November 5, 2006

There were 2 posts published on November 5, 2006 (this is page 1 of 1).

Shutting The Borders – For Americans?!?

Slashdot (I know, not the most reliable source of news) spread the word yesterday that the Department of Homeland Security is proposing new rules requiring Americans to get permission before entering and leaving the country. A valid U.S. passport won’t be enough, even though it currently takes a U.S. court order to revoke a passport. Your name will have to be cleared by some bureaucrat before you’re allowed to leave or enter, no matter what your U.S. passport says about your right to be here.

Things have gotten scary here in the U.S.A., folks. Veterans’ Day is six days from now and serves as a reminder of the sacrifices I made and others made in service to our country. That same country I so proudly served is now disintegrating before my eyes. Freedom is an endangered species in America.

The second date looming in my mind is two days away: Election Day. If ever there was a chance to put a stop to this bullshit, Tuesday is the day. If things don’t change come Wednesday morning, we are all in deep trouble.

Read more at John Gillmore’s excellent site, Papers, Please. And DHS’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking here.

Yes, it really is as bad as it seems.

SkyScout: For Idiot Astronomers Like Me

Kelly and I are shopping around for potential Christmas presents. In the “wish I had enough money to buy it” category is the Celeston SkyScout Personal Planetarium. This is the Holy Grail of astronomy tools, in my book:

The SkyScout is a revolutionary handheld device that uses advanced GPS technology with point and click convenience to instantly identify thousands of stars, planets, constellations and more. Simply point the SkyScout at any star in the sky and click the “target” button–the SkyScout will instantly tell you what object you are looking at.

In other words, its like having an expert astronomer in a box. Imagine walking around with Carl Sagan in a box!

Eww. Nevermind. But, still! Being able to point this thing at a star and have it tell you what it is (“that’s the sun, you idiot”) would be out of this world! Dadgummit, what will they think of next?

The second question I had when I saw this was: can it do celestial navigation? All of our deep space spacecraft use the stars for navigation. Most of them have electronic brains that make the Commodore 64 seem advanced. If this thing can identify stars, celestial navigation can’t be far behind.