Henri
An evening pause: “The monkey mocks me with each flip.”
Only those who have explored deeply into the avant-garde French film world will truly understand this classic.
An evening pause: “The monkey mocks me with each flip.”
Only those who have explored deeply into the avant-garde French film world will truly understand this classic.
DARPA has released some details about last summer’s HTV-2 hypersonic test flight.
An unmanned hypersonic glider likely aborted its 13,000 mph flight over the Pacific Ocean last summer because unexpectedly large sections of its skin peeled off, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said Friday.
Birds of a feather: Jon Corzine, whose company MF Global illegally used and lost more than a billion in customer funds, is still listed as a fund-raiser for the Obama campaign.
Good news: Data now suggests that the bats are showing signs of recovery in the first caves hit by white nose syndrome in New York. More here. Plus here’s a link describing some of the research being done on this subject.
Note that the death toll listed in these stories is nothing more than an arbitrary exaggeration by government officials. The National Speleological Society estimates that the numbers are probably far less, and based on my own caving experience, I agree.
Interesting inventions. With pictures.
Mexico has passed its own very strict climate change law.
The new law contains many sweeping provisions to mitigate climate change, including a mandate to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 30% below business-as-usual levels by 2020, and by 50% below 2000 levels by 2050. Furthermore, it stipulates that 35% of the country’s energy should come from renewable sources by 2024, and requires mandatory emissions reporting by the country’s largest polluters.
Some predictions:
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Orbital Sciences has released an updated launch schedule for its Antares rocket and Cygnus capsule.
The significance?
» Read more
The death of the double click.
The story includes some nice history behind the invention of the GUI.
Interestingly, I could probably count on one hand the times I have double-clicked on a computer, since I rarely use the mouse at all. Instead, I have found it is far faster to use the keyboard to access commands, files, programs, etc.
The uncertainty of science: New data from a neutrino telescope in Antarctica has found that cosmic rays don’t come from gamma ray bursts, as had been believed by astronomers. You can read the paper here. [pdf]
Which means that astronomers at this moment have no idea what produces these high energy cosmic rays.
Is asteroid mining about to begin?
Considering some of the major players who are either investors or advisers for this company, this story could get very exciting when the company’s full plans are revealed on April 24.
An evening pause: Though this video is about Switzerland, its philosophy jives perfectly with the events that took place on this day, April 19, at Lexington and Concord in 1775.
NASA budget battles: House panel proposes giving commercial space $500 million.
The Obama administration proposed giving commercial space $830 million, the Senate appropriations subpanel earlier this week proposed $525 million. All in all, this looks good for commercial space.
One other thing: that the House did not propose taking from NOAA the job of launching weather satellites and giving it to NASA is more proof to me that the proposal was merely an attempt by Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) to shift federal dollars to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Uh-oh: That Mexican volcano near Mexico City is now spewing ash a half mile into the sky.
Amen to that.
The first stage of the Antares rocket is now vertical on the launchpad at Wallops Island in preparations for launch tests.
Senate Democrats don’t even bother to show up for a budget meeting called by their own leader.
Since the year 2009, not one single Democrat or Democrat-aligned member of the United States Senate has voted “yes” on any budget. They’ve refused to present their own ideas, of course, but they’ve also unanimously voted down every last alternative, from both Republicans and their own party’s president. Think about that.
Dawn’s mission at Vesta has been extended for forty days, while still allowing the spacecraft to reach Ceres as scheduled.
An evening pause: Some more harp jamming, this time by a Japanese performing music from Paraguay.
We’re here to help you: Two seniors “lose” $300 in cash going through a TSA security checkpoint.
Only two? “Two scandals could hurt Obamaβs reelection lead.”
The article only mentions the GSA spending spree and the Secret Service sex scandal in Columbia. I wonder how this reporter missed Fast and Furious and Jon Corzine, just to name two that come to mind immediately. And there are others, for sure.