All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go

     So you know, the IAU decided today to boot Pluto from its standing as a planet.  It is now a dwarf planet, something entirely different.  Thus, the planets are now just Mercury through Uranus.  Pluto, Ceres, and 2003 UB313 are the first dwarf planets in this new categorization.  I am very pleased for an outcome that not only gave us a concrete definition of a planet, but also ejected Pluto from its status as a planet.  In short, I think the IAU General Assembly was a success.

     Just a quick note to let the world know my roommates have arrived.  I no longer have the house to myself, but the new guys seem pretty cool.  They’re a little crazy, but then again, most people are compared to me (this is not to say that I’m “normal”, mind you).

     I’m actually looking forward to the year as I think I’ll get along with them well.  They’re quite friendly, if a little loud as is sometimes common with college males (hence my comment about my normalcy).  A couple of them drink O’Douls, which is a non-alcoholic beer.  That made me do a double-take when I first saw that in the fridge!  I thought the only reason people drank malted barley/hopps was because of the alcohol.  Blech!  Anyway, they’ve opened up to me surprisingly and I’m hoping we’ll have fun.  They brough in a big 29in TV, so video games are almost certainly back in the picture.  Just what I needed…

     On a side note, I’m coming along on my little project.  I’ve decided on a range of temperature devices, all coming from Dallas Semiconductor and I’m learning about wireless emitters.  It looks like I’m going to have to learn assembly.  REAL assembly, not this LC-3 stuff I learned in my EcEn-124 class (though they are similar).  Oh joy…

     Last night while I was trying to fall asleep again, I fell asleep from 6:30pm to 9:30pm and then tried to go back to sleep around 11pm (I was dead tired yesterday), I had an idea for an invention.  I need a few components and I am not certain where to find them, so I thought I might ask for any suggestions for places and/or request my readers keep an eye open and let me know should they come across any of the things on my list.

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     Before I get started, I want to point out that the entry before this one was posted just last night.  I’d hate for any of you to miss any of my wonderful writing when coming here to get the latest.

     My very excited mother just served us nine pizzas.  Or is it pizzas nine?  This mnemonic has served countless children in their quest to cram more knowledge into their already overflowing minds.  Here, it serves to remind them of the names of the planets and their order by using the first letter of each ordered planet as the start of a word in a sentence.  Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. 

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(AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is likely to be edited for length within the next day or two) 

mythbust
v. mythbusted, mythbusting, mythbusts
v. intr.

1. The act of debunking myths and false rumors that get passed around as truth or as common knowledge.

     OK, I have a question that I would like you all to answer, in all seriousness. It sounds a bit arrogant and pretentious of me, but I honestly believe(d) that everyone has(had) this capability. Can you tell when someone is telling you something that’s not true? This incorporates when someone is outright lying, but I also mean when someone is telling you something that is not true even though they may believe it is true themselves. Like an urban legend or one of the many incorrect “common-knowledges”.

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The following link discusses why perpendicular rather than the standard “flat” storage system for digital data is superior. Now, it’s pretty technical so don’t worry if it’s a bit too complicated for you, but I strongly suggest you see it.

Get Perpendicular!

     An asteroid hit the moon!  Okay, okay, this isn’t big news.  Stuff crashes into the moon all the freaking time.  What with not having an atmosphere and all, it is regularly bombarded by space debris (how do you think it got its cratered face?) and is actually responsible for shielding Earth a little bit.  Through physics I haven’t understood, when something intersects Earth’s orbit, it is more likely to hit the moon (I believe this is the case, I could be mistaken).  Not to say stuff doesn’t come for Earth, but most of that just burns up thanks to our beloved friend, oxygen.  Actually, the atmosphere is primarily made of nitrogen (78%) with oxygen coming in a distant second (21%).  Then there are trace other gases.  But I digress.

     The asteroid that struck the moon was only 25cm wide, meaning I’ve found a couple rocks in my garden bigger than it, but it struck the moon going 38km/s!  This is the equivalent to 17 BILLION joules of kinetic energy, also equivalent to 4 tons of TNT going off (see article).  I wish I could lob some of the rocks I have at the moon that fast.

     Anyway, this fascinating article came to me via NASA’s Science News mailing list.  If you think it’s just for nerds, think again!  Well, now that you’ve thought twice about it and come to the same conclusion that it is for nerds, embrace your nerd-ity and sign up for it.  I’ve gotten articles about terraforming Mars, comets, planetary alignments, new extra-solar discoveries, and developments on the mission to go back to the moon and set up for a month long stay.  This article partly deals with that since we’re still finding out just how much space-junk collides with the moon so the astronauts can avoid becoming swiss cheese.

     So here is the article, it’s not terribly long so read it.  Plus there’s a short clip showing the explosion (it’s not dramatic, but still cool):

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/13jun_lunarsporadic.htm?list784223

     Remember that little battle droid that Luke Skywalker was sparring with on the Millenium Falcon while training under Obi Wan to become a Jedi?  The little orb thing?  MIT has built one (sort of) and it’s on the ISS!

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/01jun_spheres.htm?list784223

OK, so it’s a little corny, but NASA public TV!  You know it’s good.  It’s NASA-good!  It seems to be geared for school-age kids (middle-school, elementary school, extremely boring physics class high school).  You can watch it online with today’s Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD):

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060529.html

According to APOD, it’ll also show rocket launches, images, and other cool science stuff.  I really didn’t need something else to watch, but I may be hooked.

While perusing the APOD (Astronomy Picture Of the Day), I came across a blurb written by an astrophotographer on the ethics of using technology in taking pictures in astronomy.  His arguments were a little long and rambling (like a certain author I know), but I thought he made a good point.  Especially when he talked about people, tools, and evil.  Anyway, here is the article for your perusal and consideration.  One might just read it with only the narrow view of astrophotography (as it specifically discusses), but I think he was getting at something bigger.  I would just like to say that it pretty much “sums” up my views on ethics as well.