 |
Wednesday, 31 August 2005
80 GB Of Love
So the nice thing about no one being out there reading the blog is that I can be as self-indulgent as I want without feeling guilty.
One of my two 80-gigabyte external hard drives failed last night. I've had problems with the drives before but managed to get them going again, but this time I think I think the data on it is lost (short of paying far more than I'm willing to pay to bring it back).
It's a limited loss -- some of it was video that I have in other forms (albiet less usable ones), some of it was music that's still on my iPod, some of it was stuff I downloaded off the internet that arguably I can live without (I mean, really, I don't need a collection of trailers for the Matrix Reloaded.)
There are some things, though, that are just gone, the first stuff I recorded with my video camera, including a tour of our first house and some "funny" video Lain, Richie, Nicole and I did in Jackson. And, of course, there's all the stuff that I forgot was even on that drive that I'll be dealing with losing for some time to come.
It's kinda amazing, though, when you think about it. The first computers I used didn't even have internal hard drives. The first Mac I used regularly had a 10 meg external drive. The drive I lost yesterday had 8,000 times that capacity. Not that long ago the idea of even having 80 gig of stuff would be incredible, much less the idea of losing that much all at once. To say nothing of the idea that I could lose 80 gig all at once at it not be a catastrophic loss -- that was just one-third of my storage space for that one computer.
That said, it really sort of put yesterday in perspective for me. Losing the stuff on that drive sort of bummed me out. Losing one of the other drives could have been much worse. And that's just one computer hard drive.
It's sort of like the scene where the Earth is destroyed in Hitchhiker's Guide. Douglas Adams hit the nail on the head -- the idea of losing everything is just too big. You hear on the news about entire blocks being gone, and, yeah, you know that sucks, but it's tough to put that in any sort of meaningful perspective. It's when you forget about the big picture and start thinking about all the small things that it begins to mean something.
If that had been my house, I would have lost the hard drive that failed yesterday. Which, just like last night, would have been a bummer. I also would have lost the other two drives on that computer. (All of this is just to illustrate a point; those that know me know that if I knew I was going to have to evacuate, and had any idea something like that was going to happen, as much of my computer storage as possible would be in the car with me when I headed for high ground.) Years worth of work and memories gone.
In fact, all of my computers, and all of my computer storage media would be gone; and with them ten year old journal entries, wedding photos, high-school newspaper graphics, gone. In fact, all media in general, gone -- the first CD I ever owned gone, books signed by everyone from Buzz Aldrin to John Grisham to B.B. King to Richie's brother Webb, the video copy of my interview with the Space Station, mix tapes I made in high school, all gone.
Sorry. All of this is apropos of nothing, just mindless ramblings. But then, I warned of that at the beginning, didn't I?
What A Wonderful World
NASA's MESSENGER Mercury probe passed by Earth about a month ago for a gravity-assist flyby, and did an incredible job capturing our world spinning in space. The images taken by the spacecraft were combined into an awesome movie. (I saw the video first, and had to go track down the info to make sure it wasn't CG.)
Run It Up The Flagpole
Michael Huang has decided to post his idea for a 'Space Flag' on a Web site to se who salutes. While I'm not sure about a flag, per se, I could be sold on the idea of some sort of space-support symbol or logo.That said, this particular design just doesn't scream "spaceflight" to me.
Heh
Just noticed in the referrers that ATW is the number five result in a Yahoo search for:
jordan's shoes with spongebob on them
Grab Your Towel
OK, here's a contest that I would love to see someone in the ATW audience win: Ain't It Cool News is giving away prizes for the best "Zaphod for President" campaign posters. Deadline is next Friday.
Tuesday, 30 August 2005
Storm Update
From Spaceflight Now:Lockheed Martin's Michoud Assembly Facility, the sprawling New Orleans plant where space shuttle external tanks are built, may have escaped catastrophic damage from Hurricane Katrina. The status of NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss., is not yet known.
Addendum: Per NASA.gov:
The ride out crew at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi reports there are no injuries from the storm. Some buildings were damaged, but the extent of the damage isn't know yet. Hundreds of people including employees, their families and members of the public took shelter in the center's six buildings and will stay overnight because of flooding in the surrounding area. The center remains closed until a complete damage assessment can be done.
iPhone Update?
So is Motorola's iTunes phone coming Sept. 7?The company has announced that it's holding a special event that day in San Francisco for a music-related product announcement. The announcement of the event reads, in part, "1000 songs in your pocket changed everything. Here we go again."
The iTunes phone appears to be the leading contender for the announcement, since there had been prior rumors that it would be revealed on that date (of course, there were rumors it would be revealed any number of days this year). Other leading possibilities would presumably be the video iPod, a new flash-based iPod (shuffle?) and, on the steeper odds end of things, a subscription iTunes service.
Checking In
We made it through the storm OK here in Huntsville. My house lost power at some point during the night, but that particular outage appears to be limited to my block. Didn't see any wind damage in my area.If you would, any ATW readers in the storm area please post when you read this and let me know how you're doing. Thanks!
Monday, 29 August 2005
Space Van
I want one of these!
I've Got Issues
Created with the Flickr magazine cover generator.
Apologies to Lain and Richie.
Nap Time
There's a bunch of new blogging over at the Joe blog.
I Believe In Peace, Bossk
From TheForce.net:Fans attending the Cleveland, OH show on August 30, 2005 are asked to dress as a character from Star Wars!
This comes to The Dent by way of Tori's management. The day of the Cleveland, OH show, which is August 30, 2005, is Tash's birthday party, which will have a Star Wars theme. Everyone in the crew (including Tori) will be dressed as a character from Star Wars.
Therefore, Tori would like to invite everyone in the audience to also dress as a character from Star Wars. This should be great fun, so please participate if you can!
So I'm really curious exactly who Tori will dress as.
(The title for this post, btw, was totally stolen from Lain.)
One Of These Days...
From the I'll-believe-it-when-I see-it category, Malaysia, which is looking forward to seeing one of its citizens fly into space for the first time in two years when he hitches a ride on a Russian ISS taxi flight, says it could send people to the Moon by 2020.On the one hand, I think it's cool that there's a growing interest in so many countries in human spaceflight, and I'm very supportive of the growing international agreement that the Moon is the place to go, but these claims by Malaysia and India and Japan and ESA will be more believable when they actually manage to send people into space on their own. Which is not saying I don't believe they can do it, it just means I really would love to see them get serious about it and start putting people in orbit.
The Coming Storm
Once again, Return to Flight is threatened by a hurricane.Lockheed Martin's Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans is in the path of Katrina.
There are currently seven basically finished Space Shuttle External Tanks at Michoud, with eight to 10 more under construction. The tank that it was reported last week was leaving KSC to return to Michoud was held up before arriving due to the weather.
Though less relevant for RTF, NASA's Stennis Space Center is also in the path of potential damage.
Sunday, 28 August 2005
Beginning Again
Finally got around to watching Batman Begins for the second time yesterday, and enjoyed it again.Watching it a second time already knowing that it was still possible to make a good Batman movie it was less of a revelation than the first time I watched it, but the fact that I still enjoyed watching it a second time was reassuring.
Saturday, 27 August 2