Words for the wise from the mouth of a fool.
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The weblog of Seth Johnson -------------- INKSLINGER.ORG -------------- OD ARCHIVES -------------- FEEDS Posts:  Shared Items:
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Saturday, February 08, 2003
Zusty pointed me to the online Harvard Dialect Survey, worth taking if you can spare a half hour or so. If not, you can still take a look at the results. I'm glad to see that the bubbler folks are in the minority. Sometimes it's the little things that keep you warm in the dark, cold night.
The question with the strangest possible answers (as already noted by Zusty):
80. What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
a. sunshower
b. the wolf is giving birth
c. the devil is beating his wife
d. monkey's wedding
e. fox's wedding
f. pineapple rain
g. liquid sun
h. I have no term or expression for this
i. other
My answer was "sunshower", but I'm seriously thinking about changing to "monkey's wedding".
Friday, February 07, 2003
Matt Haughley has put up a great post explaining what's wrong with this simple file: http://thomas.loc.gov/robots.txt.
I haven't finished watching Brewster Kahle's keynote myself (saw the link on boingboing yesterday, but just haven't had the time yet), but based on what I have seen, I reccommend it highly.
Evan Dorkin has a sporadically-updated online journal (joining the often-updated-weekly-but-not-always FUN! strips.) Neat.
Anyone who missed Chad's link in an OD comments thread a couple days ago should go check out the incredible photos on The Fire Photography of Gene Blevins.
NASA leaves no stone unturned, as they hit OD with a Google search for ground photos of the Columbia reentry. Perhaps they found a link to something useful.
Updated to add this link to a collection of TV caps from last Saturday. Don't miss the picture of the Mission Control team in happier times.
Time for another round of the OD Random Link Clearinghouse. Ready?
- The Top 10 Worst Game Covers.
- "Oh Hungry? Oh Ober Dicta." (Courtesy of the Advertising Slogan Generator.)
- The New York Public Library Digital Library already has a plethora of great images to browse. What will it be like when it's finished?
- All the rhythm and none of the exercise at Flash Flash Revolution.
- Everything you need to know about "The World's Only Ass-Kicking Machine".
- The Juile/Juila Project. Fun to read now, but I'm hoping she does a sequel where she joins the French Resistance.
- The Rockafire Explosion MP3 Archive! Don't miss the "White Album Medley".
- Two good articles: "Japan's Gross National Cool" and "Martian Law" (the latter from MeFi today.)
- How to l33tmod your computer using...laundry detergent?
- The Weekly Intelligence Notes Archive of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.
Thursday, February 06, 2003
Traffic on OD seems to be returning to normal levels. I'll try to keep my shuttleblogging to one post per day for those who are still hanging around.
Some links related to the ongoing investigation: "Cosmic bolt probed in shuttle disaster " (via MeFi), and "Air Force imagery confirms Columbia wing damaged" (via Spaceflightnow).
Also, Spaceflightnow.com reports that ISS planners are mulling launching a "caretaker crew" to the station in April or May aboard a Soyuz.
Dr. Chris, passes along links to some truly fantastic shuttle pics.
Finally, a story on today's memorial service in Washington.
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Via boingboing, the mysterious story of AONN.gov. Sounds similar to the .mil hijackings that were being discussed last week.
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Let's start the climb back towards OD's normal level of levity with the best press release I've read in a while: " 'About Schmidt's' Portrayal of Actuaries as Math-Obsessed, Socially Disconnected Individuals with Shockingly Bad Comb-Overs "97.28892% Incorrect" Says Society of Actuaries"
And what about all the octopus robots? (via the yeti)
I was asked today why I care so much about the disaster, why I'm spending so much time blogging about it. So it seemed like the right time to finish and post an essay I started over the weekend:
The Dream is Alive
I was in first grade when I decided to become an astronaut. When I was small, one of my favorite books was A Trip to the Moon, but I spent my young-childhood and kindergarten digging in the backyard and convinced I was going to be an archaeologist. I suspect it was probably the flood of news surrounding the space shuttle's first launch in 1981 that turned my head from the earth to the stars. On April 12, 1981, the second and third graders were allowed to stay inside at reccess to watch the launch of the space shuttle. But I was so upset about being unable to watch that finally a teacher took pity and allowed a first grader to come inside just a minute before liftoff. Still in my jacket, I remember standing in the doorway behind a crowded classroom of elementary students counting down from ten to one--and then a cheer as the Columbia climbed to space on a tower of flame.
I thought about other careers over the years, bouncing from job to job as all kids do. For a while I considered designing cars, and I always thought drawing comics would be a lot of fun. I even wondered about combining the two to build cars for superheroes. I was young.
But through it all I still dreamed of space. My copy of the Space Shuttle Operator's Manual grew dog-earred as I read and reread launch sequences and looked up the acronyms I'd see in news stories: STS, ET, SRB, PDRS, TDRS, LDEF. My parents took me to the Science Museum of Minnesota to see "Hail Columbia" and "The Dream is Alive", IMAX movies that still make my heart sing with joy.
On the morning of January 28, 1986, I was coming out of physical education and headed to my next class when someone (I still remember who, even if they probably don't) walked by and said, "Nice fireworks!" When I didn't understand, he was happy to explain and drive the knife home--the Challenger had exploded shortly after liftoff. I thought he was joking, but the secretary in the school office confirmed his story. I don't think I ever skipped a class before or after, but I didn't even care about classes as I sat in the study hall and watched the television coverage that afternoon. Over the next few days, I obsessively read the papers and watched the news. Somewhere in my boxes I still have a file of clipped stories and a videotape of material taped off television during that period--proto-blogging, I suppose.
The next summer I got my first job, detasseling corn. I read the Space Shuttle Operator's Manual as we rode the bus between fields, other kids laughing and saying that the shuttle would never fly again. Still I dreamed. The year before, the movie "Space Camp" had hit the theaters. Stunned that such a place existed, I had sought out the backbreaking work of detasseling so I could get some extra money and save up--I wanted to go to Space Camp. With a lot of saving, and help from my parents, by the end of the year I was making reservations.
I traveled to Huntsville in the spring of 1988 for one of the greatest weeks of my life. I rode the multi-axis trainer. I wore a spacesuit and trained in the zero-buoyancy tank. I read the jargon-filled manual, attended astronomy and physics lectures, and took tests. I went to sleep at night looking out the window at the Academy's rocket park. At the end of the week, I qualified to be the pilot for our simulated mission. Our team won the week's award for the most successful mission, handling a string of simulated emergencies triggered by instructors that even included a fire in the cargo bay during the landing sequence.
Each team at the Academy was named after a defense contractor, and the one we had been given at the beginning of the week was "Teledyne-Brown". But as our group became more close-knit during the week and discussed our love of spaceflight and space travel, we decided on a new symbol. Going down to the gift shop one afternoon after lunch, we all bought mission patches from 51-L--the Challenger mission. Through the rest of the week, we carried them around as a symbol of determination that our generation wouldn't let the dream of spaceflight die.
It was about halfway through high school when I realized that on physical qualifications alone, I wasn't going to be able to follow the military career track of most shuttle pilots and commanders. But that was okay--I loved math and science, and could always be a mission specialist. When I went to college, I continued to study math and physics, with a particular interest in astrophysics and astronomy. Suddenly, about midway through college, things changed. I discovered that I wanted to pursue my love of writing as a career...and that meant setting aside my dream of going into space.
In his book Chasing Science, Frederik Pohl talks of 'spectator science', of participating in science simply by observing and enjoying the wonders of research, developement and exploration. That's what I've done ever since, following news of shuttle missions, the space station, and space exploration with what has been called on occasional an "unreasonable excitement".
Then came last Saturday morning. In the heat of blogging the incoming news, I flashed back at moments to that seven-year old watching Columbia liftoff for the first time, and to the teenager hearing the news of the Challenger explosion. But mostly I remembered warm days in Alabama, walking though the rocket park with the Challenger patch in my pocket, determined to keep the dream alive.
Last night I pulled my copy of the Space Shuttle Operator's Manual off the shelf and thumbed through it while watching my DVD of "The Dream is Alive". Afterwards, I pulled out my copies of Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience and John Lewis' terrific Mining the Sky and prepared to read them again.
I'm heartened by what I'm hearing from the media, the astronauts' families, NASA administrators, and even the President. The space program will go on. But there are still those who aren't convinced that human destiny lies not in fighting over an ever more crowded Earth but in the freedom that will come when we reach out to the stars--and are determined to stay there. Until they're convinced, until anyone with determination and a dream can journey toward that frontier, there's still work to be done.
It's not work that can only be done by scientists and politicians--simply by kindling the dream in your heart and the hearts of others, you can play an important part. Order a patch. Join the National Space Society. Watch the excitement of the race for the X-Prize. Find what starts the countdown inside yourself and others.
Keep the dream alive.
This post from Ken Layne about Saturday is good reading and provides some new links that I haven't posted (although I had to dig a bit to find the story he refers to about the crew's last emails to their families.)
Stories have been posted about today's memorial service by the Associated Press and CNN. ABCNews' page with the AP news story also includes a touching announcement at the bottom of the page about a memorial in Florida scheduled for Friday:
Service Held Where Shuttle Was to Land
Cape Canaveral, Fla., Feb. 4 — The engineers, workers and contractors who helped launch space shuttle Columbia will remember the seven astronauts who died during a memorial service at the runway where the shuttle was supposed to land, officials said today.
The memorial service at the Kennedy Space Center was scheduled for 8:15 a.m. Friday.
"It will be almost at the touchdown point," said NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham.
The Kennedy Space Center service was one of three scheduled to honor the astronauts.
President Bush was scheduled to attend a memorial service at Johnson Space Center in Houston today. Vice President Dick Cheney and NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe were scheduled to attend a second service at the National Cathedral in Washington.
The families of the astronauts have also released a statement: "...although we grieve deeply, as do the families of Apollo 1 and Challenger before us, the bold exploration of space must go on. And once the root cause of this tragedy is found and corrected, the legacy of Columbia must carry on for the benefit of our children and yours."
Via Metafilter, download "Fire in the Sky", the song whose lyrics Buzz Aldrin read on NBC on Saturday:
And with Challenger and seven, once again the price is paid.
Though a nation watched her falling, yet a world could only cry.
As they passed from us to glory, riding fire in the sky.
Now, the rest is up to us, and there's a future to be won.
We must turn our faces outward, we will do what must be done.
For no cradle lasts forever, every bird must learn to fly ---
And we're going to the stars, see our fire in the sky.
Yes, we're going to the stars, see our fire in the sky!
There's a fire in the sky, I'll remember until I die.
A fire in the sky, a fire in the sky!
Spaceflightnow reports that the Russian cargo freighter has successfully docked with the ISS:
A fresh load of supplies has arrived at the International Space Station, enabling the three-man Expedition 6 crew to remain aboard the complex through late-June or early-July, if necessary. However, no firm decisions have been made concerning the crew's return to Earth or launch of the next resident crew.
The Progress M-47 made its automated docking to the station at 9:49 a.m. EST, one minute earlier than planned. No problems were reported during the final rendezvous or linkup. This was the tenth such supply ship delivered to the station over the past few years.
Commander Ken Bowersox, NASA Science Officer Don Pettit and Russian flight engineer Nikolai Budarin are expected to float into the Progress later today. Their job of unloading the ton of equipment and cargo is scheduled to begin tomorrow.
The lead story on most television and online news sources this morning is that the shuttle's nose cone has been found in a forest* in Texas.
* Not in another nose cone, as an earlier typo reported
I was busy facing down a deadline yesterday, so there was some information I didn't get a chance to post. Let's get up to speed:
NASA has announced the makeup of its investigatory panel.
At Sunday's press conference, a memorial service was announced for 1 PM EST Tuesday; later in the day, the President announced that he would attend. The next NASA press conference will follow later that afternoon.
Video has now been posted with the transcript of the President's Saturday speech on the White House web site.
Also at the Sunday press conference, Shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore gave a timeline of events that they are closely investigating:
At 7:52 a.m. CST, three-left main gear brake line temperature sensors showed an unusual rise in the left wheel well area. · At 7:53 a.m., a fourth left brake line strut actuator temperature sensor showed a 30-40 degree rise in temperature over a five-minute period, slightly higher than reported yesterday. · At 7:55 a.m., A fifth left brake line main gear sensor showed a sharp rise in temperature. · At 7:57 a.m., left wing temperature sensors failed "off-scale low", meaning no further data was being received on the ground. · And at 7:59 a.m., just before communications was lost with Columbia, there was evidence of drag on the aerosurfaces of the left wing, causing two out of four yaw steering jets in that area of the Shuttle to fire for 1.5 seconds to counteract the increased drag.
Spaceflightnow.com's story on this information, "NASA seeks 'missing link' in Columbia investigation", reports investigating engineers saying that while the problem might have involved the left wheel well, it likely wasn't centered on it.
More online reporting on the disaster is gathered at the CBS News coverage page and on ABCNews online.
OD has been mentioned in a story on MSNBC and Slate about online coverage of the disaster. I'll be adding a sticky header up above that will allow all the new visitors to quickly jump to Saturday's entries.
Sunday, February 02, 2003
One more thing to smile about: the final draft of my section in a recently-announced project is now complete. Of course, my next deadline is fourteen days away, so no rest for the weary. It's a good thing I'm an insomniac...
Thanks to Teresa for the first link to make me smile in two days:
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President Bush will apparently be suggesting a boost in NASA's budget for 2004, a 3% increase (of 470 million dollars) to 15.4 billion. (via Bezzy)
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