Monthly Archives: June 2006

Godspeed, Discovery!

Space Shuttle Discovery is scheduled for launch tomorrow at 3:49 PM EDT, though there is a 60% chance that the weather may force a delay. Update: the Saturday launch was scrubbed and rescheduled for today, and today it has been … Continue reading

Posted in Blog/website/news comments, Space | Leave a comment

NASA response to my FOIA request

I was pleasantly surprised today to receive email from NASA regarding my FOIA request. They sent me PDF files of recent editions (November 2005) of the manuals I requested on the HAL/S programming languages and compilers, which are used for … Continue reading

Posted in History, Software, Space | 5 Comments

fMRI being used on suspected terrorists?

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) provides real-time images of brain activity, and has the potential to be a “super lie detector”, but is at a very early stage of development and it is quite premature to use it for that … Continue reading

Posted in Blog/website/news comments, Freedom and liberty, Privacy | 1 Comment

Police hypocrisy

The Nashua Telegraph reports that Michael Gannon of Nashua, New Hamshire was arrested because the video security system he installed in his home recorded an incident in which the police confronted him. They’ve charged him with two felony violations of … Continue reading

Posted in Blog/website/news comments, Freedom and liberty, Privacy | 1 Comment

A statement previously only seen in science fiction

Seen in an article in LWN: The early years of the 21st century were [...] Wow, not only is it really the 21st century now, but we’re far enough into it that we can legitimately refer to “the early years … Continue reading

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Printing onto CDs/DVDs with Epson printers, from Linux

I bought a factory-refurbished Epson Stylus R300 printer a while back primarily because it is able to print directly onto CDs and DVDs, which is much nicer than using paper labels or a Sharpie. Up until now I’ve been using … Continue reading

Posted in Linux | 1 Comment

The War on Terror is not cost-effective

The Guardian reports that Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes estimate the cost to the US of the “war on terror” will be between one and two trillion dollars. Although there is almost no indication … Continue reading

Posted in Blog/website/news comments, Freedom and liberty | Leave a comment

NASA ignoring some concerns over Space Shuttle safety

Reuters reports that NASA is pushing forward with their plan to lauch Discovery on July 1st, despite NASA’s top safety officer and lead engineer both opposing the flight. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin points out that if the Shuttle is damaged … Continue reading

Posted in Blog/website/news comments, Space | Leave a comment

Global Warming: Science vs. Politics

This Slashdot story mentions that climate scientists are responding to Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth by pointing out that there is actually NO conclusive scientific evidence for global warming. What caught my eye is that the Slashdot crowd has … Continue reading

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Diving tracker

An acquaintance asked me to construct a special location tracker for divers.  It worked like an innertial navigation system.  I went on a dive with one of the customers for the device, and explained why GPS wasn’t usable underwater and … Continue reading

Posted in Dreams | Leave a comment