At 2350hrs tonight Mars will be 56 million kilometres away.
As I’m sure you’re heard, it will be the closest it’s been in around 60,000 years, and the closest it will be for about another 60,000.
What was it like back then, to look up and see this glittering red light? What did the neanderthals think it was? Were they scared?
What will it be like in the future? Will there be humans to witness it? Will there be some other creatures with technology?
Sometimes, when you think of the details, the immensity of Time and the Universe makes you sit back and go “Whoa.”
I followed a link from Avocadia to a site about Hoo-ya (http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s930305.htm). It shows a picture (below) of one of Saturn’s moons, Mimas.
Does anybody else think that it’s suspiciously Death Star shaped?
I visited the SOCOM site today. Up pops a window offering new SOCOM TV ads. The first shows a guy walking down a street, then running to cover behind a bin. A guy jumps from the flowerbed in a ghillie suit and lays smoke grenades, while a soldier ziplines from a blackhawk. All on the street.
It then cuts to the guy playing the game. The second ad just gets silly.
When the local shopping centre opened up its new half, it was the time Rainbow 6/Rogue Spear were out. I took great delight in planning the shopping trip on the large floorplan coles had put just inside their front door.
Last shopping trip, it was all I could do to resist making the hand-gestures from SOCOM. A chopping motion from my shoulder directly out in front of me meant “Attack to dairy case.”
A palm-down, patting gesture at the hip meant “Hold position, choccy bikkies present.”
You get the idea.
Here are some samples of hand signals.
Ich bin der stolze Inhaber eines 1-Liter-Bierstein.
Es kam mit einem 6-pack des deutschen Importes bier.
Das einzige Problem mit einem 1-Liter-beerstein, ist daß alles kleiner, das 3 Flaschen und es leer schauen und fordert Sie auf, es wieder zu füllen.
Erhielt, sie zu lieben Germanians.
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kozaru.net&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=ASCII&oe=ASCII
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994075
Scientist have developed a robot that learns how to move, then, if damaged, re-learns how to move.
TO DO LIST:
1. Build robot that figures out how to move
2. Build self-aware computer
3. Build robotic arm that can hunt Sarah Conner
Got some coffee beans to grind the other day.
We’ve had espresso before, and moch kenya, but this one’s new. It’s an all-day flavour.
Brazilian.
Very smooth…
Cos I’m going in.
Playstation Network Gaming Trial.
Free kit.
All network.
I’m gonna need 300kg of coffee grounds, 600 litres of water, and 2 x 6 metre plastic hoses – one in, one out.
Not the dickhead kind, but the kind you use to do stuff.
It surprises me how reliant on “digital” people have become when the old way is really best.
We do a lot of measuring here at work, physical sizes of things. We have a digital vernier, a dial vernier, and a regular vernier.
The dial one is quite good, and is accurate to 0.05mm, which is great, as is the regular vernier.
The digital one, however, is highly susceptible to variations in heat, humidity, and it even loses its zero if you measure with it too quickly.
i hate those little digital ones.
I have expressed my feelings to the people who use them, then say “The size is wrong”.
No, the measurement is wrong.
It’s not like it’s difficult to read a regular vernier. Just line up the etched lines. Neven goes out of alignment.
So again I go and point out that the 1mm (yes, the digital shit varies by up to 1mm on a casual measure) difference in fact does not exist, and that the item in question is in fact the correct size.
And again I teach people to read a vernier.
