News
Also Known as “Off Topic”
First the small stuff, then we’ll move on to more interesting things. I promise.
Bjean’s Twitter Feed
Last modified on 2008-09-20 15:39:48 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
MORE NEWS
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Intergalactic Sports
Last modified on 2009-02-07 12:59:57 GMT. 1 comment. Top.
Intergalactic Golf
Sorry to be so tardy in getting this news to you, but the possibility of more of us playing golf in space may be a reality before we know it. Former NFL linebacker Ken Harvey is already hard at work training future space tourists to get in shape to have serious fun in zero gravity.
By the way, it’s not too late to contribute to my own zero-gravity fund so I can be the first person to eat pie in space. I’m still only about $5,000 short of what I need for my practice run.
Harvey, though, may be on to something by taking his “space sportilization” program to Abu Dhabi where people may well have a tad more disposable income than they do right now in SoFLA.
What’s really amazing to me, though, is that Harvey manages to make this concept seem downright boring:
I’m pretty sure that almost any two people at The Slice of Heaven 24-Hour Pie Shop and Driving Range could show more enthusiam for playing any sport in space than those two guys.
Ah, well. And we wonder why American kids are falling short in science?
Farewell Transmission from Mars
Last modified on 2008-11-11 14:03:36 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Please join with me in saying farewell to the Phoenix Mars Lander, and all the brave little robots who have gone on before. Are there pie shops or driving ranges on Mars? Now we may never know.
This post, written by the Phoenix Mars Lander, appeared first on www.gizmodo.com:
This is My Farewell Transmission From Mars
If you are reading this, then my mission is probably over.
This final entry is one that I asked be posted after my mission team announces they’ve lost contact with me. Today is that day and I must say good-bye, but I do it in triumph and not in grief.
As I’ve said before, there’s no other place I’d rather be than here. My mission lasted five months instead of three, and I’m content knowing that I worked hard and accomplished great things during that time. My work here is done, but I leave behind a legacy of images and data.
In that sense, you haven’t heard the end of me. Scientists will be releasing findings based on my data for months, possibly years, to come and today’s children will read of my discoveries in their textbooks. Engineers will use my experience during landing and surface operations to aid in designing future robotic missions.
But for now, it’s time for me to hunker down and brave what will be a long and cold autumn and winter. Temperatures should reach -199F (-128C) and a polar cap of carbon dioxide ice will envelop me in an icy tomb.
Seasons on Mars last about twice as long as seasons on Earth, so if you’re wondering when the next Martian spring in the northern hemisphere begins, it’s one Earth-year away—October 27, 2009. The next Martian summer solstice, when maximum sunlight would hit my solar arrays, falls on May 13, 2010.
That’s a long time away. And it’s one of the reasons there isn’t much hope that I’ll ever contact home again.
For my mission teams on Earth, I bid a special farewell and thank you. For the thousands of you who joined me on this journey with your correspondence, I will miss you dearly. I hope you’ll look to my kindred robotic explorers as they seek to further humankind’s quest to learn and understand our place in the universe. The rovers, Spirit and Opportunity (@MarsRovers), are still operating in their sun belt locations closer to the Martian equator; Cassini (@CassiniSaturn) is sailing around Saturn and its rings; and the Mars Science Laboratory (@MarsScienceLab)—the biggest rover ever built for launch to another planet—is being carefully pieced together for launch next year.
My mission team has promised to update my Twitter feed as more of my science discoveries are announced. If I’m lucky, perhaps one of the orbiters will snap a photo of me when spring comes around.
So long Earth. I’ll be here to greet the next explorers to arrive, be they robot or human.
It’s been a great pleasure to have Mars Phoenix guest blogging for us, reminiscing back on a successful mission via its personality conjurer, the great Veronica McGregor at JPL—maintainer of Phoenix’s famous Twitter feed. Just as Doug McCuistion from NASA said on the news conference today, it’s certainly more of an Irish wake than a funeral today. We’re drinking to you tonight, little buddy. You can see all of Phoenix’s previous entries and the official press release announcing the end of Phoenix’s mission.
Past entries:
• Phoenix Mars Lander Looks Back on its Re-Birth
• This is What Landing On Mars Feels Like
• Martian Ice Is Why I’m Alive and Why I’m Dying
Mark Your Calendar
Last modified on 2008-11-08 23:03:12 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
National Pie Day is January 23, 2009
- Created by the American Pie Council®, National Pie Day is dedicated to the celebration of pie. As part of our American heritage, this day is a perfect opportunity to pass on the love and enjoyment of pie eating and pie making to future generations.
- Each year the American Pie Council® sponsors the National Pie Championships® where some of the best pie makers in the United States and Canada enter their pies to compete for the “American Pie Council’s® Best Pie in America” award. For more information on who has the best pies in America, Click here.
- To celebrate National Pie Day share the warmth of the ultimate “comfort food” by giving the gift of pie to a friend or neighbor. Your generosity will be long remembered.
- If pie making is not in your schedule, stop by your favorite pie shop or grocery store and bring home a gift of love and enjoyment for the whole family. The coldest of January days will be warmed by a special pie dessert.
- Watch for winning recipes on our web site or first hand in our newsletter, Pie Times by joining the American Pie Council®.
- To get tips on getting media coverage for your company on NPD, Click here. (Downloadable PDF).
Make Your Own Universe Kit
Last modified on 2008-11-01 19:12:15 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
I know you are not surprised to see this heading here, after all, isn’t making your own universe what life is all about, especially here at the Slice of Heaven 24-hour Pie Shop and Driving Range?
My own universe, as you may have noticed, seems to focus primarily on pie and golf, but maybe you have other ideas for your personal copyrighted piece of reality. I certainly hope so, and I’d love for you to tell me all about it, perhaps in private, at a later date over a nice piece of virtual-reality pie.
Anyway, I love the idea of a “make your own universe kit” and I hope you will remember this item as the holidays approach, now that my birthday is finally over, and National Novel Writing Month is starting to kick in.
Some of you, though, will immediately recognize this entry as just another foil that I am using to let Schrodinger’s Cat of of the box, dead and alive. Get over it.
By the way, I included the comments section to this purloined New Science blog entry because they just cracked me up, which is not that hard, as you know. For even more examples of the fine art of commenting, take a look at the responses that poured in when Boing Boing ran its own blog entry on this item, too.
October 31, 2008 2:01 PM
Thinking about the perfect Christmas present for your egocentric friends? What about a make-your-own-universe kit which will allow them to play God and create an unlimited number of new worlds. The kit goes on sale next month for $20.If two events are possible, quantum theory assumes that both occur simultaneously - until an observer determines the outcome. For example, in Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment, in which his cat may have been killed with a 50 per cent probability, the cat is both alive and dead until someone checks. When the observation is made, the universe splits into two, one for each possible outcome. For example, Schrödinger’s cat would be alive in one universe and dead in the other universe.
According to the theory, any kind of measurement causes the universe to split and this is the basis of Keats’ new device. His universe creator uses a piece of uranium-doped glass to create a steam of alpha particles, which are then detected using a thin sliver of scintillating crystal. Each detection causes the creation of a new universe.
Given the rate at which Uranium decays, Keats’ claims this should allow users to create literally trillions of universes. The device will go on sale at the Modernism Gallery in San Francisco on 20 November.
David Robson
New Scientist intern
Categories: Physics & Maths
Tags: multiverse
i’m in ur universe, pwning yur species
could you not just put a cat in a box and leave it there a while to achieve the same results?
Ah. More badly worded, misleading tripe. Shouldn’t anyone writing for New Scientist really, you know, know a bit about science?
Fried Steak in Space
Last modified on 2008-10-19 16:39:14 GMT. 4 comments. Top.
I remember the first argument that I ever had with my ex-husband Pretty Boy Boyd. When I told the twins about it, Chandler said, “You mean you finally told him that you don’t really like Irish music?”
“No,” I replied. “I told him that I fry steak.”
Pretty Boy had almost walked out of my life right then and there, but sadly, he changed his mind, and spent the next several years trying to convince me that the hours it takes to perfectly BBQ a steak Kansas-City style somehow produce a finer meal than the five minutes it takes to drop a fine piece of beef into a super-hot salted skillet and cook it cowboy style.
This past week, a British fragrance firm — Omega Ingredients — reported that it had been contracted by NASA to identify the aroma of space. The results are in, my dear friends, and sure enough space smells like fried steak. (Note: I am not entirely convinced that this news is not a spoof.)
I immediately went to the NASA website to investigate further, but when I typed “fried steak” into the search box, all that came up was the week’s NASA Exchange Cafeteria menu, which sure enough did include a $5.00 Fried Steak Dinner for the week of October 20 to 24.
I know I cannot offer that value for your dollar at Slice of Heaven 24-Hour Pie Shop and Driving Range, but maybe I can offer you a slice of fried-steak pie for supper tonight, but only if you put your order in early. I don’t want to miss the Red Sox on the big screen at The Swing Barn tonight.
But I digress.
As I tried to find the official NASA word on steak in space, I came across a reference to an interesting short-story and video, both titled “They’re Made Out of Meat.” While some say the odor of space is “a high energy vibration in the molecule,” others says this story and video both more fully explain the space-steak aroma phenomenon.
Let me recommend both of these items to you, and I hope you will give me your thoughts on all of this.
Here’s the link to the Terry Bisson story: http://www.electricstory.com/stories/story.aspx?title=meat/meat, and the video is posted below. Enjoy.
Just as a P.S., the number for this post is 666!
Lunar Golf
Last modified on 2008-10-16 16:01:54 GMT. 1 comment. Top.
Lunar Golf
A version of this New York Times article appeared in print on October 14, 2008, on page D2 of the New York edition.
A. Alan Shepard actually hit two balls on the Apollo 14 mission of 1971, and they are still on the Moon, he said in a 1991 interview on the Academy of Achievement Web site for students.
He was looking for a way to demonstrate what the Moon’s lack of atmosphere and much smaller gravitational force would mean for a familiar Earthbound activity, he said. Previous astronauts had dropped a small lead ball and a feather, which slowly fell at the same rate to the surface, but he wanted something more striking.
“Being a golfer,” he said, “I thought if I could just get a club up there, and get it going through the ball at the same speed, that it would go six times as far as it would have gone here on Earth.”
So with NASA’s permission, he designed a club head to fit on the handle of the device the astronauts used to scoop up dust samples. (The collapsible club was brought back to Earth and became the property of the United States Golf Association.)
Before the flight, he practiced using it in a space suit and made a deal that if the mission went well, “then the last thing I was going to do, before climbing up the ladder to come home, was to whack these two golf balls.”
“It was a one-handed 6 iron because it was very clumsy with our suits,” he said in an interview in 1994. “The first one I shanked. The ball came off the handle and it rolled into a crater 40 yards away. The next one I hit pretty flush. Here it would have gone 30 yards, but because there’s no atmosphere there, it went about 200 yards.”
Suit to Halt Big Collider in Europe Is Dismissed - NYTimes.com
Last modified on 2008-09-30 13:40:53 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
The “Big Collider”? Can they possibly mean the Large Hadron Collider? I can’t really explain why I’m so fascinated by this, but you know it’s kind of shaped like a really big pie. Yes, that must be it.
Suit to Halt Big Collider in Europe Is Dismissed - NYTimes.com.
Spiderman: Camilo Vallegas
Last modified on 2008-11-09 23:52:19 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
I know I’m not alone in saying, “I love this guy!”
September 28, 2008
Atlanta, GA (Sports Network) - Camilo “Spiderman” Villegas rallied from a five-shot deficit on Sunday and capped the comeback with a two-putt par on the first playoff hole to defeat Sergio Garcia and win the Tour Championship. Villegas closed with a four-under 66, that included eight birdies, to post seven-under-par 273. Garcia, playing one group behind Villegas, shot one-over 71 to join Villegas in the playoff.
Meet Spiderman:
Large Hadron Collider on 60 Minutes
Last modified on 2008-09-29 02:24:53 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Just in case you missed tonight’s episode of 60 Minutes, not to worry. Sue Ten had it on the big screen over at the Swing Barn, and she recorded the segment just for you.
Dreams Can Come True . . . .
Last modified on 2008-09-26 20:40:10 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Swiss man flies over Channel on jet wing
Friday, September 26, 2008
(09-26) 12:59 PDT DOVER, England (AP) –
He had nothing above him but four tanks of kerosene and nothing below him but the cold waters of the English Channel. But Yves Rossy leapt from a plane and into the record books on Friday, crossing the channel on a homemade jet-propelled wing.
View More ImagesRossy jumped from the plane about 8,200 feet over Calais, France, blasting across the narrow body of water and deploying his parachute over the South Foreland lighthouse, delighting onlookers who dotted Dover’s famous white cliffs, cheering and waving as Rossy came into view.
Backed by a gentle breeze, Rossy crossed the Channel in 13 minutes, averaging 125 miles per hour. In a final flourish, he did a figure eight as he came over England, although the wind blew him away from his planned landing spot next to the lighthouse.
“It was perfect. Blue sky, sunny, no clouds, perfect conditions,” the Swiss pilot said after touching down in an adjacent field. He said he wanted to show, “it is possible to fly, a little bit, like a bird.”
Onlookers scooped up their children, picnics and dogs to race to the landing site as Rossy posed for photographs. His ground crew doused him with champagne, and the pilot swigged greedily from the bottle as he waved to the band of onlookers gathered to cheer him and take pictures with cell phone cameras.
A small airplane zipped across the sky with a banner that read: “Well done Jet Man.”
Rossy said he had watched passenger ferries cutting a path between the Britain and France as he tore through the air.
“I was happy to be faster than them,” he said. The 49 year old said the Channel crossing was the realization of a dream. “That’s the most gratifying thing you can do,” he said.
Rossy’s trip — twice delayed due to bad weather — was meant to trace the route of French aviator Louis Bleriot, the first person to cross the narrow body of water in an airplane 99 years ago.
The South Foreland Lighthouse was the site of Guglielmo Marconi’s experiments with radio telegraphy in 1898. Bleriot used the white building as a target during his pioneering flight, the building’s manager, Simon Ovenden, said.
The Channel has attracted a range of adventurers and stuntmen over the years, most drawn to the 21-mile wide neck of water between Dover and Calais.
Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American doctor John Jeffries were the first to fly from Britain to mainland Europe in a hot air balloon in 1785.
Capt. Matthew Webb braved stinging jellyfish and strong currents to be the first to swim across the Channel in 1875. Other stunts followed: The first hovercraft crossing in 1959, the first human-powered air crossing in 1979.
Geoff Clark, a 54-year-old onlooker from Chatham, in southern England, called Rossy’s flight “a remarkable achievement.”
“We saw the climax of his attempt as he came down to earth with his parachute. It’s been an exciting afternoon,” Clark said.
Rossy’s wing was made from carbon composite. It weighs about 121 pounds when loaded with fuel and carried four kerosene-burning jet turbines. The contraption has no steering devices. Rossy, a commercial airline pilot by training, wiggled his body back and forth to control the wing’s movements.
He wore a heat-resistant suit similar to that worn by firefighters and racing drivers to protect him from the heat of the turbines. The cooling effect of the wind and high altitude also prevented him from getting too warm.
Mark Dale, the senior technical officer for the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, described Rossy’s flight as a “fabulous stunt.”
Rossy, who spent months preparing for the cross-Channel flight, has said he wants to fly across the Grand Canyon in Arizona next.
As for the 13 lonely minutes he spent aloft between England and France, he assured reporters he felt no fear.
“I was under tension. But fear? The day I fear, I don’t go,” Rossy said.
Problems with the Large Hadron Collider
Last modified on 2008-09-20 17:29:43 GMT. 3 comments. Top.
You know this is breaking my heart. I want it online now and forever. “Why?” asks my former Cub Scout Hiland. “It can’t kill us all with a localized black hole if it’s offline.”
And I can only remind him that it also can’t kill off the forces of evil on the other side of the black hole either. And you know they are out there. Waiting. Building their own LHC. Firing it up. Going offline. Worrying. Asking Why?
The Associated Press: Q&A about problems with Large Hadron Collider.
Large Hadron Collider Webcam
Last modified on 2008-09-13 23:13:58 GMT. 3 comments. Top.
From Boing Boing Gadgets:
Watch protons dry with Large Hadron Collider official webcams
They’re just warming up the dipole magnets, and the first major experiment (bunching thousands of protons and making them headbutt) is about to begin: be sure to watch it at the LHC’s official webcams.Chances are it’s just going to be like any other webcam, of course, and you’ll just stare at it for 20 seconds, then get bored and go somewhere else.
The outer glass blocks alphas. UR DOIN
IT WRONG.
Look up spinthariscope, this is 100+ years
old.
The scintillator will catch gammas occasionally
though.