space

A Very Young Space

I thought I would post some old school pictures of me when I was growing up, just to reminisce, if you will. But mostly because almost all of these photos are laughable in some way. And in a lot of them I’m in some sort of costume, though none of these were Halloween costumes or photos.

But in digging through old photos, I found these and thought some of you would get a kick out of seeing what I looked like when I was young and innocent. After a week or two, I will move this post over to the photo journals archive, so it won’t be listed in my archives or anything, but you can always get to it through the “links” link. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

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  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:7 mins read

Happy Space Day

It’s a new month, dear readers. And this might just be the month we’ve been waiting for. Let me tell you a few reasons why today doesn’t suck, to start with. Number one, it’s May. Spring is definitely here. It’s been gorgeous outside. Anyone who doesn’t believe that hasn’t seen me driving around all week. I’ve had the top down and the doors off all week! Oh, well, or maybe you just don’t live in Texas. It’s been gorgeous here.

I took the first three days of this week, and Friday of last week off. So I had a six-day weekend in which I could do a lot of driving around with the top down and the doors off. I don’t get great gas mileage in the Jeep, but hey, gas is pretty cheap these days, right guys? :shobon: Right? So that there is proof that today doesn’t suck. Today is Kinetic Kim’s birthday. She would have been thirty-two today. Happy birthday, Kim. That, of course, means I’ll pour myself a couple of fingers of scotch tonight in her memory.

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

Qualms With Star Movies

I have a bunch of qualms with Star Trek. For some people, all those interstellar movies are the hot shit. But I’ve found that Star Wars and Star Trek cannot peacefully coexist on the same shelf. For most people, it’s either one or the other. First of all, there’s the fact that all the shit in Star Trek is brand new looking. Like it’s never been used. Never been flown through a stellar dust cloud, or blown through an asteroid belt. Star Wars opposes. All the shit in Star Wars looks like it’s been around the universe a few times. Taken a beating. Looks a little more realistic.

Secondly, it pisses me off that Star Trek uses an up reference in deep space. why the hell are all the spacecraft planed on the same scale? Why is it that when two ships come in for close range combat, they are both upright? As if there is some universal up in null gravity. Obviously there is no up or down in null gravity. This tells me that some of the shots of the ships taken from distances should show the ship at awkward angles, not relative to the up and down you know sitting in front of your television screen. And furthermore, when there are two ships on the same screen, they won’t be exactly nose to nose, and there won’t be a common up. It just won’t happen, people.

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  • Post category:science
  • Reading time:4 mins read

Selective Astrobiology

Scientists recently began to believe there may be life on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. They’ve been digging in Barrow Alaska through the ice, and they’ve found life there, despite its -4ยบ temperature. Lake Vostok, which is in the heart of Antarctica, may be their test ground for building a probe that would drill through the ten-mile ice layer on Europa. Lake Vostok is covered by a two-mile thick plate (sheet? layer?) – yeah layer of ice. If they can build a probe that will drill through the ice and sample the water beneath, we may have a shot at discovering whether or not there’s life in the waters of Europa. An alien lake.

You know what fascinates me though? I love Astrophysics and Cosmology and the study of other planets and their surfaces. But not for biology. Who the heck cares if there’s microbes living at the bottom of a Jovian lake? What good is it going to do us? For one thing, we have no way to kill all the microbes that live on our probes, so we may be populating the waters with our own trash. Unless we can keep our shit at absolute zero for a couple of years, then have a way to ensure that killed everything permanently, then furthermore have a way to knock all the dead things off once our probe is en route to Europa… It’s all useless.

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Space Saving 101

I’ve been thinking lately about the concept of governmentally invoked population control methodology. You know, like AIDS and stuff. You know that shit didn’t just happen. It had to be introduced. DNA structures don’t suddenly alter themselves to a detrimental deficit. Not even in African Green Monkeys. If that were the case, then I would expect all you idiots who believe we evolved from lower forms to seriously revise your theoretical foundations.

So anyway, I was thinking about these methods they use among other things, like conspiracy theories and the way people just disappear when they know too much. Shit like that. And I came up with an idea. Why don’t we shrink our problems away?

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Is there anybody out there?

This is another very popular argument on the claim to other life forms in the universe: “The universe is so huge, and we can hardly even go past the moon, so why would there be all that extra space if we couldn’t even use it! Therefore, there has to be other life out there somewhere.” My response? Whatever. For us to think this entire universe is completely useless if we can’t use it is just plain arrogant. We think we own the place. Well, that no more settles an argument than saying, “This garage is too big for just one car, so there must be other cars in it.” The only difference is that the garage actually is yours.

Supposing the entirety of the universe was created especially for us humans, what do you think we will do with it? There is but one planet with sufficient oxygen and perfect atmosphere and proportional water supply as to sustain life. The odds of there being another planet that matches these tight attributes is ridiculously incalculable.

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

Where is God in Physics?

It seems as though the efforts of physics and most other sciences is to completely eliminate the need for, and the existence of God. Scientists believe they can bring proof of his non-existence through their studies. I think this obviously has to do with some pre-existing belief of theirs, in that they don’t want to believe he exists.

If, however, there were a scientist that did believe in God before he set out to prove his theories, wouldn’t it stand to reason that he could hypothetically prove that God does exist? It’s all about what you want to believe you want to prove, as far as I am concerned. But I guarantee, no matter how in-depth the study is, or how much research you do, or even how many supporting items you have in your case against his existence, you will not be able to prove he doesn’t exist.

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This just in: People are morons.

Did anyone watch the “watch with the world premiere event” last night on Discovery Channel – Inside the Space Station? I did. It was pretty cool, but I kept getting severely irritated with the people. Not the people in the show, but the people watching it.

Example:

Every time it went to a commercial, it would show some dude from some small town asking a question to the cosmonauts. When the program came back on, the cosmonauts would answer it. What pissed me off was the subject of these moronic questions they asked! One woman asked, “What do you miss the most about being on Earth?” Give me a damn break! So of course, all three dudes answer the same exact way: “I miss my friends and family.”

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  • Reading time:3 mins read