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At the National Air and Space Museum, they have a backup Lunar Excursion Module. I'm always transfixed by it when I visit. It seems so primitive; you can see tape on the foil wrapping, and there are welds and rivets all over it.

I mean look at this image. I've seen RVs with better construction! It really puts the accomplishment in perspective.

At the National Air and Space Museum, they have a backup Lunar Excursion Module. I'm always transfixed by it when I visit. It seems so primitive; you can see tape on the foil wrapping, and there are welds and rivets all over it.

I mean look at this image. I've seen RVs with better construction! It really puts the accomplishment in perspective.

I would not expect a government agency to be in the business of selling records, but helping people, yes, that I would expect.

Well, I'm sure glad my government set up Folkways records through the Smithsonian.

Funnily enough, I knew that. Damn.

GPS info available here


T.

'Pay close attention to shipping or contact addresses located in countries with a high reported incidence of online fraud and many e-commerce web sites have found a high incidents of on-line fraud as well, such as Africa...'

News to me. I always thought of Africa as more a continent with a rich and diverse assortment of tapestries of culture. With great cultural variances within groups of cultures and subgroups within those groups and so on...

This is pretty much the same for all indigenous peoples from all continents across the globe. The only reason we can think of the United States as having a sort of unified culture is because at critical junctures of forming our own identity as a people we had devised means of communication and transportation This is the reason that whether you go to Ann Arbor Michigan, Toms River NJ, Seattle, Southern California, Denver, (you name it) a suburb is a suburb is a suburb. All this had been done after we had already colonized this continent, which until then previously had previously as diverse a population of greatly differing cultures as any indigenous area of the globe.

I remember going to Lollapolooza (lots o' poor losers) back in 93. Someone had a table setup with a sign above it reading "African Food"....'Hmm..wonder what that tastes like'. So, I wander over there and ask her what kind of 'African' food they meant. It was loud so she kind of shouted back at me...'IT'S...AFRICAN...FOOOD!'...(as if I couldn't read the big bold letters above her). 'Ah! I see! What KIND of African?'...'Nigerian'...'What kind of Nigerian? Yoruba or Ibo?' Which I later found out is more popularly known as Igbo. But you could have properly referred to the plate in front of me as either.

This question really kind of floored her. And it shouldn't have. It really kind of annoys me when greatly divergent groups of people get lumped together like that. Just as it pisses me the fuck off when people speak of all Native Americans as if they were just "Indians" (as if there were quite literally no difference between a Lakota, a Navajo, a Lenape, a Choctaw, Oglala, Onendaga and and what have you)...it really pisses me off when people start speaking of Africa as if it were a "country". It's NOT!

'Pay close attention to shipping or contact addresses located in countries with a high reported incidence of online fraud and many e-commerce web sites have found a high incidents of on-line fraud as well, such as Africa...'

News to me. I always thought of Africa as more a continent with a rich and diverse assortment of tapestries of culture. With great cultural variances within groups of cultures and subgroups within those groups and so on...

This is pretty much the same for all indigenous peoples from all continents across the globe. The only reason we can think of the United States as having a sort of unified culture is because at critical junctures of forming our own identity as a people we had devised means of communication and transportation This is the reason that whether you go to Ann Arbor Michigan, Toms River NJ, Seattle, Southern California, Denver, (you name it) a suburb is a suburb is a suburb. All this had been done after we had already colonized this continent, which until then previously had previously as diverse a population of greatly differing cultures as any indigenous area of the globe.

I remember going to Lollapolooza (lots o' poor losers) back in 93. Someone had a table setup with a sign above it reading "African Food"....'Hmm..wonder what that tastes like'. So, I wander over there and ask her what kind of 'African' food they meant. It was loud so she kind of shouted back at me...'IT'S...AFRICAN...FOOOD!'...(as if I couldn't read the big bold letters above her). 'Ah! I see! What KIND of African?'...'Nigerian'...'What kind of Nigerian? Yoruba or Ibo?' Which I later found out is more popularly known as Igbo. But you could have properly referred to the plate in front of me as either.

This question really kind of floored her. And it shouldn't have. It really kind of annoys me when greatly divergent groups of people get lumped together like that. Just as it pisses me the fuck off when people speak of all Native Americans as if they were just "Indians" (as if there were quite literally no difference between a Lakota, a Navajo, a Lenape, a Choctaw, Oglala, Onendaga and and what have you)...it really pisses me off when people start speaking of Africa as if it were a "country". It's NOT!

Actually, blue is already taken, or at least it was at one point.

"In 1960, Klein created and patented the ultramarine color known as International Klein Blue or IKB."

It's really the process that is patented, but it still sounds funny having a patent on a color.

• Smithsonian - My favorite. I especially like the history articles they have.
• National Geographic - Great photography of course, but I read the Smithsonian first and don't always get to this one. This was basically free, though (I used expiring frequent flyer miles).
• Dr Dobb's Journal - Read this one religiously
• Linux Journal - Always read this one too.
• IEEE Spectrum - Usually one or two articles of interest.
• Communications of the ACM
• Computer - The magazine for the IEEE Computer Society
• Food and Wine - Don't really like it. I find it pretentious. Another free one.
• Flying - I'm not a pilot, but it is still interesting. Another freebie.
• Conde Naste Travel - Hate it. When I travel, I backpack and stay in cheap places, not 5 star hotels. But it was free.
• IEEE Communications - Not 100% sure on this title. I'm in telecomm, so this is useful when they cover optics stuff.
• Queue - From the ACM. Tries to be more oriented toward practicioners, whereas Communications of the ACM is more academic. Usually pretty good. They have been covering Open Source issues on a reqular basis.
• Maxim - Won't claim to read the articles because they suck. Cute girls, but the internet is a better source for that sort of stuff. This was also free.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to get through them all, but I at least look flip through them and read what really gets my attention

Smithsonian, the official mag of the Smithsonian Institution. I always tell people, if you can't find at least one article of interest in any given issue, than you are a very boring person.

Juding by Burt Rutan's designs, I would say things should go quite well tomorrow.

This camera operates in many ways the same as the cameras on Viking I and II - a rotating platform presents a line of pixels to an imaging element - in Viking the system went a bit further in that the line of image data was scanned by a mirror to direct it to one of several photodiodes to image the different parts of the spectrum.

The advantage to a system like this is that number of pixels in the axis scanned by the slit can be increased by finer control over the stepping motors driving it. While at some point you end overscanning scene (each strip covers much of the same ground as the previous strip due to the angle of view of the imaging element) you do gain some information by that overscanning - so you do increase the resolution in that axis.

Now, a camera like this is USELESS for motion photography (so all the one-handed typists drooling over pr0n are S.O.L.) - in fact the Viking camera team created a picture of themselves while they were testing the camera on Earth - one guy got in the shot five times by waiting until he had been scanned, then running around behind the camera, getting into position again, and being scanned again.

HOWEVER, I'd love to have a camera like this for taking pictures of places like The Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, the view from Pike's Peak, and other scenic vistas - there is simply no way to capture these places with anything like a normal camera.

Imagine if a camera like this could be located at the summit of Mt. Everest!

Or better still, Mare Tranquillitatis

I was curious, so I looked up the output of the Shuttle's main engines compared to the Saturn V main engines.
The shuttle's main engines produce a maximum of 488,000 pounds of thrust. The Saturn V main engines produced a total of 7.5 million pounds of thrust, or 1.5 million pounds per engine. So it looks like each engine on the Saturn V was about 3 times as powerful as each of the main engines on the shuttle.
Oh, the solid rocket boosters on the shuttle each produce 3.3 million pounds of thrust.

Germany also looked into a suborbital "Amerikabomber." It would skip across the atmosphere, and attack, say, New York.

Another concept was built by the Japanese. A floatplane bomber was to be launched against the West Coast from a submarine. One sub was built, with three aircraft. The war ended before it could be launched.

The adulteration of orange juice: In 1990 an employee of Sun Up Foods, an orange juice processor, told the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the company had set up secret rooms in its facilities to hold tanks of liquid beet sugar, a common adulterant of orange juice.

Why would anyone use rabbit shit in coffee? Chicory is the standard item used to dilute or adulterate coffee.

We can contemplate the Ford Pinto without much further comment.

How about a little Alfatoxin in your peanut butter!

Need a chest X-Ray or a really fast sun tan?

Or maybe you want to take a trip in Sir Geoffrey de Havilland's Comet?

And if you still think that you can consume or use products or services without paying close attention, I have a bridge to sell you.

According to the Smithsonian, U.S. Patent Office, U.S. Courts and many others, the honor goes to John Victor Atanasoff

If you want to say something useful, but the only tool you have available in your cranium is a mushroom, your content will be poor.

Yes "vapid" rubbish exists in geocities, yes I am biased against silly proprietary protocols that detract from my browsing experience. But in no way is content completely independent of the tool used to create it, and if you doubt it, re-read the first paragraph of this post.

Animats says:

"If you want to see an SR-71 up close, the Boeing Museum of Flight has one."

As does the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center. In fact, you can check it out right now via their webcam.

He isn't in the hall of fame yet? WTF?

didn't he invent address modifications?
For those who don't know this lead to function calls.
IAS theoretical computer

The dimensions of the cargo bay on the shuttle were more or less dictated by the hubble.

The more they stay the same.

If we spin it right, they'll be all over it like slinky on a weasel. It "burns" (really, decomposes) hydrogen peroxide, so the exhaust is just really hot steam. Of course, eventually someone will figure out how much energy it takes to make the H_2O_2....

By the way, if anyone's interested, here's the National Air and Space Museum's page on the rocket belt.

We've had joy sticks since the kitty hawk flyer took its first flight. Easy to use 3d pointing device? We've had em for about a century.

Sure, just let me lay down on my desk, put my hand on the joystick, and lay on the hip cradle to adjust the lateral motion of my mouse pointer and we'll be all set.

Am I the only one who thought this picture was some even stranger version of the goatse guy?

The Smithsonian was founded by a bequest by James Smithson (hence Smithsonian) an English Scientist. Read all about it here.

The Smithsonian does have a lot of old patent model submissions in the Museum of American History but the Smithsonian itself encompasses far more than just that one museum.

When I was in 4th grade or so, I had one of those "Little Professor" calculators from Texas Instruments which I decided to abuse with a sottering iron one day for shits and giggles. After messing around for a little bit, I found by reconnecting the transistors I could get it to make different sounds controlled by the keys. Suffice to say, it was very limited, but fun to play with for about a week.

Funny how this is suddenly a fad.

Considering people claim to be able to tell the difference between a Stratovarius (spelling?) and an inferior wooden violin

I'm picturing a cross between a stratocaster and a Stradivarius...

If you think chickens are sinister what about the Pigeon Guided Missile?

A 1944 design for a pigeon-guided missile, that was to be used to sink German battleships. Until the Navy decided it was a stupid idea.

You are probably thinking of limestone. Calcium carbonate.

If memory serves, limestone isn't necessarily laid down by critters, but finding stromatolites or chalky cliffs ala Dover would be a very good sign indeed.

As would finding a fossilized opabinia, or one of the cannons the Martians used to launch their cylinders to Earth back in 1898.

Stefan

For some reason remembering seeing the Apple I in the Smithsonian was the first thing I thought of when i thought of a wooden computer case. Have a look Smithsonian Apple I

Jesus, I really thought that was a joke, until I backtracked to find it. Towards the bottom of this page, it says that the Apple I was a kit that you designed your own case for. Who knew?

For some reason remembering seeing the Apple I in the Smithsonian was the first thing I thought of when i thought of a wooden computer case. Have a look Smithsonian Apple I

The concept (handwritten letter->intermediary format->printed copy) reminds me of V-Mail in World War Two. People states-side would write a letter to their man in uniform on a special form. This form would be printed on microfilm, and carried over to Europe or the Pacific. The letters would be printed and handed out to the troops.

The advantage was that the mail took up significantly less weight. 150,000 letters could be reduced from 2,500 lbs to around 45 lbs. The space savings could be used for war material.

It was covered in Smithsonian Magazine last year. There's quite a bit of interview with the creator, Kevin McCartney.

I could swear that I read of another one out west(?) with the Sun represented as a planetarium dome.

• Grace Hopper : Girl Genius of Vassar
• Lt. Hopper of the U.S. Navy
• Grace Hopper and the Mystery of the Hollerith Code
• Grace Hopper Tames the MARK I
• Grace Hopper Defeats the NAZIs
• Grace Hopper vs the Pernicious Moth
• Grace Hopper Unravells Sputnik
• Grace Hopper vs the Commie Russians
• Grace Hopper Unleashes the Scourage of COBOL
• Grace Hopper Arm-Wrestles Hyman Rickover
• Cmdr. Grace Hopper : Recalled to Duty (special double issue)
• Cmdr. Grace Hopper Defeats the Commie Russians
• Grace Hopper CyberGrrrrrl

• And remember, (+1, Funnay) does nothing for karma!

Voyager is at the National Air and Space Museum--hanging from the ceiling. It is a pretty spectacular sight. Here's a link to their article about it, and another to the museum. It's one of the only places I'd ever bother going in Washington D.C....

Voyager is at the National Air and Space Museum--hanging from the ceiling. It is a pretty spectacular sight. Here's a link to their article about it, and another to the museum. It's one of the only places I'd ever bother going in Washington D.C....

Yeah, no kidding. Bert Rutan has not one, but 3 aircraft designs displayed at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. These are the around-the-world Voyager,, and the experimental homebuilts VariEze, and Quickie.

Yeah, no kidding. Bert Rutan has not one, but 3 aircraft designs displayed at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. These are the around-the-world Voyager,, and the experimental homebuilts VariEze, and Quickie.

Yeah, no kidding. Bert Rutan has not one, but 3 aircraft designs displayed at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. These are the around-the-world Voyager,, and the experimental homebuilts VariEze, and Quickie.

Actually, that was Thomas Edison, not Henry Ford. His idea was a system of re-useable steel forms, like this.

-jcr

There IS a flying car - Fulton Airphibian. It was developed back in the 40's and was approved by the Civil Aviation Administration for both Highway and Air use, however, the production never "took off"... :)

You can see the car here [si.edu]

The first eprom was the 2kbit (256 byte) 1702, invented in 1971 -- the same year the 4004 microprocessor.

By 1977, you could get a whole Apple I for $666 and it came with 8 KB of memory, so my programmer must have been much older. I got it in about 1988, and used it for about a year - the serial download from my Apple II took a while.

I googled a bit and came up with a brief profile of Emory Cook and the complete catalog of his recordings, including the earthquake album, at the Folkways site.

*dances around* It's finally here, it's finally here!

Is it too girly of me that I want to make a little apron for it and make it do housework? ;)

Here is the decent overview article.
Here is the article on deep ocean microbes.
Here is the article on killer lakes.

I've been having the same experience with this issue on several fronts. One thing that make me acutely aware that I was growing up was a trip my girlfriend and I made to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum this past weekend. I may journal about it.

Specifically I remember taking a trip to this museum with my Dad when I was 10 years old (ca 1980). I was a HUGE Trekkie at the time. Thoroughly obsessed. Seeing the USS Enterprise was a thrill unmatched. I remember feeling like I was bearing witness to the second coming as I inspected every inch of the "starship" with my eyes, soaking in every molecule optically. I earnestly HOPED to have at least an echo of that feeling. Sadly this was not the case. Seeing it again at 34, it just looked like a big toy. I tried to be enthused, but being honest with myself my reaction was just a notch above "meh". All this despite the fact that I am currently in a downtime project of watching every Star Trek episode ever made, currently up to the end of season 3 on DVD. I sincerely wish I could muster just a 10th of that kind of childish enthusiasm for anything. So I myself must wonder, what must we lose to become adult?

Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the trip or become enthused at all. What perhaps made the biggest impression on me was the Martin B-26B Marauder "Flak Bait" bomber. Here was something real. I was simply bowled over. It made WWII seem really real. And this airplane seemed to represent what it really was: a death machine. Regardless of the fact that it mas killing WWII era Germans, far as I was concerned I was standing there looking at a human meat grinder. THAT left a far, far bigger impression on me than the "USS Enterprise". What also made a very real emotional impression on me was an actual (albeit prototypical) example of a Lunar Lander. Also a big deal to me were the Minuteman Missile as well as a Russian ICBM and a recreation of the Apollo-Soyuz "meetup" in space. It was all very moving, but my reactions were not at all what I might've expected.

I notice that I don't quite enjoy punk rock the way I used to, gaming and science fiction the same.

I've been having the same experience with this issue on several fronts. One thing that make me acutely aware that I was growing up was a trip my girlfriend and I made to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum this past weekend. I may journal about it.

Specifically I remember taking a trip to this museum with my Dad when I was 10 years old (ca 1980). I was a HUGE Trekkie at the time. Thoroughly obsessed. Seeing the USS Enterprise was a thrill unmatched. I remember feeling like I was bearing witness to the second coming as I inspected every inch of the "starship" with my eyes, soaking in every molecule optically. I earnestly HOPED to have at least an echo of that feeling. Sadly this was not the case. Seeing it again at 34, it just looked like a big toy. I tried to be enthused, but being honest with myself my reaction was just a notch above "meh". All this despite the fact that I am currently in a downtime project of watching every Star Trek episode ever made, currently up to the end of season 3 on DVD. I sincerely wish I could muster just a 10th of that kind of childish enthusiasm for anything. So I myself must wonder, what must we lose to become adult?

Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the trip or become enthused at all. What perhaps made the biggest impression on me was the Martin B-26B Marauder "Flak Bait" bomber. Here was something real. I was simply bowled over. It made WWII seem really real. And this airplane seemed to represent what it really was: a death machine. Regardless of the fact that it mas killing WWII era Germans, far as I was concerned I was standing there looking at a human meat grinder. THAT left a far, far bigger impression on me than the "USS Enterprise". What also made a very real emotional impression on me was an actual (albeit prototypical) example of a Lunar Lander. Also a big deal to me were the Minuteman Missile as well as a Russian ICBM and a recreation of the Apollo-Soyuz "meetup" in space. It was all very moving, but my reactions were not at all what I might've expected.

I notice that I don't quite enjoy punk rock the way I used to, gaming and science fiction the same.

I've been having the same experience with this issue on several fronts. One thing that make me acutely aware that I was growing up was a trip my girlfriend and I made to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum this past weekend. I may journal about it.

Specifically I remember taking a trip to this museum with my Dad when I was 10 years old (ca 1980). I was a HUGE Trekkie at the time. Thoroughly obsessed. Seeing the USS Enterprise was a thrill unmatched. I remember feeling like I was bearing witness to the second coming as I inspected every inch of the "starship" with my eyes, soaking in every molecule optically. I earnestly HOPED to have at least an echo of that feeling. Sadly this was not the case. Seeing it again at 34, it just looked like a big toy. I tried to be enthused, but being honest with myself my reaction was just a notch above "meh". All this despite the fact that I am currently in a downtime project of watching every Star Trek episode ever made, currently up to the end of season 3 on DVD. I sincerely wish I could muster just a 10th of that kind of childish enthusiasm for anything. So I myself must wonder, what must we lose to become adult?

Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the trip or become enthused at all. What perhaps made the biggest impression on me was the Martin B-26B Marauder "Flak Bait" bomber. Here was something real. I was simply bowled over. It made WWII seem really real. And this airplane seemed to represent what it really was: a death machine. Regardless of the fact that it mas killing WWII era Germans, far as I was concerned I was standing there looking at a human meat grinder. THAT left a far, far bigger impression on me than the "USS Enterprise". What also made a very real emotional impression on me was an actual (albeit prototypical) example of a Lunar Lander. Also a big deal to me were the Minuteman Missile as well as a Russian ICBM and a recreation of the Apollo-Soyuz "meetup" in space. It was all very moving, but my reactions were not at all what I might've expected.

I notice that I don't quite enjoy punk rock the way I used to, gaming and science fiction the same.

I've been having the same experience with this issue on several fronts. One thing that make me acutely aware that I was growing up was a trip my girlfriend and I made to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum this past weekend. I may journal about it.

Specifically I remember taking a trip to this museum with my Dad when I was 10 years old (ca 1980). I was a HUGE Trekkie at the time. Thoroughly obsessed. Seeing the USS Enterprise was a thrill unmatched. I remember feeling like I was bearing witness to the second coming as I inspected every inch of the "starship" with my eyes, soaking in every molecule optically. I earnestly HOPED to have at least an echo of that feeling. Sadly this was not the case. Seeing it again at 34, it just looked like a big toy. I tried to be enthused, but being honest with myself my reaction was just a notch above "meh". All this despite the fact that I am currently in a downtime project of watching every Star Trek episode ever made, currently up to the end of season 3 on DVD. I sincerely wish I could muster just a 10th of that kind of childish enthusiasm for anything. So I myself must wonder, what must we lose to become adult?

Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the trip or become enthused at all. What perhaps made the biggest impression on me was the Martin B-26B Marauder "Flak Bait" bomber. Here was something real. I was simply bowled over. It made WWII seem really real. And this airplane seemed to represent what it really was: a death machine. Regardless of the fact that it mas killing WWII era Germans, far as I was concerned I was standing there looking at a human meat grinder. THAT left a far, far bigger impression on me than the "USS Enterprise". What also made a very real emotional impression on me was an actual (albeit prototypical) example of a Lunar Lander. Also a big deal to me were the Minuteman Missile as well as a Russian ICBM and a recreation of the Apollo-Soyuz "meetup" in space. It was all very moving, but my reactions were not at all what I might've expected.

I notice that I don't quite enjoy punk rock the way I used to, gaming and science fiction the same.

I've been having the same experience with this issue on several fronts. One thing that make me acutely aware that I was growing up was a trip my girlfriend and I made to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum this past weekend. I may journal about it.

Specifically I remember taking a trip to this museum with my Dad when I was 10 years old (ca 1980). I was a HUGE Trekkie at the time. Thoroughly obsessed. Seeing the USS Enterprise was a thrill unmatched. I remember feeling like I was bearing witness to the second coming as I inspected every inch of the "starship" with my eyes, soaking in every molecule optically. I earnestly HOPED to have at least an echo of that feeling. Sadly this was not the case. Seeing it again at 34, it just looked like a big toy. I tried to be enthused, but being honest with myself my reaction was just a notch above "meh". All this despite the fact that I am currently in a downtime project of watching every Star Trek episode ever made, currently up to the end of season 3 on DVD. I sincerely wish I could muster just a 10th of that kind of childish enthusiasm for anything. So I myself must wonder, what must we lose to become adult?

Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the trip or become enthused at all. What perhaps made the biggest impression on me was the Martin B-26B Marauder "Flak Bait" bomber. Here was something real. I was simply bowled over. It made WWII seem really real. And this airplane seemed to represent what it really was: a death machine. Regardless of the fact that it mas killing WWII era Germans, far as I was concerned I was standing there looking at a human meat grinder. THAT left a far, far bigger impression on me than the "USS Enterprise". What also made a very real emotional impression on me was an actual (albeit prototypical) example of a Lunar Lander. Also a big deal to me were the Minuteman Missile as well as a Russian ICBM and a recreation of the Apollo-Soyuz "meetup" in space. It was all very moving, but my reactions were not at all what I might've expected.

I notice that I don't quite enjoy punk rock the way I used to, gaming and science fiction the same.