Archive for May, 2008
The key communication link with NASA’s Phoenix lander has been restored, after an outage delayed the mission’s progress by one day.
Phoenix does not communicate directly with Earth, but are relayed between Phoenix and Earth by two NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars.
The problem occurred when NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) UHF radio failed to relay a sequence of commands from Earth, intended to guide Phoenix through the second day of its mission.
Because Phoenix did not receive any fresh instructions, it performed what is known as a “run-out sequence”, which amounts to a continuation of the previous day’s activities.
On Tuesday evening, MRO’s UHF radio started working again and successfully relayed images and other data from Phoenix back to Earth. MRO’s radio apparently went into a standby mode, for a still unknown reason.
Belgian newspaper people have got to be the dumbest in the world. Suing Google for getting them links and attention. Apparently the Belgians want no links or attention and cannot figure out how to prevent it. PC Magazine says Windows 7 is a threat to Vista. Windows 7 is still hot air. It will not be out until 2011. Some think that AMD has an opportunity. Look for the Norwegians to try to usurp the Nobel Prize with the Kavli awards. Geez. Tivo fails to keep up with Cranky Geeks. HP gets too much PR, I know why. Look for 8 MP on a cell phone? Agh. 8 MB of blur.
Click to listen:
Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick debuted Guitar HEro World Tour to the masses at “All Things D” convention, and instead of just showing off his wares he brought out a talent judge (Paula Abdul) and had Tony Hawk and Brody Jenner as front men for the band and they put on a little mini concert for the crowd … check out the video and comments follow.
I absolutely despise Lenny Kravitz, so I wish they would have played a different song, but the interface looks a lot cleaner then the previous guitar hero setups, and the drums look pretty cool, I even think that the fake bass drum in the front gives it a better look then the RockBand drums.
Getting even more excited everytime I see something new.
In episode 2, I talk about Make Magazine, why it is so awesome and why following your passion and living your dreams is never a waste of time. A brief look into a sky divers dreams and hopes for him for to be able to fall 25 miles.
NASA’s toilets are broken, and the Mars Orbiter is broken, and the bloggers have been suspended, but the Phoenix is still running strong.
Guitar Hero creeps us out with there Nintendo DS trailer.
Click to Listen :
Click to Download : [ download ]
Guitar Hero makers, Activision, have released a new trailer for their upcoming version of Guitar Hero on the DS. Are you kidding me?
I am not sure if I really hate this because I think it is a bad idea, or because I want to just slap the kid in the trailer, and don’t even get me started on the creepy narrator, and the sad “aging rockstar” who has clearly made some bad choices in life.
I am afraid I can not support this, and it really makes me sad, because it just feels like “sell out” material.
This guy really has a big heart …
Nathan, the maker of this Lego masterpiece, really knows how to risk a broken heart unless he used some glue on this creation.
He says :
I created an anatomically correct human heart for the Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego. A piece like this is a great tool to help doctors talk to young patients about their own hearts. Hopefully kids will relate to a heart built from a medium that they are familar with.
It took me nearly 100 hours to create this heavy heart, weighing in at 35 pounds. The typical human heart weighs about 10 ounces, so this heart is a bit heavier. It also causes more heartache when dropped on one’s foot.
Claims are being made that AT&T is pushing their tower climbing workers too had as they make a final push to get the 3G network up and running pre-iPhone release, and it could be costing thos workers their lives.
Phillip Elmer-Dewitt from [ Apple 2.0 ] notes that cell-tower deaths are on the rise. Since April 12th, six employees have fallen to their deaths, and half of them were working on AT&T projects. Previous to that, there has not been a cell tower death in four months.
AT&T obviously denies any connection, and has indicated that all that is required for the 3G upgrade is a software install at the base of the tower, but any time there are problems with the software upgrade, it is likely that a tower climb is necessary to troubleshoot that upgrade. So, ultimately the question becomes, how much is AT&T willing to sacrifice to ensure 3G connections are ready for the iPhone release in June?
I generally avoid discussing microsoft garbage, but I couldn’t pass this one up …
Last night on All things D, the boys from Redmond were quoted as saying they avoid monopolies…
[Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer: To accelerate scale it made sense for us to consider a Yahoo acquisition. The truth of the matter is, if nobody else gets scale except the current leader, what happens? … Some day all the ads for The Wall Street Journal Online might be sold by one guy and he’ll tell you exactly how much your editorial is worth.
Kara: Yeah, like a monopoly. Interesting.
Walt: That’s a great point. That’s exactly the sort of argument that was made against Microsoft.
Ballmer: Am I saying there’s something wrong? I’m just saying we are guys who will compete. That’s all I’m saying.
Gates: Guys like us avoid monopolies. We like to compete.
I would like to go on record stating that I avoid attractive women with lots of money that they like to give to geeky looking bloggers…
Why does Jonathan Coulton rock, and why is he just overall a slice of awesome that’s big enough for all of us to share ?
I answer that question by posting this you tube video…
China, a country known for keeping a hard line and a keen eye on security has taken the next step for the Olympics.
Tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies are embedded with a microchip containing the bearer’s photograph, passport details, addresses, e-mail and telephone numbers. Less to do with security and more to do with maintaining a positive public image during the ceremonies, the high tech tickets are meant to keep trouble makers out of the 91,000 seat stadium. Chinese officials fear protesters might wreck the glitzy ceremonies, unfurling Tibet flags, anti-China banners or even T-shirts adorned with strident messages.
Aside from doing very little to increase security, these tickerts raise huge questions about privacy and identity theft, and they pretty much ensure utter chaos at the ticket gates.
Not all tickets will contain the excessive amounts of personal data, only the tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies, some which are going for $720.00 a piece at face value.
Will they assist in securing the games? Roger Clarke, an Australian security expert says no.
“They should be concentrating on sniffing out the kinds of dangerous stuff rather than worrying about the identify of the people with the tickets,” said Roger Clarke
His Xamax Consultancy in Canberra advises businesses in online security and identity authentication.
Clarke added:
“The way in which you recognize an evildoer, somebody who wants to throw a bomb, somebody who wants to unfurl a Tibet flag is not on the basis of their identity, it’s the act that they perform and it’s the materials they carry with them.”
In the end this idea may do more harm to China’s publicity then letting in all the “Free Tibet” protesters.