Astronomy Software freeware

I don’t believe I’ve posted any significant lists of astronomy freeware software since 2006.

Last week I saw Microsoft released version 5.0 of their WorldWide Telescope project so it seemed a good time to post that and a few others.

• WorldWide Telescope 5.0 takes another small step in galactic space exploration - Next at Microsoft
• WorldWide Telescope - Microsoft

Then there is Celestia.

You can install nice add-on features via packages from The Celestia Motherlode including both real and fictional spacecraft.

And there is also a Celestia Portable version as well.

Couple either of these with Stellarium (or Stellarium Portable) and you have a very nice package for your star-gazing activities.

As a handy supplement there is also Google Sky. Read the About page for a quick rundown of the features.

If you want even more software options, check out this gizmo’s freeware posts that outlines many more options: Best Free Astronomy Software

Claus V.

Feeding the Curious Mind…

Been busy around here for the past couple of weeks.

Trying to dig out from the crush of work as well as staying inspired mentally. Been a bit challenging.

Here are some links—past and present—that I’ve been grooving on to keep things fresh in my brain.

The Forgotten Underground

I had seen a CNN video on some dudes who had (re)discovered a hidden train tunnel under the streets of New York.

The video piece was completely uninspiring, but I figured more information was to be found online.

It was.

A Diamond Below - Curious Expeditions blog

New York Observed - In Brooklyn, an Explorer Wants to Dig Again ... – The New York Times

BHRA: Atlantic Avenue Tunnel – The Brooklyn Historic Railway Association

It’s an amazing story inspired by tales of pages of John Wilkes Booth’s journal in a forgotten tunnel, and is layered with the rich and powerful, metro rail systems, a scam, and rediscovered plans buried in a non-descript locked box in a borough president’s office.  And then there still remains an additional length of tunnel that may contain the abandoned train!

Reminded me of Clive Cussler’s novel Night Probe!

For more fun and adventures, check out the Curious Expeditions for more interesting places and things.

Coincidentally, BLDBLOG posted this article The Rentable Basement Maze which eerily seemed to tie into the above story.

Then there was the Sexy Archaeology Blog I dug up this weekend.  It’s a tongue in cheek look at archaeological stories both mainstream and not.

Fresh Scientific Perspectives

With all the news saturation on the guinea-pig flew it’s been hard to hold a meaningful conversation on the topic.  Even the watered-down news reports taste like cool-aid without the sugar.  Bleah!

While over at Kent Newsome's Blog I read his post on the subject with interest as well as his link to a great centralized source of scientific story blogs.  It’s been hard finding good science blogs that strike a balance between readability, reliability, and application.  Chron.com’s Eric Berger has his SciGuy blog and that is one of the few sources of daily science story material I take the time to RSS feed.

Anyway, Kent linked to the ScienceBlogs site which immediately was added to my RSS feed reader.

Despite an apparent and public distain for the Huffington Post, coverage and writing is spot-on and offers looks into Life Science, Physical Science, Environment, Humanities and Social Sciences, Education and Careers, Politics, Medicine and Health, Brain and Behavior, and finally, Technology.  Select the whole mess or any particular topic to RSS feed.

Anyway, per Kent’s recommendation, I’m now feeding Tara C. Smith’s Aetiology posts for the latest fair-and-balanced epidemiological news on the guinea-pig flew outbreak and response.

Good stuff.  [and yes, I’m referring to H1N1 as ‘guinea-pig flew’ for a reason…I don’t want to add GSD blog to the growing pile of material via search-engines by referring to to the other common and panic-inducing name it bears.]

Crime and Punishment

CYB3RCRIM3 – Law Professor Susan Brenner brings entertaining and informative analysis on intersections between technology and law.  While I will watch Law & Order on cable with Lavie, generally discussions on case-law tend to make my eyes glaze over (despite recognition on how important it is to our society).

Susan posts frequently and provides thoughtful reviews on real-world technology and how law is having to actively change to keep up with it.

WIRED is another source of technology news.  However, I usually spend most of my time on the Wired blogs. In particular I follow Danger Room, GeekDad, Monkey Bites, and Threat Level.

Threat Level in particular is quite good as it also documents the sometimes uncomfortable dance between society, law, and technology.

One ultra-fun read this week was Ryan Single’s post How Anonymous Hackers Triumphed Over Time.  The post itself is a great read but Ryan goes one better and includes lots of embedded linkage for folks who want to dive deeper into the story and find our just how the hack was technically pulled off.  That is the real richness that I find with on-line media sources of news.  Unlike a static newspaper where you are trapped in the content provided, with (good) on-line media, if the reader wants to get more details or has unanswered questions, you can dive as deep as time and your web-searching skills will allow.

So what began for me as a light and entraining story of “punking” a Time poll became a deeper study of the cat-n-mouse game between “hackers” gaming a poll and the web-masters trying to prevent it.  Great inside look on both accounts.

Sociology Fun in Contexts

As a few folks know, my BS degree is in Sociology and though my career has taken me far from those subjects, I still find the field deeply interesting.

While looking for techno-related graphic images for a wallpaper at work I stumbled upon this awesome website:

Graphic Sociology » Seeing Social Data

When I’m on the road and working out of a hotel room, one of the small pleasures I take is getting up early enough to hit the continental breakfast bar in quiet and snag a print-copy of USA Today newspaper.

While I don’t read the on-line version at all, nor do I (usually) pick up a print-copy at home, nothing delights me more than the bright colors, quickly digested news stories, and, best of all, the awesome charts and graphics USA Today is famous for.

So finding a blogger who appears to live for finding and picking apart charts and graphs from technical, design, and sociological perspectives was a major find for me.

Graphic Sociology » Internet Traffic post was the one that led me to the really, really cool Internet data charts provided by Akamai: Visualizing Global Web Performance with Akamai.  If you are into interactive maps with (almost) real-time data on the Web-Tubes this is a lot of fun.

Other great sociological-subject related blogs from Contexts.org’s stable are:

Sociological Images » Seeing is Believing – Great and frequently updated posts on how images in media reflect underlying issues and thoughts in society.

Public Criminology » Sociological Criminology – Exploring the nexus between criminology and society

Contech » Social Media in Social Contexts – Hasn’t been updated quite as recently with new material but there is enough there to keep me busy for a while.  Focus is on technology and society.

Severs were down while I was composing this post, so if they don’t load now, please don’t be discourage.  Make a note to check back later as they are all (particularly the Graphic Sociology blog) are worth checking out.

Cheers!

--Claus V.

Tropical Storm Tracker - StormPulse

Stormpulse / Hurricane tracking, mapping

I found this new hurricane tracking site last week.

If you like dark-themed, special-op center techno-sites, this is the one for you.

The site has a lot of information and can be customized in extra data inclusions on the chart.

What really makes this one cool is that it has a “Full-Screen” mode that displays as much detail as you want for the storm-track on your monitor.

It provides a standard storm-track model, but you can select to include a bevy of additional forecast models if you want to really psych yourself out.

I’ve got a darker, more ominous feeling about Ike than I did about Gustav for some reason.

We have a “light” hurricane prep supply box, but tonight we are going to swing by the grocery store and stock up a bit more heavily now.  Extra water, 4-5 days of canned goods/MRE’s, at least two bags of charcoal. Stuff like that.

I’ve also added the Chron.com’s SciGuy Blog to my Firefox system as a second homepage bookmark during this tropical season.  Eric has been providing outstanding details, commentary, and analysis of all science and  prognostication tropical.  Highly recommended as a filter of reason and temperance in a media-market filled with over-hype, smashing graphics, and fear-factor extremes.

Gulf Coast Watch List

Here are some selected links I’ve previously posted that I also keep an eye on the Gulf with at home and work, to track the impending winds. Listed in order of my personal preference…

• IBISEYE.com -- Your Atlantic Hurricane Season Tracking Map Source – An awesome site that mashes up tracking data on hurricanes and points of interest, along with Google Maps.  Heavy on the JavaScript but makes up for it in pure visual delight.  Easy enough even the “old-folks” can understand.  Not only are hurricanes and projected paths displayed, but also counties are added as they fall under various storm watches and warnings.  Zoom in/out for more detail.

• Tropical Atlantic: NHC Model Data for Tropical Storms – Found this gem the other day.  For folks who need to have more than one storm-track model presented, this is like going from riding a pony to driving cattle from North Dakota to the Fort Worth Stockyards.  Look at the top of the page to select any current storms.  Then when the Google Map mashup launches, you can pick from 32 “Early” models and 38 “Late” model storm track models.  Plot one or plot them all! Awesome! Additional NOAA summary of storm-track models.

• Hurricane and Storm Tracking - Terrapin's site remains my favorite. It is lean and simple and allows for quick location of information without lots of graphic overkill. The storm-track plots come in two flavors, a simple historical and future projection track that is static as well as a java-based animated one. Loads fast and updated as new forecasts are posted.

• National Hurricane Center - This website maintained by the National Weather Service is my number two choice. Lots more linkage on the sidebar for hurricane related topics and preparations. The main page has links to a number of graphics and advisories.

• (NHC's) Atlantic Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook - A "beta" sub-page of the site listed above. This is pretty cool. Any current tropical systems are overlayed on a satellite image with an icon. Hovering over the icon pulls up a quick update view. Clicking on the update popup then takes you to the system's detailed page.

• Moreweather.com -- Tropical Atlantic Weather Page - T-Storm Terry Faber has created a great hurricane system page here. Not only does it have lots of links to any active systems, but it also contains links to radar and satellite images, many in great details and high resolution. The hurricane tracking maps and projections are there, of course. T-Storm Terry also provides links to other sources of information as well as historical data on previous storm systems.

• Tropical Weather : Weather Underground - This is a fantastic site that has the widest range of linkages, maps, images, models, and everything. Just about the only thing it doesn't provide is winds blown into your face through the monitor. Which is why I put this at the bottom and not the top: there is just so much information it overwhelms.

Local Winds

For local Houston area facts and updates, most of the local news stations have their web-sites powered up.

• Hurricane Central | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle - I generally turn to the Houston Chronicle's website for the majority of my information locally.

• Harris County Homeland Security & Emergency Management - Main page links to the new Evacuation maps, Contraflow routes, etc.

• Fox News 26 - Hurricane Toolbox - Lots of links and helpful tips

• abc13.com: Gulf Coast Hurricane Guide - Again lots of links and preparedness tips.

• Texas Hurricane News, KPRC Local 2 Click2Houston - News channel 2's public information page.

• HURRICANE CENTRAL from 11 News KHOU.com - One more local news site's tropics page.

--Claus

To the Moon, to the Opera, to the battlements!

To the Moon

We are watching Discovery Channel’s “When We Left Earth” series right now.  It is really captivating.  The narration isn’t too bad (bit over-dramatic) and the soundtrack really is heavy and somber.

But the footage is spectacular.  Lots of neat images and clips.  Alvis grew up with the Shuttle and the concept of watching the rockets launch with the capsules on top is just amazing to her.  So it is a great history lesson, especially the failures…something we are still a bit isolated from, despite the Shuttle losses.

To the Opera

Yikes!

Opera is really polishing up their browser!

Opera 9.5 Gets a New Default Theme – CyberNet News.

I downloaded the latest “snapshot” version for Windows and it really has knocked my socks off.  It looks wicked-pretty, is rocket-fast, and is very similar to Firefox with the tabs.

I do wish the toolbars could be rearranged.

I had exported my Firefox 3.0 bookmarks as a HTML file and it imported them no-sweat.

It is really clear the Opera team has been working hard on the UI.

How hard?

First read this post by the Opera Desktop Team: Looking Sharp. It points out the design work in the latest beta release. It was done on June 5th.

Then on June 6th they released a new “snapshot” and post: Turtle Wax making fine-tuning based on the comments from that first post.

Wow.

I’m loving it.  If you haven’t tried Opera in a while, it’s worth the time to check it out.

(Warning: cutting-edge beta software lurks below!)

Download Opera 9.5 Beta “Snapshot” version below
Windows
Windows Classic
Macintosh
UNIX

No, I’m not swapping for Firefox, but Opera will surge to 2nd place behind Firefox on my systems as my alternative browser of choice. IE still quite far behind even Apple – Safari for Windows, and that’s pretty sad.

If you are looking for a bit less “cutting-edge” Opera, but still Opera 9.5 beta, try this one: Opera 9.5 beta 2

One other thing you will notice in these versions is that Opera is joining Firefox 3.0 in the malicious-link filtering protection game.

Opera Partners with Haute Secure for Malware Protection - CyberNet News

For more details, look at this Opera Desktop Team post: Malware protection.

Short-post made shorter, Opera has teamed up with Haute Secure to allow the option to enable "Fraud Protection" in the browser. If you are surfing using Opera with this feature enabled, then like Firefox you will get a warning page alert if you land on a potentially hostile link. Unlike my last experience with Firefox's protection, Opera does offer a tiny link for you to progress on to the site, if you feel you must.

I didn't see any indication they would be providing more details via a link-jump from that warning page on what the danger is or why the site got the rating.  Fortunately, it looks like the Firefox team is tweaking their malware-link protection pages to make them more information-friendly: Small Steps by Google...Big Help in Firefox 3

Spybot Search & Destroy 1.6 Beta: Much Faster!

A tiny announcement posted in the Spybot Forums brings exciting news:

Scanning a bit faster... first beta of 1.6 available!

Eight years ago, Spybot-S&D originally started off as a very fast anti-spyware scanner, detecting some 30 small things, and you could watch it finish in under a minute.

Today, a full scan applies more than 600,000 tests, and you can watch that number grow weekly on our update list. Handling such numbers obviously is quite a bit different, and while we've tried to adjust to that with each version, a full scan might still take half an hour currently. Since this was one big major complaint issue, we decided to integrate parts of the new file scanner designed for a future 2.0 release and optimized for modern malware fighting, and got you a major push in speed now - that same scan will now take five to six minutes only, being about five times as fast as 1.5 was!

If you want to enjoy that speed and know a bit about beta testing, head over to our beta forums and get the first beta! If you prefer to wait for a thorougly tested public release, we hope to get around to that quite soon.

Oh, and one more thing... there's more up for 1.6: a second big issue we hear often will be addressed, so stay tuned!

Turns out in my tests on both XP and Vista, it is much faster indeed.

If you are curious, get the download safely from this direct-from-developer link:Spybot-S&D 1.6, beta 1 - Safer Networking Forums

Also of teasing note in that second forum post:

Q: When will you release a final version of 1.6?
A: U.S. Independence Day (4th of July) would be nice. Provided that there's enough feedback and no bigger problems appearing.

Q: How did you make it faster?
A: As you may have read on the news page, we've integrated parts of the new file scanner engine designed for Spybot-S&D 2.0, which was rewritten to take many aspects of modern malware fighting into account - those include the fast growing size of the database, the variety of malware and a few other aspects.

So it looks like in about another month, there will be a pretty nice update to the current Spybot and work is ongoing for what tantalizingly may be a pretty well re-made Version 2.0 of Spybot Search & Destroy.

A Fresh Java Bean

Yep. I have the latest Java version installed on all my systems.

I also have installed the very latest bleeding edge versions of Java: Java SE 6 Update 10 Early Access Program!

News is out that a new release (b25) is out.

SDN Program News - Java SE 6u10-b25 is now available

Find the Summary of Changes here.

Download if you dare!  It will co-exist with the latest (normal) release version pretty well, and when the next version of these u10-bx versions come out, you can install it on top of the current one and unlike the other Java editions, it will update the version in place, instead of placing yet another new version alongside the existing one. 

I started trying it out as I was curious to see what difference it made after reading this post by Percy Cabello: A better Java for Firefox 3 : Mozilla Links and items # 21-26 in this Java FAQ.

Other Benefits of the u10-bx builds? 

Overview

Java SE 6 Update 10 (formerly known as 6uN) is an update release that introduces new features and enhancements aimed at providing an optimized consumer end user experience. Java SE 6 Update 10 focuses on the following areas:

• Enhanced JRE installation experience
  • The Deployment Toolkit takes the guess work out of determining what versions of the JRE end users have installed on their PC. It supplies Java based web applet/application deployers with a simple interface to accomplish Java detection and installation.
  • The Kernel online installer lets first time Java users run applets and Web Start applications without waiting for the whole JRE download. The default Kernel installation is expected to satisfy the requirements of most Java applets and applications, and any additional libraries that may be required at runtime are downloaded to complete the Kernel installation. This installation mechanism let the end user get up and running significantly faster, while the complete JRE installation takes place in the background. See Java Kernel FAQ for more information.
  • For current users of Java SE, the JRE update mechanism has also been improved, using a patch-in-place mechanism that translates in a faster and more reliable update process (the patch in place mechanism will take effect for end users who upgrade from this update release or later to a new update release). As an added benefit, follow-on update releases will no longer be listed as separate items in the Windows "Add or Remove Programs" dialog.
• Improved performance and look & feel
  • The Quick Starter feature will prefetch portions of the JRE into memory, substantially decreasing the average JRE cold start-up time (the time that it takes to launch a Java application for the first time after a fresh reboot of a PC).
  • Hardware acceleration support: Java SE 6 Update 10 introduces a fully hardware accelerated graphics pipeline based on the Microsoft Direct3D 9 API, translating into improved rendering of Swing applications which rely on translucency, gradients, arbitrary transformations, and other more advanced 2D operations.
  • A new cross-platform Swing look & feel, code name Nimbus, provides a nice update over 'Metal' and 'Ocean'.
• Next-Generation Java Plug-In
  A new implementation of the Java Plug-In that is designed to address long-standing issues with applets, and which features improved reliability, the ability to specify large heap sizes, the ability to select a specific JRE version to execute a particular applet, improved Java/JavaScript interoperability, and better support for signed applets on Windows Vista.
• Unify Browser and Desktop Experience
  The new draggable feature in Applet unifies user's browser and desktop experience - The New Plug-In allows you to drag an Applet off from a browser to your desktop and allows your Applet continues to run. In addition to dragging an Applet off from a browser, when user closes the a shortcut can also be created from this draggable Applet. The shortcut utilizes Java Web Start technology and allow user to launch the Applet with Java Web Start without opening a web browser. Thus, this feature unifies desktop application deployment via Java Web Start technology, and Applet deployment inside the browser.
• New Version Download and Pack200 Support
  Since 6u10-b13, we introduce new Java system properties to support the usage of version download and Pack200 without any server side requirements. This addresses the issue that is raised in RFE 6378311.

Cheers!

--Claus

C it now or C it later

Got a few more posts to put up before the day is through.

Cheated on the Bar-b-que front.  Dropped by the local smokehouse and picked up some brisket sammy's.  Yumm.

Let's see 160 tapes x 3 hours = 480 hours of encoding?

I saw this interesting device this morning:

ION USB VCR - Last Chance To "Be Kind & Rewind" - Retro Thing

The very first VCR movie we rented was Stripes.  It's pretty dated now, but it seemed really funny at the time to a impressionable high-school kid.  All disestablishment and attitude. Good stuff. I'm not sure what the first Betamax movie I saw was.  Probably Murder on the Orient Express.  Think it was a two-tape version.

We probably have at least 160 VCR tapes and movies around our video-library. The vast majority are Disney material.

They take up lots of shelf-space and it just isn't very convenient any longer to pop them in and watch.  We usually keep a blank VHS tape in the deck to capture the occasional show, but nowhere near as much as we used to.  And no.  No TiVo yet in the Valca home.

I don't know what the legal ramifications would be for changing out our VHS tape collection and converting them to a DVD-based codec format.  Probably illegal, despite the fact we own them and you can't find VHS movies anymore in any store.  I think a few pharmacies and grocery stores still stock blank tapes, but even these are getting a bit harder to find.

I wonder if any GSD readers have suggestions or advise on porting VHS tapes to a digital format.

I don't know which system I would want to use. The Vista system has 2x the RAM as my desktop, but I've got a 500GB drive in my desktop system and the AMD Athlon XP 2400 chip is still pretty fast.

I haven't really done much research into video capture devices yet.  Would USB 2.0 be fine? I'm not sure I could find a PCI card for my desktop unit any longer.  What codex format should I use?  I would probably want to find something that would work on both the laptops as well as our Sony DVD player.  I suppose I better dig out the manual.  At close to 160 or so tapes, that would be many, many hours of encoding work.  I would really want to find a balance between quality and storage space on media.  Especially if I went ahead and burned them to DVD.

Probably will be one of those projects I think about doing, but never follow-through on.  That works out to about twelve (12) 40-hour weeks worth of encoding.  Not sure I have that much free time.  Better stock up on a few more VHS desks while I can still find them.

Reminds me of a great scene from the Cowboy Bebop series (Speak Like a Child episode 18) where Faye gets a package that contains a Betamax tape. So the boys go on a hunt for a player. Turns out they find a VHS one so it's not compatible.

Hello Mars!

Last night when we got back from taking Mom out to a birthday dinner, my little bro and I sat in her living room watching the countdown for the Mars lander.  It was pretty fun doing that as a family.  I'm not sure how attended the show was on CNN, but we thought it was cool.  God bless those poor engineers and planners who spend all that time building and programming the thing, then have to pretty-much sit on their hands until it gets there.

No pressure!

This image was incredibly cool

Image credit: NASA

It shows the Phoenix Lander parachuting down to Mars as seen from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance orbiter.  I just can't seem to get my mind around the fact that one orbiting satellite was able to capture a second one coming down to land.

NASA - Phoenix Mission Page

NASA - Phoenix Images

Twitter / MarsPhoenix - The Mars Phoenix Lander Twitters!  Who knew?

Phoenix (spacecraft) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

YouTube Shenanigans

So the giant "D" Silverman led me to waste considerable time on YouTube again yesterday.

He had posted a funny South Park spoof of Mac vs PC:

That led me to the "sequel" for Mac vs PC vs Linux:

And since we run a Novell network shop, I would be remiss to leave these Novell creations out:

Novell Launches Pro-Linux "Get a Mac" Spoofs - Cult of Mac from Wired.com

Who knew Linux was a girl?

--Claus

Now See This!

Kicked back hiding out in the bedroom with the laptop.  Alvis just had her 8th grade senior dance tonight.  She has two of her BFF's over for a post-gala sleep-over.

Too much drama for Dad.  It's a tough thing to see my beautiful baby daughter as a glamorous young woman.  She's doing well at it and as hard as it is, this father is proud of her and wants her to soar...even it leads away from our nest one day.

Alvis's New Colorful Neighbor

I was trimming back our prolific hibiscus bushes this afternoon and was started when a bird flew out of one of them.  They are thick but I reckoned I would have seen a bird up that close.

I figured it was a bold mockingbird that had been shadowing me a few minutes earlier after I had cut the yard and was searching for fresh dining opportunities.

Imagine my surprise when I went to do more pruning and found a well-hidden and crafted bird's nest in the top-third of one of the bushes.

I topped off the tops, but left pretty much of the rest of the bush intact so as not to disturb.

I didn't get a good look at the bird and it was nowhere to be seen.

When I was done, I went into the house and slowly opened up the blinds in Alvis's room.  Her window is on the immediate backside of the hibiscus and less than two feet from the nest. It was a perfect view.

A few minutes later the nest-builder returned.  I caught a glimpse of a brownish-red body, a small crest and a bright orange beak.  Definitely not a mockingbird.

Not being a birder, I did a quick Google search and turned up the new neighbor's identity; a Northern Cardinal female.

This explains much of the fluttering occasionally encountered as we take out the trash and pass the hibiscus bush.  And Alvis's recent complaints about a noisy bird waking her up faithfully each morning around six A.M.  I do have to give this girl with feathers credit.  Although it seems daring to be so close to the ground and accessible, the nest appears well built amongst the branches and is well protected from rain and winds by being so close to our house.  The hibiscus are under the house eaves and quite sheltered from inclement weather.

I haven't been brave enough to get a mirror to check to see if she is nesting on eggs.  We plan on giving her privacy and if we hear a chorus of peeps, we will let everyone know.

Now Updated: Houston

Google Earth's Lat Long Blog announced recently that they have updated imagery in Google Earth, including Houston!

New high resolution:

We have added a significant amount of new satellite imagery in Ecuador, Peru, Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, India, Iran, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and The Philippines. Additionally, we have new 2.5m imagery for part of Western Australia

Updated Imagery:
Americas:
- USA: LA, San Diego, Houston, Miami, Chicago and Milwaukee area suburbs, New York City area suburbs, much of coastal New Jersey, and Harney County (Oregon).

Europe, Middle East & Africa:

- England: Isle of Man, Suffolk
- Spain: Madrid
- Portugal: Lisbon, Guimaraes, Porto, Sevilla, Coimbra, Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca
- Italy: Milan
- France: Toulon, Montbeliard
- The Netherlands: Assen
Asia & Oceania:

- Armenia: Yerevan
- Australia: Melbourne, Darwin
Updated Terrain:
- Westport, Ireland
- Hawaii
- Puerto Rico

I love using Google Maps but have found that many-times it takes a while for image updates to Google Earth to appear on Google Maps. However, cross checking some locations finds that they seem to be up to date for the Houston area.  I even found Lavie's car parked outside our home this time. Cool!  Not sure where I was at the time...

I have to confess. I have previously not used Google Earth. But to do the comparisons I had to.  I am pretty impressed.  Very cool and fun to use.  Geography would have been much more enjoyable in college that summer had I had this software.

And the Sky Beyond....

Now Microsoft has recently pulled up a stool to the imaging bar with the release of WorldWide Telescope.

This blends Microsoft's Photosynth imaging management with incredible photos from a wide range of sources into a fun universal journey.

It requires a quick download, DirectX, and .NET 2.0 or greater.  I plopped it onto our Vista laptop tonight and quickly lost about an hour exploring just the thirty-two pages of Hubble images alone.

It is still "beta" so it will be exciting to see where this product is going.  When Alvis and I get some time I can't wait to show her.

It is a fine addition to my growing collection of astronomical software; Stellarium and Celestia.

If you happen to find some stunning images in WorldWide Telescope, Long Zheng has some great tips on how to capture images for posterity and wallpapering: Capturing screenshots from Worldwide Telescope - istartedsomething

Take those 35mm and Digitize Them!

I've mentioned before that Dad and Mom were once pretty accomplished 35mm photography hobbyists.  Growing up I remember weekends where the guest bathroom would be converted into a darkroom with the red-light, pans of developing baths and fixers, and strips of processed negatives hung to dry in the bathtub like strange ladies nylons.

Mom excelled in landscapes and Dad was a macro-photography guru.  Bugs and butterflies were his game.

We did have a few scrap-books, but the majority of those images were preserved in slide format.  Dozens and dozens of slide carousels filled the closets.  Every few months as kids relatives or friends of the parental units would be invited over, the large screen pulled out and up, and the hum of the slide-projector would signal slide-night.  An American Experience repeated no doubt across many a suburb in the sixties and seventies.  Sadly lost now.

Anyway, Dad has mentioned getting back into photography when he begins his second retirement. I set him up with a home pc system with the juice to handle it, and my brother is helping him with a digital camera selection.  We have also discussed converting the tons of slides and strips into digital formats.

Many scanners can accomplish this, but quality ranges pretty wide as they really aren't designed for that format. Task specific scanning tools for slide and film negative scanning have been quite pricey.

So imagine my surprise while reading RetroThing, that I would find a great product endorsement for a reasonably priced slide/negative scanner: The Photo Industry's Little Secret - Retro Thing

Amazon has it for less than $200 so I think I will send an email to Dad to see if he is interested.

So much to see, so much remains...

--Claus

SAC Thought #1: One World

For most anime fans, drop the acronym S.A.C. and you will get an instant response: Stand Alone Complex from Ghost in the Shell.  IMHO, one of the watermarks of modern anime animation and storytelling.

Anyway, I'll deviate significantly from the purer philosophical definition of SAC linked above and here simply use it to refer to a singular topic or subject that captured my imagination or thoughts enough to warrant a post by itself; with minimal additional commentary by me.

For this first post, I submit for your consideration:

BLDGBLOG: Earth Evolves

I first saw this post at the end of March and still have been going back and re-reading it.

It has the alternative-history Sci-Fi genre lover in me piqued. Authors like Clive Cussler (where  action, and quasi-archeology hinge on a moment of historical chance), Harry Turtledove, and many others..

The concept posed in BLDBLOG's post is very simple, most school children can recite it by the end of elementary school: The earth's plates float on a sea of molten material and geologic forces cause them to shift and move over millions of years. These changes lead to periods of earth's history when the continents have looked significantly different from today. In other words, continental drift.

The post shows some stunning images digitally mapped by Ron Blakey as he has attempted to capture earth's tectonic evolution.

In the past was Pangaea, in the future we may have Novopangaea, Amasia, or even (and this is the one that I find most beautiful, Pangaea Proximia (all as imagined 250 million years from now).

This is a concept that is amazing to me.

How different would geo-politics be if all of earth's inhabitants were forced to live together on a single super-continent?  Would we be as willing to wage war or consume resources we don't have (or are willing to use) if we were all joined together on a single, shared, continental raft?

Would the few remote islands dotting the planet from underground volcanic sources be islands of competition for nations seeking to flee the confines of the shared world? Or would they be undiscovered, as lacking satellites or other technology, most future-world Christopher Columbus's or Viking explorers would sail off over the horizon never to find land mass again.

Would we see the amazing level of current animal, vegetable, and mineral (not to mention cultural) diversity if the bulk of habitable land-mass was in the same shared longitude and latitudes?

I wonder....

--Claus

Cures for Late-night Boredom

For some reason, I was very restless last night.

Couldn't go to bed.

So I stayed up a bit later than usual on the Webs.

Way past when all the folks who feed my RSS feed blogs went to bed.

It was quiet.

So I had to get off my usual well-worn paths and strike out.

So I ended up stumbling in and out of the late night Web-bars.

Figures on Stage

Blogger Play - (streaming photo website) - Blogger Play is a very clever website that appeals to the web voyeur in us all.  It is simple. It is pure and it is captivating.  Blogger collects all the images that are being uploaded to their Blogger Blogs and streams them against a zen-like black interface.  No captions, no words.  Just a stream of images.  I never ran into any NSFW images, but I suppose it could be possible.  I assume that Google is doing some filtering using their image-search filter algo's.  

I found that if I set the speed down just a tad, I started making up stories to go along with them. Growing up, dad was a (very good) amateur photographer and captured 90% of his photography work in slide format.  We kids and the parent's social friends would often get treated to the slide-projector carousel's "ca-chunk" for slide-shows that might feature family, nature, or cultural perspectives (pictures of Vietnam taken during dad's tour overseas there).

So with my mind semi-numb from fatigue, I caught myself staring at the random stream of images; here we were at the diner.  There was this cool lizard there.  There was grandma at her party.  That's Marge's favorite fashion bag.  This is the dam we drove over.  Stuff like that.

Dinosaur comics - (webcomic) - No clue how I ended up here.  Oh, yes.  Via rogueclassicism. Anyway.  It appears the format of this six-panel comic strip never changes.  The frames are always the same.  However the content is pretty clever and (at times) filled with biting satire or social commentary.  Sometimes the strip bombs bad. Other times it really strikes a nerve.  Sample strips: unpopular life goals, t-rex: bread, i should get some friggin' groceries!, i will call it, "sherlock holmes and the case of the mummy's curse!"

Created by the mad-genius: Ryan North.

Vera Brosgol's VeraBee - (graphic artist page) - Jumped here from Ryan's link page. According to Vera's bio, she came to the States from Russia and got into the animation and art scene.  Lots of good work here.  I really like the bold retro-feel of her pieces.  Flirty and full of emotion, but never vulgar or trite.  Good stuff!

Jim's FAIL Bar

Jim Thompson's recent blog-post "FAIL." really seems to (sorry about this) really hit it on the head.  Here I am stressed out a bit about this big project I'm leading (but not in control of) and struggling with feelings of inadequacy and failure.  Then he comes along and shows me there are a lot more losers and fail'ers than I have realized.   Puts the whole thing into perspective, in a Good Way™.

Anyway, his post links to the site The FAIL Blog which has great photos of event-failures with cheesy "FAIL" captions.  Kinda like I Can Has Cheezburger? but without as many cats.

That led me to the DOING IT WRONG blog and the Shipment of Fail. Two more sites that show failure on the grand and humorous-scale.

By-far cheaper than a therapist for folks with failure-issues.

YouTube Tavern

YouTube - Mindstorms Autofabrik - Dude(s) built an automated Lego-car factory using the Mindstorms components.  Really slow-paced seven-minute production (will put your cat to sleep) but very cool for Lego fans. At least once.

YouTube - Lego Millenium Falcon Stop Motion - Dudes use stop-motion to film the building of a Lego Star Wars ship.  Not very clever in-of-itself.  However, catch all the details in how the pieces are handled as the come in for placement on the project.  Lots of little gems make the whole a fun video.

I'm a big fan of the web-comic MegaTokyo.  So imagine my surprise in finding some fan-made animations of the MegaTokyo gang.

YouTube - "Megatokyo: The Animation" Trailer Version 1 - Not a bad summary of what MegaTokyo is all about.

YouTube - Largovision - Fun video animation production of the world from Largo's viewpoint.  Wouldn't have been nearly as good without the l33t soundtrack from Therion.  Got to go get me the album on iTunes if available.

(More on Therion: Therion (band) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Metal, classical themes, and choirs.  What's not to like? Don't get it?  Maybe this will help; they are Sweeds.  Enough said.

The Geek Diner

After checking out the cool Therion tattoo I drew on myself at 2 am, I figured I better start to come down from the site-hopping and drop into the geek diner for some Joe to settle me down.

DemoGirl - DemoGirl is Molly McDonald.  She has figured out the cleverness of using screencasts to "demo" products and techniques related to technology and computing; others have done this already, but she does it pretty well.  Nothing 'earthshattering" but the screencasts are short and concise and do seem to provide a good overview of the topic at hand.  Samples: Tour of Firefox 3 Beta 2, Beautify your Firefox with Personas, Thoof - Cool service, but I don’t get your name.

Au | Geekdad from Wired.com - Neat photo of actual gold atoms.  How cool is that?  I remember being in high-school and seeing some fuzzy nebula-looking pictures that were supposedly the first images from the atomic level.  I thought, "so what?"  Now, I think "How cool is that!"

Related: The Sietch Blog » Wanna See What Gold Atoms Look Like?

At this point of the night, everything seems to be taking on a weird glow.  My eyes are failing me.

Oh!   Never-mind.  I'm on HDRwalls.com  This website has quality High Dynamic Range wallpapers for Macs, Windows, and mobile devices. With almost 500 images, it really introduces you into the beauty of the HDR styled images.  Good stuff.  What's cool is that if you find one you like, you can select the screen size (from mega-monitor down to mobile-phone screen size) and download it.

Repent! The Morning Comes

So now it is Sunday.  I better clean up my late-night wanderings.

Time to go to church: The Brick Testament

Some may find it irreverent, but it does have a message that cannot be overlooked.

I feel better.

Time for bed, little mouse.

--Claus

Copernican Coincidence?

I've mentioned before that I took astronomy classes at U of H as part of my B.S. degree.

I really enjoyed them and have a deeper appreciation of the scale and beauty of the unseen universe that we share existence.

One of the early thinkers in "modern" astronomy was Nicolaus Copernicus.

Although there are many elements to his work, his best known contribution summarized in "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" format is the position than that the planets circle the sun, and not everything circles the earth.

I am thinking again about Copernicus due to a recent post in the architectural blog "BldgBlog": The Heliocentric Pantheon: An Interview with Walter Murch

It's a very fascinating interview with film editor and sound designer Walter Murch and examines Murch's thoughts on the relationship between Copernicus and the Pantheon, Bode's Law, and musical ratios.

Did the ratio of the vaulted circles around the Pantheon's oculus inspire Copernicus to see the planets orbiting the sun? Or was is just a kooky coincidence? I'm not sure, but it is a bit of neat trivia.

It's all kinda heady stuff, but is a really fun interview that merges space, sound, science and architecture in a great way.

For more information about the Pantheon and the engineering that went into its construction, see this link: The Pantheon-- Rome 126 AD

--Claus

Scanning Houston Weather Radars

I don't know what the most popular links are on our Houston-area local news sites.

I'm guessing, however, that they have to be the "live" weather radar images.

When the Gulf-Coast storms come rolling through, it doesn't matter if we are at work or at home, Lavie and I often head to our favorite Houston weather radars on-line to see what is coming.

Sometimes it is downright scary!

In the Early Days...Intellicast

A lifetime ago, when we first got on the Net, just about the only radar site worth keeping an eye on (for me at least) was over at Intellicast.

The radar images were big and really detailed. You could even animate them. However, there was often a bit of "lag-time" between the current time and the posted radar image time. That made it challenging to really tell what was going on.

Was that big purple cell coming my way? Or was it the one that had already passed?

Soon, the The Weather Channel's website came into play and also had some nice radar images.

Now with ViperMaxVectorPentangular Radar 7000!

The local news guys figured out real quick that by providing detailed and current radar imagery to the hungering on-line masses, they could provide a public service and (no doubt) drive tons of page-hits from the local populations.

And the radar-races began.

As a non-radar technologist, I really can't sort out the reality from the hype...but I knows me on-line radars and why I keep going back to some more than others.

Here are my Houston weather radar links (in order of preference) and why I like-em.

These are not all-inclusive! There may be others as well, but these are the ones I frequent the most.

Note: These are only my opinions on Houston on-line radar images...are are no-way a reflection on my opinions for the on-air weather news casts or radar imagery.

And by "Regional/Closeup" views...I mean Houston and the surrounding counties...

First Place: abc13.com's Mega Doppler Radar

• Time lag between image and current time: currently 7-10min
• Default image size: Appx. 500x425 px
• Animated looping supported?: Yes
• Regional/Closeup views?: Yes (9)
• Registration required?: No

Why do I like this site? The regional/closeup views are well divided by the counties, offering nine more detailed county coverage views. That also is more than any other competitor. However, they are on a bit of thin-ice. KTRK seems to have recently updated it to show a satellite image underlay. I'm not real impressed by that. The green sat-image is very busy and while cool, makes it hard to pick out the major highways and the smaller cloud/storm cells can be hard to pick out.

Second Place: Click2Houston's Doppler 2000Plus Radar

• Time lag between image and current time: currently 7-10min
• Default image size: Appx. 640x480 px
• Animated looping supported?: Yes
• Regional/Closeup views?: Yes (4)
• Registration required?: No

Two things really stand out with me with Doppler2K+. First, the background image consists of shades of green with clearly defined county lines. This really makes the freeway grids really pop out and it is very easy to pick out storm cells in relation to the freeways. I (generally) really prefer that background instead of the high-tech sat-view images. Secondly, the default image size is the largest offered by any of the contenders. That size level makes it very nice to view at a glance. Unlike the other competitors who have mini-view regional images to make selection easy, Click2 requires use of a smaller "drop-box" above the image. While, it does provide a clearer site page, it is not as convenient to find and use.

Third Place: KHOU's Doppler Radar

• Time lag between image and current time: currently 10-23+ min
• Default image size: Appx. 175x130 px
• Animated looping supported?: Yes (after registered user login)
• Regional/Closeup views?: Yes (7) (after registered user login)
• Registration required?: (yes for detailed radar views)

I really want to rate this radar site higher...but there are two thing that force me to knock it down. First, registration is required to view any more detailed views. That's too bad. I know that registration is sometimes a necessary evil but all of the other sites don't require it to get nice radar imagery. Second is the lag time between radar image and "real" time on the non-registered user views. It's often pretty high. So while the radar images may be great...it doesn't help much if the really red/yellow/purple storm cell image is too old to be of any use. Those major drawbacks aside, once you DO register and log in, the images and options are pretty spectacular. Positive points abound: First registered users can click on a "desktop" link which will open a small 320x240px (appx.) no-ad popup window that can be left open with your other desktop windows...really nice for monitoring the frequent Gulf-coast downpours between spreadsheets and network data. Second, users can click the "large" link and get a ad-heavy popup window sized at 640x780px (appx.) that gives a very clear view without all the sat-image fussiness. Third, going deeper onto the Doppler Radar link, a very well designed Harris County radar image appears. It is sized at a generous 560x470px (appx.), allows for selected view of rainfall totals, tracking, hail, warning boxes; and you can add/remove overlays of topography, roads, labels, boundaries, cites and county names. Really nice. It can be looped, or paused and this particular radar image is about 7min or so behind current time. And, fourth, it has nice, very clear color choices for the radar images and backgrounds so it is highly "readable" in tracking storm cells.

Drop the registration requirement and this would likely be #1.

Fourth Place: myfoxhouston's FOXRAD radar

• Time lag between image and current time: currently 7-10 min
• Default image size: Appx. 400x300 px
• Animated looping supported?: Yes
• Regional/Closeup views?: Yes (4)
• Registration required?: No

The images on this site also get lost under the bright-green sat-image picture. Also, the scale is pretty wide and it is much more difficult to see detailed imagery of specific storm cells in relation to your physical location. A strong positive point goes to FOXRAD for the larger images provided. Find the little magnifying glass icon and click on it. A pop-up window is generated and weighs in at a very large 640x480px (appx.) size. Really nice. Still it's hard to see good freeway level detail and forget about street-level detail.

Honorable Mention: Chron.com's Weather NexRad radar

• Time lag between image and current time: currently 1 min
• Default image size: Appx. 355x360 px
• Animated looping supported?: Yes
• Regional/Closeup views?: No
• Registration required?: No

Why? Well, because even though it does not give any "closeup" metro or surrounding county views, it displays an image matched almost exactly to my system clocks. That means it appears to be providing static images that are almost "live". Not bad, even if the Harris county is the size of my thumb in the default view. Click the "Enlarge Image" link and a nicely sparse 460x470px (appx.) popup window appears. A little better detail. All in all, nice when you need a wide view radar image of what is happening at this exact minute.

The Future of Local Radar Images?

Weather.com has a neat new feature that may be where radar needs to go next...especially for the local boys.

It's their stunning "Interactive Weather Map (beta)"

Powered-up by Microsoft Virtual Earth, it overlays radar data with (in many areas) street level mapping. Wowzer!

The default image is sized 600x400px (appx.) and is nicely colored. Nothing too bright. It works well. Image data is about 5-10 minutes behind "real" time.

Using the intuitive interface, you can select overlays of Radar, Clouds, Clouds & Radar, or None.

Not only that, but by use of a simple slider-bar, you can adjust the weather imagery transparency levels.

Why?

Well, this is where things get wicked cool. Zoom!

As I noted, it is powered by Microsoft's Visual Earth mapping engine. So just click on the map where you want to view and zoom on down.

Zoom levels depend on the area you are viewing, but I was able to zoom down close enough on downtown Houston to be able to clearly read the Toyota Center logo and name on the building. That's pretty darn close.

And the storm/radar data gets zoomed and overlayed as well.

Hot Tamales!

So although it isn't real-time useful to see what torrent is coming down on you right that instant, it is pretty cool to watch.

So if Microsoft is doing this...I only wonder how long it will be before Google and their powerhouse of satellite mapping goodness follows suit.

Weather.com does offer an "enhanced" version of this as well with no ads, faster local radar maps, and customizable views, all for the low, low price of $24.99/yr.

Bonus: Houston Road-Cams and Traffic Map

And have you seen the cool Houston TranStar road-cam page?

Give me that and their Houston Real-Time Traffic Map and I am all set for a day in the field on the highways and byways of Gulf-Coast Houston regional travel.

Isn't modern technology cool?

If you have any other favorite Houston-area on-line weather radar image sites, please drop a tip in the comments...I'm always looking for more.

Happy skies!

--Claus

Detritus....

This is the fifth post I am composing while waiting for Grand Stream Dreams to be cleared for flight by the Blogger gods.

Bits and pieces, nay, detritus of links...waiting for life to spring forth again....

Man Gear

Deutsche Optik - Tons of really cool gear and stuff. Every guy should have at least some conversational piece from this modern-day army-surplus store. How about the Swiss Army Teletype Tuning Kit, or maybe a Full Walkers Log Set. Forget that prissy Sharper Image stuff. This is Real Manly Man gear. Oh, yeah. Don't let the name fool you. That there is a good old US of A company.

Windows Tips and Tricks

How-to install VMware Server 1.0.1 on Windows XP SP2 - via Network Physics Although installing VMware Player or VMware Server really isn't THAT complicated, this is a bang-up tutorial (with pictures) that holds your momma's boy hand through downloading VMware's Server software to getting a virtual machine "appliance" up and running.

HOWTO: Install Windows Vista from a high speed USB 2.0 Flash Drive - So Kurt Shintaku gets clever and figures out how to speed the installation time of Vista by porting it from a DVD onto a heavy-big and fast Flash Drive. He reports seeing a Vista Ultimate install in less than 5-10 minutes.

Quoting from Kurt's post:

Why would someone want to install a client OS from a thumb drive instead of a DVDROM or over the network? One reason: Performance. Installing Windows Vista from a high speed USB flash drive is in my experience the easiest & fastest way to complete a Windows Vista install. This is much faster than using a DVD, gigabit Ethernet, or possibly even some external USB 2.0 hard drives, due to differences in access speed & transfer rate. To put this into perspective, y'know how installing Windows on a Virtual PC virtual machine from an .ISO CD image is really, really, really fast? Imagine something roughly just as fast, except for doing installations of the OS on to actual workstations.

Very clever indeed. Mileage may depend heavily upon motherboard support for USB drive system booting and speed of said Flash Drive.

Windows Live Writer Portable - TechLifeBlogged - I love using Windows Live Writer as my blogging tool. It is great...and not even out of Beta yet.

I haven't tried this "hack" yet to make Windows Live Writer portable, but it looks good and might just work. I haven't checked out the zip file either to make sure it is legit. So be careful.

I'll have to give it a shot and get back with you on it....although I don't really know how I would use this...I adhere to a very strict "no blogging at work" policy. (Though I might moderate a comment or two if it is really gross comment spam.)

For the Linux fans

klik - Linux Software Download - What is klik? Well. Simply put, it allows Linux users to download and use many popular software applications for Linux, without needing to actually install them onto the system. Kinda like portable-apps-on-demand for Linux users. I can see how some users might find this useful. Although, you need to have the klik client installed on your Linux system first for it to work.

I've been Mooned!

Did you remember the Lunar Eclipse tonight? Nope? I forgot too (darn-it!). NASA - Lunar Eclipse

But that did remind me to see if my two favorite astronomy applications have been updated recently, and they had!

Stellarium - (freeware) Now at version 0.8.2.

Celestia - (freeware) Now at version 1.4.1

Now you can be mooned too!

Just don't let the cops or the neighbors catch you at it.

--Claus

Somewhat Au(most) Naturale, Technically Speaking

I seem to have a web-surfing issue associated directly with my blogging.

It works kind-of like this:

I have a collection of RSS feeds of websites I follow. As I surf, if something looks good, I make a bookmark of the page in a "To Blog" folder I keep on my Firefox toolbar.

Generally I try to get a post done pretty fast, but sometimes they "simmer" for awhile as they don't really seem to merit a post on their own.

As I collect more of these, I might see a loose theme developing. For a few items in there...I've had them for almost a year...slowly cooking them until I can find the right words to reflect on them.

At other times, I will experience a particular problem, or will get a post subject idea, do research, collect the links, then post a more expanded-subject post.

On Friday, my "To Blog" bookmark folder was almost empty.

Then a perfect storm of surfing and inspiration hit to expand the folder to over ninety (90) bookmarked items at last count.

So here is a loose theme on some of them dealing with nature (for the most part)--time to empty 'em out.

AutoblogGreen - Nice blog on environmental issues related to the auto industry. I've been on the record about wanting to one day purchase a "green" vehicle. A hybrid would be nice, although I'm not certain what the overall cost-of-ownership savings would end up being. I've heard amounts ranging from net-losses to $1000+ yearly. I'm not sure, but if it makes me feel like I'm doing my part to help the world... Right now the hardest thing to overcome would be the higher initial cost of purchase for a comparative diesel or gasoline powered model.

Ford Airsteam concept: a shiny hydrogen-powered PHEV funmobile - via AutoblogGreen. I have only the fondest memories of my grandparent's Airstream travel trailer. They went through several, progressively larger and nicer models over their years. I can still close my eyes and see Grandpa on a ladder toiling to clean and wax the shiny aluminum surface and Grandma fussing at him for getting to dirty. So when I saw this Ford van concept...I can only imagine that Grandpa would have thought it the neatest thing had he still been with us. I bet he would be one of the first in line to try and buy one if it ever came to market. He would have loved having a matching Airstream truck and trailer!

In a blog entry last fall ( Where is Brave Shakespeare? ) I pondered aloud my grief and concern over the status of Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor's heroic Shakespeare. It never was resolved. Doing some web-searching, I found that quite a few folks were concerned as well.

Eventually I came across a well-developed thread at a website devoted to the British edition's narrator, Bill Nightly: More Meerkat Manor . What I discovered buried there was surprising discussion regarding the production of the series, how it is edited for television, and how the Cambridge University research program on the Meerkat's works. It is much larger than the show lets on.

Like this comment:

hi, i just got this from the people who actually film the meerkats check it out
Dear Jordan,
Tim Clutton-Brock passed your e-mail about Tosca and Shakespeare on to me. Shakespeare recovered from the snake bite but then left Whiskers during the filming of meerkat manor 1 (male meerkats leave their group when they are adult and look for groups of their own). We don’t know what happened to him, as he left the study site, but it quite likely that he is now dominant in a group of his own somewhere. As for Tosca, she is still a subordinate females in whiskers.
I hope that answers your questions!
Best wishes
Sarah

or this comment that is actually a post from a LA Times article on the popular program:

Reached by telephone at Discovery Communications’ Maryland headquarters, executive producer Mick Kaczorowski said he understands viewers’ frustrations, but no one really knows Shakespeare’s fate. “It’s more honest to say we don’t know what happened,” he said. “We didn’t find a body. We don’t know the way it ended. He disappeared. We presume he’s dead.”

Finally, one of the fans got a response to a letter she wrote about the whole subject of Shakespeare to Tom Flower--the Field Project Manager for the Kalahari Meerkat Project.

With regards to Shakespeare’s story, he was bitten by a snake and did fully recover to become one of the best helpers in the group, in fact it was more spectacular than was conveyed in ‘Meerkat Manor’. But we just do not know what his ultimate fate was, meerkats are often killed defending pup’s, Shakespeare was a babysitter the day before and Lazuli were in the area. However it is equally possible that he was killed by a predator, dispersed to another group, or was killed by another group whilst trying to join them, we just weren’t there on that particular day. This is unfortunate, but we cant know everything about each meerkat. The film producers were stuck and probably drew inspiration from an incident at two other groups in the population of over 250 meerkats, where a meerkat was killed defending pups successfully.

So what is learned on the portrayal and fate of our heroic meerkat Shakespeare?

That the series producers have a bunch-load of film, that they do add a dramatic "story-line" element to the show, that when needed, and they will draw inspiration from other "natural" events in the meerkats' lives to fill in blanks. As for Shakespeare...he actually appears to have been seen babysitting the burrow one day when observed...and the next time they checked he was gone. So they decided to present a dramatic (possible) conclusion for him based on events observed at other meerkat groups encountered.

(Sighs) So if you can't trust what you see on Animal Planet...what can to trust on TV now days.....

Did you see the article Dog-fur coats make comeback at J.C. Penney that the Houston Chronicle ran the other day?

This brought a very strong WTF???!!! moment when I saw the headline so I had to read up more on these "raccoon dogs" I had never heard of before.

Turns out, the Raccoon Dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) while scientifically a full member of the canidae family of animals...are a little bit lower down the development chain than loyal Fluffy who brings in your paper or shreds your shoes. Raccoon Dog - The Wikipedia. They are native to Asia and parts of Europe and used for fur in China. They also are the only member of the canine family to got into a form of hibernation during the winder months.

Turns out there is a sub-species of Racoon Dogs in Japan...known locally as tanuki.

So imagine my surprise when reading this article that I find that the fun (but not enough to buy) Studio Ghibli anime film house's movie "Pom Poko" were not raccoons as suggested in the American issuance, but really tanuki--Racoon Dogs. Now the film makes more sense! It was a great pro-environmental film that Alvis and I both thoroughly enjoyed--but it has some "strange" elements and overall doesn't really capture my heart like "Whisper of the Heart", "My Neighbor Totoro", or "Kiki's Delivery Service".

How about that...Racoon Dogs...I never really knew they existed.

Check the labels on your faux-fur clothes...kiddos.

According to Allen Stern over at CenterNetworks...the true (2-year) cost of an Apple iPhone works out to about $2000. Ouch. The commenter's have jumped in and done and audit of his calculations and come up with some alternatives. However, while I was very enthusiastic about the technology and wiz-bang coolness of it, the added plan features required to use it chilled me down quite a bit.

And this guy reports he got a cease-and-desist request from Apple when he began offering a free iPod'ish theme for Windows Mobile users. Apple Forces Website to Pull Windows Mobile iPhone Skin -via CyberNet Technology news. Get the skin from that link while you can...if you are interested.

And Slashdot posted a report that challenges Cisco's claim to ownership of that trademarked name....bet lots of lawyers on both sides are wetting their pants over this fight.

Think your blog is kinda drab? Wish you could add some snazzy Google plugins like an AJAX Websearch box, maybe a Google Maps API, or even a Video search? Google is offering cut-and-paste HTML code for their popular AJAX Search wizards. See their main Google AJAX Search API page for details. And bookmark the Google Code Home page as well. Neat stuff there.

All you Gmail users out there probably have more than a few email that include attachments. Lifehacker helps you manage them in their wonderful tutorial: Ask Lifehacker: Keep track of attachments in Gmail?

Finally, The Firefox Extension Guru's Blog posted Upcoming Releases/Milestones Jan/Feb ‘07

For all you Mozilla fans...here is what is (tentatively) coming down The Pipes.

• January 29th - Firefox 3 (Gran Paradiso) Alpha 2
• January 31st - Thunderbird 2 Beta 2
• February 2 - Firefox 1.5.0.10 and 2.0.0.2

Now where did I put my bucket?

--Claus

Survival Science Stuff...

A series on the Discovery Channel I've enjoyed watching recently is Walking with Cavemen. They have started running new series of it and it is really compelling. Mom and Dad had a collection of the Time-Life Series: The Emergence of Man and it was great stuff to read as a kid. We always had lots of science books, series, and magazines around the house growing up and I have no doubt it contributed to my love of science and reading growing up.

I still really struggle to conceptualize the conditions our forebearers lived under and how they socialized in light of our "high-tech" surroundings. It was tough, but they were smart and clever. While they developed stone tools and honed their technologies as they migrated out the day would come thousands of years later when we would have modern weapons and technology and walk on the moon. It makes my mind spin.

Then there is the series "Man vs. Wild" where a modern survivalist leads us into surviving the wilds without almost any technology at all. And the just wrapped up run of "Everest: Beyond the Limit" proving there are places that man can go on the face of the earth that even with the best of technology...probably shouldn't.

"I Shouldn't Be Alive" is another compelling series where common folk like us get dropped into unimaginably harsh survival conditions and existence is no longer certain.

BLDG BLOG posted a fascinating article about what the world would be like if pate tectonics stopped. Imagine what it would be like. Some scientists think it actually happened at one point in earth's past--and might happen again in another 350 million years.

Useful Resource Link Find

Leggman's Time-Life Library website. Details all of the series offered by Time-Life, now no longer in print. I saw quite a few familiar titles in there that we had.

--Claus

Go Atlantis!

I missed watching the live launch of the space shuttle Atlantis. I was down at the barber getting what little hair I keep on my head buzzed down even tighter to my scalp. Bummer.

NASA has it's ever entertaining website.

CNN finally posted a video of the launch that I was able to watch. Neato!

While browsing the web the other day, I found these interesting sites related to the Russian orbital vehicle.

Shuttle Buran (via NASA)

Energia-Braun (The Energia was what the Russian space program called it's heavy-lift booster rocket system). Nice pics.

Prototype Buran on display (Google Satellite view) in Gorky Park, Moscow.

Baikonur Cosmodrome (Google Sightseeing) - world's oldest and largest operational space launch facility in Russia. Has a link to the building where a roof-collapse (still not repaired) took out the original Buran orbiter and Energia mockup. Bummer.

For comparisons, visit a bird's-eye view of Cape Canaveral (Google Sightseeing) with the two shuttle launch towers and hanger.

Godspeed brave adventurers....
--Claus

Where is Brave Shakespeare?

It was too much to watch last night!

The dreaded Lazuli gang of meerkats found the Whiskers' burrow. Shakespeare was driven deep underground to protect his young charges alone by himself. The Lazuli's leader Big Cy led the final attack against the youngsters. When the dust cleared and the returning Whiskers drove the Lazuli away the tiny kids emerged, looking no worse for wear.

But heroic Shakespeare? He was nowhere to be found! I was hollering and screaming! How could they end it this way?!!!! Where is brave Shakespeare? Did he survive the battle? Is he OK?

So ends the first-season of Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor.

--Claus

Reason #5

Reason #5 why I should have been a geology major in college.

I could write prose like this:

"All are contact metamorphosed to some degree by post-tectonic granites, the strike direction is again northwest with a vertical cleavage."

and,

"Unusual orbicular granite formed by coronas of reaction rims of oriented hornblende formed around xenolithic inclusions, unfortunately not found in place. Is it pre- or post-tectonic?"

and again,

"That there can be so much dissent about a simple, well exposed granitic pluton of modest dimensions, makes one despair for the future of granitic petrology. One cannot help remark that confusion might be less if people read the original definitions!"

Oh well...

I don't get the lingo, but the pictures on the The Ross Sea Dependency including Victoria-Land Geology page are really spectacular. (Click the pictures to load large-size images.)

I really love this one. (Sled-dogs ahead!)

From the Ross Sea - Antarctica homepage.

--Claus

Mentos and Diet Coke

Upon getting your hands on the first edition release of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" did you immediately open it up to the final chapter to figure out who died--even before reading the rest of the book?

Then this post is for you.

On Wednesday, the ever-popular-around-our-house team known as the "Mythbusters" plunges into the mythical world of exploring what happens when Mentos candies are dropped into bottles of Diet Coke.

I did a bit a research and can confirm the effect to be covered. Examine the video at this link if your browser doesn't handle the imbedded video.)

You can wait for the show to find out why this happens....or......I can tell you now.

Mythbusters Chemistry Spoiler Warning!!!!

It is due to a process called "nucleation," in which the two products chemical makeup interact and cause the carbon dioxide gas to rapidly come out of their suspension in the coke. But you have to have the right Mentos. It's a cascade effect -- an ion exchange that takes off. My brother could probably explain it better.

Anyway it is really cool.

Read the whole article here: The 'MythBusters' Take on the Mentos/Diet Coke Craze

And don't feel disappointed. You can bet that Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman will come up with really clever and dangerous ways to make use of this newfound power for our enjoyment.

Air date: Wednesday, Aug. 9, at 8 p.m. (CST), The Discovery Channel.

I'm going to the grocery store this afternoon. Alvis and I are going to have some fun in the backyard! (If Lavie doesn't catch us.....)

--Claus

Texas Links and Miscellany

Taking a breather from my series of security stuff.

Here is a linkage path I recently went down while surfing the net before Meerkat Manor came on...

So I was thinking about how I used to run cross-country in high-school and how I probably couldn't make it more than a mile before my entire body shut down in protest. Then I came across this link: The Couch-to-5K Running Plan. A wonderfully attainable plan to go from zero to 3-miles in just two months of training. Now if I could just surf the net while I ran--Motoko style, I'd be set.

Since I was thinking athletics. I haven't mentioned World Cup 2006. I was disappointed to see Germany and Brazil get knocked out. Then again, watching France's Zinedine Zidane try to knock out Italy's Marco Materazzi certainly was surprising. I actually enjoyed the final and as an American, don't really mind games ending in a penalty kickoff. Seems very Clint Eastwood, American Western to me. For wonderful amusement, I offer you the following video: Zidane World Cup Headbutt Animation Festival. This is great stuff.

I then stumbled across a web link to NavSource Naval History: Photographic History Of The U.S. Navy. It's got pictures of almost every US Naval vessel ever commissioned. Really great stuff.

That led me to look for vessels named after Texas. Turns out there were several:

Second Class Battleship Texas (Fate: Sunk as target off Maryland by US Navy in 1911.)
New York Class Battleship Texas (BB-35) (Fate: Memorial in our back-yard in La Porte, Texas.)
Destroyer Leader DLGN/CGN-39 TEXAS (Fate: Disposed and hulk recycled in 2001.)
Virginia Class Submarine SSN-775 Texas (In active service.)

The USS Texas's webpage.

I used to build model-kits as a kid and I remember building one of a battleship with Dad in particular. I don't remember which one it was, maybe the Bismark? I've kept an eye out over the years hoping to find a local kit of the USS Texas but never have found one. I have found some nice ones on the net:

A nice hand-built one on the net.
USS Texas BB35 1/350 scale full-hull kit
Samek’s 1:700th USS Texas (waterline kit)

And then all this reminiscing on the Texas stirred loose a bit of sci-fi reading from my high-school years. While working at our city library back in my youth, I came across a paperback titled "The Ayes of Texas." I hadn't thought about that book until just now. It was actually the first in the Republic of Texas trilogy by Daniel da Cruz. Somehow world events conspire Texas to declare her independence (again), fight the Russians who are invading the US and re-fit the hulk of our locally beloved USS Texas (BB-35) into a high-tech ass-kicking machine again. It's kinda dated now, but at the time it stirred this young Texan's heartstrings something special.

Wonder if local sci-fi reading fan Jim Thompson ever heard of it?

Wrapping up the night in a WWII machine mode, I came across the history of The Lost Bomber. In 1956, a B-25 bomber crashed into the Monongahela river near Homestead, Pennsylvania.

Funny thing is, even though they knew where it crashed, it hasn't been found since.

See you in the skies,
--Claus