Wit, Wisdom, and Whimsy. (your mileage may vary)
February 20, 2011
commentary, geek, Personal AT&T Universal Card, online bill paying, SCE 1 Comment
The Southern California Edison and AT&T Universal Card websites are supposed to be UP when I want to give them money! Carmax was ready to take my money, but I’d already paid them this month, so that was nice. Even my cranky bank’s site was up and available. Now I have to wait until tomorrow. They really shouldn’t do that, I might not be in the mood to pay them tomorrow!
Sheese!
UPDATE!: More
February 16, 2011
geek Bigfoot, Bigfoot taking a bath, Google Street Views, Sasquatch Leave a comment
Photo credit: Google Street Views
You just never know what you’ll run across at Google Street Views. Here’s a site with some interesting scenes from around the world.
February 15, 2011
geek, Humor Haynes manual starship Enterprise, star trek Leave a comment
Everything in the world you ever wanted to know about the Starship Enterprise, is in that book!
Not so, Klingon breath, but pretty damned close!
February 15, 2011
commentary, geek Bad Astronomy, Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?, Fox program, Moon hoax, Phil Plait Leave a comment
Captain Alan Bean, Apollo 12 Commander holding a sample container, Ocean of Storms, November 1969 Photo Credit: NASA
Ten years ago today, Fox aired a program called “”Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?” Bad Astronomy author (and astronomer) Phil Plait writes how this one program did more to advance his career than perhaps any other single thing.
The simple answer? Yes, of course we went to the Moon. Six times, eighteen crew members, and twelve who actually walked on it’s surface. The picture above is Apollo astronaut Alan Bean. Phil says this of the photo:
This is a picture of Al Bean. It’s a man in a space suit. It’s a man in a spacesuit holding a sample container. It’s a man in a spacesuit holding a sample container on the Moon. Standing on the Moon. It’s a man standing on the freakin’ Moon!
And I watched every last one of them, live on TV! Or, as live as was possible back in the days of three networks and six channels, who didn’t always interrupt prime time for our “routine” lunar missions. Before NASA TV, the Internet, and hundreds of cable channels. But when it was on, I was there.
February 14, 2011
geek 3D lunar crater, heart shaped lunar crater, valentines-day 1 Comment
A heart-shaped crater in the Galilae region on the Moon. Credit: ASA/GSFC/Arizona State University; 3-D by Nathanial Burton-Bradford.
If you have red/green 3D glasses, you can see the Moon’s heart in 3D! To see the crater in it’s real orientation (this image rotated for effect), go to Universe Today.
UPDATE:
Mars, not wanting to be left out, also sends it’s Valentine’s Day greetings to the lovers of Earth.
A heart-shaped feature in the Arabia Terra region of Mars is show on the left, with additional context on the right, in excerpts of an image taken by the Context Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
And another UPDATE:
The Heart Nebula. Perhaps this is the look of a broken heart.
February 13, 2011
commentary, geek, Humor Mr. Deity, PZ Myers, Science Advisor 1 Comment
February 13, 2011
commentary, geek life in outer space, ngc 4921, spiral galaxy 1 Comment
Meet NGC 4921. An odd spiral galaxy, located in the Coma Galaxy Cluster, at a distance of about 320 million light-years from Earth.
When the light that makes up this image first started on it’s trip to us, the dinosaurs were still in Earth’s future.
What’s interesting to me, though, is not so much the galaxy, as cool as it is. It’s that almost every other speck of light in that image is also a galaxy! And they’re even farther from us than 4921. They’re millions and billions of light-years away, and they are countless.
It’s pictures like this that make me wonder… if we could magnify these images, and zoom into this galaxy, or the ones beyond, what would we see? Would we see other beings looking back at us? Or rather, looking at the Earth as it was 320 million years or more ago? And if we could see them looking at our primeval Earth, what would they be like? What would they look like? And what became of them in the intervening time? Are they still there? Have others risen up to take their place? Is there a vast stellar Federation, with ships plying the star lanes? Factions and wars? Beings evolved beyond anything we can imagine?
Or could it be only inanimate matter there? Perhaps nobody looking over at our rather average spiral galaxy, wondering if anyone is home here? I hope not. I hope there was/is someone out there, looking back at us. Maybe someday we’ll be able to say “hi, neighbor”, and have them say hello back.
This image is from an iPhone app, Star Walk, astronomy picture of the day.
February 12, 2011
commentary, geek, Personal, podcast Jim Reeves, jimmiejoe.com, queerlandia, QueerVisalia, visalia 1 Comment
OK, I exaggerate. It may be only the third or fourth most important video you’ll ever watch. But it’s up there, I’m sure. How could it not? I mean, come on, it’s even got a special announcement at the end, that you really won’t want to miss. And of course it stars yours truly, so it has to be Oscar-worthy, right?
JimmieJoe / KC6YRU 
Time Warp! July, 1983
February 22, 2011
Jim Reeves commentary, geek, Humor, Personal Jim Reeves, oldies, time warp Leave a comment
25 years old. Before the Internet. Before dispatching. Before Ham Radio-ing. Still in denial, and barely aware of it. Still slinging chicken and burgers. (Same month as Best CheeseBurger in town!) Noticing several things about this picture: Still sleeping on the same waterbed! Still have the CB radio (don’t use it). Still have the table the CB and the shortwave are sitting on. Still have the stereo that’s barely visible (do use it), although that turntable died years ago. Still have the picture that’s on the wall behind me (it’s of the Space Shuttle on the launch pad). The hair on my chest is now thicker than the hair on my head (and the chest hair is not all that much thicker today than then!). I have gained a few pounds in the interim. But only a few. I think that robe may be in the back of my closet somewhere.
Photo Credit: Mom!
Slightly freaky afterthought…
It’s been longer since that picture was taken, than from my birth to that day!
Share this: