Offbeat

Image courtesy of Wired One of the big problems with remote exploration using automated systems is figuring out what is important and using that information to make decisions that will allow you to alter your collection plans to gain more information during the study. When sending an automated exploration vehicle to Mars, those problems are amplified enormously – space and power become a huge issue. Look at this example from a new article at PhotonicsOnline: After NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit examined an outcrop called “Comanche” in 2005, it took years of analyzing indirect evidence before the team could confidently…

One of my all-time favorite movies is… Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Even though it looks dated now (since it is) I still laugh when I watch it. And I’m not alone. A few years ago Elana and I went to see the Broadway version of it- Spamalot. (More accurately, I dragged her to see it with me.) She near died of embarrassment as I kept saying lines as they were being uttered. I believe she would have moved her seat were it not for one small fact… Half of the theater was doing it too. 🙂 In short—…

(image courtesy pajiba.com) Admit it-if you’re even the slightest bit geeky, you’ve debated the real-world issues of superheroes. How does Spider-Man justify all the time he takes off work? Does Bruce Wayne write the Batcave off as a business expense? Not to mention, where does Superman keep his cape under his Clark Kent suit? As it turns out, some truly smart geeks have taken this to the next level. “Law and the Multiverse” takes on the complex legal issues superheroes face every day (if they were real). What kind of issues? How about insurance costs? Or the thorny issue of…

At some point or other, most folks work for someone that makes them think ‘how did THEY ever get put in charge of other people’? Or we think ‘I’m glad that person isn’t MY boss’, or otherwise notice someone who should never have been put into a position of authority. But compared to the folks on the Worst Bosses of 2010 most of those folks would seem a great alternative! eBossWatch is a site that: eBossWatch was launched in June 2007 to help people avoid hostile work environments and workplace bullying. Because it is extremely difficult during the job interview…

My wife is the Vice President of our middle school PTO, and therefore last Friday night (while Travis was out winning a state championship) I was chaperoning the middle school dance. Aside from all of the expected drama and tears, I noticed that the hip word for everything with the 8th grade boys was ‘ghetto’. Of course, for me that doesn’t have positive connotations, but for them … it means super-cool. I wondered when it came into use and how it had gone from the meanings I associated with the poor areas of World War II Warsaw through the inner…

Remember the good ol’ Commodore 64? Between 1982 and 1994 more than 30 million of them were sold. And while they offered excellent programming capabilities and the ability to hook to a TV and run productivity applications, where the C64 found its biggest niche was in gaming. It offered great capabilities for a very reasonable price. And now it is BACK! What? Well, not the same one, but the concept of ‘the keyboard is the computer’ has returned, with Commodore teasing the release of an all new C64. Here are the very modern specs: Technology MODEL: Commodore 64x PROCESSOR: Intel®…

Doug told us about the cool App for tracking the total Lunar Eclipse coming tonight, and now Space.com adds to the coolness of the event with a fact-packed page … and a timetable linked to your specific time zone. With the handy info they provide you can check out the eclipse in your area and know exactly what is happening when. Here is the time zone chart: And in case you were wondering what all of the ‘Stages’ are listed along the left column of the table, Space.com has a great informational listing! Here is some of it: 1) Moon…

Image courtesy of Kabobfest.com By now most people know more about WikiLeaks than they ever cared to … have heard various opinions about how founder Julian Assange is either the saviour of journalism, a cyber-terrorist, or a scumbag … and the WikiLeaks site is either a great hero of international transparency or an illegal hacker group threatening lives for fun. But one thing is sure – whenever someone or something gets as much coverage as Assange and Wikileaks, there are sure to be others to follow! And here they come! Last night I got an email from something called ‘TradeLeaks’…

Image courtesy of AnalogSherpa How many times have you heard someone utter a movie cliché? ‘I have a bad feeling about this’, ‘I’ll be back’, ‘Say Hello to My Little Friend!’, ‘You Can’t Handle the Truth!’, and on and on. But perhaps the king of them all is the infamous line from The Wizard of Oz – we’re not in Kansas anymore! So here is a great video that shows 58 (!) scenes of someone uttering that line in a movie or TV show. Enjoy! As for the list of every movie and TV show referenced? Find it here: The…