Links to cool places or things.
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On my Thursday morning walk through the neighborhood park, I saw a particularly spectacular sunrise. Three lights in the sky hung above the rising sun. I recognized Venus of course, but the two smaller lights were a mystery.
My copy of Stellarium told me today what they were: Saturn and Mercury! If you’re up at sunrise, you should take a look at this wonderful celestial show!
NASA’s LCROSS mission to the moon comes to a crashing halt around 7:35 AM ET this morning. You can watch it crash into the lunar pole on NASA TV.
Update 08:00: LCROSS is no more. I couldn’t see much of anything significant when it crashed. Also, I find it funny that NASA applauds this kind of moon landing: a crash! Hey, this is one NASA mission even I could be in charge of!
For the old Oculan folks out there, you may be pleased to watch this promotional video [40 MB MPEG1] I dug out of the attic last night. It ran on a certain broadcast network’s prime time news back in August 2003. Look closely and you can see the back of my balding head at 2:24 – 2:26.
Ah, Purple Box. We hardly knew ye.
This month Wired magazine spills the beans on how Netflix plans to take over the world – or at least make your cable company irrelevant:
Today, nearly 3 million users access Netflix’s instant streaming service, watching an estimated 5 million movies and TV shows every week on their PCs or living room sets. They get it through Roku’s player, which was successfully launched in May 2008 …. They get it through their Xbox 360s—Microsoft added Netflix to its Xbox Live service last fall. They get it through LG and Samsung Blu-ray players. They get it through their TiVos and new flatscreen TVs. By the end of 2009, nearly 10 million Netflix-equipped gadgets will be hanging on walls and sitting in entertainment centers. And Hastings says this is just the beginning: “It’s possible that within a few years, nearly all Internet-connected consumer electronics devices will include Netflix.”
You know your Time Warner stock? I’d suggest you short-sell it, pronto. Netflix isn’t through with changing the media game – permanently!
Guitar legend Roger McGuinn is also an accomplished techie, and maintains a blog devoted solely to his various gadgets. Last month, Roger shared his journey into solar power.
What started with the purchase of a small solar panel to charge his cell phone led to him to fully convert his home to solar power. In doing so, he didn’t give up anything but a power bill: he’s got enough juice to power his two refrigerators and 5-ton air conditioner.
An amazing set of alternative-energy rebates and deals are being offered this fall to North Carolina residents. I’ll post about these soon but the deals have me seriously considering following Roger’s lead and putting panels on our roof.
I’m looking for a few good pirates for a pub crawl Saturday night. I sent this email out to some neighborhood lists today:
Whereas, Saturday, September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.
Whereas, Raleigh has downtown circulator bus known as the “R Line.”
Whereas, Saturday marks the first International Talk Like A Pirate Day since the R Line came into being.
Whereas, said R Line has served as transportation for many a downtown pub crawl.
Whereas, it’s been a while since the last organized R Line pub crawl.
Whereas, pirates like to spend their silver on grog in pubs.
Whereas, Raleigh being miles from any sea is no excuse not to drink grog.
Whereas, Raleigh could use an annual costumed event like the one in that
Triangle town over the horizon.
Therefore Be it Resolved That, Saturday, September 19th is hereby declared the start of the First Annual Raleigh ARRRRRR! Line Pub Crawl.
Meet at the Seaboard Station ARRRRR! Line stop at 9 PM (Peace St at Wilmington). Pirate costumes optional this time around, but lack of them next year t’will be a flogging offence.
See you there, mateys!
Mark Turner, a.k.a.
Scowlin’ Bailey Hornigold
As part of my service on the board of the Mordecai Historic Park, I’ve been asked to be a “cookie judge” for Saturday’s Baking Contest. There are over 40 entries in this year’s baking contest, so I’m not so sure I won’t have a stomachache when we go to the They Might Be Giants concert later that afternoon. My fellow Parks board members sounded jealous of this assignment when I mentioned it last night, but I’m thinking the only recipe I’ll be interested in is a recipe for a ton of extra exercise the next day!
Come out and visit Mordecai Historic Park if you can. Once the judges have a taste, the contest entries will be distributed to the public. Dig in!
The folks at online storage provider Backblaze have an interesting blog post which shows you how you can build your own 67 terabyte storage server for under $8000. Pretty impressive!
Update 12:30 PM: As Jeff points out, it’s not for everybody.
My brother-in-law David Swanson’s new book Daybreak is the sixth best selling book on Amazon today. Take that, Glenn Beck!
Congratulations, David!
My friend Jamie sent a link today to a music video made by officers of the USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53). It’s set to the parody rap song I’m on a Boat by The Lonely Island (YouTube). The John Paul Jones version is a pretty good copy, considering the guys were limited in their props.
This video and another version of I’m on a Boat made by different sailors goes to show you what pulling six months worth of 12-hour shifts can do to one’s sanity. It’s a long way back from the Persian Gulf to California and sailors get a little slap happy. This is the kind of thing I would’ve put together on the end of a deployment if I’d had a MacBook back then.
Check out this version of Pump It by the VAW-116 Sunkings and the British Royal Navy doing Bohemian Rhapsody. Good times.
Warning: some videos contain explicit language.
Update 7 Oct 2009: The John Paul Jones video is also available here.
