For whatever reason, that’s the theme today. Not that anyone should be surprised by this, but yes – I am a geek. Moving on…
Mitch Ratcliffe points out something I’d missed in the news about Google’s new campus: it’s an arcology.
Kinda creepy… Though honestly, I can’t say I’m too surprised – the way housing prices are soaring in the Seattle area, even on the Eastside (the formerly ‘cheaper’ part of town), it’s kind of surprising that Microsoft hasn’t explored doing this. Workers who don’t have to commute for hours are going to be better workers. And there’s a long (if not entirely spotless) history of company towns.
Posted by protected static as geek at 10:45 AM UTC
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No, not Ken MacLeod’s fine book… There were a couple of space-related items that caught my eye this morning, not the least of which is this look at the state of Russia’s space program: Russia thriving again on the final frontier:
Russia’s 10-year plan for space
What a difference four years makes: In 2001, when Mir plunged out of orbit, it looked as if Russia’s space program was going down with it, scraping by on a budget of less than $200 million a year.
Today, boosted by Russia’s oil revenue, the government has committed to a 10-year plan for space exploration, funded to the tune of $1 billion a year. That’s far less than the price tag for NASA’s 13-year, $104 billion plan to return to the moon. But while America’s space effort is struggling with safety issues and tight budgets, Russia is now seen as having the world’s safest, most cost-effective human spaceflight system.
While apocryphal stories of the differences between NASA’s approach to space vs. Russia’s abound, the Russians do seem to take a view of space that is somehow both more pragmatic and sweepingly dramatic than anything we’ve managed to keep hold of.
Wired also has a look at the upcoming X Prize Cup, the successor to the Ansari X Prize. Personally I think they’re doing a (small) disservice to the broader space community by focusing too much on the participation of Armadillo Aerospace, but hey – this is Wired we’re talking about, and I understand the editorial impulse… And I suppose if DOOM legend John Carmack can help increase public awareness of (and enthusiasm for) private-sector space endeavors, so be it.
Posted by protected static as geek at 10:04 AM UTC
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…chez protected static is now semi-prepared in the event of an earthquake or other calamity. I still have other stuff to get before I’ll feel like it’s a totally adequate stash, but we certainly have enough stuff for our family to make it on its own for at least three days. If all of us can make it back home, we’ve got enough stuff for five or six days – I bought one large kit for the house and 2 smaller kits, one for each car.
I opted for the ‘go-bag’ style instead of something more fixed. I figured that this would give us the most flexibility: if we need to boogie on out, it’s mostly portable; if we’re hanging tight, it isn’t like we can’t/won’t use the stuff because we aren’t on the run…
Posted by protected static as random at 8:11 PM UTC
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BREAKING NEWS
AP Updated: 1:35 p.m. ET Sept. 28, 2005
WASHINGTON – A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post.
DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay’s national political committee.
Happy dance…
Posted by protected static as politics at 10:37 AM UTC
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Actually, make this uber-geek: TIME has an interview with both Neil Gaiman and Joss Whedon. At the same time. In the same interview. Am I babbling yet?
Oh yeah, the linky-thingy… It’s here. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to squeal like a schoolgirl.
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
*ahem*
Thank you, I’m much better now. I think. But enough about me: both Gaiman and Whedon have movies opening this Friday… Gaiman’s MirrorMask isn’t coming to Seattle until next week, and even then it’ll be playing at one of the art houses; Whedon’s Serenity is opening in lots of venues and is probably the best-marketed film for a failed TV show I’ve ever seen ;-)
I can’t wait for either of them…
Posted by protected static as geek at 10:05 AM UTC
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To E=mc2, of course! Yeah, it’s showing its age, but still – 100 years! Not bad, not bad at all…
(Picture found here, though it’s pretty iconic… More on Einstein to be found here.)
Posted by protected static as geek at 9:06 PM UTC
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Heh. Take one circuit board, an old Nokia display, some chips and a circuit board, some solder, some duct tape, a project case, and some skull sweat, and voilá: an MP3 player.
His geek fu is strong…
Posted by protected static as geek at 10:54 AM UTC
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This has been sitting as a ‘draft’ item for a couple of days now, but seeing it listed in MSNBC’s ‘Clicked’ column goosed me to finish it…
Space elevator passes critical 1000ft test
Space elevator? Yup, space elevator, also popularly (as the value of ‘popularly’ approaches the value of ‘among hard science fiction geeks’) called a ‘beanstalk’. The first time I read about the concept was over two decades ago in a novel by Arthur C. Clarke, something he discusses here:
WHEN NEIL ARMSTRONG stepped out onto the Sea of Tranquillity in that historic summer of 1969, the science fiction writers had already been there for two thousand years. But history is always more imaginative than any prophet: no one ever dreamt that the first chapter of lunar exploration would end after only a dozen men had walked upon the Moon. Neither did anyone imagine, in those heady days of Apollo, that the solar system would be lost — at least for a long while — in the paddy fields of Vietnam.
Yet it was not the first time that ambition had outrun technology.
[...]
The space elevator was the central theme in my 1978 science-fiction novel The Fountains of Paradise (soon to be a Hollywood movie). When I wrote it, I considered it little more than a fascinating thought experiment. At that time, the only material from which it could be built — diamond — was not readily available in sufficient megaton quantities. This situation has now changed, with the discovery of the third form of carbon, C60, and its relatives, the Buckminsterfullerenes. If these can be mass-produced, building a space elevator would be a completely viable engineering proposition.
As for ‘why’, there’s one very compelling answer: cost. Once it’s built, the per-ounce price of getting stuff into space should plummet. And the folks who are trying to make that happen are here in Seattle.
Actually, there’s a lot of space-related activity taking place here in Seattle, and I don’t mean Boeing. There’s LiftPort, the elevator folks; there’s Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, striving towards making inexpensive space flight a reality; sharing that goal is Space Transport Corporation (okay, they’re out on the Olympic Peninsula, but still…). That’s 3 major, well-financed space companies that I’m aware of.
Over a century ago, Seattle grew tremendously as the result of its location: it was an ideal jumping-off point for Alaska and the Klondike gold rushes. At some point in the not-too-distant future, Seattle could reprise that role – as a jumping-off point for space. And there are a lot of very bright (and very well-funded) people here working with all their hearts to make that vision reality.
Okay, longer than 30 seconds. But still – how cool is that?
Posted by protected static as 30-second science blogging, geek at 8:20 PM UTC
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I’m sure anyone who keeps at all on top of the news has read about FBI agents criticizing the new AG Gonzales’ decision to ramp up the war on the greatest threat facing America today. Terror? No, smut. Consensual, legally protected pornography. As one anonymous FBI agent remarked sourly, “I guess this means we’ve won the war on terror.”.
There – don’t you feel safer now? Will it make you feel any safer to find out that these bastards aren’t wasting any time – to protect us from the punk-porn/erotica site, SuicideGirls (punk porn/erotica == NSFW, for the clue-free out there).
Aren’t you sleeping better at night, knowing that the FBI is paying their agents to surf the web looking for consensual bondage pics?
Posted by protected static as geek, politics at 12:00 PM UTC
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Palm is set to announce a new version of the Treo – that runs on Windows.
Posted by protected static as geek at 8:06 PM UTC
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Yup, snarge: the bloody glop left behind when a bird and a plane try to share the same physical space. Evidently, there are labs that specialize in ID-ing these smears to help pilots avoid catastrophe; the Smithsonian Instition’s Feather Identification Laboratory gets a dozen or so snarge samples from the FAA and US military every day.
Who knew?
Who also knew that sometimes, things aren’t quite what they seem in this world of bird-goo? From the above article:
And its not just birds. Sometimes jet-stream encounters can take a page from the X-Files. “We’ve had frogs, turtles, snakes. We had a cat once that was struck at some high altitude,” said the Smithsonian’s [head of the Feather Identification Laboratory, Carla] Dove. She says birds like hawks and herons will occasionally drop their quarries into oncoming planes. “The other day we had a bird strike. We sent the sample to the DNA lab and it came back as rabbit. How do you explain to the FAA that we had a rabbit strike at 1,800 feet?”
Yick. Snarge.
Now you know. Isn’t your world a better place now?
Posted by protected static as geek, random at 12:03 PM UTC
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From firedoglake, we find these little gems tagged on to Jane’s commentary re: W’s odd “Bianca” behavior:
Froomkin in the WaPo: “Will any member of the White House press corps risk scorn from McClellan — and maybe even mockery from colleagues — by asking the press secretary to set the record straight about what appears to be an utterly scurrilous report in the National Enquirer that Bush is hitting the booze again? Some brave soul should.”
From Democratic Underground: “Ed Schultz just interviewed an editor with the National Enquirer. The editor said the paper stands by its story “150%” and would go to court over it if they had to. He said that they have 2 different sources for the story, and that the sources had been informing the National Enquirer about this story for about the last month or so.Notably, the editor said that a “highly respected” newspaper has also been working on the story and could well publish something on it in the next week or two. On edit: He also said to expect Laura to be traveling alot more with Bush so she can keep a close watch on him.”
I think this one’s also going to gain some legs… we’ll see. Hey, I know – maybe the whole ‘Bianca’ thingie means W’s been hanging out online with too many trolls. (Boy, that puts me into the Wayback Machine…)
Posted by protected static as politics at 10:35 AM UTC
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Whilst tracking down some links for the previous post, I came across this BBC article describing the efforts of a Nigerian woman to provide an African voice for (among other things) gay and lesbian issues:
[Sokari Ekine] has worked as both an academic and an activist, focusing mainly on feminist issues and gender issues. Ekine’s also taken an interest in the violence in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
[...]
Ms Ekine started a blog called Black Looks, the Musings and Rants of an African Fem.
“There is nothing in this blog that says this is about Africa, or African women, but that’s where I’m focusing,” she explains.
She pulls no punches, especially when it comes to posts on violence in Nigeria, or gay life on the continent.
“I think it’s important to talk about gay and lesbian issues in Africa,” she says. “I do know that there are a lot of gays and lesbians active in Africa, and a lot of straight people working with them. Having said that, Africa is a very homophobic continent.”
Black Looks has struck a chord among those hungry for news and comment about such issues in Africa. Many bloggers around the world now link to it, and readership has grown.
Let’s face it: to most Americans, Nigeria means criminal spam, if they know anything about it at all. Voices like Ekine’s are of the utmost importance to the health of the blogosphere, helping to provide a deeper, richer portrait of corners of the world about which many of us know little.
Her blog can be found here; I’m going to have to add it to my RSS reader… You can learn more about her in this interview here.
Posted by protected static as geek, politics at 10:33 AM UTC
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While many here in the US feel that we’re moving towards an oppressive regime (if we haven’t crossed that Rubicon already), let’s face it: Myanmar (Burma) or North Korea we ain’t. Iran? Not even close. Belarus? No way. Still, this comes as good news:
A Paris-based media watchdog has released a free guide with tips for bloggers and dissidents to sneak past Internet censors in countries from China to Iran.
Reporters Without Borders’ Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents is partly financed by the French Foreign Ministry and includes technical advice on how to remain anonymous online. It was launched at the Apple Expo computer show in Paris on Thursday and can be downloaded in Chinese, Arabic, Persian, English and French.
You can download the guide here. The Electronic Frontier Foundation publishes a similar guide here, though their aim is geared more towards keeping your blogging butt from being fired rather than, oh, arrested and tortured.
These are excellent resources for those concerned about their online privacy – and good information to spread through the blogosphere wether you fear for your safety or not, since this technology only works if people know about it.
While I personally think we have much to be leery about, we do still enjoy an enormous freedom of expression here in the US. Disseminating information like this makes it easier for others to express themselves in a manner that all-to-often we take for granted.
Posted by protected static as geek, politics at 10:08 AM UTC
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Or so their old TV commercials went… The National Enquirer reports that Bush has fallen off the wagon because of Katrina.
I’m sure this news will do nothing but boost Bush’s favorables. </sarcasm>
Posted by protected static as politics at 10:48 PM UTC
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