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Tuesday, 31 October 2006
Hubble Update
So, yeah, HSM-4 is Go.So there you go.
Send Your Name To Space
If anyone's interested, there's a couple of those send-your-name-to-space opportunities out there now.One of them's been going on for a while, but the deadline is coming this weekend. You can send your name to the asteroid belt on NASA's Dawn spacecraft, scheduled for launch NET June 21.
In addition to Dawn, you can now add your name to a DVD that will be flown on the Phoenix lander, which will launch for Mars in August.
"The Problem Is Even Too Big For Batman"
Per The AP:So many bats have infested the town's historic district that the sky turns black with each sunset and the neighborhood is calling on Batman to come to the rescue.
That's what the local bat remover goes by. George Perkins often makes public appearances in the caped crusader's costume and drives his own Batmobile — a retro-styled Chrysler Prowler with bat emblems. Callers to his office in Eufaula, Ala., known as Bat Cave 1, or Union Springs, Ala., known as Bat Cave 2, hear the "Batman" TV show theme while on hold.
Another Tutor Post
Turns out you're in good company, Chris -- Forbes agrees that it's time for the iPod to go Bluetooth. (Or, more to the point, not that the iPod is ready for Bluetooth, but that Bluetooth is now ready for the iPod.)I still say, "Eh."
Monday, 30 October 2006
Hubble Update
So the Hubble mission Go/No Go announcement will be made tomorrow. Rumors are Go, but those are just rumors. (And that I'm hearing from outside sources, I should be quick to note.)
CG TOS Update
So it turns out the new effects scenes for TOS are being created in widescreen. However, showing the episodes in that format would mean cropping down the original footage. It's funny -- I've always been a big advocate of letterbox movies because they didn't do that. Now, as somebody with a widescreen-aspect-ratio television, I can see the appeal of having the shows fill the screen, but, still, I don't know if I'm comfortable with it.Fortunately, I've already got my copy of TOTOS -- The Original The Original Series -- on DVD, so if they later release the suped-up versions on DVD (or, I guess, more likely Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD), I don't have to choose that over the real thing.
Supes IV Mark II
Per Newsarama:As he as much as announced at the San Diego Comic-Con, Bryan Singer has signed on to direct a sequel to this summer’s Superman Returns, this according to Variety - confirming rumors that were flying at the end of last week.
The sequel, though not greenlit by the studio, is expected to be released in summer of 2009, although, according to the trade, there is no script or budget as of yet.
...
Warners has an option on Brandon Routh for the sequel, which, according to Singer when speaking at Comic-Con, will be more action-oriented, as the director said that while Superman Returns allowed him to introduce the cast, the sequel would allow him to, “Go Wrath of Khan on it." While Singer didn't name any particular villains that would be in the sequel, he teased - more than once – of an alien threat.
Fourth And Eh
OK, I guess this is mainly for Joe, but in the Ole Miss-Auburn game Saturday, the last time they punted, it seeme to me that they really should have gone for it. There were only five minutes left in the game, and when they turned it over, the odds that they would get the ball back with enough time to do anything were pretty slim. If they had gone for it and not made it, it wouldn't have mattered -- they were losing anyway -- but at least they would have had a chance to win.It reminded me of the Georgia game, when they made a decision near the end of the game that almost certainly cost them a chance at victory.
It's like Ole Miss gets down to the end of the game, sees that they have a shot at winning, and decides, "nah."
Friday, 27 October 2006
W&N
How White and Nerdy Are You?
And that was being pretty liberal with it.
The Terrific Secret of Space
I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to this story at first -- "Al Gore disagrees with elements of Bush policy" just really isn't that big a newsflash.But then Lain pointed out an interesting aspect of the story:
LAS CRUCES, New Mexico—Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore has called for better use of the "space resource" to battle Earth's climate crisis, enlisting entrepreneurial muscle to help solve global issues that threaten the planet's habitability.
Gore said he has long been a fan of faster, cheaper, better approaches that allow the private sector to exploit the space resource "in a responsible and creative, and cost-efficient way."
...
"We ought to learn that lesson and apply it to space," Gore said. "Because of the environmental climate crisis, we need to speed up the introduction of private companies into the creative exploitation of the space resource."
...
"It has the potential, down the road, to create the kind of fuzzy thinking and chaos in our efforts to exploit the space resource as the fuzzy thinking and chaos that the Iraq policy has created for us in Iraq," Gore explained.
...
"We need to avoid putting in place a set of policies that end up creating chaos and new obstacles for the creative exploitation of the space resource," he added.
Oooooh, "the space resource"! What exactly is the space resource? (Dun-dun-duh!) Mysterious!
Thursday, 26 October 2006
Lock, Stock and Apparel
Not only to we have a topical new Hatbag for you to enjoy this week, but there's a whole metric tonne of Easter Eggs hidden away this week.As always, please vote Hatbag. Thanks.
And, since apparently a bunch of ATW readers don't follow the weekly Hatbag link, I thought a brief explanation might be in order -- Hatbag is a weekly webcomic Lain and I create. If you read ATW, take a few extra seconds to go read Hatbag. Please? Please?
1,000 Sols
It's been more than three months since Spirit passed it's original target mission length by two orders of magnitude, and another milestone has been reached -- 1,000 sols on Mars!Not bad. Not bad at all.
Lost Discussion Post
If anyone actually wants to discuss last night's Lost, I'd be glad to do so, but since that rarely happens, I'm not putting any work into this post.
Go! Buy!
My brother has set up a Cafepress shop, so those of you with kids, or who know people who have kids, go buy something.
Wednesday, 25 October 2006
Whew!
Good news, folks! If, in fact, it were determined that an asteroid were going to hit the Earth, Russia would save us with their mighty rockets, rockets that could "repulse asteroids threatening Earth."There. Now you can all sleep soundly at night. Doesn't that make you feel safe?
Trek Cruise
Eh, I just don't know that I like the idea of Tom Cruise in Star Trek, even if it is just a cameo role.
Tuesday, 24 October 2006
The Party
OK, I almost didn't post this when I realized it didn't fit with any of the category tags I've set up for ATW, which are generally pretty useful in keeping myself on topic.Nonetheless, since it combines Alabama and Libertarianism, here's this story from the AP:
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Loretta Nall, the Libertarian Party's write-in candidate for governor of Alabama, is campaigning on her cleavage and hoping that voters will eventually focus on her platform.
"It started out as a joke, but it blew up into something huge," said Nall, a 32-year-old with dyed blond hair.
Her campaign is offering T-shirts and marijuana stash boxes adorned with a photo of her with a plunging neckline and the words: "More of these boobs." Below that are pictures of other candidates for governor — including Republican incumbent Bob Riley and Democratic Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley — and the words: "And less of these boobs."
To Fly Or Not To Fly
So it all comes down to this.No more robotic servicing mission. No more new options. NASA will either fly a shuttle crew to Hubble to service the telescope one last time, or it won't.
And the decision will be made soon. Engineers and managers will be meeting Friday to review the situation, and administrator Mike Griffin is supposed to announce his decision not long afterwards.
Shuttle safety is the primary concern. Unlike with space station missions, there's no "safe harbor" option; abandoning the orbiter and staying on ISS until another shuttle can come bring the astronauts home. Rescue would involve having another shuttle ready to launch almost immediately if there were a problem, and determining whether there was almost immediately in the mission. Otherwise, they're flying without a net.
It will be interesting to see what is decided.
Apple-T
I generally don't buy front-design-only t-shirts, and these are also a bit pricy for being one-sided, but a couple of these Insanely Great Tees are kinda tempting.
Monday, 23 October 2006
Bellen book!
Wanna buy a book that may or may not have some Hatbag in it? Get the Bellen collective! We submitted a guest strip a while back, and even gave revised version of the art formatted for the book, but I haven't heard for sure if it made the final cut. That said, the book can be sent to your home for a total of only seven bucks, including shipping, so how far wrong can you go?Of course, if you prefer your books to be guaranteed to be chockfull of Hatbag, may we recommend Bagged & Bored? Or possibly A Canticle for Leibowitz?
More Apple Bits
A few interesting notes from TUAW.com:- Another bit from the Q4 call that I hadn't heard. Apparently Steve said 2007 will be "one of the most exciting new product years in Apple's history." And, you know, it's possible. (On the downside, that means that some of the rumors like the TViP and the iPhone probably won't come to fruition this year.)
- Someone's recreated the old flying toasters screensaver for the Mac. Think I may give it a try.
- Kevin Smith's talking at MacWorld SF. Nice bit of Dave-synergy there.
Also, from elsewhere, apparently Zune is a very naughty word in Hebrew.
Start It Up
OK, it would be pure Mac-centricism to assume Microsoft was running scared from the news that they want to prevent people from using the home version of Vista in virtualization.I mean, I'm sure there's some other really valid business reason for wanting to limit the number of computers your software could be installed on other than just not wanting people to be able to run Vista and OS X side-by-side and get a sense of how they compare. And it wouldn't make sense for them to want to defuse another advantage Apple has over other software manufacturers, since we're talking about people installing Windows on the machines anyway.
So there must be another reason other than just not wanting people to be able to experience both systems.
I just can't figure out what it would be.
Happy iPod Day
Happy fifth anniversary to the iPod!
And congratulations to Apple to dominating a market for five years without figuring out a way to screw it up.
If only I could find some way to celebrate.
RIP Spock's Mom
Jane Wyatt died Friday at the age of 96.While various sites remember her for various things, at ATW she'll always be Amanda Grayson.
Friday, 20 October 2006
Further Instructions
Thoughts on this week's Lost, which I just got around to watching last night:- Decent episode. Main story was interesting, though, despite their promises, I'm no closer to knowing what happened with the hatch than I was beforehand. Flashback was disappointing; first one this year where I didn't really feel like I learned much.
- I'm simultaneously impressed and annoyed that they still haven't revealed how Locke ended up in the wheelchair. Impressed that they've managed to keep something that big in their pocket for two years without using, annoyed that they've been teasing us with it for that long.
- Yay! Polar bear!
- OK, the thing with Desmond and Locke's speech at the end -- that's just freaky. No clue what's going on there.
STS-117 Update
OK, the first update for STS-117, the first flight of 2007, to say that it's been delayed about a month.In fact, there have been several changes in the schedule, so I've gone through and updated the left-hand sidebar. A lot of delays in the early part of the schedule, but some of the later flights have actually moved to the left, so that's cool.
The full current manifest can be seen at that link.
Spaceflight Training
Here's a bit of minor news that I thought captures how spaceflight is changing:For those who may not know, NASA doesn't hire people on as astronauts. When someone is selected by NASA, they come on board as an Astronaut Candidate. Only after an extended training period -- that includes such things as neutral buoyancy diving, flight experience on a trainer jet and weightlessness on a parabolic-flight aircraft -- does that person earn the full title of astronaut. At that point, though, the rookie spaceflight is still years away.
In the future, though, ASCAN training for spaceflight may include, well, spaceflight. NASA administrator Mike Griffin said in a talk at the X Prize Cup that the agency has given some thought, once the suborbital commercial spaceflight business is up and running, to hiring out seats for candidates as part of their training. Rather than simulating the experience on an airplane, ASCANs would essentially experience what Shepard and Grissom did on the first U.S. spaceflights. As training. That's just kinda cool.
Um, OK
I could understand, back in 1997, before the iMac, before Steve became iCEO, during the dark ages, how Wired could have their number one recommendation on how to save Apple be to get out of the hardware business, to sell the OS for use on third-party machines, like Windows does. Apple was struggling, and, let's face it, while their machines may have been a bit higher quality than some other manufacturers' at that point, they weren't anything special -- ugly beige boxes not unlike all the others. Even then, I thought Wired was wrong, but I could understand where they were coming from.But to say the same thing with a straight face in 2006? A wee bit less convincing. Particularly to have the ill fortune to come out when it did. "Market share up 32 percent? Sales beating expectations? Stock price on the rise? Let me tell you what you're doing wrong!"
The truth is, Apple's success has as a lot to do with style, from the car window stickers to the packaging to, of course, the hardware design. Sure, there's substance behind hit, but the style is so clean and original, and the substance so solid ("It just works"), that the latter is often taken for granted, overshadowed by the former.
Sure, divorced from the hardware, the Mac OS would still be a strong piece of software. But would anyone notice?
Thursday, 19 October 2006
Apple Round-Up
Sheesh, I miss a week, and there's viruses on Apple hardware (In answer to your question, Chris, yeah, I think Zune will be able to get viruses), a huge jump in marketshare, a new RED nano, and a giant jump in stock price that I missed out on, since I'm an idiot.
Colonel Panic
Yeah, yeah, I still need to get back to blogging. I'm trying to get caught up, I really am. In the meantime, though, there's some new Hatbag for you to enjoy.As always, please vote Hatbag. Thanks.
And, since apparently a bunch of ATW readers don't follow the weekly Hatbag link, I thought a brief explanation might be in order -- Hatbag is a weekly webcomic Lain and I create. If you read ATW, take a few extra seconds to go read Hatbag. Please? Please?
Monday, 16 October 2006
For Great Justice.
Sorry for the disappearing act, folks.I left Thursday for Stennis Space Center and was gone all weekend. A really impressive site, by the way, with some great stuff going on. Very exciting to see NASA coming full circle there: a big banner on the building where I spent most of my time commemorated the 40th anniversary of the first engine test there -- of the J-2 moon rocket engine. Elsewhere, they just stopped testing the shuttle main engine on one of the pads, so they could convert it -- for testing of the J-2X moon rocket engine.
Today, I reported for jury duty, and will likely spend a good chunk of the week on that.
So, sorry for the lack of blogging, but my responsibility in determining a man's fate has to come first.