Welcome to DavidWoolsey.com

News and recent additions to this site:

December, 2016

So, I haven't updated this site in a while. However, I've just started a weblog called Apprentice to the Obvious. It'll be mostly about science, technology, and engineering, but there will be a few uncontrolled excursions into other things as well.

January, 2009

I have done a bit of updating to the Laboraory for Science pages. Added product technical literature and some photos of the existing LfS physical assets. This is part of a project to get the assets into the hands of someone who can preserve the technology.

January, 2007

Well, I haven't been maintaining this site in a while. It really needs some of my attention. The wife and I got tired of the midwest and moved back to California in June of '06.

Firstly, I am, and it seems have always been, a student of physics. I have been in-and-out of various institutions of higher learning for about two decades now. I am principally interested in relativity and gravitation but I have a strong background of working with coherent light (lasers) and optics. Also, there are so many other interesting 'physics things' out in the world that it would be difficult for me to be too single minded.

A place for a few of my more random ideas. Perhaps crazy, different, and/or interesting. I only ask that you have patience with the cranky tone of some of the pieces as they were probably written as responses to "motivation via irritation".

On the subject of work: For 14 years I worked at the Laboratory for Science. The 'Lab' was a company that manufactured frequency stabilized HeNe lasers and it may be that I know probably more than I care to know about them. For many years of my stint at the Lab I was the sole employee which resulted in my being involved with nearly every aspect of the manufacture of the laser systems we sold. I am currently in the process of constructing some pages about the Laboratory for Science, its products, my time spent there, and what to do about its legacy.

I've also worked in the motion picture business at Tippett Studio. I did a number of things there including electronics and mechanical work on motion-input devices, match-move, CG modeling, and 3-D scene and model capture using laser scanning systems (the design and construction of which I had a strong hand in). The movies in who's credits I appear include Starship Troopers (Match-Move) and Virus (CG Modeler). Movies in who's credits I do not appear include Evolution - which is OK with me since it's such a lame movie.

In 2004 I wrapped up working with the Holzapfel Group for Experimental Cosmology at the UCB physics department and moved to the midwest. If you are interested in learning about some of the work I do for the Holzapfel group you should visit my CfPA pages.

While I was in the midwest I worked for a short while with Dr. George Miley's Fusion Studies Group at UIUC on his X-Ray Laser project. When I returned to the Bay Area I worked for a while in the MEMS R&D industry building a DoD/MDA funded micro-adaptive optics array.

One of the really neat-o toys I have lately come across is a web server for my Newton MP2100. The server software is called Newton Personal Data Sharing and is made available as freeware from Lightyear Design. They also run a Newton Tracker page so that Newtons running their server can be found as they move from one IP address to another.

There is a small (no, really, a very small) chance that my Newton is online via packet radio but if the packet radio link is dead you may be able to find me via the Tracker.

Recently I have picked up the hobby of ham radio. My call sign is KF6WXN. I became involved in this as a result of a recent motorcycle tour of the USA because I thought I might need an emergency contact method. If you are interested in ham radio you may be interested in the support pages for this summer's trip (they are all I have up for ham radio at the present).

I'm beginning to develop some more mapping resources with the thought that they should be useful for both traveling and general reference. So far I have a number of interfaces to various web based resources including (I think) the only imagemap based interface to the USGS 7.5' DEM FTP archive. [note: the DEM data this interface pointed to has been moved away]

Here is a collection of electronic photos from various tours and trips I have taken.

• Ellis-Olson Mortuary in Albany, CA. This tour was arranged as one of the initial steps of investigating the possibility of it for use as a social club.
• McClellan AFB photos including a tour of the insides of a Lockheed Constellation early warning aircraft. The tour is still in a rough state.
• Photos from my 1999 road trip around the USA -- either raw or corrected.

I am also interested in motorcycles and, lately, motorcycle touring. I own a Honda NT650 and a couple of Yamaha SR500s all of which are inappropriate for touring but have done a bit of it anyway. My most recent motorcycle adventure was my own "RoadTrip '99" which was a 45 day ride around the USA. It was great fun. For your enjoyment I have:

• Trip equipment lists and reviews (could be useful)
• A sort of travelogue with a few of my thoughts
• A couple hundred photos of the trip (mostly of Cold War artifacts)
• Some support pages of possible usefulness to others on similar road trips.

I hope to shortly have a bit of technical information I learned (the hard way) about the peculiarities of SR500 electronic ignitions posted, among other things.

Music

I should mention my musical interests here as well. A brief look at my music shelves would indicate an interest in, but by no means confined to, the following:

Death Rock / Goth (Death Rock elevator music):

Sisters of Mercy, Fields of the Nephilim, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Death In June, Current 93, Joy Division, Felt, The Cure, Siouxsie, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins...

Industrial:

Front Line Assembly, Laibach, Test Dept., Coil...

1980's Alternative:

New Order, Section 25, Chameleons, Kate Bush, Simple Minds, ABC, Altered Images...

Electronic (AKA New Age?):

Jean Michael Jarre, Tangerine Dream, Mike Oldfield, Vangellis, Philip Glass, Wim Mertens...

Oh yeah, I probably should mention that I used to wear a lot of black. In fact during the '80's I wore pretty much nothing but antique victorian clothing. I looked a bit like a Hollywood vampire back then but have (c.1994) given up that look for a number of reasons -- anything from too diffcult to maintain to not enough abrasion resistance in a crash. You are probably conceiving of a pretty good caricature of how I looked by now...

In the past (from about 1978) I was a bit of a gaming geek and played an assortment of simulationist games. In the early 1990's I helped develop some rule enhancements and modifications for use with "Hero System" games. If you're interested in simulationist gaming and use the Hero rules (an odd combination, I know) you may find a few interesting documents in the ASMRB gaming pages. Damn, it has been a few years since I've played any of these games. I guess that would be what happens in middle age.

Contact

I can be found, via email, at: david "at" the domain of this page.

[Note: this email address is swamped with spam. If you have difficulty contacting me using it just try again using a subject line that is not spam-like. It is my intention that this email address be valid as long as I own the davidwoolsey.com domain.]

I have other interests as well and will eventually get 'round to writing about them here.