This is a reminder to witness science, engineering, and technology coming together to extend humanity’s reach into space once more this Sunday at 10:31PM PST. The Curiosity rover will hopefully make a safe landing on the surface of Mars at that time. The various live feeds available to the public can be found here. Be a witness to history!
I’m getting a lot of extra traffic on this blog now and it’s because of the Olympics. Eight years ago, I wrote this post and now tons of dudes are finding it by Googling “volleyball ass” or some variation thereof. I can only assume the traffic will die off once the Games end in London. Hopefully it will pick up again in four years once things get underway in Rio!
In related news, here’s a funny article about the coverage of beach volleyball in London.
I wasn’t planning on buying a Blu-ray player today but chance intervened on my lunch break. I was near the Sears store downtown when their “closing out” sales signs finally got the better of me. I headed immediately to the electronics department downstairs and looked for their Blu-ray players. Even with the discounts most of them were still fairly expensive. I then happened upon a Toshiba player (with genuine Toshiba guts) with a considerable discount.
The BDX2155 was discounted to $63 from a MSRP of $95. That was good enough for me so I grabbed one of the last two boxes in the store. I immediately could tell this was definitely not like my previous player. The box was much smaller than the one my previous player was packaged in and it was also much lighter.
When I got it home I noticed the manufacture date of the player was September of 2011. My old player was made sometime in early 2009. I was curious to see what three years of progress would yield. For starters, the new player was indeed much smaller. By volume, it looked to be about 40% of the my old player. It was light as a feather and even just gingerly pushing the buttons on the front panel could cause it to slide on my shelf. Performance-wise, this is where it really shined. It played discs much faster than my player. Before, I’d have to sit there and wait for up to minute or beyond before I’d even see the menu. This new player booted up discs in about ten seconds. It also rewinds and fast-forwards much more responsively too. It’s also quieter. My old player used to whine and groan as it played but this new one is whisper quiet. Impressively, it stays cool to the touch even after an hour or more of use. My old player used to get super hot, so much so that you could feel the heat radiating off the top of it with your fingers still inches from the surface. Lastly, the player has YouTube, Netflix, and Picassa applications pre-installed on it so you can use those services on the player itself.
A good purchase for sure!
My loyal readers, I know most of you read this blog on a daily basis but for those who do not, please pop back onto this site one week from now for a special announcement. Am I artificially building hype for something you’ll probably be let down by? That’s almost guaranteed. Am I going to do it anyways? You bet!
I won’t tip my cap and give away any hints during the week so you’ll just have to wait for the whole week. Remember! Make sure you come back seven days from now (or just keep reading all week)!
In less than one week, we will be reminded how as a species, if we channel our will and energies into the right place, we can accomplish amazing things. The Mars Science Laboratory or Curiosity will land on the surface of Mars at approximately 10:31 PM PST on Sunday, August 5, 2012.
The mission will attempt to deliver the largest rover to Martian surface to date using a land system not utilized before. The new landing technique was required due to the size of the rover. For second time in history, an orbiting spacecraft will witness a lander’s descent onto Mars, as NASA has positioned Odyssey to observe the magical moment.
I get so excited when it comes to planetary space probes. I know we live in world that is far from perfect but it’s times like these I feel like we were able to get it together just long enough to send an incredible piece of machinery and land it on another planet. Visit the official NASA Curiosity site for a real-time countdown to the landing and for links to live video of the control room during the landing. I cannot wait for Sunday night!
I have no idea who, amongst my loyal readers, is currently in Rwanda right now but thank you for taking the time visit this blog. You must be on quite the trip right now. Thank you for your readership!
I rarely get compliments on my clothes but today I wore the t-shirt that you see above. I bought it last night at Old Navy. When I was out getting my lunch, the dude behind the counter at Noodle Box said he liked my shirt. Was he just trying to be nice to get a tip? Possibly, but he seemed genuine about it and he even made a Boba Fett joke. Then at dinner, I was at a restaurant and was making my way to the little boys room when I passed by a dude who was not my server. He also complimented me on my shirt.
I can’t remember the last time anyone liked my clothing enough to mention it twice in one day. I hope people realize I’m wearing the shirt because I like Star Wars and not because I’m some hipster doofus who only likes old school stuff to be cool. I was a Star Wars fan long before it was cool! Maybe it’s time for me to get some Lord of the Rings t-shirts!
I wrote about this phenomenon in an earlier post but it’s happened again tonight. It again smells like fermented black bean paste in a huge area area around my apartment building. I can’t even imagine how wide the radius is. It smells in my hallway and it smells when I step out onto my balcony. It’s starting to seep into my apartment itself now.
I really wish I knew who to ask to figure out this mystery, like a department of urban phenomenon or something. Where is that smell coming from? The source must be either huge or super concentrated. I’m guessing it might be coming from a monster of similar size that was featured in the movie Cloverfield. I have absolutely no evidence to base that guess on but it sure seems like the most likely scenario.
What you see above is a picture of my kitchen cabinets with some LED accent lights that I installed myself from Ikea. The picture is a crappy one but I assure you it doesn’t look washed out with all the white light in real life. With your own eyes, it actually looks like a nice shade of purple. I can make them almost any colour I want using the controls and even cycle the colours automatically. These are the same type of LED lights I used for the back of my TV.
I originally did a quick test installation underneath my cabinets but the result was too extreme. Having coloured lights right down at eye level was a bit weird. Once I put them above my cabinets, it was clear that was the way to go. That also allowed the light to reflect off the white ceiling of my kitchen which gives a nice effect. I’ll try to update this post with a video of the colour cycling later on.
You don’t get to see my visitor logs for this site, which sometimes gives me some entertaining insights into what people are looking for when they randomly click into my domain. The above image shows just a snippet of how people got here using search engines for the last few days. Can you tell the Olympics are around the corner?