Via BoingBoing, not quite worksafe flowcharts. But ones that probably best describe your day-to-day crisis management...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.

When you look at something like this (a 1965 miniature library), you get a sense of how far technology has gone (and might still go). I routinely carry around several hundred books and stories with me on a storage card the fraction of the size of this gadet.

Why stop at some books? Why not the universe in a library? more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 85 words, total size 1 kb.

You can build anything with Lego! Even interstellar probes! Presenting a Lego version of the British Interplanetary Society's Daedalus probe to Barnard's Star.

Barnard's Runaway Star? You know the Medusae would never have stood for us poking around in their neighborhood!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:33 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.

If you have been lucky enough to have clear, dark skies last night (and tonight), you might see this. It's raining Perseids!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 24 words, total size 1 kb.

Watching the rendezvous between the space shuttle and the ISS right now. Usual inane, boring chatter on NASA TV. Trust NASA's public-relations machine to continue to make space travel...dull. You would think they would overlay some music like the Blue Danube Suite here!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 45 words, total size 1 kb.

This weekend (if weather and other conditions permit) we will see a new probe being dispatched on its way to Mars. The Phoenix Mars Lander is a "reborn" version of the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander, lost, along with a pair of impact probes, during its landing on Mars in 1999. The Phoenix is continuing the Martian mantra of "follow the water". It is intended to land in the high northern latitudes of Mars, clawing into the icy surface, to see if frozen water melts on a periodic basis...which might sustain a livable environment for microbes. The probe will employ landing thrusters instead of airbags (due to the fact that it is too heavy for current designs of airbags) and come down in what is hoped to be a smooth enough area allowing a touchdown and not a wrecked vehicle! The vehicle is the subject of some controversy, due to a problematic camera that is slated to be used during descent. Well, at least you can buy official licensed gear! And if we land humans on Mars, they can spend their free time going through the DVD that the Planetary Society crammed with Mars-related fiction and greetings from Earthlings.

Important mission? A potential problem-plagued mission? I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 02:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 219 words, total size 2 kb.