blivet radio
The Radio weblog of Hal Rager

Friday, March 8, 2002

"We're trying to keep the cat hungry tonight since there's a mouse in the house. If he can wake up and heft his feline bulk off the bed." [View from an Iowa Homestead] In my experience, there is an inverse relationship between the owners desire for a cat to do something and the possibility of the cat actually performing that something. Especially as feline mass approaches infinity. 8:55:13 PM    comment   trackback []

Military palmtop to cut collateral damage. The super-palmtop is called JEDI and combines laser rangefinding, GPS satellite positioning, a satellite phone and text messaging. [New Scientist] If it can do the GIS mapping and xyz plotting of artifacts, I'll write two into next year's budget! 7:38:39 PM    comment   trackback []

"ny times: antibiotics helped prevent the spread of anthrax. not herbs." [dangerousmeta!] Or crystals, or"positive thinking", or ... 7:34:45 PM    comment   trackback []

More Hubble: Hubble upgrade mission "absolutely flawless". Five days of renovations to the Hubble Space Telescope are wrapped up with the installation of an experimental cooling system. [New Scientist] Mission Updates :: Mar 8 - Flight Day 8 (EVA 5) Fri | Mar. 8, 2002 - 10:51 pm EST "In today's EVA #5, Shuttle astronauts John Grunsfeld and Richard Linnehan installed a mechanical cooling system to revive NICMOS, an infrared-sensitive camera originally placed on the telescope in February 1997. For a period of nearly two years extending into early-1999, NICMOS obtained extremely valuable data on the birth and death of stars, the formation of dusty disks around stars from which planets eventually form, and the properties of extremely distant galaxies near the edge of the observable universe. The cooling system passed its aliveness and functional tests during today's EVA." [Mission Updates] 7:28:57 PM    comment   trackback []

Dying stars hide behind a sunscreen shield. The centuries-old mystery of why dying red giant stars gradually disappear then reappear has been solved, say US scientists. [New Scientist] 7:20:51 PM    comment   trackback []

Mission Updates :: Mar 8 - Flight Day 8 (EVA 8) 9:15 am EST The aliveness test for the NCC completed successfully. Functional test now underway. Astronauts now closing the Aft Shroud doors. This may be the last EVA of the mission. 3:00 am EST The crew of the space shuttle Columbia will give Hubble a way to open one of its slumbering eyes during the fifth and final scheduled spacewalk of this mission. An experimental cooling system will be installed on a camera that has been dormant since 1999 in hopes of bringing it back to life. (...) [blivet] 7:14:18 AM    comment   trackback []

One of my all time favorite quote: Mark Twain. "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." [Quotes of the Day] 7:11:10 AM    comment   trackback []