Desultory Thoughts

When astronauts returned to space last year I watched with interest and curiosity, as many people did. I would watch live streaming video of NASA TV [nasa.gov] every chance I got, even when the re-entry of the shuttle was scheduled for early in the morning. I remember setting the alarm for 2 and 3 in the morning to watch the re-entry only to hear that there was bad weather in Florida and that they would have to orbit one more time, thus setting back the re-entry and adding to my lack of sleep. But I felt it was all worth it, even though I was very tired at work the next day.

Something similar happened early this morning when I stayed up late to watch the entry of ” Stardust ” [nasa.gov], a capsule that was launched seven years ago to capture interstellar particles and bring them back to Earth. The difference was that it wasn’t as worth losing sleep as the re-entry of the space shuttle. I guess some major differences included the fact that no human lives were at risk, but it would still be quite an accomplishment. This would also be the fastest a man-made object would enter the earth’s atmosphere.

I was curious to see if the outcome would turn out better than the “failed” Genesis Reentry [genesismission.org] of September, 2004. For a minute I thought it may have a similar ending. The Genesis capsule failed to deploy parachutes and tumbled to the desert floor.

It seemed that a repeat was occurring as I listened to the mission commander report a deployed successfully deployed chute that would help it slow to a point where the main parachute could deploy. Despite this announcement another controller continued to report that the velocity was unchanging. He repeated this several times as I watched an infrared image of a tiny dot on the screen. Alas, the report came that the main parachute had deployed successfully and now it was apparent that the capsule was indeed slowing and falling to earth.

It was reported to come to rest at N40 21.9 W113 31.25 [maps.google.com], just outside of the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range in the desert salt flats of Utah.

While still interesting, I don’t think I’ll lose sleep over such an event again. Then again…

Read more at www.nasa.gov/mission_pa…

  

My wife and I were watching the Jazz [utahjazz.com] game together (who are on fire, by the way…although we’ll have to see because right now they’re down by 10 in the fourth quarter) and I was distracted by her ripping pages out of a magazine.

It turns out that she received Better Homes & Garden [bhg.com] in the mail today, and she was frustrated by the amount of ads she was having to delve through just in order to read the magazine. She wanted to see what would be left of the magazine if she got rid of the ads.

She started ripping out just the pages that had ads on the front and back. She found 25 pages that were pure ads, no magazine content whatsoever. She then started ripping out pages with ads on them and she found 60 pages. What was she left with? A mere 19 pages that didn’t have any ads at all!

This is just one example of the commercial world we live in. You can’t go anywhere without being exposed to it, whether in a magazine, TV, movies or even a basketball game. In fact, the Delta Center touts a brand new digital marquee that circles the entire upper deck. At first it was fascinating to see content swirl around seamlessly between connected marquee segments, but then it just got distracting. My wife felt the same way about the magazine.

I find myself ignoring it more and more and so do most people I talk to. Whether it’s TIVO that allows you to quickly forward through the commercials or reserved seating theatres that allow you to come in right at the start of the movie instead of sitting through all the commercials, people are getting fed up. But it doesn’t seem to deter the advertising agencies; which means that it must work! Will it ever stop?

A 21 year old college student decided to take advantage of the advertising craze and started a home page [milliondollarhomepage.com] made up entirely of ads. He sold the space at $1 per pixel, so the bigger the ad, the more it cost. He recently sold his last 1000 pixels for $38,100 on eBay! Pretty amazing. That’s actually pretty cheap as compared with the cost of advertisement on the upcoming Super Bowl. There is even a site [superbowl-ads.com] that’s dedicated to the Super Bowl commercials and they’ll even tell you how effective they were.

I’ll have to admit…just the other day I went out a bought a swiffer duster because I was impressed with how well the policeman in the commercial was dusting with it. I guess I’m a part of the problem!

  

The British Library recently published a virtual book of writings that Wolfgang Amedeus Mozart wrote between 1784 and 1791. It’s really cool! You can turn the pages, listen to audio clips, and view scanned pages written in his own handwriting!

I can’t read the the old-school handwriting very well, but it’s fascinating to be able to see it, ink smudges and all.

One thing to note, it requires a Macromedia Shockwave Plugin and is probably more suitable to high-speed, although the start page does give you the option to choose between high-speed and dial-up.

Read more at www.bl.uk/onlinegallery…

  

I recently read a report that people are hungry for video content on the websites they visit. It’s good to see that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is still staying on the cutting edge. My brother Rich pointed out this page on the church’s site that feautures a bunch of commercials.

The demand for streaming video is pushed largely due to the increased number of high speed connections in the home that can handle the large amounts of data; the same reason that Google feels that it can make money on low-quality streaming video. They’re probably right.

Microsoft’s upcoming release of Windows Vista will also tout on-demand video as well as the ability to play the new HD DVD format. With their backing of that format, we may see the end of its competitor known as Blu-ray . It’ll be interesting to see which format will become the next betamax . One or the other will definatley “betamax” themselves right out of the High Definition DVD market, but the war is already 9 years old, believe it or not, with no clear leader at the moment.

  

I noticed some new features added to Google Video, besides the fact that they have now enabled the long awaited “for sale” feauture. They now allow you to easily copy and paste a bit of html so that you can embed video in your webpage or blog as I’ve done above. This video is entitled “Hurt” and is a video that my friends and I did a few years ago. It was just a fun little thing that we filmed out in the west desert.