Tales Of Brave Ulysses

There’s a short story in Memex 1.1 about several elementary schools in rural Cambodia that are hooked into the internet by a most ingenious fashion. A motorcycle passes everyday with a WiFi computer strapped behind the rider. This computer wirelessly transfers email to and from the school and delivers it back to a regional school in the local capital equipped with a satellite dish for a bulk exchange to the outside world.

It’s an amazing solution to the connectivity problems much of the world faces. The Motoman network was designed by First Mile Solutions.

I wrote last week about how the collapse of the Gulf Stream due to global warming could plunge Britain into an ice age. Well it appears the Pentagon is thinking along the same lines, drawing up battle plans for the end of the world.

Ottmar Liebert, guitarist, progenitor of an entire genre of music, has a Radio Userland weblog and a passion for all things Macintosh. I own several of his albums, this has prompted me to look into getting some more of his recent stuff.

Here’s a great panorama of Gusev Crater, taken just after Spirit left the lander and before it broke down.

Xeni Jardin interviews Glenn Reeves, Mars Rover software architect, about the problems plaguing Spirit in No Life on Mars, But Many Bugs.

I imagine most folks won’t care about this, but I don’t have time to read it now and I want to find it later: Operationally living in harmony with data warehouses

Guardian Unlimited | Online | Richard Dawkins: Apple of my eye For reading later.

Pick a Super Bowl party – The Super Bowl falls on a Monday on Guam, and it is an unofficial holiday for many. The last couple years I spent watching the game at one of the big ‘parties’ at various hotels and restaurants. It’s not bad. Breakfast, beers, prizes. But where to go this year?

Interesting. The computer that powers most space probes, including both Mars Rovers, is the RAD6000. It is a variant of the old PPC 601 chips that ran in the first PowerMacs ten years ago.

The RAD6000 is a proven and capable chip, but compared to the chips in modern PC’s it is positively Paleolithic. It tops out at 25 mHz, yeah I said megahertz. But a new generation chip is just becoming available, the RAD750. The RAD750 is based on the PowerPC 750, the same chip that runs this Macintosh I am sitting at right now. Apple calls it the G3, and still uses the chip in some low end notebooks. While the RAD750 runs at a pokey 250 mHz, that’s still a tenfold increase in processing capability of the RAD6000. And believe me, my 300 mHz G3 is plenty fast for most everything I need. I wonder if the next NASA probe will play mp3’s?

Dianne recently went diving in Palau and Yap: Here’s some photos from when she visited Kadai Village with some of her diving buddies.

And she made this all by herself with her iMac and iPhoto software. Very cool!

$108M overspent in ‘02 by GovGuam – “For every dollar the government collected in the form of taxes, fees and federal contributions, among other things, it spent 33 cents beyond that, the numbers show.” And it was totally at the expense of taxpayers expecting a refund – LIKE ME.

Anybody recognize this location? It’s one of my favorite places on earth.

Give up? Perhaps this angle is more familiar to people.

Here’s a good idea: David Harris’ Science & Literature page suggests reading 50 books for 2004 and writing about them on my blog. That sounds like a good idea. I better get cracking – I got a ton of books I need to read lying around the house and only 11 months to go!

Good luck to Keisha Castle-Hughes! I don’t see many movies in theaters these days, but Whale Rider was definitely the best movie I saw last year. New Zealand News – NZ - Castle-Hughes stunned by best actress nomination.

Where on Mars is Opportunity? Right at the edge of the landing zone ellipse. It amazes me how NASA can manage to do that, flinging something from Earth to Mars and actually hit some specific target. I guess that’s why they’re rocket scientists.

No pun intended. Check out the reconstruction of a home erectus skull from Java.

Yahoo! News – Clinton’s Gift to Internet Age – Only 2 E-Mails: The Clinton Presidential Library will house 39,999,998 emails from Clinton staffers and only two from the president himself.

“One of them may not actually qualify for electronic communication because it was a test to see if the commander in chief knew how to push the button on an e-mail.

Former Ohio Sen. John Glenn has the distinction of being the first American to orbit the Earth and the only person to receive an e-mail written by Clinton when he was in office.

The e-mail was sent with the help of Clinton staffers to the space shuttle while it was in orbit and Glenn was a part of the crew. It praised Glenn for his return to space after almost 40 years. ”

Files ‘overloaded’ Mars probe – I know how that feels. I am drowning in work right now, and I feel like Sisyphus

An interesting essay on SpaceRef.com about using Silicon Valley to aid in reaching for the moon. To Boldly Go … Not only the technological advancements in microprocessors, but also the whole contracting process and the way bids are awarded by NASA to aerospace contractors. Interesting reading.

Gotta love this guy; Richard Hoagland is convinced of Machinery Found At Spirit Landing Site. They sure look like rocks to me.

As a point of reference, Mr. Hoagland is an ardent supporter of the ‘Face On Mars’ nonsense resulting from the unusual photo taken by a Viking Orbiter in the 70’s. Never mind those recent photos taken by vastly superior imaging systems onboard the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey spacecraft that show an irregular mesa with no resemblence of a face – those photos are doctored by NASA to cover up the startling evidence of Martians. Yeah, whatever buddy.