Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
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The Mars Rover Opportunity has been working close to the equator. Spirit has been about 10° south latitude, well within the tropics. But while 'winter' may be a precise geologic term, 'winter weather' can be relative. At -155°F at night, Spirit is chilling on a dark-colored, heat absorbing rock. It limped there on 5 wheels; the right front one won't work. It can still maneuver but for covering longer stretches of ground they drive it in reverse. The tractor does the same thing sometimes, but that's a transmission problem, not a wheel problem. I'd be of no help to them at all with getting it fixed.
Anyway, plans for Spirit are to wait through the winter in place, doing some atmospheric data collection, dust analysis, and solar observations during middays. It can do low-power projects while waiting for batteries to recharge slowly.
Opportunity, on the other hand, has cruised almost 10 miles to reach the rim of the huge crater Victoria. Here's a spectacular view from Duck Bay on the crater's edge. Shortly, both rovers will stop sending communications to wait as Mars passes on the other side of the sun from Earth. When Mars reemerges (when we come around the sun and start to catch up to it) the discoveries at Victoria should be amazing. Victoria is 200+ feet deep (Endurance was 20), half a mile wide and Steve Squires said, "Exploring Victoria is something we joked and fantasized about but never really thought we could realistically get to it." To wit: "This is the absolutely highest-priority destination we could have reached."
You can get an idea of the importance of the Victoria site by viewing Opportunity's traverse map.
Spirit and Opportunity have lasted 950 Martian days (just a touch longer than Earth days). They were supposed to last 90. How's that for high performance in longevity? On that note, I started college again last week. OK. Maybe that's not quite as impressive.
It's different than when I last attended. I download the lecture in PP off the class website a few days before. There's a class chatroom. Students take notes on their laptops and there's wireless internet available in the lecture hall. To be honest, I actually knew these things. Part of the fun of growing older is looking at the present through eyes you had a long time ago. Maybe that's to gain insights on the present, maybe that's to pretend our eyes are younger. That I don't know.
I'll be taking a light load, one class per quarter in viticulture at UC Davis. Degree pursuits TBD; technically I'm a continuing undergrad. My advisor recommended introductory even though most content will be review.
So I'm in with a bunch of freshmen. On the first day, our professor asked, "who is here for there first college class ever?" and about half the class raised their hands. He then posed "who is here because they want to learn a lot about wine?" This time more than half volunteered. He then offered two definitions: "Enology is the art and science of making wine, while viticulture is the science of the grapevine. This is VEN2, Introduction to Viticulture. It is botany. You will not learn a lot about wine in this class. If you wish to learn a lot about wine you need to drop this class and enroll in VEN3, Introduction to Winemaking." Professors making classes smaller, some things never change.
UCD is world renowned for its Viticulture and Enology program. I ended up here kind of by accident. I am twice the age of the folks in my class (I will respectfully not call them kids... yet) but I'll rather not think of it that way.
I'm just able to do things I never realistically thought I could get to.
Dude, this stuff makes you hungry.
The pair was nabbed at 5:30 AM on September 7 after a Stallings Police Department officer noticed a suspicious car--with keys in its ignition and a warm engine--parked outside a small strip mall. When Sawyer and Wilkins noticed police on the scene, they fled out the Domino's front door and were apprehended after a short chase, said Sergeant Mike Kane. Sawyer, a 21-year-old hair stylist, and Wilkins, a 20-year-old carpet cleaner, were arrested and later charged with breaking and entering and larceny, both felonies. Additionally (and not surprisingly), Sawyer was found carrying a marijuana pipe, for which she was hit with a misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia count. Kane told TSG that when he entered the Domino's, he discovered that the establishment's ovens were on and a box of brownies had been freshly baked. Investigators determined that Wilkins had previously worked at the Domino's and was fired for allegedly stealing a cash box. Kane said that Wilkins told him that he went to the closed store to return a set of keys and was not there to steal anything. Though Wilkins did acknowledge the pre-dawn baking: "I was just making food, I was hungry." Police recovered the brownies, valued at $5, and found no evidence that anything had been taken from the eatery.
Mugshots at the link.
Here I am at Camp Stigmata.
When Camp Koresh just isn't intense enough for your precious ones, send 'em on up to Camp Bonkers.
The new documentary "Jesus Camp" is shocking Christians and non-Christians alike with its scenes of children sobbing and crying out to God at a Pentecostal summer camp in North Dakota. [...] In the film, the children cheered when asked if they'd be willing to give up their lives for Jesus, prayed over a cardboard cutout of President George W. Bush and cried as they pleaded for an end to abortion, the Los Angeles Times reported. The paper said that one of the children is home-schooled by a mother who teaches that "science doesn't prove anything."
Ewing said the children explained that they wept because God's heart is broken over a lost and sinful world. But she added that the children didn't seem unhappy -- just more intense than the average American child. Grady said all of the kids plan to become missionaries. Some critics have labeled the camp a frightening example of brainwashing and child abuse.
"This is war! Are you part of it or not?," Fischer shouted at the children during the film. Fischer proudly compared her Bible camp to indoctrination of young boys by extremist Muslims.
The first link up there has a link to the movie's trailer.
Nice choice of words, Pete.
Peter Roskam, the GOP candidate to succeed outgoing Rep. Henry Hyde, accused Dem opponent Tammy Duckworth of wanting to "cut and run" from Iraq during a debate a couple days ago. The use of this common pro-war talking-point in this case surprised some observers—not to mention Duckworth herself—because the veteran Duckworth lost both of her legs in Iraq.
Reference, in case you're unfamiliar with the title.
In fact, you're probably better off just skipping this one. Gaijin Biker mailed it to me and now we both feel icky.
If you're going to get drunk and attack biker gangs, be sure you put your car in park.
Long a favorite of X-Files types, the Martian face in Cydonia has been mapped and imaged by the Mars Express orbiter.
Not a relic of an ancient Martian civilization, just a trick of shadows and the human mind's tendency to find patterns, but nonetheless quite interesting geologically. Several more fantastic images at the link.
The solar occultation I mentioned yesterday has revealed a new ring, as well as "wispy fingers of icy material stretching out tens of thousands of kilometers from the active moon, Enceladus." Also, a fuzzy snapshot of Earth as it appears from Saturn.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Malkin.
Here are a ton of photographs from Banksy's LA warehouse show. What I'm most struck by is how normal Perry Farrell looks these days.
You can no longer have sex with a corpse in California, but there's probably still time to schedule your vacation in Wisconsin before they make it illegal there.
Election season always brings out the silly squad.
When Mississippi John Hurt wrote Big Legged Woman, he probably hadn't imagined Ms. Sellars.
Hard to say exactly what you'd charges you'd bring against this guy.
The Victorian Surrealism of Jeffrey Michael Harp's Hippopotamouse.
I struggled to come up with a witty comment, but came to the realization that nothing could add to the amazingness of this video. Wow.
It's totally not safe for work, but this viral campaign for Remington is pretty amusing. (via Ticklebooth)
Of course, not everybody can afford to work with a fashion designer, so there's always MerkinWorld.
There are about ten million websites that should be required to have this posted in their masthead. Roughly nine million of them are on myspace.
Via freakgirl.
I'm sure he'll take that under consideration.
The elder son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has called on Pope Benedict XVI to convert to Islam immediately, dismissing last week's apology from the pontiff for offending Muslims.
"If this person were really someone reasonable, he would not agree to remain at his post one minute, but would convert to Islam immediately," Mohammed Gaddafi told an awards ceremony on Monday evening for an international competition to memorise the Qur'an.
Guess what happens when you try to make out with a shark?
For just $50, you can have genuine New York City garbage shipped to your house.
One of these things is not like the other ones.
Society gets the kind of vandalism it deserves.
Dozens of new marine species, including a walking shark, are discovered off the coast of Indonesia, in an area threatened by, among other things, "over-fishing with dynamite and cyanide."
Right now, Cassini should be sending back the best pictures ever taken of Saturn's rings, thanks to a rare and lengthy solar occultation.
Also surprisingly stupid to do while driving.
They keep records for everything, apparently.
Claudio Paulo Pinto is looking to break an eye-popping record. Literally. Pinto can pop his eyeballs out of their sockets at least 7 millimeters (0.3 inches), a national record for eye-popping according to RankBrasil, an organization modeled after the Guinness Book of World Records that lists Brazilian records.
A former driver, Pinto got a job scaring visitors in a commercial haunted house in Belo Horizonte, 210 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. But he recently was laid off, and now he seeks international recognition for his ability.
"I was measured by an opthamologist on television in January. I could pop my eyes out 7 millimeters," Pinto said by telephone Saturday. "Since then, my capacities have improved over 50 percent."
That could put Pinto close to the record. The title of "furthest eyeball popper" in the Guinness Book of World Records currently belongs to Kim Goodman of Chicago, who can pop her eyeballs 11 milimeters (0.43 inches) out of her sockets.
You can find a bigger version of the picture at the link, if that's your sort of thing. And the current record holder, who (I kid you not) discovered her talent after taking a blow to the head during a hockey match, is here.
I can't believe I ate the whole thing.
"Last week firefighters in the Malaysian village of Kampung Jabor were called in to remove the bloated snake (pictured) from a roadway. The reptile had swallowed an entire pregnant sheep and was too full to slither away and digest its supersize meal. But the stress of being captured likely triggered the python to purge—it eventually regurgitated the dead ewe."
The world's first penis transplant was a surgical success, but a psychological failure.
Chinese surgeons have performed the world's first penis transplant on a man whose organ was damaged beyond repair in an accident this year. The incident left the man with a 1cm-long stump with which he was unable to urinate or have sexual intercourse. "His quality of life was affected severely," said Dr Weilie Hu, a surgeon at Guangzhou General Hospital.
Doctors spent 15 hours attaching a 10cm penis to the 44-year-old patient after the parents of a brain-dead man half his age agreed to donate their son's organ. The procedure, described in a case study due to appear in the journal European Urology next month, represents a big leap forward in transplant surgery; it required complex microsurgery to connect nerves and tiny blood vessels. The surgical team claims the operation was a success. After 10 days, tests revealed the organ had a rich blood supply and the man was able to urinate normally.
Doctors have previously succeeded in reuniting men with their sexual organs after traumatic accidents or attacks, but the Guangzhou operation is the first in which a donor penis has successfully been attached to another man.
Except:
Although the operation was a surgical success, surgeons said they had to remove the penis two weeks later. "Because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife, the transplanted penis regretfully had to be cut off," Dr Hu said. An examination of the organ showed no signs of it being rejected by the body.
In 2001, the same thing happened with the first successful hand transplant, when the recipient asked to have it amputated because he'd become "mentally detached" from it. Incidentally, I guess you take what donor penis is available to you in that situation but 10 cm = 3.9 inches. Seems like for all that trouble you'd hold out for--
Oh, never mind.
...to winning a Darwin Award, but coming up just short.
In a moment of mental lapse, Kaleb Spangler, of Bloomington, Indiana, decided to really razzle dazzle the crowd at a local party. He strapped an old football helmet to his head and lit the fuse of a fireworks show mortar shell taped to it. The spectacular blast dazzled the crowd all right and nearly blew Mr. Spangler's head off. The helmet was destroyed by the explosion and Mr. Spangler was taken to a local hospital with severe burns, lacerations and a concussion. He is expected to survive.
You may be surprised to discover that "alcohol was involved in Spangler's decision." Or probably not.
The latest plan: dig a moat around Baghdad. The mind boggles.
Crickets infected with Gordian worms commit suicide. I'm not sure how that much worm fits inside a cricket. See also: Houdini escapes from a fish and a frog.
Updating a previous story: Woman Guilty After Microwaving Fake Penis At Store
Three cheers for alliteration: Prosecutors Pass on Penis Pump Passenger
Don't know how it does it, but it does it mighty big.
Astronomers say they have discovered what appears to be an entirely new kind of planet, an extra-large gas giant unlike any known world in our solar system or beyond. [...] The planet, dubbed HAT-P-1, is located some 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lacerta. It is the largest planet ever discovered and boasts a radius nearly 1.4 times larger than Jupiter's. HAT-P-1 is also the least dense of all known planets.
"This planet is about one quarter the density of water," said Gaspar Bakos, a Hubble fellow at CfA. "In other words, it's lighter than a giant ball of cork. Just like Saturn, it would float in a bathtub if you could find a tub big enough to hold it, but it would float almost three times higher."
Unlike more familiar gas giants, including those in our solar system, HAT-P-1 does not appear to have a solid core. [...] The planet's large size and low density can't be explained by current theories of giant planet formation. Scientists suggest that additional heat in its interior could account for its "puffed-up" size, but as yet they can't explain how such heat could be generated.
Back to the drawing board.
Cover your eyes! Lock up your children! Hot, throbbing Sistine Chapel porn could be in your driveway as we speak! The results of the Annual Unnecessary Warning Olympics are in and the Raleigh News and Observer just took the gold, silver, and bronze medals when all the other contenders got discouraged and quit.
(h/t: Kriston)
The dwarf planet that set in motion the demotion of Pluto from full planet status has been officially named by the International Astronomical Union, mercifully ending its unofficial run as Xena. The body will now be known as Eris, after the Greek goddess of strife and discord, and its moon gets the even cooler nomiker Dysnomia, after the goddess' child that was the daimon of lawlessness. Dysnomia is also a disease that manifests in a marked difficulty in remembering names or words, which may turn out to be appropriate as the count of known bodies in the solar system rises steadily.
Sorry. Got back from California to discover that the missus had mono. Which, of course, means I have it too and, as I've discovered, it really isn't all that enjoyable. But it seems to be fading. Also, fantasy football season started, so most of my web time has been scouring injury reports to see which running backs moved from third-string to primary backup (The Mustard Truck was victorious in Week 1 by a 77.34-77.08 squeaker). Oh, and work. I'll be back in action shortly, I promise. In the meantime, a veteran reader mailed me a link to this craziness from Chinese performance artist Li Wei.
Carry on.
If you're a true internet geek, you will immediately understand that this song is one of the greatest things ever. Via another true internet geek.
If you decide you're going to try to get laid via Craigslist—particularly if, say, you're already married—you probably shouldn't include bunches of personal information that will easily identify you.
Hey, I'm back from visiting the Froz Ranch out in California, and I'll have stories (air travel is teh suck) and pictures (I wanna be a cowboy, baybee) when I get a few spare moments. In the meanti—OH MY GOD, IT'S ON MY LEG!
