zBox

I want one:
zBox

Hot and Getting Hotter

Global warming.... learn to live with it?
We may be on the cusp of the point of no return

A Sad Day in Space

I used to work as a contractor at Johnson Space Center in Houston on both the Shuttle and Space Station projects. Nothing is more frustrating than to have congress design projects via budget constraints or decide what is no longer needed a la Hubble.
Goodbye, Hubble

I Wish I had known....

Link swiped from slashdot:
What You'll Wish You Knew

More Darwin

The other side of Darwin at Work

Hey, Watch This.....

This may be a little or lot cruel, but....

Darwin in Action

A Random Adventure and Walking....

I'm sure this will lead to me finally writing down my rant on internal combustion engines, but not now.
My son was part of a cub scout group that got to hold a "camp-in" inside Space Center Houston. We got a hotel for the rest of us and planned to make a long weekend/mini-vacation out of it. Oh, the best laid plans...
There were a couple of warning signs, but i of course ignored them. On the drive from Dallas to Houston, the rear window on the suburban was increasingly covered with grime. Just road yuck, right? Then after we stopped in Madisonville for a short break, we were getting back onto the freeway and the engine revved pretty high ... just getting into passing gear, right?
oh if only
We stopped at the Hotel near Johnson Space Center and unloaded our stuff and my wife took my son over to the Space Center with the other kids. She called and said the transmission was grinding.... yikes.
What she called grinding was really revving, but no matter, it was not good. The transmission was acting funky, but other than revving and shifting late, it was drivable. Probably just low on fluid. Check the fluid. Fluid level is OK. Check again later - still OK. Hmmmm.
I had it in my head we'd get up this AM, go pick up my son at the Space Center, take the tour and then stop at an auto parts store for trnasmission fluid or get the problem diagnosed if anybody were open
oh if only
after loading our 3 1/2 tons of stuff in suburban in a rush, we started the truck, put it in reverse, and.... absolutely nothing. put it in drive, revved it up and crept forward about a furlong per fortnight
going nowhere
The irony of all this is that we bought a brand new van in September for our family trips but we're getting a lift installed and it's been in that state for more than 2 months (that's another completely too long and frustrating saga). Bottom line is we're stranded in Clear Lake despite owning a brand new van and we're having to pay for hotel, food, getting the suburban back to dallas and eventually repair costs....
I guess it is a mini vacation ... what fun.
at least we have free breakfast, internet, and cable TV.
Next post will be about walking - when you're 300 miles from home without a vehicle, you suddenly find out that though everything is concrete, none of it (or very little) is for walking on.

Mook

A call new hybrid magazine/book idea from O'Reilly:
(You can get a free bonus "mook" using the code M5ZXML)
Makezine
A new kind of Popular Mechanics?

Huygens Down

Get ready for life somewhere other than Earth:
Huygens Lands
Of course I don't think they're really checking for life, but it'd be cool/interesting
Another link:More Titan Pics

Proceed Directly...

a story about a preacher who stopped mid-sentence...
Heaven
Think he got there?

Google Ads

I'm going to add Google Ads to my blog just to see what they think it is I'm talking about. Maybe they can figure it out for me :-)

Game of Telephone...

ever play it? imagine playing it and translating between languages each time the message is relayed. naturally, the power of the internet and computers makes this possible at:
MultiBabel
(Link stolen from a post by Okapi )
P.S. The Babel fish is used in the "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series as both a convenient universal translator and final proof that God does not exist ... which turned out to be news to God.

Eye of Science

I always loved those super closeup pictures that appear in scientific magazines. here is a site devoted to it:
Eye of Science

Odds of Dying

Seems like everytime there is a disaster like the recent tsunami concerns about dying in the same manner take hold of the general populace. How can we prevent it? That should never happen. Maybe we should be putting our money in other areas where we could really prevent senseless deaths that take place everyday.

the following link is to an article on the odds of dying and the table is from that article. I'm surprised there is no listing for things like the flu, diabetes, AIDS, etc... though i do like the fact they've include Fireworks.

I've also heard that your odds of dying double every year after you reach 30 until you reach 65 or 70, then they actually decrease a little each year ... until you die of course.

Odds of Dying

The more specific figures are based on 2001, the most recent year for which complete data are available. Other odds, indicated with an asterisk (*) are based on long-term data. All figures below are for U.S. residents.

Cause of Death	Lifetime Odds
Heart Disease	1-in-5
Cancer	1-in-7
Stroke	1-in-23
Accidental Injury	1-in-36
Motor Vehicle Accident*	1-in-100
Intentional Self-harm (suicide)	1-in-121
Falling Down	1-in-246
Assault by Firearm	1-in-325
Fire or Smoke	1-in-1,116
Natural Forces (heat, cold,storms, quakes, etc.)	1-in-3,357
Electrocution*	1-in-5,000
Drowning	1-in-8,942
Air Travel Accident*	1-in-20,000
Flood* (included also in Natural Forces above)	1-in-30,000
Legal Execution	1-in-58,618
Tornado* (included also in Natural Forces above)	1-in-60,000
Lightning Strike (included also in Natural Forces above)	1-in-83,930
Snake, Bee or other Venomous Bite or Sting*	1-in-100,000
Earthquake (included also in Natural Forces above)	1-in-131,890
Dog Attack	1-in-147,717
Asteroid Impact*	1-in-200,000**
Tsunami*	1-in-500,000
Fireworks Discharge	1-in-615,488

** Perhaps 1-in-500,000

She Took a Lot of Pills

I heard a song on a country station this morning that is absolutely hilarious unless you really think about it. I couldn't help thinking of Dana Plato from "Diff'rent Strokes". The Lyrics are here:

Lyrics

Check out the album cover and the title.

Initial Post

Jumping on the Blogging Bandwagon - yeee haw