 |
Saturday, 31 December 2005
Happy New Year
This will be my last post of the year 2005.
I'll see y'all again... in the future!
Hope you all have a happy New Year and a happy new year.
Friday, 30 December 2005
Steve Jobs Killed The Video Star
I've seen exactly zero of this blog's Top 50 Music Videos of 2005, and am blogging this mainly so I can come back to it at a better time and watch a couple of them that I had heard about but never seen.
Meme Of Four
It being a slow blog day, I'm stealing a meme from Nik. So there.Four jobs you've had in your life: Lawn care company employee, getting paid by the hour while my friends were making the mad money pushing their own mowers around; Dollar Tree third-key manager; artist for a Web-based soap opera back in the heady early days of the Web; and substitute teacher.
Four movies you could watch over and over: "Star Wars," natch; "Citizen Kane"; "Holy Grail"; and, say, "Strictly Ballroom."
Four places you've lived: Huntsville, Ala.; Oxford, Miss.; Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.; Ewok Village.
Four TV shows you love to watch: Current shows now? Lessee... "Lost"; "My Name Is Earl'; sweet, sweet "Battlestar Galactica"; and, uh, maybe The 4400, assuming it's coming back for another season, which I would hope, given the way the last one ended. I also watch Smallville, but hate every minute of it.
Four places you've been on vacation: Counting trips with the folks when I was little, Orlando, Chicago, D.C. and Gatlinburg. Not counting those: New Orleans, Pensacola, Atlanta, and, uh, Tunica, I guess. I was a newspaper reporter. We don't believe in vacations.
Four websites you visit daily: Only four? Well, of course, I'll take this opportunity to pimp collectSPACE. Blogdex is another great one, and then, say, AICN, picking one at random. And, then, of course, all the ATW-family blogs in the sidebar.
Four of your favorite foods: Ribs, wings, cheese, bacon.
Four places you'd rather be: Than where I am this moment? Uh, Jackson, Miss., where I'm heading after I get done here; the International Space Station; Oakland, Tenn. and/or Oxford, Miss., visiting my nieces; and, say, Abner's.
Used tags: blog, bsg, collectspace, huntsville, international_space_station, journalism, lost, media, meme, mississippi, movies, star_wars
For Your Consideration...
Well, ballots for Oscar nominations have been distributed (I think this may have been mentioned a while back, but Steve Jobs gets to vote this year), and I never got around to mounting my big campaign to get Ian McDiarmid nominated for Best Supporting Actor.I fear he won't be considered, even despite his UNLIMITED ACTING!
Silly Trek Rumor Of The Day
So apparently Tom Hanks is going to appear in the next Trek movie. The one rumors say is being written by Erik Jendresen, not the rumored one with Shatner and Stewart that rumor has it has replaced the rumored Jendresen movie.This one I'm thankful almost certainly isn't true.
Thursday, 29 December 2005
Done And Done
Lucky you. For the first time in eight years, here's the official end-of-the-year Hatbag.
13 Things
About a year ago, I posted a link to 43 Things and started working on a list.I never did come up with 43 things, but I did list 13. Some of them were very much resolutions for 2005; but when I had trouble coming up with 43 things I wanted to this year, I broadened my list some. (The site doesn't specify a deadline for the goals.)
That said, here's where I stand on my 13 things:
- Produce a Web Comic -- Done.
- Watch a space shuttle launch -- Not done yet, at least not live. Not entirely my fault -- there weren't as many opportunities for doing so this year as I thought there might be when I did the list; and this was one that wasn't necessarily a 2005 thing. That said, I did watch a space launch in person for the first time this year, and was there for a last-minute scrub of another one.
- write more regularly -- Yeah, though not to the point I would check it off completely. Need to write even more regularly next year. That said, I've written a pretty fair amount in 2005.
- Get more exercise -- Like above, I'm doing better, but there's still room for improvement. Also in more need of losing weight.
- take a real vacation -- I came kinda close, going down to Floriday with Nicole for a long weekend, but I was there for work reasons, and it wasn't that long a trip. If all works out like I hope, 2006 will be the year for this one.
- write a book and have it published -- Not intended for completion in 2005, though I did a good bit of the writing part. Of course, if you count self-publishing, then this could be counted as done, too.
- make more friends -- Maybe. I've hung out a couple of times outside of work with people I'd never hung out with before. But don't know that I've met anyone new this year that I would call a friend. (No offense if I'm forgetting someone -- I may just be confusing years.)
- be a better husband -- Not really my place to judge.
- draw more -- Nope. Not at all. Assuming you're talking about non-computer stuff, which I was, I don't know that I've drawn anything at all.
- learn Russian -- Again, nope. Started working on at least recognizing more of the alphabet, but didn't even finish that.
- Take more pictures -- I bought a new digital camera. That's gotta count for something. Beyond that, dunno. My picture taking is still pretty subject driven, I don't do as much ambient picture taking as some people.
- put all my finances in Quicken -- For my purposes, done. I guess technically I don't have all my finances in Quicken, but I met the intent of this goal -- keeping all of my checking account transactions in Quicken for a year (well, after this weekend, at least). And I really think it's helped. It'll be interesting to be able to start doing year-to-year comparisons now.
- Save money -- Like some others, better, but not good enough. We've done better saving money this year than ever before, but that's more a commentary on how poorly we've done in the past than how well we've done this year. Again, will strive to do better.
You Say You Want A Resolution
In the year 2006 I resolve to: |
Another Nail Update
So, it's official: StarTrek.com is not shutting down.So that's something, at least.
Wednesday, 28 December 2005
Strange New Worlds
I've been checking some forums lately to figure out at exactly what point I should go from being pretty confident that I wasn't picked for the Strange New Worlds Star Trek anthology to knowing for sure that I wasn't picked.Haven't seen a definitive answer (though everything I've seen doesn't look good), but have learned that the guy that picks the winners, Dean Wesley Smith, is apparently a huge poker buff, which also doesn't bode well.
If I try it again next year, no more poker.
Editorial Note
Yeah, another redesign. Some cosmetic changes, some minor revamping of the sidebars, and a new bar under the title wherein to place some useful links (more coming).Comments appreciated.
The New Niece And I
One of the highlights of my Christmas travels:
I got to hold Bethany for the first time. And, in my unbiased opinion, she is both precious and adorable.
In The News
Hey, Mississippi made Yahoo News today: (In a story about a place I drove past many, many times, no less.)GREENWOOD, Miss. - This city's firefighters should know how to find the Best Western by now. Twice in an hour, firefighters were sent to the downtown hotel this past week after a pair of fires broke out in the same block of guest rooms.
"For so long, not once did it happen, and now it happened — in two," hotel owner Kenny Narwani said.
A Lot Of Intel Inside
So the latest Mac rumor is that Apple is so busy redesigning the iMacs, Powerbooks, iBooks and minis that it's going to farm out the design of the new Power Mac motherboard to Intel; a move that I have difficulty seeing as confidence-inspiring, for several reasons.The article also says that that the Intel versions of the other four machines are expected in "the first four months of 2006," meaning that if the new iMac is not announced in two weeks (and current rumors are indicating that it won't be), it could be coming not terribly long after that, further complicating my computer-buying decision-making.
Tuesday, 27 December 2005
Again
Not much going on online, and I've got stuff I need to do.
Later, all
Monday, 26 December 2005
Hey
In the Apple Store in Memphis.
Not buying anything... Today.
Two weeks, one day until MWSF.
Hope you and yours are doing well.
ATW will be back to "normal" tomorrow.
Sunday, 25 December 2005
Season's Greetings
We're about to embark on the travel part of our four-cities-three-states-48-hours Christmas tour.
Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, whether you want to or not.
Saturday, 24 December 2005
Eh
You know, when you make a move that's three hours long; you're making a bit of a statement; specifically; "Hey, I'm making a movie that's worth being three hours long."I have nothing against long movies; there are several I really enjoy, and there have been several movies that I've hated were cut down to make them more appealling to the masses.
My problem with King Kong was not the length, per se. At one point I looked down at my watch, and was surprised to see that we were two hours into the film. By and large, it went by at a fair clip. My problem was more that it seemed cumbersome; that the length was necessitated by the fact that it was actually two separate movies grafted together. Compounding the problem was that the movie that had the plot seemed to run out of said plot before the film was over; after so much time being spent on characterization set-up in the beginning, that characterization was largely abandoned at the end. (I have absolutely no clue why the female lead was doing what she was doing when the final act began.)
To be fair, it wasn't all bad. The monkey-fighting-dinosaurs bit made Jurassic Park look slow and lame. In fact, the B-movie in the middle was pretty agreeable for what it was. Unfortunately, it was poorly served by all the framework that was applied trying to make it something it wasn't.
The Making Of A Hatbag
How's this for a little Christmas gift for the fans?Like sausages and laws, Hatbags are probably best enjoyed by those ignorant of how they are made. But, nonetheless, we've pulled back the curtain a little bit with a little peak into the making of this week's new Hatbag.
Today In History
On this date, 36 years ago, the Apollo 8 crew became the first human beings to orbit another world.
While there, they sent back Christmas greetings from space, which this blog would like to echo.
Friday, 23 December 2005
Space News
Hubble has discovered more rings around Uranus.Also, moons.
Fired Out Of A Canon
Interesting bit from a thread on TrekBBS about which Trek, exactly, is canon:Another thing that makes canon a little confusing. Gene R. himself had a habit of decanonizing things. He didn't like the way the animated series turned out, so he proclaimed that it was NOT CANON. He also didn't like a lot of the movies. So he didn't much consider them canon either. And--okay, I'm really going to scare you with this one--after he got TNG going, he...well...he sort of decided that some of the Original Series wasn't canon either. I had a discussion with him once, where I cited a couple things that were very clearly canon in the Original Series, and he told me he didn't think that way anymore, and that he now thought of TNG as canon wherever there was conflict between the two. He admitted it was revisionist thinking, but so be it.
iBattlestar
Hey, there's free Battlestar Galactica video on iTMS right now. Per MacNN, "The iTunes Music Store is now offering a free 'Sci Fi Inside – Battlestar Galactica' video that includes interviews of cast members, a review of the crew's past adventures, and a sneak peek at future episodes, following the launch of the series on iTunes earlier this month."Addendum: Turns out there's another free video, a Saturday Night Live short.
Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em
I like me some Christopher Buckley books. I was excited to hear that they were making a movie of the one I consider his best novel, Thank You For Smoking. I've been worried about how it would turn out.The trailer takes some of that worry away. Man, I'm looking forward to this film.
O, The Coach
In related news, Orgeron still hasn't found an offensive coordinator, and another player and assistant coach have left the team.
Thursday, 22 December 2005
'Twas the Night Before Nerdmas
And now for something completely different.Well, maybe not completely. But at least kinda different.
Anway, go check out this week's new Hatbag.
Yawn
To be fair, it's not just me. The whole internet is pretty much dead, and likely won't get much better for a couple of weeks.If anybody's got any discussion topics, feel free to lay 'em on us.
NewtSupply
If you've been wanting your own "complete" collection of Newtons, this could be your lucky day.The Newton Museum Web site is shutting down, and its collection is being sold off on eBay.
For the fanatic, though, it should be noted that this appears to only be a collection of production models of Apple Newton products, and doesn't include the prototypes or third-party machines that a true Newton collector should have.
Wednesday, 21 December 2005
A Very Tori Christmas
I'm going to make the assumption that the person who has posted this for public download has the rights to do so.If you like the Tori Amos and Christmas, click here.
Blogged Books
So I read, and probably mentioned on my blog, the number two most blogged-about book of 2005, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.I haven't read The Da Vinci Code, but I know I blogged about it in 2004, and may have mentioned it on the blog during 2005, but if so, probably only in reference to The Leonardo Code. I generally try to stay away from talking about it after the criticism that rained down on me last year. ("Is that the real reason you are not going to read the Da Vinci Code, or is it because it shows women as higher beings than close minded men such as yourself?")
I may have blogged about the Singularity, but more the concept than the book.
I've read 1984, but not in 2005, and I don't know if I mentioned it on the blog this year, either.
And of the 20 most-blogged-about books, I think that's about it for me. On the other hand, I blogged about such things as "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse" and John Grisham and graphic novels that didn't make their list.
Yep, ATW -- your home for low-brow blogging.
Leveling Out
Offered without comment:A NASA official has told the agency’s Web designers to write below the college level in response to a recent Education Department study that found that the average American college graduate's literacy has declined significantly in the past decade.
Last week Brian Dunbar, NASA’s Internet services manager, sent an e-mail message to all of the agency’s Web designers and developers telling them to work harder at explaining scientific concepts.
“It's pretty clear that if we're writing at the college level, we're writing for an ever-diminishing portion of the U.S. population,” he wrote in his message. The instructions were part of a routine exchange with NASA Web employees and not a formal policy or directive.
This Time For Sure...
TrekToday and others are reporting that the Trek animated series will be released on DVD next year. For real this time. Really. Honest.Speculation is that it will be released for the 40th anniversary of the debut of TOS in September. Kinda sad that Paramount is run Trek so far into the ground that this is the most exciting thing they can dig up to mark the anniversary.
Tuesday, 20 December 2005
Falcon Update
The future of spaceflight will have to wait a while longer.Yesterday's scheduled maiden launch of SpaceX's Falcon I rocket? Not so much on the flying in space. The first-stage fuel tank of the low-cost rocket was partially collapsed while awaiting launch due to a faulty pressure valve.
Word on a new launch date will have to wait. According to the article, It isn't clear whether the damage can be repaired at the remote launch site, about 5,000 miles from the U.S. mainland, or if the first stage must be replaced completely.
What Matters
So I wonder what Jobs thought about being one of TIME's "People who mattered" in 2005: Is he upset that, after being nominated for Person of the Year, he lost out to, of all people, Bill Gates; or does he take solace in the fact that Jobs was recognized for his innovation, while Gates was honored for giving away a fraction of the money he raked in off other people's innovation?Also, if Jobs was recognized in large part for the iPod/iTunes, was there an agreement that Bono would appear on the cover either way?
Double Apple
Per MacNN:Apple's website was the fasting growing site on the internet in November, showing over 50 percent year-over-ear growth and outpacing Google growth, which ranked No. 2, by nearly two times. Internet media and research company Nielsen//NetRatings today announced the fastest growing Web sites among the top 10 Web brands for November 2005. Yahoo!, which only saw 10 percent increase (No. 7) in traffic over last year, still leads all Web properties with the most unqiue visitors--more than 100 million during the month of November. However, Apple ranked No. 1 in year-over-year growth in November 2005, climbing 57 percent over November 2004--to nearly 31 million unique visitors. The traffic increase was driven primarly by traffic to the increasingly popular iTunes, according to Nielsen/Netratings.
FWIW, hatbag.net saw an year-over-year growth in uniqe IPs of 523 percent from 6,657 in Nov. '04 to 41,486 in Nov. '05, and an increase of 2,029 percent in total hits, from 76,628 in Nov. '04 to 1,631,356 in Nov. '05.
Watchmen Update
So, yeah, there's another Watchmen movie update. The perrenial turnaround fodder has ended up at another studio. The one bit of difference this time is that it's a studio that has another level of interest in making the project a success -- Watchmen is now in the hands of Warner Bros., which can be influenced by a Time Warner directive to help DC have the sort of outside-of-comics reach that Marvel is enjoying.
Source Of Amusement
Now here's a great little Christmas present: In an article about a new Highlander comic book series, Newsarama mentions this bit of news:A reported trilogy of new feature films, starring Adrian Paul as Duncan MacLeod is in production, with filming on the first, Highlander: The Source, having completed earlier this month.
While it probably won't be the same without Christopher Lambert, I still hope that these new movies manage to provide the same level of raw entertainment value that parts 2, 3 and 4 did.
Rocky Beginning
You know, really, a site named "RockyBalboaBlog.com" should have to be written in character as a blog by Rocky (with each entry starting, "Yo, blog!")
Monday, 19 December 2005
Finally
About nine months behind schedule, I finally got around to replacing the temporary redirect page I put up when I moved "Hippie & The Black Guy" off the hatbag.net index page back in February with a new hatbag.net portal page that lists the various and sundry content on the server.
Still room for improvement, but it's much better than what was there.
Blogpoint Opportunity
Blogpoints will be awarded for the best captions for this photo.
Roving Mars
Following close on the heels of MagDes, Disney next month will be releasing a new space-related IMAX movie, Roving Mars, which will, natch, follow the mission of the two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.The trailer is online in QuickTime, as well as other, inferior formats.
:(
Mission Over
The "mission" of the three contestants on the British reality show "Space Cadets" is over, and the truth has been revealed.Apparently, none of them saw through the deception until it was revealed right before they disembarked from their spacecraft onto the soundstage. (Unless, of course, the people are correct who believe the show was actually a double-hoax, pulling one over on the audience.)
But poor old Keri looked gutted. "I was planning my speech about achieving my childhood dreams. I'm a little bit broken-hearted."
The Falcon
If things go as planned, today could mark a milestone for the future of spaceflight.Paypal founder Elon Musk has invested much time and money in SpaceX, his commercial spacelaunch start-up, which, if he has his way, will become a major player in both commercial spaceflight and launch services contracting. First, though, they have to get off the ground.
And that is currently scheduled for this afternoon. After numerous delays, the Falcon 1 rocket is scheduled for launch today at 1 p.m. CST, with an eight-hour window.
iPresident
Per MacNN:President George Bush yesterday discussed the contents of his iPod in greater detail with Sky News, noting various artists as he toyed with Apple's "high tech stuff." The Commander In-Chief perused his selections, listing the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, and "Dan" McLean as favored artists, among others. One bystander quickly corrected the president, reminding him that Don, not Dan, was the artist who sang "American Pie." Bush remarked that "Bono came in and dropped his new iPod on me," comparing his older device to the lead singer of U2's iPod nano. "This is a clunker compared to the newer version," Bush said. The president failed to mention whether Bono's singing with U2 is among his selections, according to InformationWeek. Bush also took time to mention that his iPod "can shuffle the shuffle."
Friday, 16 December 2005
Y Tori Kant Red
So I'd like to officially welcome Tori Amos to the 21st Century.Back in the olden days, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and people still bought videocassettes, Tori Amos had a couple of nice tapes, including a collection of all of her videos up to that point.
But then came the DVD, which at this point has been kinda adopted as the standard by everyone -- except Tori Amos. Apart from a couple of video singles, Tori's released a total of one full-lenght DVD, of a Florida concert. That great video-collection VHS tape has remained only that, never ported over.
Now, though, Tori has apparently caught on to this whole deeveedee thing, finally releasing an an updated version of the video collection, now titled "Fade To Red" (well, actually, the more Tori-esque "fade to red" natch).
OK, I Lied
I said I wasn't going to comment on the whole "Happy Holidays" thing, but that was before I recently received the most offensive holiday card ever.
I mean, I tend to take holiday-specific cards at face value, not as an attempt to be discriminatory or offensive. But this one was very clearly doing just that.
It basically wished the reader -- get this -- happy holidays and a happy new year.
That's right. Happy holidays and a happy new year.
The first part, that's fine. Obviously an attempt to be inclusive, whatever you happen to celebrate. And that's cool.
And since New Year's is a holiday, it could have been left at that. Happy Holidays. Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year's, whatever, have a happy one.
But no, it had to go just that little bit farther. Oh, sure, if you celebrate Christmas or Hanukah or whatever, that's cool. We'll be generic there.
But we're only going to wish you a happy Eurocentric New Year. If you happen to be from another culture -- celebrating the Chinese New Year (usually between mid-Jan and mid-Feb) or the Korean New Year (which doubles as a birthday) or the Thai New Year (April 13-15) or the Vietnamese New Year (sometime between Jan. 21 and Feb. 19) or the Hindu New Year (which varies by location) or the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) or the Muslim New Year (March 20) -- then too darned bad. You'll take our Westerner New Year's wishes, and you'll like it, darned fur'ner.
Whether You Need It Or Not
Even if it's not a member of the regular ATW community, I'm glad to know that apparently somebody is reading What You Need.
STS-121 Update
In a move that should come as exactly no surprise to readers of this blog, NASA has officially announced the PAL ramp will be removed from the ET for the next space shuttle launch.Not entirely sure what this means for the launch target.
Rock This Joint!
So I was negligent in not posting about the problem that Opportunity was having with its scientific robot arm, but it's basically working again.When I first heard about it, the arm problem seemed to be the sort of thing that, if not bringing an end to the mission, would at least be a major step towards it dwindling down. But, nope, the darned thing is still going.
It makes one wonder how exactly these "90-day" missions will end; whether the rovers will gradually wear down or just one day stop working, or whether there will be a point where the team says, "OK, we've done all we can do with them" and just retire the rovers. I do hope they are at least able to great MRO when it reaches Mars next year. (And it would be incredible cool, if rather unlikely, if they were still running when MSL touches down.)
Buy Two Songs, Get One Free
Paypal is running a great iTunes promotion through the end of the year, in which you can buy an iTunes gift certificate through Paypal and get 50 percent more songs free.Not sure if I want to pony up for the 75 songs for $50 right now, but the 30 for $20 is an awfully tempting deal.
One Year Later
I've been intrigued to see where DC is going overall with the Infinite Crisis series. Old-school Supes, in my opinion, is dead-on in his analysis of the problems in the modern DCU, and it's kinda cool seeing them being aired that way. I just have trouble believing DC will actually really fix those issues in the end.My interest in the series itself aside, so far I'm not too keen on any of the changes it's bringing on in the DC titles. Some, as with Blue Beetle and Aquaman, won't really change my buying habits since those aren't series I was buying anyway, but I just don't like them. (Though in the case of the former, I totally dug the "Formerly Known As..." minis, and would have kept buying those, but I doubt there will be many more books featuring wacky Max Lord-Blue Beetle-Sue Dibny team-ups at this point.)
Other changes will result in me buying fewer DC titles, definitely in the case of Batgirl and probably in the case of Supergirl.
Finally, though, I've come across one OYL change that I actually do like. Some will probably write it off as an Ex Machina rip-off, but, so help me, I kinda like the idea of (SPOILER) Oliver Queen becoming mayor of Star City. I read GA for Kevin Smith's relaunch and then for at least some of Meltzer's run, and this will probably make me check the book out again for a while (though I doubt it will turn me into a long-term reader).
Reagonomics
I meant to blog this before, but forgot to until Lain e-mailed it to me, but I am so looking forward to the new presidential dollar coins. I'm one of the small handful of people that dug the gold dollars of a few years ago, and I still carry a Sakagewea and an Anthony dollar with me all the time (I'll spend a paper dollar quickly, but can generally hang on to a coin until I need it).The only downside is that I kinda hate it'll be the better part of a decade before we start getting into modern presidents. I'm also curious to see what the portraits look like; whether they'll be the traditional type on coins for the last 100 years, or whether they'll be more like the portrait of Jefferson on the new nickel, which I really like.
Thursday, 15 December 2005
Hand Me Downs
There was some speculation in some corners that last week's Hatbag was in some way inspired by actual people and/or events. We would like to assure the readers that in both that case and this week's new Hatbag, nothing could be further from the truth.
Salvation
So I was trying to decide whether to blog this article in Editor & Publisher, and made my decision when I came to this bit:
Let's dream for a moment about newspapering freed from the profit motive. Purists may argue that newspapers, like any other enterprise, should have to earn their way in the marketplace, and if they fail the market test, so be it.
But in fact newspapers, as important to the civic health of our society as public transportation, have a claim on public allegiance that goes beyond financial measure. Does anyone believe that our society is better, our civic virtue enhanced, by the failure of the Washington Star and the New York Herald Tribune and the Chicago Daily News and all the other fine dailies that have perished for purely financial reasons?
Where it goes after that is even more fascinating: an idea for saving the newspaper indutry that I don't think I'd ever heard before. It's kinda out-there, but, you know, it might actually fix the problem.
Pro-Wiki
Per AP:Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that relies on volunteers to pen nearly 4 million articles, is about as accurate in covering scientific topics as Encyclopedia Britannica, the journal Nature wrote in an online article published Wednesday.
The finding, based on a side-by-side comparison of articles covering a broad swath of the scientific spectrum, comes as Wikipedia faces criticism over the accuracy of some of its entries.
Proxmire Died
Former Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.), 90, died today.Without judging his career as a whole, some would argue that if there were a villian in the story of U.S. spaceflight, it would be Proxmire.
As Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper wrote in his 2000 autobiography, Leap of Faith:
Proxmire saw to it that the entire Saturn V production and assembly line was shut down in the early 1970s, requiring even the destruction of the machinery and tooling necessary to build the rocket… In his grief over the destruction of his biggest and best rocket, Wernher von Braun, who lobbied Congress hard for a reprieve, told me in one of our last conversations that he considered it among the stupidest things this country—which he dearly loved and I’d never before heard him criticize—had ever done. I agreed… Why would any forward-thinking nation actually destroy its own leading-edge technology?… I’m still angry about it and will be until my dying day.
Robot Holocaust Update
For those that missed it Tuesday, Honda has announced a new version of ASIMO, which is intended to be a step towards it being able to take jobs from humans.
In addition, the robot has an improved ability to run after escaping humans:
It is also a pusher robot: ("Grandma is protected ... at the bottom of the stairs!")
And it can steal our women:
The Silver Dart
Growing up, I wanted to be an aerospace engineer. For years, that's what I thought I would do.But then, in high school, I made a disappointing discovery. It turns out aerospace engineering involves lots of math and science. Somehow, I hadn't really made that connection. I thought I would be spending all my time drawing pretty pictures of spaceships. Fortunately, at that point, fate intervened and I found a new calling in journalism, which required no skills.
In retrospect, though, it seems I may just have been ahead of my time. Based on space news outlets, it appears that a huge chunk of the modern space business really does center around drawing pretty pictures of spaceships.
Planetspace, for example, seems to be doing a good job of recreating a suborbital tourism version of the more-than-60-year-old rocket science behind the V2 for their Canadian Arrow program.
However, moving from that to an eight-person orbital vehicle seems like a pretty large step. Certainly, I wish them all the best with it, and I'm not saying it will never happen.
But I can guarantee you that, in general, there are a lot more pretty pictures today than there will be spacecraft 10 years from now.
iTicket
Per MacNN:Apple's iPod has been used for music, audio, and now video playback, but in the future it could become a platform for variety of other applications, including as secure storage for receipts, plane ticket information, and more. Ingenico's research teams have developed the world's first terminal accepting a payment on an iPod. Utilizing its i5100 technology, the iPod-compatible payment gateway was demonstrated at the Cartes 2005 exhibition held November 15-17, 2005. The system allows users to make payments, offer receipt information, and transmit other information stored on the iPod via an FM transmitter. While the concept was workable, the company said that the technology may not become mainstream: "While this demonstration may not be a sign of what the future holds, it certainly proves Ingenico's ability to innovate for the benefit of its current and future customers."
Apple On The Rise
In late 1997, I was a small-town newspaper reporter (I think at that point in time, my official title was "News." I didn't even get a noun. Just an adjective. [Yeah, I know news is a noun, but in this case it's used as an adjective.]) I didn't have $1,000 to invest in stock. Heck, between lack of money and financial responsibility, I couldn't scrape together any money to invest in stock.But I did say at the time that if I had the money, I would buy some Apple stock. This is when there were stories about how its value had dropped way down, and people were predicting the death of Apple. But I figured it was more likely to get better than worse.
If I had invested that $1,000 then, it would be worth $23,000 now.
Wednesday, 14 December 2005
Arrested Again?
Joe asked that I post this on ATW for the Arrested Development fans in the audience:Will the pay-TV environs of Showtime be a friendlier place for the Emmy-winning comedy "Arrested Development," which just got canceled by Fox?
Word around town this week is that Showtime is in talks to pick up the comedy about a chaotic family. Sources stressed that the talks are still exploratory and that it would be a big financial commitment on Showtime's part to pick up the show in its current form with a large ensemble cast that includes Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Portia de Rossi, Jessica Walter and Will Arnett.
Space Cadets
I posted a while back about the UK Space Cadets spaceflight hoax reality show. If you're interested in actually seeing some of it, you can check out the show's Web site.
Today In History
On this date in 1972, Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt launched on their return trip to Earth, leaving behind a plaque reading:
"Here man completed his first exploration of the moon.
December 1972, A.D.
May the spirit of peace in which we came be relected in the lives of all mankind."
A Year Of Opportunity
Opportunity yesterday celebrated the anniversary that Spirit marked recently -- one full Martian year on the surface of the Red Planet.
Going Whole Hog
So after a few months of being almost dead, the Carbwire Web site has come back with a vengeance the last couple of days.My favorite part was this quote from a news brief about low-carb diets contributing to a boom time for hog farmers:
"We have a lot of people who will order a whole pig ahead of time," he said. "But most people just show up. They pick out their pig, and we kill it and away they go."
Though that quote is still at best only the second-best pig-related quote posted here.
Editorial Note
Happy Birthday today to He-Whose-Birthday-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Long Kong
When someone in the ATW audience gets around to watching King Kong, I would appreciate a review. Thanks!I plan to see it, but don't know when. And, to be honest, if I don't see it by this weekend (which would mean watching it tonight), I'll probably want to go see The Producers first.
That said, you'll be happy to know that as of tomorrow, King Kong will be playing in Hong Kong.
Addendum: Actually, no, I won't. Turns out The Producers only gets a limited opening this weekend, and Huntsville's not part of that. So looks like Kong will be the best show in town this weekend.
Kirk's Back?
I had this sent to me twice last night, so apparently it needs to be blogged (as if I wouldn't have otherwise).So there's a rumor going around that not only will Picard be in the next Trek movie (a rumor noted previously on ATW), but Stewart will be joined by Shatner and perhaps Scott Bakula in a story involving the mirror universe (perhaps with the original Shatner/Mirror Universe Enterprise episode idea as a starting-off point).
You know, this has the potential to be horrible, but, yeah, I would watch it.
Anyway, discuss.
Tuesday, 13 December 2005
Them Old Diabetes Blues
I guess this is mainly for the benefit of Joe, being the one member of the ATW community with some acknowledged musical talent, but I'd encourage anyone interested to go for it -- I'd love to have an ATW connection to this.OneTouch is sponsoring a contest for people to write a blues song about diabetes for B.B. King to sing. The song has to be 50 words or less, including the word "touch," and has to be submitted by Dec. 31. The winner will get to attend a studio session in NY where B.B. will record the song.
He's Got A Ticket To Ride -- And He Don't Care
Per Cosmic Log:The winner of Diet 7UP's "First Free Ticket to Space" contest is J. Landers of Austin, Texas, according to the promotion's sponsors. But Landers won't be using that ticket, said Greg Artkop, a spokesman for Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages. Instead, Artkop told me that the winner went for an alternate prize of $300,000 in cash, which he said was permissible under the contest rules.
STS-121 Update
Officials at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, which manages the space shuttle's external tank, say that the changes needed to prepare the ET for its next flight should not delay the launch of STS-121.The big test, however, will come in February, when wind tunnel simulations are conducted with the modified ET to see whether there are any aerodynamic problems caused by the change.
The Year 2005
Stolen from another Web site. I would wait until closer to the end of the year to post it, but I would forget to steal it if I don't do it know.Fill in the blank:
"For me, 2005 was a year of __________"
Another Nail Update
Since I mentioned this last week. Per TrekToday:Larry Nemecek, the managing editor of The Star Trek Communicator, said he was confident that the official Star Trek fan club would continue in the wake of Decipher's announcement that the company would cease publication of the magazine.
...
"It is still very much true, as you quoted me from August, that 'Paramount will not let the Fan Club and Communicator die,'" Nemecek added. "I am certain that there is plenty of Star Trek to cover, both old and new, fan and pro, to make this worthwhile and exciting, or I would not have staked my immediate future to it." He said that he was confident that StarTrek.com would find a new home as well.
More Stevenote Rumors
In what could be bad news for Dave, Apple Insider is predicting that the Powerbooks, iBooks and Mac minis will be the first Macs to make the Intel switch, while the iMacs will come later on. The article anticipates the first Mactel machines in the first quarter 06, but doesn't say anything either way about Stevenote specifically.In other MWSF rumor "news," good and bad:
- Good: Apple is planning on delving further into consumer electronics with new iPod "companion" products (not accessories), like a boombox that is "unlike anything seen in boombox world" and strikingly different from "anything Apple has released in the past."
- Bad: "Sources say prototypes of the first Intel Macs currently sport an unfamiliar boot chime, suggesting that Apple is at least toying with the idea making the change -- possibly to symbolize the Mac's evolution from PowerPC to Intel processors."
- Good: ThinkSecret is agreeing that Apple is on track to deliver a 13-inch widescreen iBook soon. The new configuration will reportedly replace the 14-inch model, rather than the 12-inch.
- Bad: Apple is apparently gradually phasing out Firewire support, which kinda sucks for those of us who have invested money in Firewire-only video cameras, hard drives, iPods (I think our 3G is Firewire only), etc.
Of course, those in the know realize the truth behind the Firewire situation.
- Rumor has it that Intel will debut the Yonah processor -- supposedly the core of the Mactel machines -- on Jan. 6, four days before Stevenote.
- And, of course, there are more wireless iPod rumors.
Monday, 12 December 2005
What You Need: Songs
OK, I may regret this (for one of a couple of reasons), and reserve the right to rescend the offer, but I'll gift a song of your choice from iTunes for every chapter added to What You Need from now until Christmas.
Photo Stevenote?
Remember that recent post where I speculated about the announcement that audio would be a major focus of the upcoming Macworld Expo San Francisco (Jan. 9-13; Stevenote Jan. 10)?Well, it turns out that there will be a major focus on digital photography at MWSF.
So, well, there you go.
P.S. Confidential to the friend who said there was no market for the whole video iPod thing: A Bear Stearns retail survey found that demand for Apple's video iPod is matching demand for the company's iPod nano, and may be proving even more popular in some retail locations.
Editorial Note
This post is just to say that this post is the closest thing you're gonna see on ATW to a post about the whole "Merry Christmas" versus "Happy Holidays" issue.
It's amazing how easily chunks of our society goad other chunks, and how easily they allow themselves to be countergoaded by said other chunks.
I mean, you know, whatever.
OK, I'm done.
Well, Wiki What We Have Here
From The AP:A man who posted false information on an online encyclopedia linking a prominent journalist to the Kennedy assassinations says he was playing a trick on a co-worker.
Brian Chase, 38, ended up resigning from his job and apologizing to John Seigenthaler Sr., the former publisher of the Tennessean newspaper and founding editorial director of USA Today.
...
The biography he posted, which has since been replaced, falsely stated that Seigenthaler was linked to the Kennedy assassinations and had lived in the Soviet Union from 1971 to 1984.
...
[Seigenthaler] also said he doesn't support more regulations of the Internet, but he said that he fears "Wikipedia is inviting it by its allowing irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody."
There are at least three lessons to be learned here:
1) Yet again, the problems with the Wikipedia format of allowing anyone to write anything become apparent.
2) If you're going to post something dumb on the internet as a joke, be sure to take it down when you're done.
3) You know, it would be kinda cool to have your own fake Wikipedia biography.
2010?
The first flight of the spacecraft Enterprise may be further away than previously believed. According to this article about Branson naming a launch site for SpaceShipTwo, the first launch is five years away, continuing the trend of the gradually slipping date.If true, the latest delay leaves even more opportunity for one of the other companies that have announced earlier launch dates to beat Virgin and Scaled to the first commercial passenger spaceflight. (Though, to be sure, all any of them have so far is announced launch dates. No one has actually flown hardware yet, so it's still anyone's game.)
And, oh, yeah, the article that I linked to is actually mostly concerned with the fact that Branson has chosen a launch site near Roswell, N.M.
Blogpoint Opportunity
Lain noted recently that he'd like to be the guy that's hired to come up with names for the various and sundry special editions of movies coming out on DVD. It's no longer enough to have a "special" or "collector's" or "ultimate" edition. No, now you have to have the "Whatever" edition of Clueless, or the "Uncorked" edition of Wedding Crashers or the "Don't Call Me Shirley" edition of Airplane. Well, Lain, and everyone else, your chance is finally here.5 Blogpoints each for the best special edition subtitles for the following films:
- Star Wars
- Citizen Kane
- Battlefield Earth
- ST2: The Wrath of Khan
- STV: The Final Frontier
- Casablanca
- Mystery Men
- Bambi
- Waterworld
- Forrest Gump
- The Princess Bride
- 2001
- Highlander 2
Friday, 9 December 2005
Moving On
Per Newsday:
A civic advocacy group plans to "confront" Tribune Co. chief executive Dennis FitzSimons today to present him with 45,000 signatures protesting deep staff cuts at Newsday and other Tribune newspapers.
"We're letting corporate owners know that if they decide to abandon strong watchdog journalism in their business decisions, there will be a backlash against them," said Adam Green, civic communications director for MoveOn Civic Action, an arm of the grassroots online political action committee MoveOn.org.
Thursday, 8 December 2005
Get Gadgets
It's Thursday, time once again for this week's new Hatbag.
Private Deal
NASA has put its money -- or at least its solication for proposals -- where its mouth is regarding commercial contracting.After a lot of talk since the announcement of the Vision for Space Exploration almost two years ago that buying services from private companies could be an important part of implementation of the Vision, NASA is looking for private companies that would be interested in carrying cargo to the International Space Station.
The agency issued a request for proposals Tuesday seeking input from companies that would be interested in hiring out the work. An agreement would fill all or some of the gap in U.S. ISS cargo delivery that will be created with the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010.
Plans call for the next-generation CEV to have cargo-transfer capabilities, but it won't be ready when the shuttle retires, and private companies have indicated they would be able to launch cargo more cheaply than NASA could. This is their opportunity to prove it.
Networked iPod?
Here's another rumor, though not necessarily for January, that I hadn't heard before (Well, bits and pieces of it, but not the whole thing).There's been some evidence that Apple is working on a WiFi-capable iPod, but MacOSRumors says the end result will be a product that's much more than that.
The "networked iPod" will include an iSight-like camera for video, stills, and even communication with other iChat users. The more recon we get, the more impressive this device (or, more likely, family of devices) appears to be....the Intel transition is exciting but the future of the iPod may yet outshine it in the months to come.
At this point, I'd put the odds of seeing anything remotely like this at MacWorld S.F. at about zero, and even in the long run, it seems like it's a long ways off. The iSight bit seems feasible -- based on the new ones added to the iMac and the speculation that they'll include it in the thin screen section of a Powerbook, it's not impossible to imagine getting it down to a size that it could fit into an iPod roughly within size parameters of previous models (not a fifth-gen, but maybe a high-capacity photo). Cost would be a larger factor; the advantages of being able to take pictures or video from the iPod couldn't be worth too much of a price bump to the average consumer.
Using iChat for IM'ing, of course, would require a keyboard, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Of course, the interesting prospect, as they mention, is that those two additions are not unrelated -- that the iPod could become a sort of limited-capability videophone. It wouldn't replace your cell phone, since, as the technology exists now, you could only use it where there's a WiFi connection, and could only use it to contact iChat users, either on a Mac or another network iPod. (The configuration of the camera would be another factor, since it would either be pointed at an angle that you could look at the screen while taking pictures, as with a digital video camera, or it would be at an angle where you could see the screen while the camera was pointed at you; either configuration would be inconvenient or useless for the other application.) Use as a videophone would also require addition of a microphone. Again, that's feasible, although both camera and mic would mar the smooth moldline of the iPod.
And, then, there are other questions and implications. What if, instead of WiFi -- or in addition to -- communications capability was through a cellullar connection? The iPod becomes the basis for the true Apple iPhone that the ROKR wasn't. (Alternately, the technology may not be intended for the iPod at all, but for the iPhone. Too many changes and additions, even if it keeps its core capabilities, and the iPod ceases being an iPod at all, and Apple wouldn't risk that. This is the company that still refuses to make a mouse with two distinct buttons.) There are also some interesting possibilities involving Apple acquiring or developing a VOIP network that would allow iChat to make voice calls, but you're still limited by the presence of WiFi hot spots.
At the moment, I wouldn't put any money on seeing any of this anytime soon. But it does raise some interesting possibilities.
No Return
Per SpaceDaily:A Japanese spacecraft is likely to have failed in its landmark mission to collect the first-ever samples from an asteroid and also faces trouble returning to Earth, the space program said Wednesday.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency had earlier said the Hayabusa probe "most probably" succeeded in gathering dust from the Itokawa asteroid, 290 million kilometers (180 million miles) from Earth, in late November.
"But now we found that the possibility is very high that a metal bullet to collect samples was actually not fired," said an official of the agency, which operates the probe.
Wednesday, 7 December 2005
First Light
My new digital camera arrived yesterday.
The one that I've been using had a quote-zoom-unquote feature that was really nothing more than cropping the center of the image at the same resolution. You didn't get any better detail using it, and it wasn't much use in composing your shots.
So while the new camera has "only" 6.0 megapixels, it has a 12x optical zoom lens, supplemented by a 4x digital.
Used it only briefly last night. First pics, of course, were of Nicole:
Testing the image quality, I found I could blow it up a moderate amount without looking too pixel-y:
In looking at it, though, I realized that wasn't taken at the camera's full quality capability.
Yeah, this should be a step up from what I've been used to.
Another Nail
Per TrekToday:Tim Gaskill, editorial director at the official Star Trek web site, has sent out an e-mail to people involved with Star Trek to alert them that Paramount Digital Entertainment will be shut down at the end of the year, leaving the fate of StarTrek.com in limbo.
"As if we needed further reminding that the fate of Star Trek is a tenuous one at best, it has been announced that Paramount Digital Entertainment, the home to STARTREK.COM since 1996, is shutting its doors as of 12/31/05," Gaskill wrote to current and former Paramount and Star Trek staffers. "Rather than go quietly, we are in the midst of preparing a presentation for the powers-that-be designed to show the vast scope and depth to the site, and how it is a 'go to' site for anyone in the world in search of Star Trek information."
Audio Stevenote?
The most likely explanation for this bit of news is that it means nothing at all other than what it says, but organizers announced yesterday that Macworld Expo San Francisco will focus heavily on audio.Again, it's most likely that they're just referring to what the exhibitors will be doing, since I would imagine most of them don't know what Steve's going to announce on Jan. 10, and not that the keynote will actually fit into that theme. Most of the rumors I've heard have all been Intel- or video-related. (Not counting the one Joe pointed out that there may be a new GarageBand upgrade as part of iLife 06.)
Also on the audio front, there's a rumor that new Shuffles are coming.
Emergency Spoiler Test
I considered including the spoiler I talk about in the next post down in the body of the post itself, but realized I've never tried doing invisibile spoilers since I moved the blog over a year ago. So here goes:Darth Vader is Luke's father. Rosebud is the sled. The Leonardo Code may have all been a dream. I like bacon.
If that's working correctly, there should be a "blank" gap between the first paragraph and this one; which you should be able to click-and-drag over to reveal the "hidden" text. If that doesn't work for you, please let me know. I'd like to be able to use that for spoilers in the future, but not if it's not going to hide the text for everybody.
(And, yeah, I realize it's not 508 compliant, and that a screen reader wouldn't differentiate between the hidden and regular text. I'll always include a notice that a spoiler is coming up.)
Fired Out Of A Canon
Wired had an article about Star Trek: New Voyages this month that was rather interesting in and of itself, but which also featured at the very end a spoiler about the big upcoming Chekov episode that I would be interested in discussing with any of the Trek folks in the audience. (If you're not interested in the article, but want to know the spoiler, it's in the last four paragraphs on this page.)
Tuesday, 6 December 2005
Space In The Balance Update
After earlier news reports made it sound like cooperation was pretty much a done deal, there are now reports that Europe will not participate in Russia's Kliper spacecraft (or Klipper or Clipper or however you want to tranliterate it). The article in the link does not address what exactly that would mean for the Russian program, a project of a space agency that has more technology than money.
iKITT
Oh, what brave new world is this, where I can download Knight Rider from Apple?I thought about posting this as an addition to the item below, where I didn't have the full context, but it really merits a separate post:
Per MacNN:
Apple this morning has quietly added more video content to the US version of its iTunes Music Store, including content from NBC, USA Networks, and the Sci Fi channel. Following the landmark TV content agreement with ABC earlier this year and its move to sell music videos, Apple has added more video content, including NBC's Law & Order, Jay Leno's Tonight Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and Vintage NBC shows, such as Dragnet, Knight Rider, and Alfred Hitchcock. Other content includes USA Networks' Monk and Sci Fi's Battle Star Galactica Series. The content is available for $1.99 per episode or in a season bundle.
And more detail here:
NBC Universal and Apple today announced a new television content deal for Apple's iTunes, as noted earlier this morning. The lineup includes primetime, cable, late-night and classic TV shows, including primetime hits such as "Law & Order" and late-night favorites such as sketches from "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". Apple said that iTunes now offers more than 300 episodes of 16 popular TV shows and that customers have purchased and downloaded more than three million videos since their debut on October 12, making "the iTunes Music Store the world's most popular video download store."
Listen Like Shatner
Wish you could be more like William Shatner? Sure, we all do!Well, now you can. Thanks to Shatner's Celebrity Playlist at the iTunes Music Store, you can listen to the same music that Shatner likes! And, it turns out, a lot of the music Shatner likes is actually by Shatner!
Um, I forget if we knew about this, but if I did, I forgot it. Turns out all of Battlestar Galactica so far is now on iTMS (well, all of the new Battlestar Galactica, at least -- no classic BSG, I'm afraid), so if anyone the first half of the second season, here's there chance to get caught up before the season resumes in January, while also supporting iTunes video.
I Know Everything!
As Lain, who was kind enough to point this out to me noted, it's not really news, but any "Heat Vision and Jack" update is cool.While promoting "King Kong," ("Congratulations, King Kong, you're now a fleet admiral!" "No, King Kong place not chained behind desk." "Oh, yes! With big, thick chains!") Jack Black confirmed that work is still underway on a HV&J feature film!
Monday, 5 December 2005
The Wrong Stuff Update
The Independent has an article about the British television show that will attempt to convince contestants they're in space, telling a little bit more about how the hoax is being set up. (The article notes, "The contestants have been carefully selected for their suggestibility...")I'm curious to see whether they actually pull it off or not.
And, in good news for U.S. audiences, ABC is considering buying the rights to do the show here.
STS-121 Update
Update my post from Friday, it appears increasingly likely that the next shuttle flight will be flown sans PAL ramp, but that the change will not necessarily delay the mission past the May working launch date.
iTMVS
OK, so I may have been wrong.When they announced last month that Apple had sold its first million videos on the iTunes Music Store, I guessed that it was due to a lot of one-time purchases associated with the newness of the program, and predicted that sales would stabilize or fall after a while.
Since then, video sales at iTMS have doubled.
Not only are video sales going strong, there are rumors that new video content will be announced at Macworld S.F. next month. In particular, Fox and Clear Channel have reportedly expressed interest in selling content through iTunes.
Again, don't know how much they'd offer that I personally would want to buy, but anything that brings iTMS a step closer to being the video-world equivalent of, well, iTMS is OK in my book.
Addendum: Upon further reading, this post has just been looking at the small picture (or, at least, the picture from the small screen). According to Cult of Mac:
Think Secret says at Macworld in January Apple will unveil an online media distribution system for streaming tons of content to the living room, including feature-length movies.
One of the analysts interviewed wondered whether the Mac mini, which Think Secret says will be revamped, could be based on Intel's new Viiv platform, a set of branded chip technologies for home entertainment devices.
Friday, 2 December 2005
Blogpoint Opportunity
There are supposedly 75 band names referenced in this picture. I'll award 2 Blogpoints for each band you can identify to the first person to post, 3 per for the second, 4 per for the third, etc.
Lain sent this to me, so to make things a bit more fair, he can't post until someone else has.
Regular Richie Feature
The Top 20 search strings on Hatbag.net for the first day or so of December:- funny kitten
- funny kitten pictures (Up from number four this time last month)
- kitten funny (Sure, ATW: Your home for funny kittens. I mean, what the? I ran a Google search for funny kitten, and I'm not in the first few pages.)
- Steve Jobs (Steve was totally the funny kitten of last month, taking the first few slots, but now he's bumped back down.)
- "funny picture" (So if ATW is known for one thing, it's making with the funny...)
- black plague (...Funny like the Black Plague, apparently)
- gemini nasa (Oh, yeah, look, something space-related. What are the odds?)
- steve jobs
- stupid george bush
- the worlds sun picthers
- Fight Funny
- Maybe Ed Orgeron is smarter then we think (Wouldn't be hard, but I doubt it)
- Ole Miss fires David Cutcliffe
- Soyuz patch
- are there any plans for space probes to visit Sedna (No.)
- beatefull gırls (That middle part of g..rls may have been a mistranslated special character, but I have no idea what it is.)
- bush drunk
- coach orgeron
- dave hitt
- funny picture kitten (The circle is now complete)
STS-121 Update
Further study of the foam shedding problem experienced during the STS-114 launch this summer has revealed that the problem may be larger than previously believed, and could require major redesign work to the External Tank, which could delay the shuttle's return to return to flight beyond the tentative May date.It appears that simply changing the way the foam is applied to the PAL ramp may not be enough, it may be necessary to redesign the ET to remove the ramp entirely.
It's now been almost two years since the president announced there would only be seven more years before the shuttle was retired. Even under a best-case scenario, the shuttle fleet will have spent a third of that time basically grounded (less the STS-114 flight), and possibly even more. The work is increasingly becoming a race to make the shuttle perfect so that it can be mothballed on time.
Take The Helm
So, apparently Bryan Singer would like to direct a Trek movie"I'm a huge fan. Rob will tell you, y'know, we're huge Trekkies. And, we've always talked about what we would do, and what would I do if I were to make a film in that universe. Again, you know, it's the same thing: X-MEN, SUPERMAN, LOGAN'S RUN -- all these things -- there are these incredible universes, really, created by other people, and you... and you kind of wish you could play in them all. I mean, I got to do a cameo in the last STAR TREK film; that was a thrill. I got to be on the Enterprise when it was under attack.
Lee: What's your TREK movie?
Singer: Oh, I couldn't -- it's a longer story. It would involve, uh -- it would be big. It would be very big. I have, uh...
So, you know, a few months ago, I would have been totally in love with this idea. Now, though, I'm just now sure. I'm increasingly concerned about the Superman movie; I'm just not sure that it's a take on the character and mythos I'm comfortable with. To be fair, I don't know a whole lot about the movie, so I may be completely misjudging it. We'll see. But I'd have to wait until after I watch that to see if Singer would get my vote to direct a Trek film.
Thursday, 1 December 2005
DiMac Update
The incredibly boring adventures of Dave and his half-dead computer continue. Sorry.Basically, everything is pretty much back to normal at this point. I managed to copy about all I needed off the internal, and now I'm running off the external. There are still a few problems: I seem to be missing some e-mail, the last two months of additions to my iTunes library all show that they were added last night, and I can't open iPhoto at all (I think I know a way to fix this one now, but think I'll wait for a better solution.)
But the important stuff, like the book files and my Quicken data, all appear to be intact. Using the computer this morning, it wouldn't have been immediately apparent that it just went through a huge crisis, even my browser bookmarks appear to be in place.
So, it looks like I can stick to my original plan of putting off any computer decisions until after Macworld S.F. Nicole is understandably dubious about the idea of her upgrading to the G4 when we get the G5 (or, I guess, Mactel -- it's going to be hard not thinking of that form factor machine as the G5 iMac [assuming they, as rumored, keep the form factor basically the same]), but at this point, I think it's still a better machine than her G3.
When I do get the new machine, though, I think I'll get a bit more serious about backing stuff up. (Anybody out there have any experience with RAIDs?)
Blogpoint Update
Another month over. Congratulations to Lain and Mrs. Tutor, who claimed first and second place in the November Blogpoint contest. (The full list of results is below the cut.)I said at the beginning of the month that I was going to experiment with using iTunes songs as Blogpoint prizes. It turns out you can give credits for a single song, but it looks like you can give one song as a gift, so if the two of you will tell me what song you want, I'll see if I can figure out how to gift it.
The new contest begins today, with a fresh playlist and everything. (more)
We Should Get Write On That
It's Thursday, time once again for this week's new Hatbag.
Lost Post
Eh, I forgot to put up a Lost discussion post last week, which is OK, since, a) I don't have the Ana Lucia graphic I would have needed to go with it, and b) there's generally not a whole lot of discussion anyway.But, here's one for this week anyway. I've been intrigued during the last couple of weeks by speculation I heard about last season that all of the characters either were responsible for a loss of life or felt responsible. It doesn't appear to be true of all, so far, but it does seem to be the case for a decent number of them.
(There was similar speculation that the common bond was that they had all been the victim of a manipulative relationship, which seems more complete, but probably isn't that unusual in drama backstories.)
A Tale Of Two Battlestars
NASA's Cassini spacecraft, was dubbed by some, back when this was a reference to a 20-year-old television show, as "the last battlestar," because it was the last large, expensive planetary mission before NASA switched to former administrator Dan Goldin's failed "faster, better, cheaper" mentality.So, in a way, it's kind of appropriate that a Cassini engineer is serving as science advisor for the new Battlestar Galactica show: "I'm not doing it because I'm a scientist," he says, "I'm doing it because I'm a nerd."
At times, writers simply write the word TECH in the script and then hand it off ...
Grazier too spends his time filling in the TECH gaps in scripts. Grazier recently received a script for "Galactica" in which a character received a shipment and said, "Oh look, a box of TECH!" Grazier provided the missing technology, which in this case, he decided, would be a box of 25 optoelectronic transducers. "[Transducers] is a weasel word," Grazier says, with a laugh, "but it's a safe tech word that I can put in there."
Yesterday's Enterprise
OK, this flies in the face of everything we've heard about the future of Star Trek, but, given the source, it's worth passing along:Patrick Stewart has reportedly said he may be in the next Star Trek film:
"Following the box office failure of NEMESIS, Stewart's been saying he believed the franchise was dead in the water for ages," reports SFX. "But it seems there's been a turnaround, because he revealed there've been lots of serious meetings lately about a new film, and there are money men who want it to happen."
You know what? Let it go. I really think this would be just another nail in the coffin, only confirming the idea that Star Trek is played out. As much as I would love to see a DS9 movie or a good Enterprise movie, I really think the idea that's been being discussed of a Jendresen-penned prequel (Turns out Meyer's no longer listed as director on IMDB) is the best way to go. Do something completely fresh, and make it clear to the public that's what you've done.
The Next Stevenote
Not exactly shocking news, but MacNN reports that it's been confirmed Steve Jobs will deliver a keynote at Macworld Expo San Franscisco on Tues., Jan. 10 at 11 a.m. CST.While not a confirmation, it lends a bit of support to rumors that the first Mactel machines will be announced then; if Jobs is going to be giving a keynote, he's going to announce something.
So what exactly will the first Mactel machines be? Thankfully, we have the internet to give us the definitive answer:
- Reuters: "We are becoming more convinced that Apple will introduce its first Intel-based PowerBook at Macworld San Francisco," Gardner said in a note to clients.
Oh, OK, Powerbooks.
- Apple Insider: Apple is working feverishly to ship a 15-inch Intel PowerBook around February, with a likely introduction alongside the Intel iMac during the second week of January.
...Apple also plans the release of an Intel-based Mac mini, but reliable information indicates that this model will debut closer to the Spring
Ah, Powerbooks and iMacs, but no minis.
- MacRumors: Apple may be able to ship the Intel Macs earlier than that timeframe, with the possibility of an Intel Mac mini released in January.
- Macworld: Analysts predict that the first Intel-based Macs will be the iMac and Mac mini.
Ah, it's the minis and the iBook. (To be fair, though, this older article isn't talking specifically about January.)
- Think Secret: Apple is planning to release its first entry-level iBook laptops with Intel processors next January at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, highly reliable sources have confirmed to Think Secret. ...
Those sources have told Think Secret to not rule out the possible release of other Intel-based Macs at Macworld Expo, but that it is more likely the initial release of products with the new processor will be consumer-based products only and not professional, high-end lines, such as PowerBooks and towers, as some Web sites have reported.
Oh, wait, no, it's the iBook. Maybe the iMac. But no Powerbooks.
Oh, wait, check that. Yes to the minis.
So, yeah, something's coming out in January. Or not. (On the flip side, I'm not hearing a lot of non-Intel rumors about MESF yet.)
On a slightly related note, while working on this post, I came across a link to that Intel Mini concept machine that the chipmaker showed off earlier this year. At the time it was noted that Intel didn't intend on building the machine itself, that it was just a demo of what could be done with their chips. It was assumed that Intel built the machine to spur PC makers to greater creativity ("creativity" in the PC world, of course, being defined as "ripping off Apple"), but, in retrospect, one kinda has to wonder if there was another motive to showing how well their chips worked in Mac-esque products.
But Can You Lick Wonder Woman?
Per Newsarama:Official announcement came today that the comic book publisher that put “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” on the map will get a nod from the US Post Office next year, when DC Comics characters get their own postage stamps, this according to a USPS release listing the various stamp designs coming in 2006.
“Our 2006 program commemorates a wide range of diverse American icons with something that will appeal to everyone,'' Postmaster General John E. Potter said in announcing the planned designs. One touch of reality though – the new stamps of 2006 will cost 39 cents, as the postal rate increases on January 8th.
Personally, I'm glad that they're coming after the price increase, 'cause I'll probably end up stocking up on them and using them for a while to come.
Saturday, 31 December 2005
Happy New Year
(Read Entry)Friday, 30 December 2005
Steve Jobs Killed The Video Star
(Read Entry)
Meme Of Four
Boring stuff about me. (Read Entry)
For Your Consideration...
(Read Entry)
Silly Trek Rumor Of The Day
(Read Entry)Thursday, 29 December 2005
Done And Done
(Read Entry)
13 Things
(Read Entry)
You Say You Want A Resolution
(Read Entry)
Another Nail Update
(Read Entry)Wednesday, 28 December 2005
Strange New Worlds
(Read Entry)
Editorial Note
(Read Entry)
The New Niece And I
(Read Entry)
In The News
(Read Entry)
A Lot Of Intel Inside
(Read Entry)Tuesday, 27 December 2005
Again
(Read Entry)Monday, 26 December 2005
Hey
(Read Entry)Sunday, 25 December 2005
Season's Greetings
(Read Entry)Saturday, 24 December 2005
Eh
(Read Entry)
The Making Of A Hatbag
(Read Entry)
Today In History
(Read Entry)Friday, 23 December 2005
Space News
(Read Entry)
Fired Out Of A Canon
(Read Entry)
iBattlestar
(Read Entry)
Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em
(Read Entry)
O, The Coach
(Read Entry)Thursday, 22 December 2005
'Twas the Night Before Nerdmas
(Read Entry)
Yawn
(Read Entry)
NewtSupply
(Read Entry)Wednesday, 21 December 2005
A Very Tori Christmas
(Read Entry)
Blogged Books
(Read Entry)
Leveling Out
(Read Entry)
This Time For Sure...
(Read Entry)Tuesday, 20 December 2005
Falcon Update
(Read Entry)
What Matters
(Read Entry)
Double Apple
(Read Entry)
Watchmen Update
(Read Entry)
Source Of Amusement
(Read Entry)
Rocky Beginning
(Read Entry)Monday, 19 December 2005
Finally
(Read Entry)
Blogpoint Opportunity
(Read Entry)
Roving Mars
(Read Entry)
:(
(Read Entry)
Mission Over
(Read Entry)
The Falcon
(Read Entry)
iPresident
(Read Entry)Friday, 16 December 2005
Y Tori Kant Red
(Read Entry)
OK, I Lied
(Read Entry)
Whether You Need It Or Not
(Read Entry)
STS-121 Update
(Read Entry)
Rock This Joint!
(Read Entry)
Buy Two Songs, Get One Free
(Read Entry)
One Year Later
(Read Entry)
Reagonomics
(Read Entry)Thursday, 15 December 2005
Hand Me Downs
(Read Entry)
Salvation
(Read Entry)
Pro-Wiki
(Read Entry)
Proxmire Died
(Read Entry)
Robot Holocaust Update
(Read Entry)
The Silver Dart
(Read Entry)
iTicket
(Read Entry)
Apple On The Rise
(Read Entry)Wednesday, 14 December 2005
Arrested Again?
(Read Entry)
Space Cadets
(Read Entry)
Today In History
(Read Entry)
A Year Of Opportunity
(Read Entry)
Going Whole Hog
(Read Entry)
Editorial Note
(Read Entry)
Long Kong
(Read Entry)
Kirk's Back?
(Read Entry)Tuesday, 13 December 2005
Them Old Diabetes Blues
(Read Entry)
He's Got A Ticket To Ride -- And He Don't Care
(Read Entry)
STS-121 Update
(Read Entry)
The Year 2005
(Read Entry)
Another Nail Update
(Read Entry)
More Stevenote Rumors
(Read Entry)Monday, 12 December 2005
What You Need: Songs
(Read Entry)
Photo Stevenote?
(Read Entry)
Editorial Note
(Read Entry)
Well, Wiki What We Have Here
(Read Entry)
2010?
(Read Entry)
Blogpoint Opportunity
(Read Entry)Friday, 9 December 2005
Moving On
(Read Entry)Thursday, 8 December 2005
Get Gadgets
(Read Entry)
Private Deal
(Read Entry)
Networked iPod?
(Read Entry)
No Return
(Read Entry)Wednesday, 7 December 2005
First Light
(Read Entry)
Another Nail
(Read Entry)
Audio Stevenote?
(Read Entry)
Emergency Spoiler Test
(Read Entry)
Fired Out Of A Canon
(Read Entry)Tuesday, 6 December 2005
Space In The Balance Update
(Read Entry)
iKITT
(Read Entry)
Listen Like Shatner
(Read Entry)
I Know Everything!
(Read Entry)Monday, 5 December 2005
The Wrong Stuff Update
(Read Entry)
STS-121 Update
(Read Entry)
iTMVS
(Read Entry)Friday, 2 December 2005
Blogpoint Opportunity
(Read Entry)
Regular Richie Feature
(Read Entry)
STS-121 Update
(Read Entry)
Take The Helm
(Read Entry)Thursday, 1 December 2005
DiMac Update
(Read Entry)
Blogpoint Update
(Read Entry)
We Should Get Write On That
(Read Entry)
Lost Post
(Read Entry)
A Tale Of Two Battlestars
(Read Entry)
Yesterday's Enterprise
(Read Entry)
The Next Stevenote
(Read Entry)