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Monday, 31 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

It was fun.

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Today In History

On this date:

• In 1958, Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite, was launched.
  
• Space chimp Ham took a suborbital spaceflight on the Mercury-Redstone MR-2 mission.
  
• The Apollo 14 mission launches for the moon. Fore!

Used tags: apollo, history, monkeys, nasa, space

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RTF Update

Per Space.com:
There are no major hurdles to NASA launching a space shuttle in May or June, a task force overseeing return-to-flight efforts said, while also expressing concern about crew members' ability to make repairs in orbit.
"There are no show-stoppers that we see out there," Richard Covey, co-chairman of the Return to Flight Task Group, said Friday.
And, in a related story:
Two years after Columbia's demise, excitement over the space shuttle fleet's return to the skies in just a few short months is finally overtaking the agony of the accident.
In the past few weeks, two special deliveries have boosted morale among shuttle workers and provided tangible evidence they are rounding the corner.

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Editorial Note

Look, I've got a lot to get done before I leave for my trip, so I'll blog when/if I get a chance.
wdh

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Sunday, 30 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

Here's ya a little 8th anniversary Hatbag.

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Saturday, 29 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

Here's ya a little 7th anniversary Hatbag.

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Friday, 28 January 2005

Never Forget

Over the past 19 years, I have often marked the anniversary of the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger by writing a brief remembrance. Below are a few thoughts from this year.
The tone is a little different this time. More poignant pieces were written last year and the year before.



It's time to fly.

Today is the anniversary of the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger and her crew on January 28, 1986. Seventy-two seconds into its final mission.
This dark anniversary comes between two other dark days; the anniversary the day before of the Apollo I pad fire in 1967, the anniversary four days later of the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia and her crew during their return from the STS-107 mission in 2003. So much tragedy to be remembered in so short a time.

I've written remembrances many times over the years on the anniversary of the loss of Challenger, for me the greatest tragedy of my formative years, my generation's equivalent of the Kennedy assasination. A day that will stay with me forever; the moment I heard seared permanently into my brain.

But today it is the events of two years ago that are foremost on my mind. Not because of the hurt suffered that day, much different from that of 17 years earlier, more personal and no less intense. But, rather, because of the wounds that still endure.
Two years ago, though the scars of Challenger still remained for the world, the wounds were largely healed. More than three times as many Shuttle flights had been flown safely since 51-L as before. The agency was once again preparing to send a teacher into space.
But two years ago, those wounds were reopened. And two years later, there's still much healing to be done.

For two years, the remaining Shuttle fleet has been grounded. The powerful Solid Rocket Boosters have not roared into space; the Orbiters have not taken their rightful and proper place beyond the sky.
America has maintained a presence in space, an accomplishment worthy of note. Permanent human presence in space began in November 2000, and has been continued through one of NASA's most challenging periods. However, that presence has been limited, a fighting effort to overcome adversity; not the broader accomplishment that had been planned during better days.

But, now, it's time to move forward.
It's time to fly.

As sad an occassion as these anniversaries are, I am heartened by the knowledge that the situation will be different when I write this next year. The Shuttle fleet will be flying again, undertaking their most vital mission yet--completing the assembly of the International Space Station; moving toward an ending and a beginning. Their retirement looms, as does a new era of space exploration. Human beings are headed into the cosmos.

But, before that, the first step awaits. The Shuttles must launch again. Preparations are underway. The components have been brought together. The endstage is nigh.

It's time to fly.

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Heavy-Lift Boosters

The Huntsville Times today has an article about the discussions as to what sort of launch vehicle will be used for human exploration missions, looking at the pros and cons of various options.

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Between The Stars

NASA has announced that it will undertake a new spacecraft, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (or "IBEX") that will launch in 2008 to travel to the edge of our solar system and study the boundary between the end of our sun's influence and the beginning of interstellar space. This area is currently being explored by the Voyager probes, but only as an extended mission after their primary purpose.

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Possible Good News For Joe

Per TrekToday:
The syndication rerun rights to Star Trek: Enterprise have been sold by Paramount for more than 90% of the US.
Also:
Viacom co-president Les Moonves refused once more to confirm or deny rumours that this would be the last season of Enterprise on UPN. Inside Bay Area quoted Moonves as saying, "The series is struggling...no decision has been made." He has made similar statements repeatedly since the winter press tour presentations several weeks ago.

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Mini Outlets

So, according to MacNN, there's a report that some Best Buy stores may sell the Mac mini. (A previous recent pilot program to sell Macs at Best Buy proved unpromising.)
The news is exciting to me, because it's a step towards what I think the mini needs to be successful.
Many many moons ago, the Mac community was excited about the whole CompUSA "store-within-a-store" concept, particularly before we realized how frustratingly ineptly it was going to be done. The dream sparked by that concept was later fully realized by the brick-and-mortar Apple Stores, the Mecca of the Mac community (um, "Macca"?).
However, when it comes to letting the Mac mini reach its potential, the paradise of the Apple Store becomes a ghetto, as does the Mac-only Compoosa sections (which were basically a ghetto already).
In this blog's opinion, what the mini is going to need to be succesful is not segregation, but integration. It doesn't need to be in its own Mac area, it needs to be on store shelves side by side with PCs. Shoppers need to be blown away by the way it looks next to a similarly priced PC. They need to be able to see the two interfaces side-by-side. They need to be able to click in the dock and play with iPhoto, iMovie, iChat, iTunes and iGarageband, and then go over to the PC and... well... not.
The Best Buy news is exciting, since the fact that they're selling only one Mac means that it will almost certainly have to be next to PCs.
Hopefully, more stores will follow suit. Apple needs to work agressively to go back to the pre-Apple-Store days of marketing itself to retail chains.
And, this could well be a new call to arms for the faithful, hearkening back to the days before there were Genius Bars at Apple Stores and quote-Apple-specialists-unquote at CompUSA, when people motivated by nothing more than their love of the Mac would care for display models neglected by Mac-ignorant PC salespeople.

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Hitchhiker Changes Mostly Harmless?

AICN has a review of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy movie, which from what I read of it, sounds generally positive. It also has links to pics of the tie-in toys.

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Thursday, 27 January 2005

January 27

Special greetings to Nicole today. Thanks, and I love you!

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Cyborg War: Round 4, Fight 1

Elimination Battle!

And so begins Round 4 of the Cyborg War, with a battle between Robocop and Ash. One lives to fight another day, the other is eliminated. Cast your vote now!

Ash (3 votes)
Robocop (6 votes)

Round 3 is now closed.

Here's the new bracket.

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Daily Hatbag

OK, the nudityis gone.

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SMART Photos

ESA has released the first images of the moon taken by its SMART-1 orbiter.

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ESA On ISS

According to SpaceDaily, German astronaut Thomas Reiter will serve on the ISS later this year, becoming the first non-NASA or Rosaviakosmos spacefarer to make a long-duration stay on the Station. Reiter has previously stayed on Mir for 179 days. The story doesn't explain exactly how or when this will happen, noting only that it will be in the second half of the year, and will depend on when the Shuttle returns to flight.
Here's this blog's guess: Currently, the STS-121 Shuttle flight, scheduled for launch NET July 10, has only six crewmembers, meaning there's an empty seat. Perhaps the two-person Expedition 11 crew will launch in April. Then, Reiter could join them on Atlantis midway through their mission, since the Station can have up to three crewmembers currently. If the rumors that Greg Olsen will visit the Station as a space tourist in October are true, then Reiter wouldn't be able to return home with Expedition 11, since their third Soyuz seat would be taken by Olsen. However, Olsen's seat on the Soyuz craft on the way up would also mean that Expedition 12 would also be limited to two crewmembers, so Reiter could stay on ISS when they arrive, perhaps returning home on the STS-115 Shuttle flight, currently scheduled for NET December 8, which also currently only has six crewmembers manifested. If it in fact unfolds this way, this would be the first time a long-duration crewmember would serve a staggered increment on ISS, until now, crews have all arrived and departed the Station together. (Staggered crews were common on Mir, however.)

Addendum: Cosmic Log has some additional thoughts on the matter.

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Today In History

On this date in 1967, the Apollo I crew of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee lost their lives when a fire started in the Apollo Command Module during a test on the launch pad.

And so begins the darkest week of NASA history.

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Wednesday, 26 January 2005

October Buy

So, I'm not one of those big chain-store-haters like all the cool people, probably in part because, unlike most of them, I've actually lived in a town that had no Wal-Mart. (or K Mart or Target, etc.) But, the one big problem I have with the big chains is that they often seem utterly unaware or unresponsive of the nuances of a particular community. Why, for example, does the Hobbytown U.S.A. in Jackson have more cool space stuff than the one in Huntsville? This was driven home for me yet again last night when I tried to find a copy of the new special edition of October Sky. I visited three stores, and none of them had the new version that came out yesterday. Granted, it's not a huge release, but you would think that stores in Huntsville might stock a couple of copies of movie about a guy that lives in Huntsville with a new commentary by that guy. Oh well.

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Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 6

Round Three concludes with this winners' bracket battle between two cyborg juggernauts, one of which will be sent packing to the losers' bracket after this fight. Which will it be? You pick the winner!

Lobot (3 votes)
T-800 Terminator (4 votes)

Voting in all Round Three fights will close tomorrow.

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Daily Hatbag

The nudity continues.

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Want To Date A Comet?

NASA's SOHO solar observatory has already discovered around 900 comets, and is well on its way to finding a nice, even 1,000, likely sometime this summer.
To mark the occassion, NASA is sponsoring a contest, offering prizes to the person who can guess most accurately when comet number 1,000 will be spotted.

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Another View

The Hubble Space Telescope has provided more support for claims that an extrasolar world has been directly imaged for the first time, this time capturing infrared images of the "candidate planet."

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TNG On ENT

Per TrekToday:
Paramount may be planning a shocker for the Enterprise season finale: a special guest appearance by former Next Generation stars Jonathan Frakes (William T. Riker) and Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi).
The news was first reported on the long-running official web site of Sirtis. "Marina and Jonathan Frakes will reprise their roles as guest stars on Enterprise season finale," the site's administrator wrote ...

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Serf's Up

In an interview with Nerve.com about his latest release, Douglas Coupland revealed that he'll soon be revisiting my favorite of his books:

"My next novel is actually ninety-five percent done right now, but it's a sequel to [1995's] Microserfs. Now they work for Electronic Arts, the computer-game company."
What's changed for the Microserfs in the past ten years?
"The managerialization of digital creativity, Google, China, massively available porn and gore, the triumph of email…"

And for those of you who haven't read Microserfs, do so now! You can get a hardback copy for 75 cents, and it's worth every cent.

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Safely Back Inside

I'm generally not the superstitious type, but, given the time of year, I was very happy to hear this morning than the International Space Station's Expedition 10 crew is safely back inside the Station after a five-and-a-half-hour spacewalk this morning. There were a few challenges (a longer-than-allowed workday, problems getting real-time video on the ground, attitude control difficulties), but no major problems.

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Blogpoint Update

Finally, I've mailed out today the extremely belated December Blogpoint prizes. Congratulations to Jonathan and Lain, who were the December winners. I'll try and be quicker with the January prizes. (And I'll try to make the February prizes a little better than the December ones. Sorry.)

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Tuesday, 25 January 2005

Thanks Again

Yet again, this month has been the highest-traffic month in hatbag.net history in terms of unique IP visitors, which is particularly impressive considering that there are still several days left in the month, and my webstat counter failed to record traffic for the better part of six days.
Thanks again, everyone!

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Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 5

You know what would be really poignant? If, during this fight, one of the characters cut off the other's hand, and then looked down at their own cyborg hand, all Return-of-the-Jedi style. Also, what if Vader was Ash's father? Well, I don't guess he could be his father, since Star Wars was a long time ago, but maybe he could like be Ash's great^100-grandfather. Boy, that'd be a surprising twist.
Anyway, it's time for them to fight now. Your vote picks the winner.

Ash (2 votes)
Vader (5 votes)

The first three fights of Round Three are now closed.

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Daily Hatbag

As a bonus for our dedicated Hatbag readers, there's nudity in today's strip!

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RTF Update

Per Floriday Today:
Bunny-suited workers at Kennedy Space Center carefully settled a new inspection boom into place on the right side of shuttle Discovery's payload bay Monday.
"I was very excited, and so was everybody else, because it is a major milestone," said United Space Alliance's Mike Olejarski, who manages the people who installed the boom. ...
The move took place in the hangar where workers are readying Discovery to lead the shuttle fleet back to space in May.
"We're counting down the days," Olejarski said.
(So is ATW: T -109 days and counting.)

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Going For A Walk

The Expedition 10 crew of the International Space Station will make the first spacewalk of their increment tomorrow morning, beginning at 1:25 a.m. CST. Per SpaceDaily, the crew "will install a work platform, mount a robotics experiment, check vents on systems that help control the Station's atmosphere and install a scientific experiment." This will be Chiao's fifth EVA, and Sharipov's first. The EVA will be televised and webcast on NASA TV, and if you watch it, you're a better person than I.

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CEV 411

For those willing to read through it, NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle glossary has a few interesting facts, such as the fact that current plans are for a Mars CEV flyby prior to human landings on the Red Planet.

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Year Of Opportunity

Now that the east coast has marked the one-year anniversary of Opportunity's landing on Mars, Space.com has an article on the highlights of the rover's martian exploration.

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Saving Enterprise

Every day lately I've been opening TrekWeb and TrekToday expecting to read the news that Enterprise has been cancelled.
Now, a fan site coalition has started a joint effort to save Enterprise.

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On Shelves Today

A few movies of note hitting shelves today.
First, there's a duo of "Sky" titles: the true best picture of 2004, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and a new special edition of October Sky with new special features, including audio commentary by Homer Hickam (which could be interesting, considering that Hickam's not a huge fan of the movie).
For those who prefer their space/sci-fi-type movies a little more lowbrow, there's Alien Vs. Predator (not to be confused with Alien Loves Predator).
For those of you who prefer to do your DVD shopping from the comfort of your own terminal, you can buy all those movies from Amazon using the links above and support ATW.
Also, Best Buy has the Back to the Future trilogy on sale this week for $20, which it turns out isn't that great a deal, since it's the regular price at Amazon. (For the widescreen version, at least. In a rather cool situation, the fullscreen version is $41, which I like very much. I think all movies should charge a 100 percent penalty for fullscreen versions.)

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Monday, 24 January 2005

By The Way

Today is the worst day of the year.

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Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 4

Did Inspector Gadget ever fight a gorilla? I can't find any evidence of it, but it seems unlikely that in all his adventures, he never fought some sort of great primate. Well, either way, he almost certainly never fought a cyborg gorilla before.

Your vote picks the winner.

CyGor (2 votes)
Gadget (7 votes)

The first three fights of Round Three will close tomorrow.

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Daily Hatbag

Today is the 10th anniversary of this strip.
Today is also the 11th anniversary of the launch of Hatbag, and one month before the 10th anniversary of the end of the daily strip.
The countdown begins.

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Today In History

On this date last year, Opportunity joined Spirit on the surface of Mars. (Note: For anyone east of the Central time zone, read this tomorrow.)

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GO Again?

According to Cosmic Log, Greg Olsen, who was a space tourist candidate last year before being disqualified, reportedly for medical reasons, is once again in line for a Soyuz flight.

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Hubble Trouble Update

So the other day, Tutor said he had thought about blogging about the robotic Hubble servicing mission being cancelled, but that he figured he'd wait and let me do it. I told him to go ahead, that he would probably have more to say about it than I. Well, there's still no Tutorblogging on the subject, so here goes. (more)

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On The Shoulders Of Titan

Due to a busy schedule Friday I'm late blogging this, but ESA released a lot of info about Titan, which is the first wet world we've ever visited. Scientists said it may have rained at the landing site only days before.
While the liquids would be methane or something similar, water ice also exists on the Moon.
By the way, as people who have been following the methane findings on Mars know, methane gas does not last very long, relatively speaking, in an atmosphere; which has led some to theorize that there may be life currently on Mars, since there's has to be something replenishing the methane supply. On Titan, the atmospheric methane seems to be coming from a large supply of subsurface liquid methane, which would have a much longer lifespan. So, unlike on Mars, the methane does not necessarily indicate a chance of life (though, to be sure, that doesn't necessarily rule it out, either).

Addendum: Ironically, the next story I read after posting this was one of the first I've seen to really explore the issue of possible life on Titan.

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iSee

There's been a lot of speculation that Apple will release an iPod video at some point in the not too distant future. But, according to columnist Robert Cringely, it's not the iPod, but rather the Mac mini that will be to movies what the iPod has been to music, creating a legal and simple way to bring distribution into the new millenium. If he's right, Tiger will open the doorway for HD movies on-demand.
This blog has speculated that the mini has untapped set-top potential, and this takes that concept on more step forward to a rather logical point.

Addendum: And if you need your own Mac mini, or one of the various flavors of iPod, apparently Target.com has a coupon for 10 percent off.

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Over 250 Million Served

Per MacNN:
Apple today announced it has sold over 250 million songs from the iTunes Music Store and said that iTunes users are now downloading 1.25 million songs per day--an annual run rate of almost half a billion songs per year. The iTunes Music Store is available in fifteen countries or more than 70 percent of the global music market, according to the company: "When we launched the iTunes Music Store we were hoping to sell a million songs in the first six months -- now we're selling over a million songs every day, and we've sold over a quarter billion songs in total," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "iTunes is leading the way into the digital music era and together with iPod is changing the way millions of music lovers find and enjoy their music."

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Sunday, 23 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

Here's some 10th Anniversary Hatbag, and here's some 8th Anniversary Hatbag, ironically also about Hootie.

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Saturday, 22 January 2005

A Little Too Ironic

Alright, you wanna hear something ironic?

Microsoft loves me.

Specifically, for some bizarre reason, the MSN search engine rates ATW way higher than I would expect on search results. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. It's just kinda odd.
Here are some recent examples: (These are based on where ATW falls in the search results right now. Some were higher when the search was done.)

• ATW was the number one result for vanishing poop
  
  
• ATW was the number one result for sts 117, ahead of NASA sites.
  
  
• ATW was the number three result for pics of shield
  
  
• ATW was the number one result for private spaceport in west texas (this was actually for the space-only version of ATW)
  
  
• ATW was the number 15 result for comic strips named james
  
  
• ATW was the number one result for cyborg gorilla
  
  
• ATW was the number one result for interesting facts about sputnik (Thankfully, NASA did beat me on this one)
  
  
• ATW was the number one result for ATMOSPERE ON THE MOON (OK, I get referals due to misspellings more than I care to admit)
  
  
• ATW was the number eight result for space shuttle pics free (none of the preceeding ones were NASA sites offering free pictures of the Shuttle, BTW)
  
  
• ATW was the number nine result for snow goons (Or at least it is at the time of this writing. I would have sworn that when I first checked that one, I was number one, 'cause that really, really shocked me).
  
  
• ATW was the number eight result for www .sts .cow (Again, I think I was higher when the search was done)
  
  
• ATW was the number one (and two) result for bionic woman picture
  
  
• ATW was the number three result for Peenemunde (Again, I think I was higher at the time. This was the only that really triggered all this, 'cause there are so many good sites with actual information about Peenemunde, rather than just my passing mentions, that should be ranked much higher)
  
  
• ATW was the number three result for Amazon founder unveils space center
  
  
• ATW was the number 25 result for terminator 4
  
  
• ATW was the number one result for touched down in the land of the Delta blues in the middle of the pouring rain (Again, huh? Why would I beat lyrics sites that actually listed the full song?)
  
  
• ATW was the number seven result for w.c. handy picture (Let me point out that there are no pictures of W.C. Handy on my blog. There aren't even any links to pictures of W.C. Handy. OK, now there is.)
  
  
• ATW was in the top ten results for nikon 2005 camera announcements but has since dropped some.
  
  
• ATW was the number 9 result for x-men cable pics (though I certainly think, thanks to Lain, we have the best x-men cable pics)
  
  
• ATW was apparently in the top ten results for conan o (though now I can't find it)

And all of these were just in the past four days.

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Daily Hatbag

The strip that has probably been the Daily Hatbag more than any other turns seven years old today.

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Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 3

What do Cable and Geordi have in common? Well, they're both cyborgs, obviously. They've both travelled through time (I think... I'm pretty sure time travel fits into Cable's story somehow). They've both fought against a threat that would turn humanity into cyborg drones (Again, best I can tell). They've both appeared in Marvel Comics. And, now, they both must fight each other for your entertainment!

Your vote picks the winner.

Cable (2 votes)
Geordi (4 votes)

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Friday, 21 January 2005

Bonnaroo!

The lineup for this year's Bonnaroo music festival has been announced, and includes, among many, many others, Widespread Panic, the Dave Matthews Band, the Allman Brothers Band, Alison Krauss and Union Station, John Prine, Modest Mouse and Drive-By Truckers. The event is June 10-12 in Manchester, TN, not too terribly far from Huntsville.

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Stale Apple

Abandoned Apple store in Kuwait. Photo from (and more info at) Cult of Mac.

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Attracting The Mini

Per Mossberg:
If my e-mail from readers is any indication, more Windows users are thinking of switching to Apple Computer's Macintosh models than at any time in a decade. A significant minority of Windows users are so fed up with battling viruses and spyware, or so impressed with Apple's iPod music players, that they are seriously tempted to jump to the Mac. ...
Overall, the Mac mini is a good choice for Windows users on a budget who are tempted to switch. It's not a technological breakthrough, but it may just be one of Apple's smartest business moves.

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Thursday, 20 January 2005

Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 2

Borg Del Spooner. Evil Cyborg Superman.
What else can I say?

Del Spooner (3 votes)
Evil Cyborg Superman (5 votes)

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Daily Hatbag

Remember back when Hootie references were hip?

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NASA Cosmonaut?

The Huntsville Times has an article about Expedition 9 Science Officer Mike Fincke, whom I got to talk to Tuesday.
Fincke has the distinction of being the only flown NASA astronaut to have never flown on a NASA spacecraft.

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Forever Young

The Washington Post on comments by Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) about Buzz Aldrin at inaugural events yesterday:
Feeney lauded Aldrin as the second man to walk on the moon, following "Neil Young." Huh? Certainly he meant Neil Armstrong?
"We have an official position: I did not intend to say that it was Buzz Aldrin and Neil Young who were the first two men on the moon," Feeney told us yesterday. "Number two, we are printing a full retraction. And number three, it was David Crosby who I intended to say was one of the first men on the moon."

Addendum: Per collectSPACE, Apollo astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Eugene Cernan, Richard Gordon, Al Worden and Harrison Schmitt took part in the Celebration of Freedom concert held in Washington, DC earlier this evening as the events planned for President Bush's inauguration started.
Also, today is Buzz's 75 birthday.

Used tags: apollo, collectspace, funny, history, moon, music, space

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Mars Rocks!

The strange rock spotted on Mars by Opportunity that I posted about earlier has been confirmed to be an iron meteorite, making it the first meteorite found on another planet.
Per Steve Squyres:

"Think about where an iron meteorite comes from: a destroyed planet or planetesimal that was big enough to differentiate into a metallic core and a rocky mantle."

Which means that, with this meteorite and the rover's own heatshield, Opportunity has had the opportunity while on Mars to examine materials from three different worlds.

On a similar note, Space.com has a Best of the Rovers image gallery.

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The End?

So apparently things aren't looking that great for a fifth season of Enterprise, which is really a shame.

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Go, Go Gadget!

Time magazine has a decent article on the iPod shuffle, which was named the magazine's Gadget of the Week.

Merill Lynch is also expecting high iPod shuffle sales.

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Spaceballs: The Show

That Spaceballs sequel I blogged about a while back? Apparently it's going to be an animated series.

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Wednesday, 19 January 2005

LOTR Humor

Just watch

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Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 1

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me!" What happens when an unstoppable cop meets and irresistable Borg? Your vote decides their fate, that's what!

Robocop (3 votes)
Borg (2 votes)

Round Two is now closed, claiming two casualties. Metallo is eliminated after suffering losses at the hands of Inspector Gadget and Geordi la Forge. Also eliminated was Neo, which I kind of hated to see. I figured Neo would have potential in the Cyborg War based on his ability to shut down electronic devices in the real world with his mind. Unfortunately, he was sent packing from the War by CyGor, against whom, even if Neo had shut down CyGor's mechanical enhancements, he still would have had to fight a giant freakin' gorilla. So, farewell, Neo.
The

new bracket is here.

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Daily Hatbag

OK, we return you to your 10th anniversary Hatbag, already in progress.

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Waiting For Star Wars

There but for the grace of not being this guy go I.

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Random Thoughts

Among the accomplishments of Apple's iTunes, iTMS and iPods are that they have probably done more than any other single innovation in a long time to spur people to write--a lot--about the general experience of listening to music. Certainly, this blog has not been immune to this rampant iBlather, but given its ubiquity, I don't know that's anything to be ashamed of. Anyway, here's an entry from the latest round, inspired by the iPod shuffle.

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Blogpoint Opportunity

5 Blogpoints each to the authors of the most amusing captions for this picture:

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X Prize Cup

According to Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log, a warm-up exposition for the X Prize Cup competition is being planned for September. No word what the expo will feature, since there is currently only one flight-worthy private manned spacecraft in the world, and it hasn't flown since October, and Rutan has said it may not fly again.

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Spinmeister

The smaller circle in the picture to the right is our sun, presented for comparison purposes. The funky bigger oval thing is the star Regulus, which astronomers have discovered is oblong due to an unusually rapid rotation rate.

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Meet 'Mr. O'

Space.com has a good story about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is scheduled to rocket to the Red Planet in August of this year.

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The Meat Of The Matter

So is the whole low-carb thing over? Well, the fact that carbwire hasn't published its site for over a month, after posting an article saying "Experts say low-carb craze may be over," isn't a good sign.

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Tuesday, 18 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

No 10th anniversary strip for today, so here's some

fresh space Hatbag

instead.

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 8

Round Two of the Cyborg War wraps up with a fight between Ash and Cable.
I've got nothing to say about this fight.
Cast your vote now for the winner.

Cable (1 votes)
Ash (3 votes)

Voting in the second half of Round Two will close tomorrow.

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Pocket Mac

Wired's got an article about a guy that runs Mac OS X on his Pocket PC (well, kinda), which is pretty cool.

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Jordan Blogging

There's some good space and Apple blogging at Right Space.

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Ack!

Jonathan pointed me towards this and this installments of Pearls Before Swine, which amused me.

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Hall Of Fame

Inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in April will be Bruce McCandless, the first person to freely spacewalk without a tether; Gordon Fullerton, one of the Space Shuttle's first test pilots and mission commanders, and Joe Allen, the first astronaut to capture a satellite in space.

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A Year Later

Per The Orlando Sentinel:
Much has been made of the fact that Bush barely mentioned space exploration last year after his speech at NASA headquarters in January. But in an interview with regional reporters last week, he was emphatic about his support.
"The space vision met some resistance by some, but we got it fully funded," said Bush, adding that he likes the idea of going back to the moon, using it as a testing ground and then going beyond.
"I spent capital before," he said. "I'll spend it again on NASA."

And, per The Houston Chronicle:
On the first anniversary of President Bush's vow to send explorers to the moon and Mars, departing NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe said Friday that the White House will offer increased funding to reinforce its support for the plan.

And, per Space Politics:
O'Keefe said that while President Bush remained quiet about the exploration vision in public in 2004—to avoid politicizing it during the campaign—he personally lobbied members of Congress to gain their support for the plan. O'Keefe: "I'll take actions over further commentary at any time."

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Trek Rex

So according to Berman, not only is the next Trek flick not in turnaround, but it's going to be the biggest Trek movie ever.

---

Drink. Win. Play

Apple has leaked some info about this year's Apple/Pepsi iTunes give-away, which will also include an iPod mini giveaway, and, unlike last year, will actually include a Pepsi product I don't mind drinking.

---

Dashboard mini

Per c|net:
There are many companies that will help you connect an iPod to your car, but a small New York business wants to go one step further.
Sloatsburg, N.Y.-based Classic Restorations has laid out plans to install the Mac Mini in car dashboards.
The company was already working on a way to install a Mac laptop when Apple Computer introduced the Mac Mini last week. Melvin Benzaquen, president of Classic Restorations, noticed that the dimensions of the diminutive desktop were just about perfect to fit into the space automakers allot for car stereos.
What exactly anyone would do with a Mac in the car is not totally clear, but Benzaquen said there are lots of possibilities, from logging in to one's home network to playing music or movies. Equip the car with Wi-Fi, and it might be able to get Internet access from the parking lot of a Starbucks or McDonald's, he said. GPS (Global Positioning System) navigation and voice-activated programs are other options.
"There are so many things you could do," Benzaquen said.
Plus, best of all, when people ask about the computer in your dashboard, you could tell them you're a "mini driver"!

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Don't Panic

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Deep Impact--The Movie

Mean to post this on the day of the launch last week, but here's a cool animation of Deep Impact's comet collision, scheduled for July 4.

---

Alien Audio

Science@NASA has an article on "The Sights and Sounds
of Titan that discusses the pictures sent back by Huygens and includes a link to the ESA site that has downloadable audio recorded by the probe during its decent through the moon's atmosphere. (It's even an .mp3, so you can put the sounds of Titan on your iPod.)

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Fallen Apple

Cleaning up old blogfodder notes, I came across this article that names the Newton the Number One PDA failure, and this admittedly biased article about the "Mac Tribe."

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Monday, 17 January 2005

Old Before My Time

So it turns out I act only slightly older than I am:

You Are 31 Years Old

31 Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 7

The Cyborg War is only in its second round, and already it's come to this--Vader vs. Gadget. Both undefeated, both with first names that turned out to actually be titles, now battling it out, with the fate of the universe in the balance.
Who will win? Their fate is in your hands!

Vader (4 votes)
Gadget (1 votes)

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Daily Hatbag

Here's ya some 10th anniversary Hatbag to tide you over.
And here's something slightly more topical.

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Sunday, 16 January 2005

Note

I've been meaning to blog all day, but, you know what? I just don't have anything to say today.
Sorry.
Not too sure about tomorrow, either.

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Saturday, 15 January 2005

Orange Moon

The first images of Titan to be released were impressive enough.
To think that, a year ago, we hadn't peered through Titan's cloud cover enough to have any real idea of what the surface of the moon looked like. And, yet, here, now, were actual photos of the surface of Titan; the first pictures taken from the surface of a world in the outer solar system. Titan's veil of secrecy had been pierced--humanity, though our robotic proxy, was on the surface.
To be honest, it was beyond my expectations. I was looking forward to the wealth of data Huygens would send back during its decent through the only atmosphere around a moon in our solar system, but I was expecting the touchdown to be either a splash or a splat that would preclude post-landing imagery. And, yet, there it is.
The first picture from the surface, the black-and-white version, was impressive enough. They looked like an alien world. No doubt, however, that's because they looked like what we now expect an alien world to look like; the surface features were familiarly extraterrestrial after viewing MER photos from Mars for about a year now.
But, the picture to the right--That's not Mars.

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Friday, 14 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

Hello, darkness, my old friend.

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Martian Meteorite?

Opportunity has discovered an unusual object on Mars which scientists believe may be a meteorite that landed on the red planet.

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Do The iPod Shuffle

OK, I apologize in advance for this, but oh well:

I've never done this before, but I've signed up through freeipodshuffle.com. It's, of course, one of those things where you participate in offers and refer people, and then they send you a free iPod shuffle.

And I want a free iPod shuffle.

The cool thing about this one, though, is that you only have to participate in one offer, and you only have to refer three people. So, I'm asking encouraging the ATW community to participate. I would really appreciate it if you would sign up through this link to get your own free iPod shuffle.

To make it worthwhile, I'll help you get yours. You only have to have three referrals, and since you can only get one free iPod, it won't do many any good to try and get any more. So, after I get three referrals, I'll leave the link up on ATW, but change it to refer instead for the first three people to sign up using the link. So, ATW will help you get your own free iPod shuffle.

Plus, I'll give anyone that signs up 30 Blogpoints, for what that's worth.
I feel kinda dirty for doing this, but, it's an iPod shuffle. Sorry, folks, what can I say?

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Unboxing Day

Engadget engages in the great Apple tradition of showing pictures of the iPod shuffle being unpacked. Man, I want one of these!

---

Um... OK

Ya know, them Brits sure is wacky.

---

Today In History

On this date last year, the journey back to the moon officially began when President George W. Bush announced what became known as the Vision for Space Exploration.
"We do not know where this journey will end, yet we know this: Human beings are headed into the cosmos."
Although the step of returning humans to the Moon is still a long ways off, much has already happened in the past year to make the Vision a reality.
The NASA homepage has an article about some of the many things going on at NASA right now to support the Vision. (An article which I contributed a small bit too, and which namechecks the site I write for.)

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Save The Saturn

This is one just for ATW readers in Alabama:
The U.S. Space & Rocket Center has received authorization for a specialty license plate to raise funds to repair the Saturn V at the museum, one of only three remaining in the world. Before the tags will be produced, however, 1,000 orders must be placed by the end of this month. As of Wednesday, 720 orders had been received.
Not only does the tag help support a great cause, it's a great deal, also. Everyone how commits to buying a tag will receive two free admission tickets to the museum, which themselves are worth $37.90, a good chunk of the price of the tag. In addition, the tags can be personalized for no additional charge, and the personalization is normally $50. In addition, for Madison County residents, Kroger is offering gift cards to the first 200 people to order the tag online [though I have no idea where that stands].

I placed my order for one of the tags Wednesday. I strongly encourage any ATW readers in Alabama to do the same. For more information, or to order online, visit savethesaturn.com.

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Strange Visitors

From Space.com:
Now a team of American scientists note that recent astrophysical discoveries suggest that we should find ourselves in the midst of one or more extraterrestrial civilizations. Moreover, they argue it is a mistake to reject all UFO reports since some evidence for the theoretically-predicted extraterrestrial visitors might just be found there.

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Touchdown!

After descending through the solar system's only atmospere around a moon, the Huygens probe has landed safely on Titan, and sent back a signal from the surface of Saturn's largest satellite.
One more major hurdle remains: The signal that has been received only lets scientists know that Huygens is still operational, the most important signal, the one with the actual data it collected, is supposed to have been beamed to the Cassini spacecraft, which is to relay it on to Earth. That signal was to arrive here hours after the first signal, so has not yet been received.

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Blogpoint Update

So it's taken me half a month to get around to this, but I was waiting the final update from the YMFTB Fantasy Film League.
Anyway, the Blogpoint winners for December were Lain in first place and Jonathan in second. Congrats to both.

The January Blogpoint prize, by the way, will include a special collectors' Star Wars figure and whatever else I find lying around. So far Lain and Joe are in the lead, but there's still plenty of January left.

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Lucky Cow... In Space!

I haven't linked to Mark Pett's Lucky Cow strip in too long, and I couldn't pass up liking to this strip.

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Thursday, 13 January 2005

Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 6

Elimination Battle!

"Mr. Anderson. You have been fighting two fights. In the first, you fought against a man named Ash. You got cut up by his chainsaw hand. In the other, you're fighting a giant cyborg monkey named CyGor. Only one of you has a future, Mr. Anderson. By the way, have I said 'Mr. Anderson,' enough yet, Mr. Anderson?"

Neo (3 votes)
Cygor (5 votes)

The first four battles of Round 2 are now closed. Proving that government R&D only goes so far, the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman become the first two elimated.

The bracket has been updated.

Used tags: blog, comics, meme, monkeys, movies

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Daily Hatbag

Enjoy some Daily Hatbag. And if you missed the Lainblog post Tuesday, go read it now!

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Today In History

On this date in 1978, in preparation for the upcoming beginning of the Space Shuttle program, NASA selected its largest class of astronauts, popularly known as the "Thirty-Five New Guys." Among those selected in the eighth astronaut group were NASA's first female and African-American astronauts.

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Saturn Day's Night All Right For Sighting

Saturn will be at perigee tonight, making for some good viewing of the planet, if you're into that sort of thing.

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Apple News Round-Up

Various and sundry Apple headlines:

• After a slight post-Macworld drop, Apple stock price rebounded yesterday, fueled by the announcement of record profits for Q4 2004.
  
  
• Mac sales were up 26 percent during Q4 over the same period last year, including a 101 percent increase in iMac sales and a 35 increase in iBook sales. (Power Mac and Xserve sales were down versus previous year, as were Powermacs [though my theory is that's because everyone had already bought them earlier in the year, at least based on people I know.])
  
  
• Walt Mossberg: "I've been testing the new iPod Shuffle for a couple of days, and, in my tests, it fulfilled -- and even exceeded -- Apple's claims for convenience, battery life and song capacity."
  
  
• Apple's Tipping Point: Macs For The Masses.

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End Of Line

So, apparently, Disney is preparing to mess up Tron, according to AICN.

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Wednesday, 12 January 2005

In The Meme Time

Thought I'd give this movie meme a shot:

1. Pick one dozen movies that are ones that you have special feelings about.
2. Pick a few lines of dialogue that mean something to you.
3. As people guess the film, strike out that entry.
4. If possible, after the film is guessed, explain why that movie made the list.

Three blogpoints for each movie guessed. Please don't cheat.
Some will be pretty obvious, hopefully some a little less so. (more)

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 5

Elimination Battle!
Going into their second battle, Geordi can at least take consolation in knowing that he was defeated by Darth Freakin' Vader, while Metallo is still smarting from getting his metal butt handed to him by Inspector Gadget. Which one will win, and who will be eliminated? Your vote decides!

Geordi la Forge (2 votes)
Metallo (1 votes)

The first four battles of Round 2 will close today.

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Daily Hatbag

Ironically, so far this year, I've kept all my new year's resolutions for 1995.

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Today In History

On this date in 1959, NASA awarded McDonell Aircraft Corp. the contract for the construction of the Mercury spacecraft. (Today's history stolen verbatim from collectSPACE.) The picture at right is of a full-size capsule being readied for flight test atop the first Little Joe booster just over seven months later.

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After X

Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log has an update on upcoming private spaceflight developments, including the announcement of a new private spaceport, the naming of the next private space tourist, and the continuing status of the Da Vinci project launch.

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Jurassic NASA

One of the most complete T. rex skulls ever discovered is now here at Marshall. Equipment used for nondestructive testing of spacecraft will be used to study the interior of the skull.

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Administrator Update

Per NASA Watch:
President Bush has selected federal appeals court judge Michael Chertoff to be the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. During the past few weeks, the White House has had a number of senior positions to fill: Homeland Security, EPA, and NASA. Filling the top slots at Homeland Security and EPA have been a little higher on the priority list than NASA. With Homeland Security taken care of they can now devote more time to finding a new Administrator for EPA - and one for NASA.

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Deep Impact

NASA's comet-collider spacecraft, Deep Impact, is scheduled for launch today at 12:47:08 p.m. CST atop a Boing Delta 2 booster. It appears the launch will be broadcast on NASA TV via cable and the Web. The impactor spacecraft will collide with comet Tempel 1 on July 4.

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Mac Cubed

While ATW was posting a somewhat more esoteric post comparing the Mac mini with the Pippin, Cult of Mac was going with the more obvious and superficial comparison to a failed Mac product, the G4 Cube.

The also have a helpful, three-step guide on turning your iPod into an iPod shuffle.

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Apple Haters Unite!

Here's a little something for the PC users to abate ATW's post-Macworld euphoria.

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Tuesday, 11 January 2005

Atmark Mini

One of things about the Mac mini that's as interesting as what it is, is what it isn't.
One of the rumors that came about about the Mini prior to its release was that it was going to be Apple's version of the holy grail of modern computing, the "living room computer."
And, I don't see any reason why it couldn't be. It appears it could be hooked up to a TV pretty easily with the ports that it has. Add wireless keyboard and mouse support, and I could surf the Web from my couch and coffee table. (Not to mention the potential with something like this attached.
There's passing reference on Apple's page to the fact that it could be hooked up to a television, but that's it. Apple has designed a computer that could fit easily atop your home theater system and let you watch DVDs, listen to music, view photos, surf the Web, and much more (with a few extra bucks for a Superdrive and a video capture device, much, much, much, much, much more), and yet Apple doesn't even acknowledge it. Why?

One almost wonders if it's because Apple is trying to make the Mac mini not be what it could be.
Consider:

• It's a stripped down version of the Mac that could fit on your TV.
  
• It doesn't include a monitor, nor, in default configuration, a keyboard.
  
• It sells for a little more than half the current low-end Mac cost.
  
• It's designed as a "digital lifestyle" media machine.
  
• It's intended to help entice people to switch over to the Mac OS.

Any of this sound familiar?
OK, what if we add that it's supposed to go in your living room and hook up to your TV.
Now does it sound familiar?
Well, to the average reader, probably not. But a few of the giant Mac geeks out there are nodding their heads.
Yep, the Mac mini is exactly one step short of being a Pippin.

One has to wonder if, eight years later, Apple is still spooked by the Pippin's failure.
Granted, the Mac mini avoids a lot, if not all, of the Pippin's shortcomings. And, to be sure, Steve is way cooler than Gil or Spindler. But it seems to have more potential than Apple is touting.
Is Apple afraid that by making the Mac mini something more, it could turn it into something less?

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The Mini Shuffle

So, cool new Mac stuff.
Discuss.

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 4

It's the battle of the red-eye-beam guys! The T-800 Terminator takes on a Borg drone in the fourth battle of Round Two, having defeated the Bionic Woman and Del Spooner, respectively.
Though, because of the Joe Rule of Cyborg Assimilation, I have to ask: What happens if the Borg drone wins? Are any changes made the Terminator?

Terminator (2 votes)
Borg (2 votes)

The first four battles of Round 2 will close tomorrow.

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Daily Hatbag

Another rare appearance of sans-glasses BG in today's strip.

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Counter Culture

So, a cousin of a friend of my brother writes this Web comic, Counter Culture. Funny stuff, and the art, for a Web comic, is amazing. Plus, the creators live in Huntsville.

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Strange New World

Astronomers are pretty confident that they have now taken a second picture of the first extrasolar world to be photographed. Hoping to verify the first picture taken by the European Southern Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope was used to take another image of the object, adding more credence to it being a planet.

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Keynote Day

Steve Jobs will be giving his Macworld keynote address this morning. That said, I haven't been able to find the exact time, nor a site promising live updates; so if anybody has, let me know.
On a related note, Cult of Mac has found what appears to be the very first internet Mac rumor.

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Poetry Contest

To once again demonstrate for Richie that I have a cultured side, I thought I'd include this link to a poetry contest in my blogging today. AICN is giving away a set of Vogon office supplies (Set #42, to be exact) to the writer of the best piece of Vogon poetry. Deadline is Monday.

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Monday, 10 January 2005

Wounded Planet

Per Science@NASA:
NASA scientists studying the Indonesian earthquake of Dec. 26, 2004, have calculated that it slightly changed our planet's shape, shaved almost 3 microseconds from the length of the day and shifted the North Pole by centimeters.

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Battlestar Enterprise

So it's big SciFiFriday this week, with Enterprise returning from reruns at 7 p.m. CST, followed by the premiere of the new Battlestar Galactica series at 8.

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 3

In the first Cyborg battle between two winners, Evil Cyborg Superman must fight Lobot! I've got nothing on this one. No interesting back story, no fascinating trivia about similarities between the two. Just plain old cyborg fighting.

Evil Cyborg Superman (2 votes)
Lobot (3 votes)

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Daily Hatbag

Winter break ended about 10 years ago, so the 10th anniversary Hatbags can resume, though this one was actually 10 years old yesterday.

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Problem Found

Per Spaceflight Now:
Errant readings from sensors inside the inaugural Boeing Delta 4-Heavy rocket triggered the premature shutdown of its three main engines during ascent last month, causing a massive underspeed that the vehicle's upper stage could not overcome and resulting in a final orbit lower than planned, the U.S. Air Force said Friday. A team investigating results of the test launch are confident the problem can be resolved.

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Apple Dominant?

Will Apple buy its way to becoming the Number One computer company on the planet? In his annual predictions, Robert Cringely explains how Apple could use the "headless iMac" and a spare $1 billion to get some big-time market share in 2005:

We might see that as early as next week with the rumored introduction of an el-cheapo Mac without a display. The price for that box is supposed to be $499, which would give customers a box with processor, disk, memory, and OS into which you plug your current display, keyboard, and mouse. Given that this sounds a lot like AMD's new Personal Internet Communicator, which will sell for $185, there is probably plenty of profit left for Apple in a $499 price. But what if they priced it at $399 or even $349? Now make it $249, where I calculate they'd be losing $100 per unit. At $100 per unit, how many little Macs could they sell if Jobs is willing to spend $1 billion? TEN MILLION and Apple suddenly becomes the world's number one PC company.

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Good Old Batman

I was a little nervous when I saw there was a new DVD "Batman and Robin" release, fearing another version of the horrible, horrible George Clooney movie.
As it turns out, the new release is some Batman I'd never even heard of before, a set of Batman and Robin serials that were shown in theaters in 1949, which sounds kind of cool. Release date is March 22.
Also, since the movie was of interest to some in the ATW community, Team America hits DVD on April 5.

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Tender Visits

I am pleased to announce that I have now eaten at all five locations of Abner's.

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Sunday, 9 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

On this date eight years ago, Hatbabe was introduced to the world.

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I, Mac

I'm typing this post on a 20-inch G5 iMac at the Apple Store in Germantown. Cool, no?

On a side note, we got here about five minutes before it opened. Of the people waiting outside to get in, two-thirds of the men were wearing plain black shirts. Just an observation.

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Saturday, 8 January 2005

Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 2

I, Robot's Del Spooner returns in this elimation battle in the second round of the Cyborg War, but, per Joe's request, he's now BORG Del Spooner after his loss to the Borg drone in Round 1. (For the Mississippi journalism community members, I think someone should introduce Borg Del Spooner and Ruby Del Harden.) He's fighting the Bionic Woman. Your vote determines the winner.

Borg Del Spooner (4 votes)
Bionic Woman (2 votes)

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Personal Update

Put on my blue suede shoes
And I boarded the plane
Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues
In the middle of the pouring rain
W.C. Handy -- won't you look down over me
Yeah, I got a first class ticket
But I'm as blue as a boy can be

Then i'm walking in Memphis
Was walking with my feet ten feet off of the Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel

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Friday, 7 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

Change

is in the air.

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 1

The second round of the Cyborg War begins with a battle between the Six Million Dollar Man and Robocop. Lain pointed out that this is sort of a tragic round, since just like his last round, which pitted two rebuilt-former-astronauts against each other, Steve Austin must once again fight an opponent with whom he shares much in common. Both men were government employees who were injured in the line of duty, rebuilt as cyborgs without their permission, and then forced back into service by the Man. Now, they're forced by ATW to fight each other. Sad, isn't it?

Oh well. Pick a winner.

Rebuilt astronaut (2 votes)
Rebuilt cop (3 votes)

Round 1 is now closed. The bracket at the end of the first round is here.

---

Today In History

On this date in 1610, Galileo discovers the first three Jovian moons.

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RTF Update

With the arrival of External Tank ET-120 at the Vehicle Assembly Building, all three elements of the Space Shuttle are together at Kennedy Space Center and almost ready to be stacked. After that--the pad.

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Familiar New Worlds

TrekWeb reports that Star Trek XI is in turnaround. Reportedly originally intended to be a new prequel not related to any of the existing Trek properties, the movie has apparently encountered opposition from some at Paramount "eager to capitalize on audience knowledge of the franchise."

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Got The Blues Again

Have problems with your PC? Don't worry, you're in good company.
Per Canada.com:
Despite suffering through an embarrassing computer crash that prompted jokes and guffaws, Bill Gates promised that Microsoft Corp. would help consumers stay plugged into technology, during a keynote speech Wednesday. ...
But while promoting what he calls the "digital lifestyle," Gates showed how vulnerable all consumers - even the world's richest man - are to hardware and software bugs.
During a demonstration of digital photography with a soon-to-be-released Nikon camera, a Windows Media Center PC froze and wouldn't respond to Gates' pushing of the remote control.
Later in the 90-minute presentation, a product manager demonstrated the ostensible user-friendliness of a video game expected to hit retail stores in April, Forza Motor Sport. But instead of configuring a custom-designed race car, the computer monitor displayed the dreaded "blue screen of death" and warned, "out of system memory."
The errors - which came during what's usually an ode to Microsoft's dominance of the software industry and its increasing control of consumer electronics - prompted the celebrity host, NBC comedian Conan O'Brien, to quip, "Who's in charge of Microsoft, anyway?"
Gates, who was sitting next to O'Brien on a set staged to look like NBC's Late Night set, smiled dryly and continued with his discussion.

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Thursday, 6 January 2005

By The Way

Since I was criticized last month for taking a trip without posting an itinerary, I will be traveling this weekend to Memphis to visit Jonathan. If any members of the ATW community would want to try and get together during that time, you need to let me know by Friday afternoon.

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Twelfth Night

Wanna hear something ironic? I just had a sudden burst of realization: "It's Epiphany!"

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Resolutions

I haven't taken the whole New Year's Resolution thing very seriously in quite a while, but working on my 43 Things list the other day got me thinking. So, with the exclusion of a few personal goals, here are my 2005 New Year's Resolutions, not necessarily in order:

1. Have at least 200 pages of the book completed by the end of the year.
   
2. Put sufficient effort into starting a Web comic that at the end of the year I will either be regularly producing one or will be sufficiently satisfied with my efforts that I no longer think, "Oh, that'd be fun, and I could do it if I tried."
   
3. At the minimum, make a darned good effort to go see a Space Shuttle launch, preferably STS-114.
   
4. Draw at least one portrait.
   
5. Write at least some fiction each month, even if it's just something like an addition to The LC to mitigate atrophy of those mental muscles.
   
6. Do at least one new thing on the blog that at least someone else finds cool.

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Regular Richie Feature

For whatever reason, yesterday was the highest traffic day ever in the history of hatbag.net in terms of unique IP visitors. Thanks, all! (I give some credit to a very kind recommendation at collectSPACE, though the link didn't technically work yesterday.) (Also, I would note that only seven comments were posted the same day.) (Also, I would note that I love parentheses way too much!)
Among the search strings that have led people to hatbag.net so far in 2005:

• frat guy
  
• lots a pizza
  
• spare time magazine
  
• 'richie younce'
  
• 1959-space monkey
  
• ansaria book shop in iran
  
• astronaut lasik
  
• cbe mike foale
  
• coca-cola why was it invented
  
• dave hitt singapore
  
• david hitt daytona
  
• did you know black facts
  
• guy profiles
  
• hippie new year cartoon
  
• how dixie are you
  
• launch crew and peenemunde

Used tags: blog, collectspace, monkeys, regular_richie_feature

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Scat, Cat

Per Editor And Publisher:
The Los Angeles Times dropped the daily version of "Garfield," the most widely distributed comic in syndication.
"Garfield" has received mixed reviews in recent years, but the Times is one of the few papers to ever dare pull it. Reader reaction? "We are getting complaints," said Jennifer James, a Times editorial aide, but she declined to reveal how many. ...
Gene Weingarten, a humor columnist for The Washington Post and Washington Post Writers Group, praised the Times decision during his weekly washingtonpost.com chat yesterday. He said the paper displayed "the kind of cojones missing in too many places" and described "Garfield" as "a strip produced by a committee, devoid of originality, devoid of guts, a strip cynically DESIGNED to be inoffensive and bad, on the theory that public tastes are insipid. Now we need others to follow suit. Like the Post."

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The Next Saturn

According to a Space News article I can't link to, the White House has ordered NASA and the Pentagon to work together to present a joint recommendation for the development of a new heavy-lift launch vehicle.

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Positive Elektron

Um, ignore that post yesterday about the Elektron oxygen generator being down. Not only has it been fixed, but it was already working yesterday even before I posted that.

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Macworld Rumor Update

Additional credence has been given to some of the rumors about potential announcements at next week's Macworld San Francisco keynote, this time from a somewhat unlikely source: Apple itself, which has filed another lawsuit over the rumors, this time against ThinkSecret, specifically citing articles about the "headless iMac" and the iWork productivity package as containing trade secrets.

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Cyborg War: Round 1, Fight 8

The final battle of Round 1 of the Cyborg War features two comic book cyborgs that I know basically nothing about. The X-Men's mutant cyborg Cable was suggested to me for inclusion by someone. CyGor, on the other hand, I'm familiar with only from seeing his toy at Wal-Mart, but how could I possibly not include a giant cyborg gorilla!

Who will win? You decide!

Cable (2 votes)
CyGor (1 votes)

Round 1 will close tomorrow.

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Fountain Of Newt

Just in case anyone out there in ATW-reader-land was still trying to quantify exactly how big a geek I am, let me contribute this for the record: Last night, for the first time, I went to a Newton User Group meeting. Not only did I have a great time, I realized I really want a Pilot/Namiki Vanishing Point retractable fountain pen, which is extremely cool, though not enough for me to spend $100 on one.
It was interesting to me that both of the other guys at the meeting carried fountain pens (and I actually did at one point). Who would have thought that members of a NUG would lean towards a pen that was archaic, a little more challenging to use, but arguably superior and with a certain coolness about them?

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Space Blog

So apparently Expedition 10 Commander Leroy Chiao has been keeping a blog from space, consisting primarily of photos from Earth. Unlike other Space Station crewmembers who have written regularly from orbit, though, Chiao's blog is not on a NASA site, but at asianconnections.com, which seems sort of odd.
If anyone's interested in following Chiao's blog, I'm linking to it from the Expedition 10 pic in the "On Orbit" box in the lefthand sidebar.

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Wednesday, 5 January 2005

Cyborg War: Round 1, Fight 7

This battle features another familiar name from the Robot War, but it's an entirely different character. This time, the Ash in question is the chainsaw-handed hero of Army of Darkness. Facing him in combat will be Neo from the Matrix.

As always, you decide the winner. Woah!

Ash (3 votes)
Neo (2 votes)

Fights 5 and 6 of Round 1 will close today, and Fights 1-4 are now closed.

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Negative Elektron

The Elektron oxygen generator on ISS is malfunctioning once again, forcing the Expedition 10 crew to rely on back-up oxygen supplies. The main back-up oxygen will last until about the time the next Progress will dock (and there are further reserves after that), meaning that, even if the Elektron cannot be fixed without additional parts, it could be possible to avoid having to decrew the Station. However, repair efforts will continue.

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iWork Hard For The Money

So the latest rumor of a product that may be released at next week's Macworld San Francisco is iWork, an Apple equivalent to Microsoft Office.

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Darkest Knight

You know, somehow the news that Frank Miller's writing some new Batman just isn't as exciting anymore as it might once have been.

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Multiple Episodes

The cool picture above is from the cover of Vanity Fair, which has a story about Star Wars this month.

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Tuesday, 4 January 2005

Time And Tide

So, here's something I noticed this weekend: I'm apparently becoming less cultured.
There was a time when I would at least make a strong effort to see all five of the movies nominated for Best Picture in a theater, sometimes driving hours to do so. Often this required no special effort; I would have seen many of the nominees before the nominations were announced.
As time progresses, this becomes less true.
This weekend sort of drove the point home for me, when we went to see The Aviator. Reading the reviews, this is one of those quintessential great movies, but, to be honest, it did little for me. It was interesting, and I could recognize that it was good, but I don't have any strong desire to see it again or buy it on DVD. Certainly, it didn't move me in the way great cinema once did.
I'd like to think it's not because my tastes are becoming more mainstream (there's enough of my old tastes left in me to skew towards elitism, apparently). I still watch plenty of stuff that's not everyday fare, it's just no longer "great" films.
The way things are going, in five years I'll be standing in line for Will Ferrell movies. Perish the thought.

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From MS To MS

Just when you think Lain must be a halfway decent teacher, seeing such great success stories as the Powerbook-toting Jordan, you read about someone like this guy, who was a pupil of Lain's before he turned to evil.

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Farewell

It's a tribute to his ability how many varied subject Web sites I read reported the passing this weekend of artist Kelly Freas.
In the spaceflight community, he is recognized for the work that NASA commissioned him to do. In the entertainment community, he is known as a multi-Hugo-winning science fiction artist. Even the comic book community mourns his passing, noting his occassional work in that medium.
I'm very proud to own a signed early print of the artwork at right that Freas was commissioned to do by the first Skylab crew to be used on their mission patch.

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Today In History

Per collectSPACE, on this date in 1958, after 92 days orbiting the Earth, Sputnik 1 reentered the atmosphere and disintegrated.

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The Human Adventure

During the incredible work that Spirit and Opportunity have being doing on Mars, I've always maintained the view that their great successes prove not that there's no need for human explorers there, but rather demonstrate just how much need there is for humans to be on the martian surface ourselves.
So today I was glad to see that among those echoing that view is Steve Squyres, the top scientist for the Mars rover missions, who makes some really great points about the need to send people to the Red Planet.

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Administrator Update

Per NASA Watch:
Reliable sources say that none of the names that have been circulating on Capitol Hill (and within NASA and the aerospace industry) are currently under consideration for NASA Administrator by the White House. Either the folks on this "list" took themselves out of consideration or they were never being considered in the first place. Given Sean O'Keefe's planned departure in February, and the Bush Administration's penchant for filling positions quickly, and the release of a new budget in a few weeks, one can expect that something will emerge rather soon. Given another habit, i.e. that this White House keeps things under wraps until they chose the right moment, the identity of their choice will likely emerge only a short time before an official announcement.

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Picture Of The Day

Opportunity inspects its heat shield. Photo by the only organization taking pictures on the surface of Mars, of course. More good heat shield pics from Sols 331 to 335.

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Year On Mars In Review

Spaceflight Now has an article reviewing the accomplishments of the Mars rovers during their first (Earth) year on the Red Planet, and looking ahead to the future.

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The Headless iMac

MacNN has an update on the rumors of a sub-$500 monitorless Mac:
Merill Lynch analyst Steven Milunovich says that circulating reports of a sub-$500 "headless" iMac would "the second step for Apple moving into the digital living room," following the release of its AirPort Express in July of 2004. In a report to clients, the analyst said that a sub-$500 iMac would help increase the iPod halo effect and move users to the Mac platform: "As we advocated in our June 22 report Apple Computer: New iMac Coming? we like the idea of a headless iMac. Why require a PC owner to buy a new monitor to get a Mac? Selling just the system unit would cut significantly the cost to switch." ...
The note said that the new "headless" iMac could become the entertainment server for the living the room ...

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Cyborg War: Round 1, Fight 6

All good geeks (or is that nerds) love a good Star Wars vs. Star Trek battle, so ATW is happy to oblige. Somehow, though, cyborg vs. cyborg has never managed to be one of the top-billed Wars vs. Trek debates. Nonetheless, in Fight 6 of the Cyborg War, Trek's optically enhanced engineer Geordi La Forge fased off against Star Wars' "more machine now than man" Darth Vader.
As always, you decide the winner.

Geordi la Forge (1 votes)
Darth Vader (5 votes)

Fights 1-4 of Round 1 will close today, and Six-Million-Dollar Man vs. Evil Cyborg Superman is still tied.

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Monday, 3 January 2005

Cyborg War: Round 1, Fight 5

Like the second one, the fifth battle of the Cyborg War features another of Superman's cyborg foes; the killer with the heart of Kryponite, Metallo. Facing him will be the famed "part man, part machine, all cop" cyborg, Inspector Gadget.

Who will win? You decide!

Metallo (1 votes)
Inspector Gadget (4 votes)

And I'm going to close Fights 1-4 of Round 1 tomorrow. Two of them are currently tied, so one vote can make a difference!

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How Odd

Happy Odd Day

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Einstein Begins

The first step to the future of the Newton has been taken. A developer's version of the Einstein Project has been released, an emulator which will run the Newton OS on Mac OS X.

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The Specialest Holiday Of All

So New Year's Day is behind us, but you're still trying desparately to cling to that holiday-season feeling? Well, just check out this link that Mrs. Tutor sent me, and you'll be cured of it.

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Commander Foale

Per The AP:
Singer Roger Daltrey of The Who and British-born U.S. astronaut Michael Foale were named Commanders of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, in the annual accolades for achievement in society, business, culture and sports.
Congrats to Dr. Foale!

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One Year On Mars

Today marks the one-(Earth-)year anniversary of Spirit's landing on Mars. Not bad for an exploration mission that was originally planned to last 90 days.

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The Search Continues

According to this Space.com article, SETI is about to take advantage of new equipment that will greatly aid the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

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Sunday, 2 January 2005

TutorBlog!

With the new year comes another new feature at ATW! Chris Tutor now has his very own "TutorBlog" in the right-hand sidebar (though you can also watch for new posts in the New Additions box at the top of the left sidebar).

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Saturday, 1 January 2005

Strangerhood

So, yeah, check out The Strangerhood. Reality show meets Lost, courtesy of The Sims 2. Good stuff.

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Welcome To 2005

Happy New Year, everyone!

I wish I had something insightful here to write about the end of 2004 and the beginning of 2005, but I don't, and right now I'm too lazy to come up with anything.

Hope you all had a great 2004. I know the year that just ended saw a lot of transitions for several members of the ATW community, with a few marriages, a few moves, a few new jobs (and at least one member experiencing all three). Certainly, 2004 had a lot of exciting developments for your friendly neighborhood blogger. I hope you found yourselves happier at the end of the year than at the beginning, and I hope the same holds true for 2005.

I appreciate the ATW community for making this a great year for the blog, and will endeavor to continue to make this a more interesting place to hang out in the coming year. Thank you all!

I look forward to seeing what 2005 holds. Needless to say, one of the events of the coming year that this blog most eagerly anticipates is the return to flight of the Space Shuttle, but it shall be interesting to see what other adventures await.

And so... onward to THE FUTURE!

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Cyborg War: Round 1, Fight 4

In the fourth battle of the Cyborg War, a classic favorite--a Borg drone--takes on one of the more recent (sort of) creations in the War, Del Spooner, Will Smith's character from the movie version of I, Robot.

Cast your vote now!

Borg (3 votes)
The Fresh Prince Of Cyborgs (2 votes)

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Monday, 31 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Today In History

Explorer 1, Ham and Apollo 14 (Read Entry)

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RTF Update

(Read Entry)

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Editorial Note

(Read Entry)

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Sunday, 30 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Saturday, 29 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Friday, 28 January 2005

Never Forget

(Read Entry)

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Heavy-Lift Boosters

(Read Entry)

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Between The Stars

(Read Entry)

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Possible Good News For Joe

(Read Entry)

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Mini Outlets

(Read Entry)

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Hitchhiker Changes Mostly Harmless?

(Read Entry)

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Thursday, 27 January 2005

January 27

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 4, Fight 1

(Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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SMART Photos

(Read Entry)

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ESA On ISS

(Read Entry)

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Today In History

(Read Entry)

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Wednesday, 26 January 2005

October Buy

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 6

(Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Want To Date A Comet?

(Read Entry)

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Another View

(Read Entry)

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TNG On ENT

(Read Entry)

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Serf's Up

(Read Entry)

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Safely Back Inside

(Read Entry)

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Blogpoint Update

(Read Entry)

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Tuesday, 25 January 2005

Thanks Again

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 5

(Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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RTF Update

(Read Entry)

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Going For A Walk

(Read Entry)

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CEV 411

(Read Entry)

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Year Of Opportunity

(Read Entry)

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Saving Enterprise

(Read Entry)

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On Shelves Today

(Read Entry)

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Monday, 24 January 2005

By The Way

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 4

(Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Today In History

(Read Entry)

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GO Again?

(Read Entry)

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Hubble Trouble Update

(Read Entry)

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On The Shoulders Of Titan

(Read Entry)

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iSee

(Read Entry)

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Over 250 Million Served

(Read Entry)

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Sunday, 23 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Saturday, 22 January 2005

A Little Too Ironic

(Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 3

(Read Entry)

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Friday, 21 January 2005

Bonnaroo!

(Read Entry)

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Stale Apple

(Read Entry)

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Attracting The Mini

(Read Entry)

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Thursday, 20 January 2005

Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 2

(Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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NASA Cosmonaut?

(Read Entry)

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Forever Young

U.S. Rep recalls Neil Young's moonwalk. (Read Entry)

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Mars Rocks!

(Read Entry)

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The End?

(Read Entry)

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Go, Go Gadget!

(Read Entry)

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Spaceballs: The Show

(Read Entry)

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Wednesday, 19 January 2005

LOTR Humor

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 3, Fight 1

(Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Waiting For Star Wars

(Read Entry)

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Random Thoughts

(Read Entry)

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Blogpoint Opportunity

(Read Entry)

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X Prize Cup

(Read Entry)

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Spinmeister

(Read Entry)

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Meet 'Mr. O'

(Read Entry)

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The Meat Of The Matter

(Read Entry)

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Tuesday, 18 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 8

(Read Entry)

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Pocket Mac

(Read Entry)

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Jordan Blogging

(Read Entry)

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Ack!

(Read Entry)

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Hall Of Fame

(Read Entry)

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A Year Later

(Read Entry)

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Trek Rex

(Read Entry)

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Drink. Win. Play

(Read Entry)

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Dashboard mini

(Read Entry)

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Don't Panic

(Read Entry)

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Deep Impact--The Movie

(Read Entry)

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Alien Audio

(Read Entry)

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Fallen Apple

(Read Entry)

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Monday, 17 January 2005

Old Before My Time

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 7

(Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Sunday, 16 January 2005

Note

(Read Entry)

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Saturday, 15 January 2005

Orange Moon

(Read Entry)

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Friday, 14 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Martian Meteorite?

(Read Entry)

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Do The iPod Shuffle

(Read Entry)

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Unboxing Day

(Read Entry)

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Um... OK

(Read Entry)

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Today In History

(Read Entry)

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Save The Saturn

(Read Entry)

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Strange Visitors

(Read Entry)

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Touchdown!

(Read Entry)

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Blogpoint Update

(Read Entry)

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Lucky Cow... In Space!

(Read Entry)

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Thursday, 13 January 2005

Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 6

Neo versus Cygor. (Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Today In History

(Read Entry)

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Saturn Day's Night All Right For Sighting

(Read Entry)

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Apple News Round-Up

(Read Entry)

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End Of Line

(Read Entry)

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Wednesday, 12 January 2005

In The Meme Time

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 5

(Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Today In History

(Read Entry)

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After X

(Read Entry)

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Jurassic NASA

(Read Entry)

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Administrator Update

(Read Entry)

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Deep Impact

(Read Entry)

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Mac Cubed

(Read Entry)

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Apple Haters Unite!

(Read Entry)

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Tuesday, 11 January 2005

Atmark Mini

(Read Entry)

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The Mini Shuffle

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 4

(Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Counter Culture

(Read Entry)

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Strange New World

(Read Entry)

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Keynote Day

(Read Entry)

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Poetry Contest

(Read Entry)

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Monday, 10 January 2005

Wounded Planet

(Read Entry)

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Battlestar Enterprise

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 3

(Read Entry)

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Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Problem Found

(Read Entry)

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Apple Dominant?

(Read Entry)

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Good Old Batman

(Read Entry)

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Tender Visits

(Read Entry)

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Sunday, 9 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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I, Mac

(Read Entry)

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Saturday, 8 January 2005

Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 2

(Read Entry)

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Personal Update

(Read Entry)

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Friday, 7 January 2005

Daily Hatbag

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 2, Fight 1

(Read Entry)

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Today In History

(Read Entry)

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RTF Update

(Read Entry)

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Familiar New Worlds

(Read Entry)

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Got The Blues Again

(Read Entry)

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Thursday, 6 January 2005

By The Way

(Read Entry)

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Twelfth Night

(Read Entry)

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Resolutions

(Read Entry)

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Regular Richie Feature

Recent search strings on ATW. (Read Entry)

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Scat, Cat

(Read Entry)

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The Next Saturn

(Read Entry)

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Positive Elektron

(Read Entry)

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Macworld Rumor Update

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 1, Fight 8

(Read Entry)

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Fountain Of Newt

(Read Entry)

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Space Blog

(Read Entry)

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Wednesday, 5 January 2005

Cyborg War: Round 1, Fight 7

(Read Entry)

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Negative Elektron

(Read Entry)

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iWork Hard For The Money

(Read Entry)

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Darkest Knight

(Read Entry)

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Multiple Episodes

(Read Entry)

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Tuesday, 4 January 2005

Time And Tide

(Read Entry)

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From MS To MS

(Read Entry)

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Farewell

(Read Entry)

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Today In History

(Read Entry)

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The Human Adventure

(Read Entry)

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Administrator Update

(Read Entry)

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Picture Of The Day

(Read Entry)

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Year On Mars In Review

(Read Entry)

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The Headless iMac

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 1, Fight 6

(Read Entry)

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Monday, 3 January 2005

Cyborg War: Round 1, Fight 5

(Read Entry)

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How Odd

(Read Entry)

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Einstein Begins

(Read Entry)

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The Specialest Holiday Of All

(Read Entry)

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Commander Foale

(Read Entry)

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One Year On Mars

(Read Entry)

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The Search Continues

(Read Entry)

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Sunday, 2 January 2005

TutorBlog!

(Read Entry)

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Saturday, 1 January 2005

Strangerhood

(Read Entry)

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Welcome To 2005

(Read Entry)

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Cyborg War: Round 1, Fight 4

(Read Entry)