experience with S60 was pretty shocking. Sun’s SDK for wireless devices is actually really good, but runs on the emulator generally won’t on the actual device. It is a very slow and painful debugging process to test on emulator, then create a SIS (or jar files) and upload to the phone, run it and watch it crash. No way to know were or why, and you need to get the stack trace yourself (display on a Form, or send to a file etc). Ugly, and in many devices the standard Bluetooth API (JSR82) will fail to connect because the phone’s firmware is locked. Pretty bad news for a developer trying to sell innovative apps.

Now, The fragmentation is in both directions. More handsets and new code tools all the time. Python is better at some of the portability and debugging. It is very easy to use a Bluetooth Console to execute commands directly on the device. But not all devices are supporting Python. Flash and Brew on devices also seemed promising. Brew bundles the billing/purchase and digital signing right into each app. Seems like a good idea for developers, but has been buggy and does limit how you can deploy your application. Now don’t forget JavaScript. JavaScript has done well and is on many platforms and almost every web browser. iPhone heavily leverages JavaScript and has shunned Flash and JVM’s despite the rumors of Apple supporting both soon. So, pick a device and one or two code tools? Not an easy thing to do because you also need to consider what App Store is going to get you into the market.

(not even going to talk about C/C++ because it just needs to die. in my opinion, only the firmware for each phone should be native. Note that much of Nokia’s SDK required elaborate configuration to write even simple apps for S60)

For many of these reasons I would strongly suggest phone gap. They have an Open Source Project to try to address these problems and are going to do well just because developers need to be able to churn out apps quickly. No bluetooth support yet, but watch out for it.

Now, what about all my Java code I have thus far? Well, Nokia isn’t totally asleep at the wheel, it just seems like it. But they have updated their Java Runtime for S60 to version 2.0. It is way better and solved many of platform issues on my Nokia 5800.

Worth watching out for is an Open Source Os called MAEMO. If this project replaces all the Nokia legacy stuff and gets traction.. They might be able to get in the game. Seeing how Android does on some of the lower end phones will tell the tale. Android has a way better App Store and a great Eclipse plug in. Looks like a horse race, place your bets.

See more results here

More about her work at icord:

Lots of people have and will continue to talk about “Dano”. This guy was one of the climbers that really pushed what is possible. Not many climbers out there, living or past, that I admire more than Dan Osman. He lived fully, but died young. He left his daughter to grow up without her Dad… very sad. But who is to say what “too dangerous” and what can and can’t be done? Find me one dirt bag climber that doesn’t know Dano’s story — won’t find one. We know that gravity never forgives.

Even the great John Bachar died soloing this year, something no one in the climbing world would ever expect because of his reputation for being the best in the world at this.

Now here is the rub. It’s all a numbers game, just like at the casino. Do something with a zero margin for error long enough, and you are going to die. Can’t beat the house at gambling if you play long enough.. gravity is kinda the same. Hand holds break, gear can fail (just like Todd Skinner) . So just you this all down to personal choice and responsibility.

My point? Safety is an illusion. There is no shortage of ironic deaths were people died doing simple things after taking great risks all their lives. Generally, with great risk, we take great care and all is well. This kind of adventure just makes it very clear that you are playing with fire. Evey day we take great risks without truly knowing them, because we’d rather not know. Now jump off a cliff with only an 11mm rope to stop you from hitting the dirt… now that is about as “real” as things get. I’ve never done anything even close to this, but I know what is to feel totally alert, focused and trying to mange fear.. it is just another way to clear one’s head. The difference is how your food tastes after. How you notice things you didn’t before, and you’ll find out a thing or two about yourself too. It is really as simple as that, but always some will pontificate about “what it all means”. No one wants to “die doing what they love”, because there is lots of cool things to be doing, and not one of them is worth dying for. Be safe out there but one has to accept that there is many factors we can’t control. All we can do is reduce the risk to a point we are comfortable enough to enjoy the adventure. Trust me, accidents happen every day and don’t make the newspapers is all.

I love sailing and follow it as I can.. but this is going to be the best match up ever! Technology, wind, water.. sweet. Dennis Connor must be eating his heart out. Never seen so much money spent on new techologies for one event (going to space is cheaper than this sport!)

Brad and Dave on the “Uncle Ben’s” route. This roof section was chosen as a testing grounds for larger climbs in California. We were “lucky” to some get strong wind on this day. Instead of suffering in hot sun all day, we froze instead… but could get good understanding of how the rig does in real weather. Was enough wind to make communication difficult and ropes frustrating to manage.

Reading about vibrator quality from a male quadriplegic seems a touch odd to you? Well, that is why I’m writing about it. After a spinal cord injury we really just want to feel normal, and the basic bodily functions are a always affected. Worse, some folks with spinal cord injuries simply cut off sexual activities because they don’t dare mess with Autonomic_dysreflexia (AD), or are embarrassed about the topic in general. (quads are strongly warned about AD in rehab)

The good news is that even long after in injury, the body can be retrained. With the right feedback, this can be done safely and gets easier over time. I’m almost 15 years into my injury and only getting a proper education now, and I’ve had to do much on my own because apparently this is taboo. Yes it may sound strange to overhear a few guys in chairs talking about their erections, volume and color of loads, but really… that is what much of our happiness and fears center around. Stay tuned on this thread and I’ll give advice on how to get away from relying on the blue pill on date nights. Think able bodied sex can be intimidating and nerve wracking regarding performance, well SCI adds a whole new level of complexity and potential risks (AD, embarrassment)

Enter the Ferticare: an over-priced vibrator that will let you down. At 800 bucks, this is a painful purchace and even worse thing to RMA. If you are used to the medical benefits of ejaculation, not having your device for a few weeks, or even months, is a real problem. It is not the motor, but some cheap battery and charger parts and charging issues. So, the warranty is up on mine, it won’t charge so… WE FIX. Because this is considered a “Medical Device” it can’t use power from the wall, but there is no reason to skimp on power — clearly more power is better? No, actually not. What makes this vibrator different is the ability to change both the frequency and amplitude to tune it to the signal that works for you. You should see your Doctor before inducing AD (see Boosting).

So, this page will hold the efforts to make a smarter vibrator for Quadriplegics, and I’ll give away a hint… controlling the speed of the device from Heart Rate and Blood Pressure is the key to being able to successfully ejaculate regularly. (must be on a regular basis to get the benefits). I will post my Heart Rate and Blood Pressure data here as I test if ejaculation is better than Boosting. In other words, does this routine help fitness? Most say it makes them tired, but what it does do is limit muscle spasm when I reach my max heart rate of 120 beats per minute. This lets me continue when I’d ordinarily get shut down. We already know that vibration stimulation can raise pressure in the arteries for a short time and this can mitigate OH (dizziness when sitting up, common in rehab). Also, regular ejaculation helps prevent “retraction” as well. Retraction really freaks people out because with AD setting in, the penis can be pulled right inside one’s body. In many cases this means the person’s condom drainage pulls off and they wet their pants — very embarrassing.

More info in this article on disaboom regarding SCI and Sexual function

Please share links to SCI forms on this topic if you have them,Thanks.
Brad

Related devices:

1. sex chair
2. erection support device
3. sex positioning pillows
4. real touch (world’s first robotic vagina)
5. TED talk on Medical Inventing

Future Exception is a new one! This error only started after I re-flashed my Nokia 5800 with version 21 of the firmware.

I used to get further, the URL was discovered from the service search and I’d even get asked for permission to connect… and then get This error

Again, my code is freely available to test your connection issues, but here is a snip. Notice that the URL is false for master, encrypt and for authenticate. This code is actually part of the ZephyrOpen Project for PC and MAC, but being JSR-82, this is supposed to work on the cell phones too.. and it does, just need a Black Berry 8100, that junk phone has never let me down with Devopment tools. Too bad it has no WIFI, could be used as a BT to WIFI bridge.

why does Word Press Mangle this code?

/**
* Find and attach to serial port profile for this device
*
* @return true if connection was established, false if not
*/
public boolean connect() {

if( ! findService()) {
constants.error(“can’t find serial port service on ” + getBluetoothAddress(), this);
return false;
}

try {

constants.info( “url = ” + serviceURL, this);

/** open the serial port streams */
connection = (StreamConnection) Connector.open(serviceURL);
inputStream = connection.openDataInputStream();
outputStream = connection.openDataOutputStream();

} catch (Exception e) {
constants.error(“connect(): ” + e.getMessage(), this);
return false;
}

/** all is well, streams open */
return true;
}

/** @return true if target device was found */
private boolean findService() {

constants.info(“Searching for SPP ” + getBluetoothAddress(), this);
serviceSearch = true;

/** Serial Port Profile UUID */
int[] attributes = { 0×100 };
UUID[] uuids = {com.intel.bluetooth.BluetoothConsts.RFCOMM_PROTOCOL_UUID};

/** look for serial port service */
int serviceSearchID = 0;
try {

serviceSearchID =
agent.searchServices(attributes, uuids, this, this);

/** spin lock */
while (serviceSearch) Thread.sleep(DELAY);

} catch (Exception e) {
agent.cancelServiceSearch(serviceSearchID);
return false;
}

/** found target serial port profile ? */
if( serviceURL == null ) return false;
else return true;
}

/** found a service on this device */
public void servicesDiscovered(int arg0, ServiceRecord[] servRecord) {
for (int i = 0; i < servRecord.length; i++) {

DataElement nameElement = (DataElement) servRecord[i].getAttributeValue(0×100);
if ((nameElement != null)
&& (nameElement.getDataType() == DataElement.STRING)) {

/** retrieve the name of the service */
String name = (String) nameElement.getValue();

if (name.equals(“Bluetooth Serial Port”)) {
serviceURL = servRecord[i].getConnectionURL(
ServiceRecord.NOAUTHENTICATE_NOENCRYPT, false);
serviceSearch = false;
}
}
}
}

After finally getting the Flashing Cable (CA-101) to work the firmware upgrade on the phone only took a few minutes. This with the latest version of the OVI suite (v1.1.3) the bluetooth synchronization worked much better and the cable was not needed, but the Nokia Launcher did cause crashes on several occasions were my software was using the bluetooth (WIDCOM) stack at the same time. That I can live with, but the cable driver now shows up as two devices in the PC Device Manager and yes, that causes the flashing cable issues!

Notice that on the development side of things that the S60 Emulator is slow to launch and I’ve not been able to use it from Eclipse! Only thing you can do is to build your JAR files and then open them with the Nokia S60 Emulator.

The crazy, maddening thing here is that the Nokia Firmware is sooo hit and miss as to what java calls will work, and which ones will return errors or just have when running on the phone, even though the exact same code runs fine on the emulators. See Below for the errors launching S60 Emulator from Eclipse:

So, in terms of any code advice for the nokia phones? I have had much better time with S60 Python Libraries. The ability to basically telnet into the phone and run commands from OSX has been dreamy and what initially made the phone attractive — FAST DEVELOPMENT. Looking at JavaFX and NetBeans.. more of the same, but very nice tools to mash together a MIDlet.. but good luck if you get stuck. Long story short.. I’m praying for better Dev tools from Nokia or Sun., but the promise of “write once, run anywhere” turned out to be one of those great ideas that never happened.. Maybe Python is the answer? (Or Maybe choose higher end phones like Apple or Google for your fast tracked app you want to sell online.)

You can test this on your phone by installing the MIDlet test Tools I’ve posted on my Google Code Site Please try these simple apps on your emulators and devices and see what works and what error codes you get. I’ll write about Bluetooth issues like service advertising and discovery next week.

Posted using ShareThis

Long story, but the ZephyrOpen code project was first running on chips as meager as the TINI java chips. Growing power and java support on cell phones made these boards obsolete for my needs while Rock Climbing. So, now a mid range cell phone has everything I need up there, including a video stream. (original system, batteries and camera) But, not an easy choice these days, new phones coming out almost weekly (and the new LG phones look great too and have extremely good cameras ).

Not one mobile device has it all, but some are better at blue tooth and java support. Others are just development headaches waiting to happen (code, compile, transfer the jar files and test — too long a proccrss to be effective programming time). The “write once” promise of java didn’t come true. The fragmentation was unavoidable even with the JSR’s, but it is still way much more portable re-usable than C/C++ code. For my needs I had to get a phone with solid bluetooth and WIFI. I also needed an App Store to eventually offer services via an Open Source App.

Easy right?

I fumbled around on a Black Berry (has a good market place also) for a few weeks. Tested my app and all was working, but I hated the 8100. I had to get something could actually type on. Mind as well get GPS and all the other cool sensors like accelerometers and such while I’m at it. The Iphone has great App store, but *was* blocking bluetooth access and serial port access. The new G1 also had bluetooth API problems (but has a brand new App store). So really my only option was good old Nokia. They have been around longest and have large developer base and support. I liked every Nokia device thus far, so…

… get the “Bat Man Phone” then.. it has what I need, and will let me test out all the interesting Python libraries I’ve been reading about. The 5800 is not offered by the cell companies in Canada yet, so needed to get it early from NCIX. All I can say is that I’ve never installed, re-installed and done it all over again to get a software update… and I’m still not able to get my XP box to connect to my phone. (I do get USB access to the memory card to transfer files, so the cable is fine). You need to upgrade the firmware and setup the Music, Maps, Photos and OVI. Without this update, good luck installing Python and any of the new accelerometer games!

Ensure you have the version 20 of the firmware, I had to RMA my phone and stop coding for over a week. Now that I have version 20, I still get errors trying to install python for S60.

Few links to get started developing for S60 here (this is what sold me on Nokia):

LWUIT (“mobile versdion of swing “)
S60 Sensor Framework
Java Libraries and Documentation
Getting started with J2ME

Very disappointing from one of the biggest players n the business. A USB and driver issue.. gimme a break. My crappy BlackBerry 8100 will sync on the PC without fail (and even from ANT or Command line no less) I went with Nokia because they have been around a long time and allow you to unlock the phone free of charge. But.. remember that Nokia has many, many version of hardware and software out there.. this fragmentation just might be their Achilles Heel. Watching Polar and Nokia join forces in heart rate devices was a big news in the industry, but I am hard pressed to say anything good about these two giants — save for that fact that they both have the lion’s share of the market.

You can follow more of this screw up on engadget. I’ll get the python and other apps going on it soon, just rather be coding than futzing about.

But, what is good on the phone you might ask? Well, the MIDP support and bluetooth are solid, and that is what I bought the phone for after all. The emulated buttons for the old school phones is also good. The GPS is ok, but I’d use an external receiver for anything really important like climbing. Screen and typing is not bad either, and I’ve got almost no hand function, so.. that says something. I use my thumb nail mostly, so the resistive screen is fine for me. (but iPhone’s capacitive screen still wins on this score)

Finally, the camera quality is pretty good for video too. Here is a clip from the first quad rugby games to be held in the new Olympic skating oval in Richmond BC.

Now we are in a European Disability Sport Magazine. The Author has given me a rough translation in English. I’ve found many good articles in this magazine, and found that Google translation to be good enough to get the main points. It was great getting more press around the world. There are so many good rehab and sports programs and publications in Europe, it would be great to take the rig there and do more after Elcap.

Thank you

Janke Bondam of ryk.dk
Copenhagen
Denmark

The Cliff Hanger

It is only the imagination that puts a boundary for what the sport of extremes can consists of, where it can take place, how it unfolds and who does it. And what only the very few could ever in their wildest imagination think doable, the extraordinary climber, Canadian Brad Zdanivsky, made possible in the summer of 2005.

The achievement was the climbing of The Grand Wall which was literal speaking a vertical 700 m high mountainside called The Chief near Squamish in West Canada, and the fact was, that Brad Zdanivsky is a quad after a car crash. How this climbing actually was done, you could that summer read in The Globe & Mail.

Brad Zdanivsky, who is 32 by now, was 18 when he broke his neck. Before that he was a keen climber, and from the age of 15 he had reached the first stages of what you could call advanced climbing. He had it in his genes, climbing was for him like renewing the oxygen in his blood. So what do you do when you break your neck and still want to be a climber? You put you thinking cap on and start to solve the problems.

Brad and his father, who was a keen climber himself, designed after years and years of thorough researches and checks – and a lot of money – a climbing “thing”, which they got a professional company to construct so both security and comfort was in order. It consists of a frame with a seat. Above are two bicycle-like wheels and underneath on the inside is a smaller wheel to prevent him from banging into the mountain side. He is fixed to the climbing “thing” – as he called it – and with his tied hands he can pull himself up with some pulley-device. About 30 cm for every pull.

When Brad climbed The Grand Wall in 2005 a team of volunteering climbers and friend was with him making it possible for him to climb the vertical mountain side. He started early in the morning, and fourteen hours later he had reached the top. An extremely exhausting achievement. A helicopter brought him down again. Even for an experienced climber The Chief is said to be an ordeal of the rather heavy ones. The feeling of victory after having achieved the goal not only made his climber-heart beat but it let project Vertical Challenge come into being, whose goal is to “start a movement that will see more quadriplegics enjoy adventure sports—a realm where people with higher-level spinal cord injuries are currently denied access” which can be read at their web site verticalchallenge.org.

RYK! Magazine has been in mail contact with Brad Zdanivsky to hear more about his climbing.

- I have been climbing since childhood. I always spotted out the highest trees and the steepest cliffs, and from the early teens I saved money for rope and other climbing gears. I started to meet other climbers and by and by the challenges in climbing became more and more difficult. All this amounted to countless adventures in the mountains which naturally game me a deep sense of connection to nature and being out in the wilderness, which has never left me. This is one of the reasons why it is a bit of a challenge to land in a wheelchair, because the outdoor life in the wilderness became practical a close country for me.

I read on a climbing-chat-site that someone had written this quote from Camus “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invisible summer”, is that something you can relate to?

- Yes, definitely: my climbing is my invisible summer. When I in ’94 crashed with the car I remember that my first thought, that night I was lying helpless across the steering wheel, was, that I will never be able to climb again. The first months in the hospital and later at the rehabilitation centre passed with starring up at the ceiling. The mountains that now needed to be climbed was all about learning to sit upright, get dressed myself, eat by my own doing and a lot of other daily things. The hardest thing for me was to forget who I once was and start trying to concentrate all my energy to return to college, but not even the best academic readings could compensate for my need to be outdoor. So it did not take long before I started to speculate if it was possible for me to return to the walls. I first started with some rappelling which developed more and more like the climbing gears got more and more refined and tailor-made for me, so I was able to use every bit of muscle power I had left. The culmination of all these efforts was reaching the summit of The Chief. Finding my way back to the wall became my invisible summer.

Why do you climb – what do you get out of it?

- Every climber hates that question … we climb because it is fun, is our immediate answer. Being on a challenging adventure in the raw wilderness with friends is really rewarding. Training and organizing to reach a certain goal is what ignites me. I climbed before my accident, so it is only natural that I continue. It is not the same as before concerning grace and power but I am up there on the wall with my friends and that is a fantastic experience. It is the mix of the great efforts, the concentration and the danger that keeps you focused on the here and now, which gives the whole thing an unsurpassed kick.

I can deduct from what I have read about you, that you have it in your blood, – that there is a thrill unmatched by hanging suspended in mid air, – that you simply must be out there, or rather up there. Is it the genes, which are calling?

- Yes, it is worse than this. I feel obligated to do this, that I really have no other choice. That the challenge is so obvious that to not pursuer climbing, would be mean I was beaten. That I’d loose some of my own self-respect. And in many ways you get close to life – being alive – up there on the walls. It is all about hard work, about focusing; focusing on the wall, the next little step and nothing more. It is a slow and calmly activity which has something spiritual about it. The adrenalin is present, needless to say, but you have to have the danger under control. It is extreme presence you sort of get addicted to. And then I have not mentioned the view and the wide open spaces. So maybe one could say that I have something to prove to myself, but really … I want to make this equipment so others can go out and surpass the work we have put into this. But doing this all safely is no small effort.

Have others followed your footsteps; other quads climbing walls?

- Some of my friends in wheelchairs have tried a bit of climbing, but I want to create a program for others to use regularly, as well as make the equipment for others. It is a very low volume sport for those in chairs, simply because mountains rarely have wheelchair access. Worse, the costs are extremely high to design and throw away new gear all the time.

Do you have future climbing plans?

- Yes, the biggest wall I’ve always dreamed about: El Captain in Yosemite National Park in California. It is a life long goal and I will be making attempts soon. We need to control breathing and blood pressure for a quadriplegic in this wild environment. This climb makes the Chief look like cake and ice cream, and literally keeps me awake at night.

RYK! Magazine wishes Brad Zdanivsky all the best of luck with his wild and daring project. We will keep an eye on him and hope he will succeed.

The iCord building (Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, VGH) has a 3 story ramp and is a perfect test of wheeling ability and fitness.

DR. Andrei Krassioukov measures change in Blood Pressure and Heart Rate in a quadriplegic vs a paraplegic.

Combined Results

T4 Data (normal response)

C5 Data (Post Exercise Hypotension)

Background information on Post Exercise Hypotension

More Information:
Open Source Heart Rate Monitoring
iCord