Doing More With Less Since 1972

Tag: NASA

Link Dump – I Think The Debt Ceiling Is Causing Global Warming

Five Facts About the Debt

“When it was Chrysler secured bondholders objecting to getting defaulted on by the president’s auto task force, Mr. Obama denounced them as “a small group of speculators” who were “hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices and they would have to make none.” Where was Mr. Obama’s newfound respect for bondholders back during the Chrysler deal?”

NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism – The hell you say! Can we go back to regular light bulbs now?

Tips for overcoming fear of open water swimming – Good stuff here on overcoming your fears. Now I just need to find out why I feel like I’m going so much slower in the open water so I can calm down.

How to Migrate Your Facebook Account and Data to Google+ – Making some assumptions you actually want to move all that stuff, but useful!

Ironman Lake Placid Race Report – @emilysweats has written of the best race reports ever. Worth your time

‘Mad Men’ Begins Streaming on Netflix – Cracking open a single malt scotch and settling in for this one.

Why Leaders Need to Exercise – I’ve found this to be almost exclusively true, and not just with leaders. People in general seem to be more productive, less affected by stress, and more pleasant to be around when they are fit. I know I am.

A Short “How To” Link Dump

Lot’s of “How Tos” were read around here in the last week or so, and I’ve linked to some of the best ones. I was pretty excited to get Spotify too. This one may be worth paying for!

I’m also playing around with Post Formats in WordPress, which explains the drastic change in the way the blog looks. I switched to the Twenty Eleven theme and I’m going to be building off of that. The obvious change I’d like to make is to have a “Link Dump” format and change the way that appears here. I only post about 1/10 of what I read, and if I had a better format, I think these posts could be way better. Anyway…here are the links.

Got Spotify? Here’s How To Use It – Great guide to getting started.

How to Swim Straight in Open Water – One mistake I’ve made in ocean swims is not accounting for the current enough. Even though I started out beyond the break I found myself eventually getting tumbled by surf.

Was the Space Shuttle a Mistake? – You can begin throwing rocks and insults at me in 3, 2, 1…

How to Stock a Home Bar – Another part of the 5 year plan.

Learn jQuery & JAVASCRIPT for free – Can’t wait to finish my current project and dive into this.

“Download map area” added to Labs in Google Maps for Android – Very nice. Very fast. Thanks Google!

Stuff You Should See– November 18th through December 6th

Death Taxes and Life Insurance – A principled argument against the death tax.

Delaying Tax Vote Could Crash Stock Market – No duh. Can’t believe someone was able to write an entire article on this obvious conclusion. Though it was nice to get a firm date on it. Don’t see a logical reason it would drop below 5%, but markets aren’t logical in the short term.

Higher IQ Scores Found in Cold Weather States – Thems can have smarts. Me takes heat.

Teva Stiletto Heels – Technology FTW!

Fixing the US Housing Finance System

NASA Goes Badly Off Course, Needs a New Commander – Hmmm. Interesting.

NASA Robot Coolness

The SIL sent me this cool behind-the-scenes video of AstroRobonaut. COOL!

Kind of makes you think that maybe there really are viable alternatives to manned space flight. As you can see in the video, this thing has some pretty fine motor skills.

I think we need a whole army of these to be built to fight the wild herd of Space Bigfoots that threaten our freedom.

Defenders against Space Bigfoots

Our defenders against the Space Bigfoot threat

The Shuttle Video You Really Wanted To See

Here’s my buddy Sam on NASA TV talking about the batteries the latest shuttle mission took up to the International Space Station. It’s ok…I zoned out a little when he was giving the dimensions too. I woke up when I heard about the nickel hydrogen cells. But after that it was all “blah blah blah….lasers….blah blah blah….ball bearings”.

Lasers and ball bearings are what basically run the whole shuttle.

Sam’s a super smart guy–the first person I consult whenever I have a battery question or can’t find my charger.

Just kidding you, Sam. As I’ve said before, I’m pretty much in awe of anyone who work in the space program. To me, it’s as if each of them could build a shuttle by hand all by themselves. Hopefully, the fact that both of my readers will now see this video will help propel you to fame!

Discovery STS-131 Launch Video

We were very lucky Discovery launched this morning, considering there were a couple of no-go periods leading up to liftoff due to some communications issues. In order to make the 6:21 am launch we had to wake up at 2:45 so we could make it through the gates at KSC by 4:30. It would not have been fun to have rolled 8 adults and 2 kids under three out of bed that early for the launch to have been scrubbed. The weather was absolutely perfect–clear skies and just a slight breeze. It also made the waiting a little easier to see the Space Station fly over at 6:04.

The video isn’t as good as NASA will post later, but enjoy!

Special thanks to the SIL for securing an employee’s car pass and to the Brevard Rugby Club for lending us a 15 passenger van so that my parents and the in-laws could all get in to see the launch!

Update — Hi-res photo of Discovery clearing the tower.

Update II — Video that’s only slightly better than our home video at Space Gizmo. 🙂

Obama’s NASA Talk Here in April

Prediction — a pretty short speech that’s very abstract on the details (hardly an outline) that is moving and uplifting…until you realize there aren’t any details. I’m guessing this is pretty much a political effort to attempt to keep folks in these parts positive on his plan until after the November elections.

After that, NASA gets poleaxed.

You have to know it’s the secret dream every freshman studying aerospace engineering to one day have the opportunity to fudge climate data. Now they may get their chance.

What. The. Hell?

The Write Stuff:

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said Tuesday that President Barack Obama has asked him to “find ways to reach out to dominantly Muslim countries” as the White House pushes the space agency to become a tool of international diplomacy.

Hang on a sec…have to look over my shoulder to see if I can figure out where the guys from Candid Camera or Punk’d have hidden their equipment.

I know I didn’t read something that idiotic. Surely we aren’t supposed to take this seriously.

It gets more and more ridiculous by the day.

The End of NASA’s Human Space Program?

From Florida Today’s Space Team Blog

President Obama’s plan to end the space shuttle program and cancel the shuttles’ replacement is troubling enough. More worrisome: the White House budget released last Monday shows little sign of a human space flight program beyond the space station this decade or next. There’s no clear goal to go boldly anywere.

According to my sources, the general feelings around KSC are uncertainty and gloom. The uncertainty is probably the worst part.

Delicious Link Dump– October 5th through October 6th

Promiscuous dispersal of your email address – "Sure, you'll get a lot of spam, but deleting spam is a lot easier than finding customers." Wow.

Playgrounds From the 70’s – Totally Awsumness

20,000+ Gmail, Yahoo, AOL Accounts Compromised [ALERT] – No one needs your password for anything. Period.

Plot to Stop Using The Dollar? – I was just thinking the other day that I may be better of getting paid in cigarettes, potato liquor and Levis.

Space Program Needs A Plan, And Fast! – Hmm….maybe we should wait a year or two to buy a house here?

Message In A Bottle Found This Weekend – Pretty cool. I hope my Star Wars action figures wash up some day.

Man arrested for tweeting G20 Pittsburgh cops’ location | No Silence Here – If the police don't want you to know where they are, they should wear invisible cloaks. Duh!

No Sympathy For Polanski – Newscoma – I can't believe even one person on the planet would defend this guy. Good for 'Coma!

Shuttle and Rocket Launch Schedule

Driving down last Saturday, I missed the Shuttle launch by a few hours. I was in Macon Ga and could see a small flame going across the sky, but apparently it’s like the sun is coming up when you watch it here.

The SIL had to go to CA this morning in case Thursday’s landing is there, but before she left she pointed me towards this schedule for future launches. No night Shuttle launches on schedule in the near future, but there are some rocket launches coming up!

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