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Tuesday, 31 May 2005
Opposition To Mars
While it won't be as close as the 2003 perigee, Mars will once again be spectacularly close to the Earth this year. While the closes point won't occur until Halloween (GMT), Mars is already becoming brighter in the sky, and the two planets are closing on each other at 23,500 miles per hour.
Continuing Voyagers
NASA Watch is reporting that NASA Administrator Mike Griffin has decided to keep the Voyager probes alive, reversing an earlier decision by the agency that could have cut funding to the spacecraft. No formal announcement has been made, however.
Low-Paying Jobs
Per The Los Angeles Times:Apple Computer Inc. boss Steve Jobs, who topped the Los Angeles Times' executive pay survey last year, is next to last on the new list after his compensation plunged from $74.8 million to just $1.
That's barely enough to download one song on an iPod. But according to federal filings, Jobs still owns 10 million shares of the Cupertino, Calif., computer and gadget maker — worth about $406 million at Friday's market close — so he probably won't be singing "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" anytime soon.
Yoda One
Lain sent me this rumor a few days ago, so I'm late blogging it, but thought I'd throw it out here for discussion. According to various sources, Lucas has considered another, Yoda-centric Star Wars prequel film. According to the rumors, the film would be set several centuries before the "original six" and would focus on the role a young Yoda played the last time the Jedi defeated the Sith.
Saturday, 28 May 2005
Today In History
On this date in 1959, monkeynauts Able and Baker took a 15-minute flight in the nosecone of a Jupiter rocket, becoming the first animals to be recovered alive after a spaceflight. (Though in Able's case, that situation was quickly rectified.)
Friday, 27 May 2005
Today In History
On this date in 1999, the Space Shuttle Discovery launched on the STS-96 mission, the first to dock with the International Space Station.
Intel It Like It Is
Per MacNN:During this week's Wall Street Journal "D: All Things Digital" conference, Intel chief executive Paul Otellini was pressed by Walt Mossberg about security on the Wintel platform, to which he offered a startling confession: He spends an hour a weekend removing spyware from his daughter's computer.
Asked whether a mainstream computer user in search of immediate safety from security woes ought to buy a Mac instead of a Wintel PC, he said, "If you want to fix it tomorrow, maybe you should buy something else."
Aspyr To Win
Since I know at least one ATW-reading household would be interested in winning a copy, I thought I'd like to Aspyr's contest in which they're giving away copies of The Sims 2.And, oh yeah, for those not into The SIms, they're also going to give away an iPod and an iPod shuffle.
Super Shuffle
OK, I'm suffering from a bout of intense Apple jealousy. As cool as my iPod shuffle is, it's going to seem a bit less cool when there are 4GB iPod shuffles on the market.
Thursday, 26 May 2005
Secret Files
In addition to this week's new Hatbag now being online, since the whole BuzzComix thing wasn't working too well, I added a link to a similar web comics directory. If you would be so kind as to cast a vote for Hatbag in the bottom left-hand corner, I'd be most appreciative.
Have A Cow!
A few of my readers have been loaned my copy of the Mr. Lowe comic strip collection by Indianolan Mark Pett, and readers of ATW have likely seen links to Pett's current strip, Lucky Cow. Pett does some great, very funny work, but if you're like me, his work may not appear in your local paper. Sure, you can read it online, but now you have the chance to experience the visceral joy of holding it physically in your hand, thanks to the new Lucky Cow collection, published by Andrews McMeel. Buy yours today!
Strag Lag
OK, just for the record, I would have totally celebrated Towel Day if I had known about it before it was over.I'm going to go ahead and blog a reminder for next year, though.
Miles To Go
OK, get the immediate reaction out of the way: As a fan of Deep Space Nine, the idea of Miles O'Brien in space delights me. Anyway, moving on...It appears that prior to the loss of Columbia, NASA had been close to working out an agreement for CNN reporter Miles O'Brien to become the first reporter to fly on the Space Shuttle, an arrangement which was being eyed as a possible foundation for a program like the one being developed in the pre-Challenger mid-80s in which reporters, artists, writers and other civilians would fly on the Shuttle and share their experiences.
I'm more than a little surprised to learn about this, particularly given how much the agency has stressed that the upcoming flight of Educator Astronaut Barbara Morgan is not like the old Teacher In Space program -- Morgan is a fully trained career astronaut, just like any other member of NASA's corps. Time and again it was stressed that NASA was not going to be flying a civilian.
Of course, that apparently still would have been the case with O'Brien, who reportedly would have dedicated two years to preparation for his flight. Even so, his role would have been very different than that of Morgan, who's dedication is fully to NASA, since O'Brien would have been on the crew representing an outside agency.
With the upcoming retirement of the Shuttle fleet, and the uncertainty of what exactly the post-Shuttle future will entail, the program now seems unlikely to get off the ground.
Rollback
Discovery began its several-hour journey back to the Vehicle Assembly Building this morning at 6:44 a.m. EDT. After being mated to a new External Tank, the stack will be rolled out to the pad again in mid-June, in preparation for a launch still scheduled for NET July 13.
Special Insurrection
DVDAnswers.com has a feature about the new collector's edition DVD of Star Trek Insurrection, which hits stores in about a week and a half. The feature includes screen captures from the several deleted scenes included on the DVD. It should be interesting to learn what sort of scenes weren't good enough for inclusion in the worst Trek movie ever.
Wednesday, 25 May 2005
Vader Hates Rabbits
So apparently bootleg DVDs of Episode III are already available in Beijing which, apart from being somewhat blurry, have rather interesting subtitles:
In one scene, Anakin Skywalker is dueling with light sabers. But the subtitle reads, "I have enough trouble with students having sex like rabbits."
7 UP, Up And Away
From Yahoo:Famed astronaut Buzz Aldrin announced today that the next time you reach UP for a can of Diet 7UP, newly reformulated with SPLENDA® Brand Sweetener, you could be reaching for the stars. In partnership with the X PRIZE Foundation, creators of the $10 million ANSARI X PRIZE, the Diet 7UP Free Ticket to Space sweepstakes takes off this week on www.7UP.com. The sweepstakes will run through August 31, 2005, and will award one lucky consumer the chance to fly to the edge of suborbital space on an FAA-approved commercial space flight.
The sweepstakes is supported by a groundbreaking national TV ad campaign filmed in an authentic zero-gravity environment, aboard G-Force One(TM) -- a plane that simulates the unique experience of weightlessness.
Today In History
On this date in 1973, the first crew of Skylab launched on their way to the station. The launch had been delayed for 10 days to allow time for round-the-clock work to find fixes to problems which occurred during Skylab's launch on May 14. The crew of Pete Conrad, Joseph Kerwin and Paul Weitz during their stay were able to repair the crippled spacecraft into fully operational mode.
Also on this date, in 1961, President Kennedy told Congress, "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."
Positive Discovery
As was announced a while back, before Discovery launches for the STS-114 mission, scheduled for July, the stack currently on the launch pad will have to be rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to be mated to a new External Tank. That rollback was delayed recently, though, when cracks were discovered in the landing gear equipment on Atlantis, also currently being prepared for launch, so that Discovery could be checked to make sure it had no similar problems. That check has been completed, and Discovery's landing gear door mechanism has been found to be in good shape, clearing the way for a rollback scheduled for tomorrow.
These Are The Voyagers...
To be honest, I can't remember exactly how much of this is actually new information, but it's still pretty darned cool.Per Spaceflight Now:
NASA's inteprid Voyager 1 space probe has begun its journey to the stars and is now exploring the farthest reaches of the Sun's influence where the solar wind strangely interacts with interstellar space, agency officials formally announced on Tuesday.
...
The boundary crossed in December marks a point where charged particles constantly emitted from the Sun called the solar wind slow down from hundreds of miles per second to subsonic speeds. This is due to pressure from the interstellar wind, or the gas blowing between stars likely resulting from ancient nearby supernovae.
...
This shock also causes the temperature of the solar wind to significantly increase from about 200,000 degrees to over a million degrees due to the increased density of the particles once inside the heliosheath, which extends out to the heliopause and bow shock - the last official boundaries encountered before entering interstellar space.
City Of Troy
I've been somewhat interested in the City of Heroes online game; and my jealousy of the fact it's not available for my platform is mitigated only by the knowledge that, realistically, no matter how cool it sounds, even if I did have it on my Mac, I wouldn't, technically, have time to play it.As cool as the game sounds, though, the comic book tie-in was of basically zero interest to me. Being a superhero in a game could be very cool; reading about a computer game other people are playing, less so. The title immediately went onto my list of comics I have no interest in reading.
Of course, Witchblade was once pretty securely on that list at one time. And, to be honest, is again. By there was a two-issue story arc there a while back where it was must-read material for me, when it was written by comics-genius and Common-Grounds-scribe Troy Hickman.
Yeah, regular readers of this blog know where I'm going at this point; I'm switching into full-scale pimp-Troy-Hickman mode. NewsArama just published a story announcing that Troy will be writing a three-issue arc of City of Heroes, starting in August. I will, of course, be buying it, and encourage any comics fans in the audience to check it out as well.
Tuesday, 24 May 2005
What A Card
For Orson Scott Card, who has recently written a sour-grapes-filled column criticizing Apple, saying that the company doesn't do anything others haven't done earlier and better, as well as a diatribe blasting Star Trek for the fact it did nothing other science fiction hadn't done earlier and better, I have two words for his avocation as science-fiction-writer-turned-uber-curmudgeon: Harlan Ellison.
Editorial Update
OK, I'm going to try and get serious about this again. I've updated the sidebar stuff for the first time in a while, including a new poll and playlist. I've totalled up the Blogpoints for April and May, and, since I've only posted two new Blogpoint opportunities in those two months, I'm going to carry the contest forward into June as well.Sorry it's been sort of lax lately, but I really am going to try and do better.
Also, to help stir things up, the next Leonardo Code update will be worth 50 Blogpoints.
Open Gates
So I like to think I'm a decent writer, even when it comes to creative writing, and so what I'm asking myself now, is, am I this good:You could meet the chairman of Microsoft, but you'll have to profess a passion for Windows first. Microsoft is looking for true stories about people using Windows computers to pursue a passion or hobby. The company plans to use them in a marketing blitz tied to the 20th anniversary of Windows' debut. To entice essay submissions, Microsoft is offering a number of prizes, including the chance to meet Gates in Seattle and appear in the ad campaign.
For the chance to tell Bill Gates to Think Different, could I come with with a convincing 300-word essay? Hmmmm....
Time For A Movie
So I considered doing the old seen-haven't-seen listing for Times All-Time 100 Movies, but not only have I seen embarrasingly few of them, I also have some issues with the list that make me believe it's not worth the effort, such as the fact that it doesn't include Gone With The Wind, but does include, for example, Finding Nemo.
Today In History
On this date in 1962, Scott Carpenter became the second American to orbit the Earth following the launch of his Aurora 7 Mercury spacecraft.