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| | | :: Monday, March 31, 2003 :: |
h04x0r5
OK... my new favorite beliefs of Moon hoax conspiracy nuts: The Challenger was destroyed to kill McAuliffe, whom NASA knew, even though she had not yet been into space, was going to reveal that you CAN see stars in space.
Another victim of NASA/the U.S. government was O.J. Simpson, who was framed for murder for his part in trying to expose the Moon hoax, to wit: Starring in Capricorn 1, 20 years earlier.
Terror Alert
My friend Mark Rogers has created his own snazzy version of the Terror Alert page. A few of the messages are the same ones I linked to last week, but he's mixed in quite a few great ones of his own devising. Check it out.
Space Chronicles
ISS Science Officer Don Pettit has posted two more entries in his Space Chronicles series.
More DM update
Thanks to Joe, here is a link to a more complete version of the story at the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. Finley's comments make an even stronger argument in this version.
DM Press Update
Jim sent me an AP story about the press, though not the link, so here's the full text:
Ole Miss student paper losing printing operation
OXFORD, Miss. (AP) - Renovations at the University of Mississippi will move the printing of the student newspaper off campus.
The decision to remove the on-campus printing operation, one of only a handful remaining in the nation, wasn't one based on cost, said Stuart Bullion, chairman of the school's journalism department.
It was based on space in Farley Hall, he said.
Bullion said the university has expanded the budget to include the construction of more space in Farley Hall to accommodate more classrooms.
"It came down to the press or more classrooms," he said. "Considering the press is a less essential function of the newspaper than what goes on in the newsroom, we decided to remove the press."
Julie Finley, editor of the Daily Mississippian, said students will be missing out on an important operation of a newspaper.
"It makes us aware of the entire process," she said.
Most nights, the news staff has completed its duties and has the paper ready for the press by midnight. If printing goes off campus, reporters will have less time to cover events that happen later in the evening, such as basketball games and student body meetings, she said.
"Our goal is to get the news to the reader. With the press here, we have an advantage," Finley said.
Finley said experience gained by working at the newspaper outweighs classroom studies.
"It would take away a huge recruiting tool," she said. "It would take away the heart, the essence, of the Daily Mississippian."
Ex Astra, Ars
NASA should become an arts patron.
I thought about this watching The Core Saturday, which like I said had a pretty pro-NASA slant (I saw at least two former astronauts in the "Thanks" section of the credit, and think the agency was probably there also). That said, other than possibly fostering a little positive sentiment, it does the agency little good, in that it does not promote awareness for anything we're actually doing.
One idea I had would be for the agency to make a feature film about a Shuttle mission, possibly the next one. Basically do something similar to some of the Imax movies NASA has partnered on, only make a feature film instead. Take a camera up on a Shuttle flight, and film some pre- and post-mission stuff as well. Possibly even hire an effects house to soup it up a bit, combining real launch and landing footage with effects sequences, creating something a la Apollo 13. The one problem is, to be able to sell it nowadays, you need a plot. And movies like The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, and (now this movie sounds odd in this list) Space Camp are the rare contemporary-esque space movies that, like The Core, don't require either aliens or a bad guy. Oh, I guess also Armageddon. For every one of those, there's plenty of Space Cowboys, Mission To Mars, and even 2001-type stuff that needs either a villian or an alien to work.
That's why STS-114 might work for a movie, since you have the dramatic tension generated by STS-107. Plus, you've got interesting characters like Eileen Collins, the first female Shuttle commander. I wonder how hard it would be to sell such a movie?
To me, the Shuttle has such untapped potential for motion picture stardom, which you see a bit of in things like The Core, Space Cowboys, and Armageddon. It has the huge advantage of being both science-fictiony and iconic, since it is both a working spacecraft and a national landmark. It's just a matter of doing it right.
Another option, and possibly a more potentially succesful one, is for NASA to become an arts patron, giving genius-grant-type awards to people involved in certain projects, such as novels, or scripts for movies.
The projects would have to meet two criteria: They would have to be positive and possible, which is to say, pro-spaceflight, and based in real science achievable in the next 20 years.
The idea would be to support mass media that would raise public awareness of manned spaceflight, to remind people just how cool this can be.
Such an endeavour could even help pave the way to Mars: One of the biggest things standing in our way right now is a lack of political support, which in turns answers to public opinion. Books, movies, TV, etc. that won over public interest in a Mars project could actually help make such a thing a reality.
Such an idea is not completely without precedent. NASA paid for the "Way Up There" song to celebrate the centennial of flight, which was also used as a memorial for the STS-107 crew. NASA has also met with Hollywood to discuss working together before. In fact, the ideas discussed then could even help make scripts generated through a system like I'm proposing more likely to actually make it to the screen.
Anyway, just an idea.
Space Love
Pravda published this article a while back about pregnancy tests being sent to ISS. Amusing reading.
Pope Of Deliverance
McCartney warned: Don't wake the Pope.
How Much Longer Will The World Be Safe?
According to e-mail I just received from my former editor, Jim Abbott, he heard on the radio this morning that Ole Miss is going to shut down the press for The Daily Mississippian, ostensibly because they need the room. If anybody hears any more about this, let me know.
More Yuri Gagarin News
Man, this guy is just all over the place lately. SpaceDaily has a new story about the Yuri's Night event being planned for April 12, marking the anniversary of the first manned spaceflight.
Columbia update
New information from Columbia's flight data recorder shows that the overheating of the left wing began sooner than previously known, meaning that the breach apparently already existed prior to re-entry.
I read an interesting article in The Washington Post that pointed out that the flight data recorder had already been missed once in a search of that area, but that the search team was sent back out because it was determined that area was where the box should have landed. That's just pretty darned impressive.
Daily Hatbag
Looking for a Hatbag strip, I noticed for the first time that the guy who falls for Hippie's psychic bit actually used to live with Hippie. Shouldn't he have known better?
So true
In The Globe And Mail, a former Windows devotee writes that the newest Macs are "probably the best personal computers ever made."
DVD Alert
I'm sure you'll all be delighted to know that the Herbie "The Love Bug" movie is getting its special edition DVD release May 20.
Pictures ... from spaaaaaaaaace!
Atleast for the duration of Exp. 6, Science@NASA has set up a Space Station Science Picture of the Day Web site. Every Monday through Friday, a new picture taken on ISS will be posted on the site. Today's pic is a view of the amazingly dense starfield visible from ISS in the southern sky.
| | | :: Sunday, March 30, 2003 :: |
Ch...ch...ch...changes
So, I mean, what's the point of having a blog called You Must Fight The Bear if there are no bears? Consider that remedied! There's a series of random bears that will come up each time you come to my site. If you find another fight-worthy bear, send them my way.
I've also added a link to Arlo & Janis, the greatest contemporary comic strip (assuming you consider Hatbag defunct). For a sampling of A&J strips, click here.
Also, on the off chance you haven't noticed it, at the bottom of the sidebar I've included a news feed from Liftoff, one of the NASA sites I'm curating. Good stuff down there. Check it out.
Daily Hatbag
Ah, who could forget those heady days of Animaniacs?
Whoever said the human race is logical?
Click here for travel photos from Spock's tour of America.
Known issue
For some reason, the number of Idle Ramblings is not displaying after each entry. I don't know why, but I do know that some other blogs that use this system are suffering the same problem (and some aren't). The messages are still there, and can still be added, it's just inconvenient. As soon as it can be fixed, it will be.
Somebody leave the light on
Alright, it's time for the first ever "You Must Fight The Bear" movie review. We went and saw "The Core" last night, so here's my thoughts.
First, a personal note. After 9/11, I was one of those that said that movies filmed before then that featured the World Trade Center should be left as is, rather than removing the towers from the film. I thought it a poor tribute to pretend they had never existed.
Going in to see this movie, I agreed with the director's decision to leave the Shuttle scene in its original form. And I guess I still do. That said, I thought I was ready to watch it. I wasn't. For most of the people reading my blog, it shouldn't be a problem. For my co-workers, I might advise waiting a little while, or at least steeling themselves a little more than I did (Watching San Francisco be blown away, on the other hand, was fine. Nothing personal, S.F.)
That said, it was kind of cool seeing a movie where NASA is so instrumental in saving the world. It wasn't even a big deal, it was sort of subtle, kind of a "Well, of course NASA would be involved" sort of thing.
Anyway, back to the movie. It was exactly as good as you would think it would be from the trailers and commercials. I couldn't name any significant flaws with it, but neither was there anything transcendent about it. All in all, is was a pretty decent popcorn movie. The science was, to a liberal arts major, surprisingly non-problematic, compared to, oh, say, um, Armageddon, for example (remind me sometime to write in here about the "Goodnight, Moon" movie idea that Lain and I developed). The only major science problem I had was the extent to which things early on were written simply to solve problems at the end... there were several times when they were building the ship that I thought, why would they want it to do that, only to have that question answered at the end. But it was the sort of thing that probably wouldn't bother 98 percent of the audience, including Richie (though other things might).
So, there you go. A movie review with no useful information. And to think, I used to get paid to do this.
Get Up, Stand Up
I got to play Tron last night. The old Tron arcade stand-up video game is one of my favorite arcade games of all time (the original Star Wars game is probably number one) and so it's always great when I find the machine somewhere. Sadly, the one I found, which used to be elsewhere in Huntsville and whose new location I discovered only last night, has been sold, so soon it won't be there anymore. Here's the other sad thing, though: despite my love for the game, I'm not any good at it, never have been, and never will be. I think one time I might have made it to the third board, though for the life of me, I don't remember how. Oh well.
This place also had a Q-bert machine for sale as well. Neither one of us is a huge Q-bert fan, though Nicole used to be a pretty serious Q-bert Atari player back in the day. Nonetheless, at the price they've got it at (cheap, even at more than what you would pay for any console on the market), it's darned tempting just to own an arcade stand-up. I mean, who hasn't wanted their own arcade machine? Ironically, that's one that's been a dream of Nicole's even more than mine. Visitors would be awed by our sheer coolness (we'd turn the A/C way up, too).
So, I need advice... what would it be worth to own a Q-bert arcade machine?
| | | :: Saturday, March 29, 2003 :: |
Web Of Government
I saw a new Indiana license plate today, and at the bottom, it actually has, the way many states have the county name, the Web site for the state, www.IN.gov. That's just kind of weird, and means the Internet is now officially no longer hip. Kind of sad, really.
Eye In The Sky
Shuttles in orbit will be photographed by satellites on future flights, per O'Keefe.
DVD Watch
Coming Tuesday on DVD are The Beatles Anthology, a new West Side Story, and season two of Deep Space Nine.
(This past week saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the first season of Futurama, which I may end up getting.)
Hello, Darkness My Old Friend
Another strip chosen just 'cause it's celebrating its anniversary today. That said, nighttime strips were one of the great innovations of Hatbag. If we ever started a new strip, it should be called, "Things That Keep You Up At Night," and consist only of two people talking on dark panels. Hey... that's actually a pretty good idea!
Who Wouldn't
Lain and I used to play this game where we would go to a video rental place and go through the pre-viewed movie bins, putting together two or three (or more) videos so that their titles form one continuous idea. For example, one of the classics was "'Twelve Monkeys' 'Grease' 'Tarzan.'"
It's also funny with this occurs naturally at your local movie theater, which it does with amazingly regularity. Almost any time you go see a movie, the theater owners have unintentionally juxtapositioned two titles with at least semi-amusing results.
This morning, when I opened my browser to the Apple-Netscape homepage it defaults to, among the listing of trailers I could watch was this jewel, "What A Girl Wants: The Hulk In America."
(I just checked my local movie listing as Fandango to see if they had any good ones, but they list the movies alphabetically, so that cuts down on the potential. They best they had was "Piglet's Big Movie Spirited Away The Core.")
| | | :: Friday, March 28, 2003 :: |
Ah, sweet eMac
This post is the first done on my new eMac at work. A very nice little machine if I do say so myself.
You Must Fight The Python
Lain requested that I post this here. Consider it done.
I wonder if the Python she fought was Eric Idle or John Cleese. I'm assuming it wasn't Terry Gilliam, or she'd still be petrified.
Knock, Knock
Whooo, Here's Spock
Leonard Nimoy will be in Huntsville Thursday for the Von Braun Memorial Dinner. Tickets were $125, but it's too late to register anyway. Sorry.
Daily Hatbag
Remember, since blogs are cool, you know you can always turn to me to find out what else is cool, since I have a blog.
Skip to Ed Lu
Edward Lu, a member of the ISS Expedition 7 crew that will launch next month (shhh... it's a secret he's part of it, don't tell anybody [again, to me, the single best argument ever against the Moon hoax is that there is no way on Earth NASA would have been able to keep a secret for 35 years]) has a home page.
Some of the info has been updated to reflect post-Columbia changes, other has not.
National Hero
Since his name popped up a couple of times yesterday, I thought I'd include this article today:
Was Gagarin killed?
Columbia Update
While analysis work will not begin until this weekend, the process of copying the data from the tape on Columbia's flight data recorder has shown that the signal on the tape is very strong, and the tapes appear to contain information not received through telemetry communications, according to Space.com.
"Quit Your Jobs And Invetigate Dark Streaks"
According to Space.com, there is growing support for the belief that there is currently flowing liquid water on the surface of Mars, and that it may be supporting microbial life.
Fear the Power of Flash
According to NewsAskew, the animated Clerks movie is moving ahead.
I'm Batman
The Dark Knight returns?
New Favorite Question
All right, my new favorite question from my e-mail is, "Dear NASA, how does science work?"
I'm tempted to write back with just one word: "Magic."
| | | :: Thursday, March 27, 2003 :: |
Bang! Zoom!
As with all of my blog, this is just Dave's personal opinion, and in no way reflects the opinion of NASA as a whole.
That said, you know how Buzz Aldrin made the news a while back by punching the guy that did the Moon hoax special for accosting him? Ed Mitchell had to physically throw that same guy out of his house.
So here's my idea. They should have a big convention, once a year, where all of the remaining living moonwalkers get together. And anybody who doesn't believe we went to the Moon can go to the convention and have some sense slapped into them by a bunch of septagenarians. I don't know if it would help the Moon hoaxers much, but it would help me a lot.
Apple Gored
Business Week and The Baltimore Sun have both come out with criticisms of Apple's appointment of Gore to its Board of Directors, saying, to put it nicely, there's not much he can offer as a board member...
Perhaps he could help with environmental concerns? Or offer advice on how to make it look like you've won with a smaller market share?
Questions, questions, questions
I'm in the process of trying to make a very small dent in the backlog of questions I've gotten at the Liftoff and NASA Kids site, and some of these are just great. One person asks when someone will come out with a book about the Space Shuttle, another asks me to please stop the war, and another asks me to explain the existance of the solar system ("In the beginning, the Earth was without form, and void...").
My personal favorite so far, though: "Can I see the Earth up close?"
MSFC Update
The Blue Angels are flying around our building.
At Your Age...
What kids need nowadays is more self-esteem.
Celebrity Quote
"What you see is real. I am really that high."
--Celine Dion
Expedition 7
The two-person Expedition 7 crew will launch for the International Space Station on board a Soyuz from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome on April 26 at 9:50 a.m. CST.
Robots!
Sony is working to try and put robots in people's homes.
In other news, Terminator 3 will be released this summer.
Right Stuff SE Update
Sorry, don't mean to get carried away about this DVD, it's just that each announcement has gradually better information.
CollectSpace has more details on what exactly will be in the Special Edition features.
Today In History
The first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, died 35 years ago today in an airplane crash.
This Week On NASAexplores
The two new stories at NASAexplores this week deal with MISSE, the first experiment to be performed on the OUTSIDE of the International Space Station, investigating how materials hold up in the harsh environment of space, and with microgravity flame research, which has discovered that in space, just about everything we know about fire is wrong.
Enterprise
I mentioned earlier that Enterprise would be used in the Columbia investigation. Reuters posted an interesting article late yesterday explaining exactly how. Wing material from Enterprise, roughly the same age as the corresponding material from Columbia, will have pieces of foam shot at it with a compressed-gas gun. Even if she never launched, it's kind of cool that Enterprise is still making contributions well over two decades after being grounded.
Watery Moon
According to Nature, there may be five times as much water on the Moon as was previously believed.
Perhaps we should go find out?
Daily Hatbag
This one doesn't really tie in with anything; I just like it.
Hubble, Hubble
Here's some cool pictures taken by the Hubble of an "erupting" star.
Columbia Update
The CAIB is gradually approaching an answer to the question of what happened to Columbia. Spaceflight Now today has an article that pretty effectively summarizes what is know at this point, and what investigators believe likely happened to the Shuttle.
Further supporting the foam theory, it was announced today that CAIB investigators found flaws in the foam on one of the "spare" ETs at Michoud.
Meet The Astronauts
For the lady I ranted about in here a while back who complained that she didn't know anything about current astronauts, and that it was somehow NASA's fault, presumably because we don't spam people with astronaut biographies, here's a new feature that may or may not be ongoing in my blog. Of course, it won't actually do that lady any good, unless of course she runs searches on the Internet for herself as lady complain didn't know about astronauts. And, of course, Google crawls my blog so doing a search works.
My coworker, JoCasta, is currently in Philadelphia representing NASAexplores like we did recently in San Francisco. However, unlike S.F., where we had our own booth that was half of a limited NASA presence at the convention, in Philly, JoCasta is working in a large NASA section representing a wide variety of agency education programs. In the booth with her are NASA education head Adena Loston, and Educator Astronaut program heads Debbie Brown and Leland Melvin.
Leland Melvin is an astronaut candidate who was selected at the same time as Barbara Morgan (who will be at the Philly convention later on) in 1998. While he's awaiting being assigned to his first flight, he's working on the EA program, guiding the process that will lead to the selection of teachers to become astronauts. Melvin is a little unconventional compared to how people think of contemporary astronauts--engineers and physicists who wore white lab coats prior to space suits. While that's true of Leland as well, most people don't associate that with also being a professional football player. His honors include both an Invention Disclosure Award for Lead Insensitive Fiber Optic Phase Locked Loop Sensor and being named an NCAA Division I Academic All American.
During EA presentations, Melvin is a great spokesperson for the agency, coming across with great energy and excitement when he talks about spaceflight, though he's not yet been up, himself. JoCasta said he's the same way in person, very nice and charismatic. He even talked with her about Lasik surgery (Jo can't apply for the Educator Astronaut program because she had Lasik surgery. Leland said that requirement may change, they just haven't done enough testing yet [apparently the concern is that the back of the eye is weakened by the surgery, and the eye could suffer significant damage [pop!] during the pressures associated with liftoff and landing]).
So there you go, info about an astronaut. Now, when he is selected to fly, you'll be able to tell people that you'd heard about him back when he was still just a candidate.
An Entertaining Comic
Man, somewhere amongst the readership/writership of the this blog is more than enough resources to do this. In all seriousness, anybody that would be interested in working together on this, let me know. We could form our own Ultimate Marvel Team-Up. I'm already halfway through the script for my big Secret Wars of the Gods crossover series. It can't miss.
For more info, go here.
| | | :: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 :: |
Bear Is Driving! How Can This Be?!
DeeDee introduced me to the world of Strong Bad, which some of the Brak fans in the audience may enjoy. There's actually a series of Web short features that go with this part, but the Strong Bad e-mails are often hilarious.
In this one, he explains anime.
Up in the sky
So, how would you make Superman take off?
(And who would be your ideal cast and crew?)
In A Land Before Time...
Joe's comment below reminded me of this, the funniest movie trailer ever.
Today In History
The first movie projector was patented on this day in 1895.
OSP.MOV
NASA's SLI page has a series of animations showing different possible concepts for the Orbital Space Plane. While these are all completely hypothetical, they're still kind of cool.
First Amendment
I'm greatly amused by the argument that's been flying around that freedom of speech means that you can't not buy Dixie Chicks albums or not go to their concerts because you disagree with something they said. I would be interested in knowing exactly how people who make that argument believe that the First Amendment is worded. That would be a darned difficult thing to codify.
Return To Flight Update
All of Michoud is now back in business.
The Black Hole
This is scientifically interesting, and yet the headline also sounds kind of dirty.
But they're going to show it to chimps before people...
The Right Stuff DVD will be out June 10. More details are here. This has real potential.
Daily Hatbag
It occured to me yesterday that since I had the item in my blog about Clonaid, I should have linked to this strip. So I'm doing it today.
Battle Royale (With Cheese)
So, what exactly would happen if Bad, Bad Leroy Brown decided to Mess Around With Jim?
Huntsville, we have a movie
According to yesterday's Huntsville Times, Apollo 13 is coming soon to the dome Imax theater at the Space and Rocket Center here. What soon is, it didn't say.
| | | :: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 :: |
Technology is your friend
OK, I'm sitting at my PC at my desk at work, listening to music on Lain's harddrive on his Mac in Athens. That's just kind of cool.
Call SETI
Maybe they're right, or maybe the aliens just hate cats.
Science Explained
Perhaps in all of history, there has been no one better at explaining scientific principles than Calvin's Dad.
Feel The Love
DeeDee had this posted on her blog, noting that, yeah, she feels this way sometimes, too.
I kind of do, except that I dislike people in the abstract, also.
Adama would be proud
Starbucks will be opening a free-standing shop soon in Arkansas, one of the last states currently without one.
Phase Two begins soon.
Clone Wars update
Clonaid has released a great picture of their third cloned baby. With evidence like this on their side, who can doubt them? Plus, they said they're going to come forward soon with some evidence showing that the baby is, in fact, a clone. No, really, they mean it this time. Honest.
Daily Hatbag
Just another way that DVDs are making the world a safer place.
Columbia Update
The hand-cleaned tape from Columbia's flight data recorder is being shipped to Kennedy Space Center today, where it will be copied and engineers will begin the process of analyzing whatever data may be present, according to Spaceflight Now.
We still don't have to talk about the Matrix
According to NewsAskew, the guy that did the phony Morpheus voice in the Clerks cartoon was tapped to do a voice in the Animatrix short, "Final Flight Of The Osiris."
Indy Films
Here's a tiny bit of news about Indiana Jones IV.
Mac Daddy
I'm a happy, happy man.
As of like five minutes ago, I now have a Mac on my desk at work.
It's an eMac, which I've never used before. Beyond that, I don't know any specs, since it's not hooked up yet. Even though I could have had it running four minutes ago, I have to just let it sit there until ODIN (the NASA computer people) come and set it up (One ODIN guy brought it, but another has to come back and set it up). Argh.
That said, it's not actually mine. It was ordered for one of my co-workers, who does a lot of network maintenance stuff, particularly streaming video. He needed a Mac to be able to check compatability issues with what he was doing, but didn't have any room for it. I, being the team player that I am, made the sacrifice of offering to store it on my desk. That's just the sort of generous guy I am.
So now I'm just praying for ODIN to return soon.
Next Generation
NASA recently held a two-day summit on the Shuttle Life Extension Program, designed to figure out how to best make improvements to the Space Shuttle to keep the fleet flying safely for another 15 to 20 years (or more).
This is one of O'Keefe's policies that came under heavy criticism, which has only increased since the loss of Columbia. For years and years, NASA has been working on a successor to the Space Shuttle, thus far with little to show for it. While O'Keefe didn't stop that effort entirely, he did push it way down the priority list. Basically, it was a huge investment, it showed little return (much of the technology proposed for next-generation shuttles was proving to be not particularly mature), and it wasn't necessary. We already have a Shuttle that has life left in it, we don't need another now.
I fully support O'Keefe's decision, though I would likely go another step further. To me, the question is less "when" NASA needs another Shuttle, but "if" it does. The Shuttle is useful for its original purpose, building the International Space Station. But the Station should be largely finished within the lifespan of the current fleet. It's useful as an orbiting microgravity science lab, but the Station has the potential to be far better at it. The Shuttle is useful for ferrying people to and from Low Earth Orbit (LEO), but the Orbital Space Plane being developed now will be able to do that. So essentially the Shuttle becomes a heavy launch vehicle, a less-powerful Saturn V with return capability.
So why do we need to build a deluxe LEO cargo truck?
In my opinion, what we need to be working on now (or at least in the time frame we would have been working on a next-gen RLV), is something with new capabilities--something to get us out of LEO. Maybe even something that GOES somewhere. But, as usual, they never as me.
| | | :: Monday, March 24, 2003 :: |
All You Vader-Haters
For anyone who's not yet seen it, "We Got Death Star".
Hatbag Sale
Hatbag sweatshirts are now on sale at the hatbag store.
Free Will
Based on the title, I was really hoping that this site was the antithesis of my blog.
Sleep, Data
It turns out Rodney Crouther is alive. I'd not heard from Rodney, another member of the best Daily Mississippian staff ever, for quite some time, and so was glad to hear that he's still out there, somewhere.
Of my comments about the Oscars, Rodney sent me an e-mail asking if I had forgotten everything he taught me.
In reply, I offer this, my final column from Ole Miss (the uncredited advice is from Rodney).
Country at War
OK, one of the cool side-benefits of this war is the growing hostilities it's invoking in country singers. I've never been a big country music fan, but it's kind of cool getting to take sides in the big country battle. By now, everyone has heard about Dixie Chick Natalie Maines telling a European audience that she was ashamed to be from the same state as Bush. So, now, at a Toby Keith concert in Huntsville last night, Keith blasted Maines, putting up a photo of her and Hussein. Which is just turnabout, since Maines had called Keith's "The Angry American" song and his listeners ignorant. Frankly, I'm hoping this escalates into widespread hostilities and violence in the country music industry, which finally tears it apart.
Shatner-iffic
According to the commentary track by Nimoy and Shatner on the Star Trek IV DVD, my favorite line in the movie, "Doctor gave me a pill I grew a new kidney," was actually improvised on set during shooting, as was the whole bit with "I love Italian, and so do you."
Cool, huh?
Since some of the guards on the U.S.S. Enterprise and medical personnel at the hospital in the movie were people who did those jobs in real life, what if that lady was really a patient at the hospital, and to get an effective performance from her, they told her the doctor gave her a pill and she grew a new kidney? That would have been sad, even if she wasn't being treated for kidney-related problems.
Daily Hatbag
According to Richie, this strip is actually correct.
Chicago
Well, Chicago won best picture at the Oscars last night. Interestingly, considering how seriously I used to take the Academy Awards, I have no commentary on this, and haven't even seen Chicago (in fact, LOTR:TT was the only nominee I saw this year).
Believe
New Mexico's legislature has approved Extraterrestrial Culture Day, which I have to say that I have a serious problem with.
I mean, the very name implies that all extraterrestrials share one culture, which is just ludicrous. Someone needs to start a campaign to make New Mexico end its narrowmindedness and embrace nonhuman multiculturalism.
| | | :: Sunday, March 23, 2003 :: |
Let's Roll Out
I had heard about this before, but it's still cool.
Well Said
For perhaps the first time in history, also in today's Parade magazine, Marilyn Vos Savant said something I agreed with. Asked her thoughts about the Columbia disaster, Vos Savant wrote, "I think the program should continue as long as astronauts are willing to take the risk. In my opinion, those of us who are less courageos should not intervene on their behalf. Bravery is a beautiful thing, and I wouldn't want to discourage it. Spaceflight isn't a daredevil sport with no reward; it's an endeavor undertaken on behalf of science and our country."
(Normally, I agree with these people about Marilyn.)
Rock On
According to Parade magazine, Clinton says he has partial hearing loss from too much loud music.
CoinStar
I'm easily impressed, but this is a cool invention.
Daily Hatbag
Movies have the Oscars tonight, and we have these.
| | | :: Saturday, March 22, 2003 :: |
Wanna Visit The Space Station?
Then click here. If you don't speak German, you may need BabelFish, though you may not. However, you will need a decent bit of cash.
(Or, skip the auction and go here).
Dave's Shopping Spree, Cont'd
I bought tiny Star Wars Legos today.
Also, Robonaut.
God Speed, United States Post Service
I took my first step into a geekier world today by mailing John Glenn a copy of his memoir, in hopes of getting him to autograph it. It's the first time I've written off for an autograph (except maybe once in eighth grade, for a class project; I'm not sure).
I bought today a copy of "Deke!", so that I now have books by three of the Mercury Seven. (And I also picked up a remainder copy of Gene Kranz' "Failure Is Not An Option.")
"You Must Fight The Bear" Book Club
While I was out today, I saw that Jasper Fforde's new novel, Lost In A Good Book, is now out in hardback. This is the sequel to his delightful The Eyre Affair, now out in paperback, in which Detective Thursday Next has to hunt a devious killer through the pages of Jane Eyre. Wonderful stuff. If you haven't read The Eyre Affair, pick it up now. (These books are actually cheaper at Bamm.com, but Amazon has better descriptions. [I've probably offended Richie now by providing convenient and easy ways to buy these books, rather than having to use an arcane method which requires that someone help you to pay more.])
That said, I didn't buy Lost In A Good Book, because I'm currently lost in a good book. I'm about halfway through Donna Tartt's The Little Friend, and after that, I'm reading Grisham's The King of Torts.
Hopefully, not long after that is Dave Barry's Tricky Business, and possibly Christopher Buckley's No Way To Treat A First Lady.
Among my recent reads are Douglas Coupland's Miss Wyoming, Scott Dikker's disappointing You Are Worthless, and the latest crappy Star Wars paperback.
Remember When Pirate Was A Noun?
The people who make the arguement that Napster and online song trading have hurt the music business are certainly supported by the fact that, based on listening to WZYP while driving around town, there are only like four songs left in existance. And at least one of them is Celine Dion's inferior cover of "I Drove All Night."
Personal Note
Nicole is in the hospital (again). Waiting to see how serious it is, so I really can't tell you right now.
(BTW, this is why it's late, light bloggin' today. Not that anybody reads this thing during the weekend anyway. Five blog points to anyone who posts feedback here before 5 p.m. Sunday.)
| | | :: Friday, March 21, 2003 :: |
Yum, yum
When you visit Japan, be sure to try the chicken and curry. Also, they have a great bookstore for Richie (pics from Engrish.com).
It's A Trap!
Iraq's information minister, Mohammed Sa'eed al-Sahhaf, says of the allied forces, "We will not allow them to get out of this quagmire which we trapped them in. They will see their end there."
Apple Update
Panther is coming.
Tyrranical Regime, Rusted
Yahoo had a news headline today, "B-52s Head To Iraq." Surely the Iraqi people will turn against Hussein when treated to the wonders of "Love Shack" and "Rock Lobster."
Daily Hatbag
Tomorrow, the first Hatbag strip to appear on t-shirts will celebrate its anniversary.
OD on Odie
In a film concept that seems from the outset irredeemable, plans have been announced for a live-action Garfield film, according to AICN. Garfield would be computer-generated, while the rest of the movie would be live-action, including the other animals. Part of any experiment to see if the Garfield franchise could possibly get any lamer at this point.
We Don't Have To Talk About The Matrix...
"The Final Flight Of The Osiris," one of the animated short features that make up "The Animatrix," will premiere tonight in theaters, attached to "The Dreamcatcher." This short serves as a prelude to Matrix Reloaded, which opens in May, I believe. Go see it.
I'm not sure if Osiris will show before or after Dreamcatcher, so if anybody does see it, let me know.
| | | :: Thursday, March 20, 2003 :: |
Beagle On Mars
Europe's first Mars spacecraft, which will include a lander, is nearing launch.
In addition to the European lander, two NASA rovers will leave for the red planet this summer.
In Case Of Emergency
I found this link on Dave Barry's Blog. Some of it's a little off color, but it's hilarious stuff.
News Update
It turns out, according to a new article, that Microsoft software makes it easier for hackers to get into your computer!
I'm shocked! And did you know smoking's bad for you?!
Apple Gore
Um...I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this.
(Of course, he was probably just glad to win the election)
Daily Hatbag
Since you weren't able to enjoy the fine pizza party we just had to celebrate the launch of the new version of NE, you can read this strip instead (Sorry, DeeDee--Go buy yourself some Papa John's tonight, and tell 'em to send the bill to NASA).
This Week At NASAexplores--A New Day
The new version of the NASAexplores site went live today, so be sure to check it out. Stories this week are about the Propulsion Research Center at Marshall, and about a system for detonating landmines safetly using extra Shuttle fuel.
| | | :: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 :: |
Columbia Update
Columbia's flight data recorder has been found.
It has begun
Pre-war update
Fear the power of the e-bomb.
Old School
Be sure to sign the petition asking George Lucas to release the original versions of the first three Star Wars films on DVD, as well as the Special Editions. Future generations have a right to know that Han shot first (and to experience the aforementioned yub-yub song).
I was signer number 14,814.
The say there's a DVD that lives in the sky
If you don't have your copy of "The Right Stuff" on DVD yet--good. The Digital Bits reports that there should be an announcement soon of, finally, a decent special edition of the movie.
Wow!
Today marks one full month of the Dave-blog! Five free blog points for everybody!
Daily Hatbag
Sadly, this is exactly how I got through college.
Farewell, iMac
Apple has discontinued the original iMac, first released in 1998. The multicolored, plastic-bubble, G3 CRT iMac was removed from the Apple online store yesterday (The new flat-panel G4 iMac is still going strong, of course, as is the new eMac, which has a more similar form factor to the old iMac).
| | | :: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 :: |
Elemental Poetry
This site features a haiku for each element on the Periodic Table.
Not Begun, Thus Iraq War Has
According to today's Cosmic Log, Iraqis already wishing to surrender are being turned away since the war hasn't started yet.
Tales From San Francisco
I saw this column in The San Francisco Chronicle while I was there and found the first half of it kind of amusing.
Our Oncoming Story
If you missed the post yesterday about the new Dave-blog writing project, check it out here, or just scroll down to the bottom of yesterday's posts for a better link.
The idea is, each person adds the paragraph that comes BEFORE the paragraph on top, so that the story is written from end to beginning.
So far, it's the most exciting fiction writing ever on this blog.
Daily Hatbag
Sadly, this could be a scene from my life right now.
Astro Sighting
I just returned from a crew visit by members of the STS-113 crew, and Expedition 5 ISS Science Officer Peggy Whitson. First off, as I've already mentioned, I'm like the biggest astronaut groupie, so just getting to meet them was a huge thrill. That said, I always enjoy the astronaut appearances at Marshall because they're a little less watered down. They assume that you know the basics involved, and so it's a little more detailed, a little more "insider" info. And, as always, the videos are so cool. The signing afterward was a little rushed, so I wasn't really even able to get what I wanted, much less anything for anybody else. Sorry.
| | | :: Monday, March 17, 2003 :: |
Congratulations, Jesse
Jesse now has amazing powers over other journalists.
Spring Cleaning
Trying to do a bit of re-designing. I'm not able to do fancy stuff like DeeDee, but I'm trying to do those things that I know how to do in Blogger. In particular, you'll notice an expanding sidebar to the left. Let me know what you think, and feel free to share any ideas.
Totally Rad
In Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log for March 14, he talks about new findings regarding radiation exposure on a trip to Mars ... and it may not be that bad.
Good Site
BTW, NASA Watch is generally a pretty decent site for background information about NASA news. It features links to stories about agency goings-on, but then offers a little extra insight placing things in context.
Today's Lesson In Politics
Does the Columbia disaster make war with Iraq more likely? Yep.
Eight Is Three
According to an article at SpaceDaily, the RSA has announced that after the two-person Expedition 7 crew, the Expedition 8 crew will once again consist of three people, including an ESA astronaut.
Black Lightsabers In That Slow Sithin' Style
AICN posted this info and link about the fact that the Episode III crew is reconstructing two locations from the original Star Wars trilogy for the next film. AICN guess that one of them iis possibly Dagobah, which would make sense. That would leave as possibilities for the other one Yavin, Hoth, Cloud City and Endor (and the Death Star, though the article makes a distinction between space- and planet-based locales). Since it wouldn't make sense for interiors on Yavin and Hoth to look the same pre-Rebellion, that leaves Endor and Cloud City.
Hmmm... Cloud City? Could this be where Grando Calrissian comes in? Is the rumor true?!
For those that missed it, AICN posted a rumor a while back that was the worse SW rumor ever (it's apparently since been removed from the site, or I would link to it). It involves such things as Lando's dad, Grando, flying the Falcon, and Darth Sidious killing someone (Dooku? Palpatine?) with a black lightsaber. Sorry, I'm not even beginning to do it justice. Lain, if you remember any more, please help me out here.
Fly Me To Mars
Alright, as long as I'm ranting about dumb articles, let me point your attention to this one in WIRED magazine.
The basic arguement is that we should scrap the Shuttle fleet, mothball the Space Station, and use the savings (which he estimates at about $6 billion per year) to go to Mars.
The problems with this concept are numerous. One, even sticking $6 billion in a sock every year, it's still going to take a while to save enough to go to Mars (and a REALLY big sock).
A bigger problem is that we're not ready to go to Mars yet. The technology is getting close, but is not there yet. During the interim, what's the point in not using tools we've already paid for to continue space research.
And even this writer acknowledges that we have to continue doing research. Before we send crews to Mars, we have to learn more about physiological reactions to microgravity and space exposure. So he suggests we build small, Skylab-type Space Stations to do that research on.
Why exactly this would be better than using the larger, far better Space Station we already have, he never quite explains (as he also never explains his comment that ISS is not suited for this sort of research). Nor does he explain how much of the $6 billion a year he thinks we'll have left after designing, building, launching, and operating more space stations. Particularly considering that he also proposes designing, building, launching, and operating new Saturn V-style heavy launch vehicles to carry these stations up and launch crews back and forth from Earth. The cost of these launch vehicles would be even greater for the agency since, unlike current, expendable launch vehicles, NASA would likely be the only customer for these new super-rockets.
And, what exactly would be the benefit to the expendable capsules he recommends building, as opposed to the re-usable Orbital Space Plane NASA is currently designing.
The writer has some decent thoughts, and I certainly would not argue with an initiative to go to Mars. But his tenet that going to Mars means not doing things we're doing now to get ready is completely unsupported, and his ideas for how these would work are unfeasible.
A simple counter-proposal: While I'll never see $6 billion in my lifetime, in the federal budget, it's a tiny drop in the bucket. Why not just add the extra money to NASA's budget, work towards a trip to Mars, and still do the things we're doing now to get ready to go there?
The Complete Dope
Who would have thought that a site that had such useful information about Heinz 57 sauce could go so wrong?!
Maggie, NASAexplores' Texas Bureau science writer, sent me this article at The Straight Dope, which was coincidentally the site I linked to in here recently for the explaination of where Heinz' "57 Varieties" slogan came from. For that article to have been so useful, this one's pretty bad.
For example, in explaining that the idea of spin-offs from the Space Program is a myth, he uses a quote from 1993 from a "space skeptic" and the fact that at a Senate hearing in 1991, nobody had any documentation with them about spin-offs. To me, you're arguement seems pretty weak when you're having to dig that hard to support it.
With two clicks of my mouse, for example, I can produce this site, which has lengthy documentation about spin-offs. And this page is only one page about small business spin-offs, just a tiny fraction of the resources NASA has on-line about technology transfer.
In his research section, he uses one quote from one group, which he then provides his own context for. Again, assuming that he really isn't interested in doing a good job of research, just the materials on the recent STS-107 mission would show the numerous benefits of space research.
Under his argument involving space colonization, one could just as easily reason that since the Wright brothers couldn't build a Concorde, they should have stayed on the ground. What good was a flying machine that could only fly a few yards?
And his coolness argument is basically just that he's not that interested in space travel, so it's not "cool," or worthwhile. Man, that's quite the standard. Considering all the things government spends money on just because they're cool--from the Olympics to Maplethorpe exhibits--surely there are enough people in the world other than this guy that do think spaceflight's cool to make it worthwhile.
Which leads me to a question--why do we explore space? I mean, working for NASA, I could talk for literally hours about the benefits and justifications of spaceflight, but the fact of the matter is, I loved the idea of space exploration just as much when I was little and had no concept whatsoever of microgravity protein crystal growth research or low-energy combustion experimentation. Nowadays, though, it's like we have to stick with the cost-effective reasons for space travel. Better treatments for diabetes carry an obvious benefit, but saying that we explore space for the same reason mankind has always explored, learned, discovered, investigated and challenged is a little more intangible. And heaven help my friend who believes in the space program because he believes there must be other civilizations out there, and we need to go find them. So, what's your answer to the question of why?
Daily Hatbag
If I ever wrote an autobiography, Page 1 would be this strip.
On The Fly
I've decided what I want to be when I grow up.
During my flights to and from San Francisco, I noticed that during the pre-flight announcements, they tell the passengers that it is a violation of federal law to refuse to follow an instruction from the airplane crew. This means, in effect, that airline crewmembers have the authority to make up their own federal laws! If the captain tells you to hop on one foot, it is a federal crime for you not to hop on one foot. Even a stewardess has more authority than the President of the United States! How cool is that?
Steps Of Liberty
JoCasta send me a link to this site, where you can Squash A Terrorist.
The Day BEFORE The Day After Tomorrow
I've finally figured out what the reverse-order Idle Ramblings section that bugs Lain so much is good for.
It's time, boys and girls, for the first ever You Must Fight The Bear Write-Off. I'll start, or rather end, a story in the Idle Ramblings section, and the we take turns adding the passage BEFORE that. When the stories finished, or rather begun, a person would be able to open the Idle Ramblings and read the whole story from beginning to end in proper order.
| | | :: Sunday, March 16, 2003 :: |
Google
Does anybody know how often Google crawls? I've been trying to figure out how I could make this blog available to the public (without having it listed at Yahoo! or anything, I just want it to show up if somebody searches for something that I've talked about in it). I couldn't figure out why Google would have the rest of the Hatbag site indexed, but not the blog, until I remembered that Google only updates their index every so often. Does it only follow existing links? In other words, since nothing links to my blog in the Hatbag site, would Google still be able to find it, or do I need a link to it somewhere? Anyway, if anybody knows anything about how Google works, I'd sure appreciate the help.
(BTW, Altavista and Lycos don't even find the new Hatbag site at all, so Google is now the official search engine of Hatbag Productions, as far as I'm concerned).
For The Record
I have nothing to do with this, which is found at www.davehitt.com.
To Boldly Go
Please consider signing the National Space Society's petition in support of continued manned spaceflight.
| | | :: Saturday, March 15, 2003 :: |
Daily Hatbag
For some reason, this strip is the most-viewed one for the month of March thus far, apparently due to people running google searches for "finding a religion," or "finding my religion." I was about to say I hope it helps, but, no, really I don't. During the next big revamp of the Hatbag site (the one that incorporates Flash), I need to go in and start adding meta tags to the comic strips to make them more easily searchable.
Free Blog
Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
Et, Tu?
Beware the Ides of March.
| | | :: Friday, March 14, 2003 :: |
More Grit-inspired Blogging
I ate grits for supper tonight, at IHOP. They don't actually come with any meals, but they are available as a side item, and you can substitute them for hashbrowns. Since I saw an IHOP in San Francisco, it made me wonder if they would have had grits there. Does IHOP in fact sell grits internationally, or do they have regional menus that may or may not include grits?
And if that's the case, I wonder if there are any restaurant chains that have breakfast items they offer in some other places, but not in the South. I have trouble believing that there are American breakfast items that Southerners wouldn't eat. I mean, you don't see scones much here, but, heck, we'd eat 'em (I had some tasty scones just the other day, though they were prepared by one of my Yankee immigrant friends).
Enterprise Mission
According to Aviation Week & Space Technology, wing and landing door sections on the Space Shuttle Enterprise will be tested as part of the Columbia investigation. Without having ever flown, hanger queen Enterprise continues to be a vital contributor to the Shuttle program.
(BTW, that link is to a really interesting NASAexplores article on Enterprise, and her ongoing role in the space program.)
Expedition 7
According to CollectSpace today, the original Expedition 7mission patch has been discontinued pending the redesign when new crew members are assigned. Mine arrived in the mail today. If you're interested in getting the original patch, act now.
Return to Flight
By now, you've probably heard that NASA has assembled a "Return-To-Flight" team whose jop is to make sure that the Shuttle fleet is ready to fly again by fall (pending the results of the CAIB investigation). For more info, a PDF of Bill Readdy's letter is here.
Um, OK
So, according to AICN, Superman will be either Brendan Fraser or a complete unknown. I find myself rooting for the unknown (So does this make Brendan Fraser a challenger of the unknown?)
Also, Storm is Catwoman.
Who Watches The Watchmen?
Longtime Huntsville resident Peter Petroff died on Feb. 27. Among his many accomplishments, he invented the digital wristwatch (and outlived Douglas Adams).
Petroff also invented the first wireless heart monitor, the computerized pollution monitoring sytem, and telemetry devices for the world's first weather and communications satellites.
The digital wristwatch, BTW, was invented in 1969.
Cher, and Cher alike
When Cher gave her concert in Huntsville Tuesday, according to The Huntsville Times, after the first song, she started tearing off her clothes, revealing her fishnet stockings.
While this is apparently standard behavior at a Cher show, she usually waits until much later in the concert.
Explained Cher after her too-early stripping, "I took my pants off, and I don't normally do that until later in the show. But they started falling off, so I took them off. How cool am I?"
How cool, indeed, Cher, how cool, indeed.
Long Live The King
Since I now, sadly, apparently get my entertainment news from The Enterprise-Tocsin, I just now found out that at the Grammys (like three weeks ago now), B.B. King won two more Grammy awards, bringing his total up to 13.
One was a Traditional Blues Album award for his recent Christmas album, and the other was for Pop Instrumental Performance for his cover of the Macarena. I kid, of course--it was actually for "Auld Lang Syne," which I believe was on the Christmas album.
Later in the ceremony, when the Foo Fighters won a Grammy, one of the members, as they were walking off stage, turned to the mic and said, "Rock would not be anything without B.B. King." Lead singer Dave Grohl then returned to the microphone and added, "And I was gonna say that, too."
Daily Hatbag
I always try to tie the Hatbag of the day in with something else in my blog or in the news, so here's what I came up with for today.
More Trivia
For a whopping 20 blog points, what is the last name of the plumber Mario, famed from all those video games (I just learned this today, at Burger King no less)?
On a related note, I used to think Mario's first girlfriend (before he hooked up with that weird mushroom chick in the sewer world) was named Chivalry. In the instruction book to the original Donkey Kong for our old Coleco Vision system, it talked about the fact that Mario's girlfriend had been captured by Donkey Kong, but that Chivalry wasn't dead, so you needed to go save her. Having never heard that word before (hey, it was the 80s), I assumed that must be her name.
BTW, a magazine article I was reading recently revealed the origin of the name Donkey Kong (I had always heard the story that it was supposed to be Monkey Kong, but a typo had occurred). It turns out that the game's Japanese creator thought that the name Donkey Kong would convey to Americans "Stubborn Monkey."
Get Your Meet On
There was an interesting article in The Huntsville Times while I was gone about MeetUp, an online service that basically lets people build their own instant club. You go online, tell it things you're interested in and where you live, and it gives you a time and place for everybody with that interest to get together. I looked into meetings in H'ville for cartoonist and webcomic folks, but there aren't yet enough people here for a meeting (though Hunstville is currently like the second-fastest growing city for MeetUp use). We did have four people wanting to get together to talk about Tori Amos, though I think I may pass on that one.
| | | :: Thursday, March 13, 2003 :: |
Space Bass
Is it any wonder Lance wants to leave the planet?
You WILL Play Ball With Robonaut!
The time has finally arrived! You can now buy your very own toy Robonaut.
Robonaut's cool and everything, but you halfway expect him to scream like a girl as he flies into a Sarlaac pit for some reason. I just can't put my finger on it.
More Trek
According to Shatner, Star Trek has lost its way.
Out There
Sometimes, The Onion is just too far-fetched.
The Grit-ty Truth
As promised, some thoughts on grits:
While I was in San Francisco, I kept an eye out at the restaurants I visited to make sure that none of them served grits, which could have been an interesting experience. As I suspected, none of them did.
Upon returning home, however, one of my co-workers who has family that lives in California said that while grits are not sold in restaurants there, it is possible to buy them in stores.
However, they are sold there primarily not as a foodstuff, but as an antkiller. It turns out that if you put grits out for ants, they will start eating them and not stop until they explode and die. I empathize completely.
That may explain why people in other parts of the nation don't eat grits. It's not because they don't know about them or don't like them, but rather because they fear this tasty, tasty breakfast treat, that once you start eating you lose all self-control under the power of its deliciousness.
My presence there probably did little to disabuse them of that notion.
This Week At NASAexplores
The two new articles on NE this week feature NASA's DC-8 airborne research lab, and first-hand accounts of living in space written by astronauts.
Check it out.
Daily Hatbag
Speaking of SEC probation, here's your daily Hatbag.
Mississippi State Faces NCAA Investigation
Ha, ha!
Actually, there's no point in laughing now, since once the NCAA gets going, they're going to find a reason to hit everybody in the SEC. No doubt our turn is coming.
Reminds me of my old joke about the last time Ole Miss got hit by the SEC back in the mid-90s: We couldn't go to a bowl game, we couldn't play on television, and we couldn't recruit good players. And then we got put on probation.
Marhall your RAM, see?
I've been meaning to feature a cartoon by The (Jackson, MS) Clarion-Ledger's very talented Marshall Ramsey here for a while, and I guess this cartoon is as good as any to include.
| | | :: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 :: |
Nemesis DVD alert
According to StarTrek.com, the Nemesis DVD, which comes out May 20, will feature seven deleted scenes. Just think: Your chance is almost here to see seven scenes somehow NOT GOOD ENOUGH to be in Nemesis. An impressive concept, indeed.
One of the scenes will feature the new first officer that was cut from the film. Says StarTrek.com:
"When Madden meets Picard and makes the faux pas of addressing him as Jean-Luc, we see a knowing glint in the captain's eyes that says, 'Ah, that Riker!'"
Chicken from China? The Chinese Chicken!
It's been three weeks today since I started this blog, and during that time I've generated more text than the New York Times staff does for their huge Sunday edition! If that seems hard to believe, it's because I just made it up!
That'll show 'em
Let no one say that people on Capitol Hill are incapable of decisive action.
Personally, I'm looking forward to going home tonight and sharing a "Freedom Kiss" with my wife.
Daily Hatbag
Hmmm... does nobody else see a similarity between this strip and 60 Minutes' idea for a Clinton/Dole segment?
I smell a lawsuit.
P.S. I love the smell of lawsuit in the morning! Smells like... bacon!
P.P.S. Does anybody smell pizza?
Science Data
Current scientific research could render the movie "Memento" obselete.
...Gathers No Mao
Space program or no, how can China expect to be taken seriously as a world superpower when they continue to do things like this?
Happy Birthday
Yesterday was the birthday of a good friend of mine in middle school, Elaine/Elizabeth Baath, whom I've had no contact with at all in over a decade. I've even tried searching online for any hints as to her whereabouts, but with no luck at all, which with a name as rare as Baath, is pretty unusual. So, I mention her here on the off-chance she'll come across it. If so, let me know.
The Hustler
Apparently, some fake copies of Vanderbilt's student newspaper, The Vanderbilt Hustler, were printed bearing a large front-page above-the-fold article about the death of the chancellor, which the chancellor denies has occurred, pretty convincingly. The Hustler's Web site denies any involvement.
(On a side note, a good friend of mine from high school, Jeremy Wells, served as editor of The Hustler in the early '90s, but I've since lost track of him).
Space Cowboys
Clint Eastwood will be producing and directing a movie about Neil Armstrong.
"I know what you thinking... do we have six minutes of fuel, or only five. The question is, do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, Buzz?"
Columbia update
The CAIB now believes that multiple pieces of debris may have struck the Columbia's wing during liftoff.
I'm back
I'm back. Trip went well, and travel was safe. The return home was sort of eerie in light of Columbia, flying back home after completing my mission for NASA via a path similar to that taken by the Shuttle. Just kind of weird.
But, now, back to life as usual. Blogging may be a little light as I get caught up on some stuff, though.
| | | :: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 :: |
The Truth
How accurate are comic books? This man will tell you.
Daily Hatbag
A final tribute to the wonderful political insights I've encountered here in San Francisco.
Day Six--Homeward Bound
Not a whole lot left to say at this point. The convention is finished, we packed up our booth, ate, spent our last night in San Francisco. Today is basically just getting home, which I'm ready to do. I'll be packing the laptop up shortly, which means there likely won't be much new added today.
| | | :: Monday, March 10, 2003 :: |
Connectivity
So I just went and talked to the Lego guy, whose booth is right across from the Apple section, and asked why the computer-driven Mindstorm robot kits weren't compatible with Macs. As it turns out, they do have Mac software for the kits, but they only sell them as an educational product, not as a retail product (though apparently it's still possible for consumers to get them if you try hard enough). He did give me a little Lego Harry Potter figure that you can wear as a pin.
Just An Observation
People in San Francisco seem to be more opposed to a possible war than people back home, whose livelihoods depend on the milatary-industrial complex. That said, I'm gradually become more convinced of the merits of the pro-war arguements based simply on the arguments I've heard against it here. For example, I didn't realize that oil had been in any danger.
Daily Hatbag
Many forget that during its initial daily run, Hatbag was already on the forefront of interactivity.
Investigation
The news this weekend was that the Columbia Accident Investigation Board now believes that plasma probably vented out of the left wheel well rather than into it, having entered the wing along the leading edge and then burned through to the wheel well and then out the bottom.
Day Five
Not much new to report. The convention really slowed down yesterday afternoon, with little traffic coming to our booth (or anywhere else). JoCasta and I fear it will be even worse today, with people who came in just for the weekend already gone, but maybe not. We've also kind of gotten to the point where we've done all we know to do in the area around our hotel and the convention center, but by the time we get out of the convention, don't really have time to go anywhere else. Part of the problem at the convention may have been our location. We were way in the back of the hall. Goddard Space Flight Center's booth had already been cleaned out, and the lithos they brought weren't nearly as cool as ours (of course, they may have brought less with them than we did).
| | | :: Sunday, March 09, 2003 :: |
This week on NASAexplores
On NE this week are articles about how astronauts are able to phone home while they are on the International Space Station, and about how a proposal for future advanced rocket engines will use once more kerosene, a fuel used in the Apollo era but since abandoned.
Our Neighbors
The booth to the north of us is for the company that sells the Reality babies, the little electronic dolls that the give high school kids to show them what parenting is really like. The babies constantly require feeding, changing, etc, like real babies, and report neglect or abuse when turned back in. We are here representing American's space program, and yet we can't even begin to compete with them, since they have a crying baby.
Addendum
I did get what very little Apple swag there was, but it was just some pens. I did get to talk to some of the Apple guys, which was cool, 'cause we formed a nice little mutual admiration society. I joked with one guy that morning that he and I could have almost switched place, and manned each other's booths for a while. Then it turns out that another guy I talked to from the Apple booth was just volunteering (I think most of them were). His day job: working at NASA's Educator Resource Center at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Day Four
Well, more convention today. Yesterday went very well. We've been getting really positive responses so far. JoCasta got good reviews of her presentation. I've enjoyed the opportunity to not only tell about the site, but also proselytize for the agency a little as well. The lady at the booth next to ours was saying she didn't understand why we continued manned spaceflight, and so I was able to tell her about all of the benefits (sticking strictly to official party line, of course, if Alan, et al, are reading). At MSFC, Jo and I are CSC contractors, here, we are NASA, which is kind of cool. I wore my NE shirt yesterday, but the next two days, I'm wearing the meatball.
Thankfully, no one had asked for the "inside scoop" about the accident, or anything like that, though I did have one guy ask my opinion on the Mars conspiracy guys. Again, stuck with an official agency belief--Mars needs further exploration, and so that's why we're sending more rovers there this summer.
Not a whole lot else going on... other than that, yesterday was spent mostly shopping downtown (and eating).
More later.
Closer?
According to the news today, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board has said that the fuzzy Air Force photo of Columbia during re-entry possibly reveals more than was first realized, and may actually give clues about "at least three things" involved in the accident.
True Grits
To the gentlemen who wanted an entry about grits, I'm still working on it.
Daily Hatbag
To the gentleman who wanted an entry on "flummox," I offer this: Why has no one made this movie yet?
| | | :: Saturday, March 08, 2003 :: |
Free Blog
If you got anything to say, say it here.
Things That Tick Me Off
On Tuesday, I wrote in here about getting to see astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz. It was just pure luck that I got to--NASA's most-flown astronaut (with seven spaceflights) was going to be in Huntsville, and there was no public or Marshall announcement of it, I just happened to work with a guy that was in the group he was going to be speaking to. OK, fine.
Except, then, it turns out the next day there was another unannounced astronaut visit in Huntsville, and I didn't find out about this one until Nicole told me she saw it in the paper the day after that. As it happens, the kids at Space Camp got a surprise visit from Buzz Aldrin. Buzz frickin Aldrin was in Huntsville on Wednesday, and I didn't get to go see him 'cause I didn't know about it. Now, that's annoying.
The Daily Hatbag
Since Jesse wrote this one for a convention, and I'm at a convention, it just seemed appropriate. Well, as appropriate as anything, I suppose.
San Francisco--Day Three
Having planted the Spanish flag at this previously unsettled bay, we mark the nothernmost expansion of the Spanish empire. Why we keep out journals in English is quite beyond me. I mean, Sacre Bleu!
OK, actually this is just the day three log of my time in San Francisco. My dream of going and looking for the nuclear wessels... nuclear wessels... in Alameda... is dashed by the fact that the convention starts today, meaning it's time for us to switch out of tourist mode (mostly) and into NASA mode. JoCasta is doing her presentation today. Originally, there was supposed by a high-ranking team from HQ here to make a presentation about the Educator Astronaut program, but Feb. 1 scuttled a lot of schedules, so it turns out that basically WE are the EA presence at this convention. JoCasta had to add some extra slides to her presentation to talk about the program.
Not much happened since I wrote last night. We ate supper... it's interesting how many of our meals are things like the Southern fried chicken salad, or the New England clam chowder, or the Bavarian ham sandwich. I think I've only eaten one meal since I've been here that was a "California" something. Ironically, the New England clam chowder was recommended to JoCasta as a real San Francisco specialty.
I tried to sleep... but it was amazingly loud outside... Lain, it made Vieux Carre look downright quite. Another reason I'll be glad to be home.
| | | :: Friday, March 07, 2003 :: |
Notes from S.F.
Our story so far: We got up this morning, and had to change hotels. The new hotel is around the block from the old one, so JoCasta and I had to take our luggage and carry it from the old hotel to the new one, thus fulfilling another long-standing Star Trek IV fantasy--looking like an idiot on the streets of San Francisco. We looked like some sort of cadet review--with luggage! We went then to the convention center and got our booth set up for tomorrow. Apple has a huge booth, but they were still in the process of setting up as we were leaving... I'm hoping to get some good Apple swag from them tomorrow. Being able to get free Apple swag while giving away free NASA swag would pretty much fulfill my life.
After leaving there, we went to Fisherman's Wharf, where we took a bay cruise, which went under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz, taking care of several of our touristy needs all at once. You could even look when we went under the bridge and see the Pacific Ocean, which I've never seen before. It didn't look any bigger than the Atlantic. We ate at Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf, and then cable-carred back in towards downtown. We got off and walked back through Chinatown (it was interesting to me the number of Asian people in Chinatown. I'd already been wondering how many of the people we were seeing in downtown San Francisco were actually locals, and how many were tourists... which is to say, to what extent the local people actually used the areas we were in. That question was really driven home as I was walking through Chinatown... I mean, how often do the Chinese people living there just decide, Man, I really need some jade doo-dads, and other quasi-Chinese looking stuff? Possibly my name written in both Chinese and English, in case I forget?)
We did a little shopping, including going to a closing FAO Schwartz, which was pretty sad (like an FAO Schwartz estate sale... they were even selling the computer software they used there), and a CompUSA that had like three seperate Apple sections (two of them were just computers).
So now we're at the new hotel for a while before dinner. No T1 line here, and fewer amenities in general, but still, not bad at all. And, hey, NASA's paying for it, so I can't complain. You know, I loved NASA while I was growing up, but now that NASA is doing things like paying for nice hotel rooms and buying me wonderful desserts, so much the better. So, that's the day so far. More to come...
Daily Hatbag
Sorry, of course I couldn't leave you without your daily Hatbag.
This one's dedicated to the Windows laptop we're using on this trip, which actually is very nice, as Windows laptops go. Don't suppose we could get a Mac next time, Alan? ODIN got any G4 Powerbooks?
Day Two in San Francisco
The convention actually starts tomorrow, so today is set-up day for groups with booths. After we get set up, we're exploring the city, so probably not a lot of bloggin' today. Have a good day!
Space Quarter
Thanks to all the loyal readers of this blog, Florida has decided to choose the Gateway to Discovery design for its state quarter. Also, Lain and I were able to drive the price on the Soviet satellite that was up for auction all the way up to $31,000, but that's as high as it went. Now don't you feel bad?
| | | :: Thursday, March 06, 2003 :: |
Very nice
The room I'm in tonight has a free T1 connection. Cool, huh?
I'm Here
Well, I made it to San Francisco. Just flew in (boy, are my arms tired), and checked into the hotel, so have not really seen anything yet. Based on the pollution content in the atmospher, I'd say I've arrived in the late 20th century. Frankly, it's a wonder these people ever made it out of the 20th century (little Star Trek humor there... either you get it or you don't. Sorry).
The flight from Dallas to San Francisco was amazing, since it was my first time doing anything like that, but as I try to write about it, I realize that all my insights would either come across as extremely inane in print, or would not be something I would be able to translate into words, or, in most cases, both. Suffice it to say it was cool flying over landscapes that were completely unlike anything I had ever seen before. It's amazing, also, the places people live. Kind of depressing, though, being up high enough for the first time to be able to look straight up and see the sky get darker above you as the atmosphere thins... depressing to know that that's as close as I'm going to get... 10 percent there, and no further... oh well.
in dallas
The Color Of Money...
...will change by the end of the month, on $20 bills at least, when the treasury dept. releases new bills on March 27 that will be of a new, currently undisclosed color, per CNN.com.
The old money will be green with envy, I'm sure.
Daily Hatbag
Lain crafted this joke by Han... solo.
I'm off! As if you didn't already know that!
By the time you read this, I'll be on my way to San Francisco.
| | | :: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 :: |
Life Will Find A Way
ISS Science Officer Don Pettit has posted two new entries in his Space Chronicles series.
Here's Pettit on growing plants in space:
"To construct my planter, a spherical core is needed. An old pair of underwear worked well. We have supplies on station sufficient to change our underwear perhaps once every three to four days so I figured there might be a few nutrients in there as well. An old pair of underwear was folded into a sphere and held in place with a few well-placed stitches using needle and thread from our sewing kit. The toilet paper was sewn to the outer surface. A drinking straw was sewn so that its opening was in contact with the fabric and could thus be connected to a drink bag to provide a continuous water drip via capillary action. Seeds were planted with a pair of tweezers by carefully working each seed between the weft of the gauze. The sphere was initially watered and then attached to the water bag by a long thin plastic tube, which also functioned as a string and hung by a light in the node. It bobbed around in the air currents.
I became concerned, when after a few days, no sign of sprouting had occurred."
Daily Hatbag
If the woman in the post below is looking for a date, may I suggest the slightly-more-logical Hippie?
Um... okay... sure...
OK, this has got to be about the stupidest thing I've seen today.
A New Day Has Come
I had the honor and privelage today to be Sonic's first-ever breakfast customer in Huntsville (well, at least at the one I went to). Since leaving Mississippi nigh seven months ago, I have eagerly awaited the day that Sonic breakfast would come here, and today, it has. Sonic has one of my favorite fast-food breakfast menus, with the other being the one Subway I've seen that actually serves breakfast.
You Must Fight The Bear! In San Francisco! With NASA!
Expect a decrease in Dave-bloggin' for about the next week, as I'll be travelling to the American Society of Curriculum Directors convention in San Francisco, where I'll be manning a booth for NASAexplores (in fact, it appears that we will be the only agency presence there, meaning that we'll essentially be representing all of NASA). I've not flown on a commercial jet in probably about a quarter-century, and have never been further west than Louisiana, so this will be quite the adventure. Not sure how much time we'll have for doing San Francisco stuff, but hope to have a good time.
| | | :: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 :: |
Small Personal Note
I try to keep the boring Dave-life stuff out of here, but just had to mention that right now, for the first time since May 2002, Nicole is at work. She started her new job today doing outpatient addiction-recovery counseling for adolescents with Bradford hospital's office here in Huntsville.
Don't Steal Music
An article in the LA Times reports that several music-industry executives have voiced support for Apple's planned music-downloading service (sort of a legal Napster), which is in development now. To be fair, though, I'm sure there will be a decent similar service for PCs eventually, and it might even be not too much worse than Apple's version, if things like Apple's free iPhoto, iDVD, iTunes, iMovie, Mail, etc. applications are any indication.
Hey Mister!
Wanna buy a satellite?
As Only NASA Can...
For those I've not told, my group is taking on responsibility for two of NASA's leading youth-focuses Web sites, NASA Kids and Liftoff. At the moment, I'm essentially the sole operator for both sites, which means I'm kind of personally managing two of NASA's most high-traffic Web sites. I'm not doing a whole lot with them, but still, it's kind of cool while it lasts.
That said, I actually managed to break NASA Kids yesterday, when I unintentionally disabled its ability to tell whether a viewer had Flash, essentially completely turning off all of the Flash features on the site. Here's Dave's free advice on Web authoring: Don't modify things you don't understand on sites you don't personally own without making a backup. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.
Astronaut Alert
I get to see an astronaut today! Franklin Chang-Diaz will be speaking at UAH today. Cooly enough, he'll be talking about the VASIMR plasma-based propulsion system, which he's a lead researcher for, and which is what my next article was already scheduled to be about. Convenient, huh?
(Sorry, I still find astronauts to be extremely cool, and getting to see them when they visit is one of my favorite perks of this job).
Daily Hatbag
Ever have one of those days?
Free Blog
Alright, new feature I was going to try. Rather than me directing all the topics, if there's something you want to put up for discussion, do so here.
Thank You, DeeDee
OK, as you've noticed, the Idle Ramblings is working now, thanks, as always, to DeeDee, the best tech support department on Earth!
Love Tutor
Lain brought this to my attention. Which raises the question for those of you out there from the DM days, if we had had this job back in the Golden Age DM, who would have done it?
DVD Alert
Released today on DVD are the aforementioned "Star Trek IV" (which I plan to quote from liberally the later part of this week), the very funny "The Ref," and the VeggieTales movie, "Jonah." Collect them all.
Just A Tribute...
I've changed the name of the "Shout Out" section once again, since "My 2-Cent" wasn't really working with the system's strict rules of pluralization. The new title is an homage to my friend and mentor Joe Gurner, who wrote an "Idle Ramblings" column at The Daily Mississippian. Since I've stolen so many things from Joe over the year, such as the multiple defeats for DM editorship, to being editor of the DM's Preview section, to prized heirlooms, I thought it only appropriate that I rip him off one more time. Plus, now Joe has the opportunity to write Idle Ramblings for us all to read again.
And if you've not yet experienced the joy of the feedback section, do so now. If it has a number by it, that means other people have already written comments, which are usually far more entertaining than anything I write in the main blog section. If you're only reading my stuff, you're missing out on the best part. Whether or not anybody has already commented, clicking on the "Idle Rambling" link will also allow you to post your feedback.
NOTE: Alright, I've found myself utterly incapable of making this work on my own, so if you're still seeing "2-Cent," it's my fault. I'm working on it.
| | | :: Monday, March 03, 2003 :: |
Hatbag International
For the month of February, visitors from Singapore made up 7 percent of the traffic on the hatbag.net site (including this blog). Could Singapore be the Canada for the 21st Century?
This above all else...
Baseball player David Wells has said that some of the things said about him in his new biography are just not true. Sadly, it's his autobiography.
One of these days
On this date 34 years ago, Apollo 9 launched with a LEM for the first time. The flight feature a test run of the Command Module-Lunar Excursion Module docking that made the lunar landing later that year possible.
Daily Hatbag
The first season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is available now on DVD in a store near you. Well, possibly not Joe.
A lotta threes
Later today, it will be 3:03, 03/03/03. That's a lot of threes for one day. This blog entry brought to you by the number 3.
China, all the way to eastern Africa
The Washington Post has an interesting editorial about the importance of exploration.
China, all the way to Luna
A Chinese space program official has said this agency has developed a plan to begin sending unmanned probes, including an eventual sample return vehicle, to the moon within the next two and a half year. While the plan has yet to receive formal government approval, lunar exploration has been announced as an eventual goal of the Chinese space program. China will become only the third nation to develop manned spaceflight capability with an orbital launch later this year (likely October, possibly November).
News of the Chinese space program is an interesting mix of information and disinformation, with this report sayting that China could have the technology to send an unmanned craft to the Moon within a year, while a report within the past few weeks said that China had the technology to send a man to the Moon now.
| | | :: Sunday, March 02, 2003 :: |
Alabama History Trivia
Guntersville Lake, not too terribly far from Huntsville, was the site at which a new world water speed record (285.21 miles per hour) was set in June 1967. That record stood for 11 years, until a new record (317.6 mph) was set, which still stands today.
Life imitates art imitates life
Sometimes, art says what blog cannot.
"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday..."
Oh, sweet gracious. This shall be a day long remembered. I saw the biggest cheeseburger I have ever seen today. We went to lunch at Cheeburger, Cheeburger today, and one of my brothers (whom I won't name, since my mom reads this), ordered "The Pounder." You know how at McDonald's the Quarter Pounder (or "Royale With Cheese," in France) actually refers to the pre-cooked weight, meaning that what you get is actually less than a quarter pound? Well, this place proudly proclaims on the menu that the Pounder actually has a pre-cook weight of 20 ounces of beef. It makes the bun it comes in look ridiculous, with a full cheeseburger's worth of meat hanging out the sides. If you finish eating the thing, they take a picture of you and hang it up on the wall, so my unnamed brother's picture now adorns there establishment. Ah, to be young again...
(P.S. You get five bonus blogpoints if you can identify the quote used as the title for this section.)
| | | :: Saturday, March 01, 2003 :: |
When Superfast Is Too Slow
Due to events too complicated to get into, I'm experimenting now with cable internet. And after a few minutes, let me just say... not bad, not bad at all. A little over a year ago, I was still in the pre-DSL days of a 56K modem (ah, remember when those were the ultimate in speed ... what innocent times they were). Today, I'm running anywhere between 1,200 and 1,400K. 56K is suddenly much less impressive. I'm also running, according to an online speed test, at least six times faster than I was with DSL. Like I said, not bad at all.
I have yet to do any serious uploading, which is supposedly where cable has its limitations, but even so, what they estimate as slow cable uploading is faster than what I was getting with DSL dowloading, so it can't be too much worse. I should also not that this about noon on Saturday ... cable performance is supposed to suffer during peak internet times (though, really, that's true of any service), so we shall see how I do at other times. But, so far, so good.
Daily Hatbag Update
And lest anyone ever doubt the accuracy of any predictions of mine, I refer them to this Hatbag strip from April 1994.
Not to be
I can't claim they'll be valuable collectibles someday, but they do strike me as something that will be interesting mementos of a dark time in spaceflight history. The Space Store still has for sale mission patches for Expedition 7 and STS-114. It now appears that what will be Expedition 7 will consist of two members (at least one from the original Exp. 7 crew), so at least the names on this patch, if not the whole thing, will likely change. Likewise, STS-114 was to return Exp. 6 to Earth and carry Exp. 7 to the station, meaning that, at a minimum, 6 of the 10 names on this patch will change.
Every once and a while, you see a patch on eBay for one of the planned post-Challenger missions that never happened. That said, though, the patch that I most want, but don't know if it was even ever produced, was the original Soyuz TMA-1 patch from last October. The final patch ended up being similar, but just not the same.
Bass To The Future
According to Fox News, "fellow Mississippian" Lance Bass says he has everything lined up for his trip into space. Far be it from me to contradict the esteemed pop singer, but I really doubt that the Russians et al will be ready to carry him up by October. I imagine that the now-at-a-premium Soyuz space will likely be being put to better use still. That said, I have to give him kudos for Columbia not breaking his resolve to go. Frankly, as many mixed feelings as I had about his planned flight last year, I would really like to see Lance become more outspoken about it now. I think if teens see him talking about the excitement and importance of manned spaceflight, it could really help reach a vital audience, and his continued willingness to fly would help put the dangers in perspective.
And with that, I open the floor for your comments on space tourism in general and the Basstronaut in particular...
Sorry...
Busy day yesterday. Most of what I post is stuff I come across during my daily research, so on days I don't get to do that, it's slimmer pickin's. I apologize.
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