Digital Brainwaves

One of my first memories of seeing things on TV is seeing the constant coverage of the disintegration of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986. While some part of me must have realized that the rocket taking off into the sky and suddenly becoming engulfed in a fireball wasn’t what was supposed to happen, it nonetheless fascinated me. I drew pictures of what I’d seen for quite some time after that.

Over time, I eventually became a fan of The Way It Usually Worked­™. Combined with an introduction to the world of Star Trek a few years later, I became intensely interested in human spaceflight.

Later on, my family purchased a C-band satellite dish (the old ones, the big ones — this one was 8 feet in diameter) because we were too far out of town to get cable. With the dish, we were able to pick up NASA TV — live video from Florida for launches, from Mission Control in Houston, and often from the shuttles themselves in orbit. One of the coolest parts of having NASA TV was being able to watch video and photos sent back by Voyager 2 when it passed Neptune in 1989.

To that end, continuing developments in online media and interaction have made it possible to view NASA TV online. Click through to the NASA TV page to watch live video of tonight’s launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-116 at 9:35PM ET, and on through the next two weeks for ongoing mission coverage. For additional news and updates (often updated faster than NASA’s own site), check out Spaceflight Now, and their STS-116 Mission Status Center.

NASCAR’s restrictor plate races often feature what’s known as “The Big One” — one car gets squirrelly and spins out of control, collecting as many as 10-15 (one such crash damaged or eliminated 27 cars) in a closely-running pack.

Russia appears to be trying to implement this effect in an actual city street. The Lefortovo tunnel runs underground for 3.2 km in Moscow, making it the longest vehicular tunnel completely inside a European city. Water from the overhead Yauza River tends to leak into the tunnel prior to icy winters, with predictable results.

If you can temporarily get over the fact that these are real people possibly injuring themselves in car accidents, this is almost funny to watch.

More birthday wishes to round out the weekend to Julia! Go visit her blog.

Pajamas Media is covering “The Big Picture” on the elections today; they’ll have more details on the goings-on during the day.

I’m not going to take this all at face value without seeing some research behind it, but on the surface, the numbers make sense to me: Good Stuff from the 2003 Tax Cuts

(Hat tip: USS Neverdock)

EDIT: Following links backward, the source of the numbers is the blog of the non-partisan American Shareholders Association.

NASA’s Spirit rover doesn’t like Mars anymore.

I think I’m just too white & nerdy.

(Hat tip: Andy Wheeland)

I don’t have any big entries to present at the moment, so here’s just a stream-of-consciousness entry, bunch of catch-all things I’m thinking about at the moment. I’m numbering the entry in anticipation of doing the same thing again in the future.
Continue reading ‘In My Sights #1’ »

Sometimes he’s funny.

Sometimes he’s serious.

Sometimes he drives you nuts.

But, whether he’s hosting his radio show, or writing his column, Bob Lonsberry is always entertaining. So, while it’s unlikely he’ll pay much attention to li’l ol’ me, I’m linking to his web site in my links over to the right. In fact, a few links have been added, edited, and removed. (And no, it’s not your imagination — the links do shuffle around when you reload the page.) Go have a look.

A Will Rogers quote I spotted in my bookmarks…

“We can’t all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.”