Merry Christmas!
Add comment December 25th, 2006
Christmas Card From My Cousin
Look what my cousin Erik has been up to! The sly dog grabbed Flickr photos of mine and put together this great collage! Had to share. 
Add comment December 20th, 2006
On a much lighter note
If you haven’t seen this great piece of design trickery (I caught it a little while ago but forgot about it), you must watch! It combines many of our favorite album art into a war mashup between them with some pretty awesome animation. Yeah, Zep’s in there!
Add comment December 20th, 2006
Christians Strike Again
OK I know I must seem to bring this topic up over and over, but nothing ruffles my feathers more than the fanaticals that break church and state. This time it’s happened TWICE in NJ. First, read the NY Times Article: Talk in Class Turns to God, Setting Off Public Debate on Rights And then check out the latest This American Life podcast about a Muslim family dealing with teachers blaming the Muslims for 9/11. This shit needs to stop, seriously. Our country doesn’t seem to get the fact that we are supposed to pride ourselves on ‘freedom of religion’ even if it was set up by Puritans in the 1700’s. People should not be suffering or dealing with the pressures of religion whilst learning in public schools, and should certainly not be dealing with ridicules from classmates because one teacher blames that child’s religion on terrorism. One teacher’s foul-play in school has led to the destruction of a whole family, who wasn’t even fully devout to their Muslim religion!
TOLERANCE should be the Christain way, ever think that telling people they are going to hell because they don’t believe in Jesus isn’t a tad hipocritical to your own beliefs? I’m not very religious, but I believe in some kind of power, perhaps the Force (It may seem like pure geekery, but George Lucas bases his thoughts on all religions, a beautiful way to reveal the world to other religions and cultures without casting them to eternal damnation for having different beliefs). Seems apropriate for this to happen around Christmas, but it’s an ever increasing problem that causes more hate than love. The thing is, if you’re preachings are forced upon others, I have a feeling I may just see you in Hell as well. Silly fools.
This American Life can be downloaded here
Get the latest this week, I think you have to pay for older podcasts.
Add comment December 19th, 2006
“Mars, Bitches!”
From Engadget:
President Bush’s plans for a return to the moon in 2020, with a trip to Mars to follow, were all well and good, but now NASA has finally fleshed out the details of the moon visits, and it seems a permanent international moon base is in the cards. NASA hopes to return to the moon starting in 2020 with short stays to get things prepared, and to have the base ready for extended stays by 2024. The lunar outpost will most likely be placed on the lunar south pole, which is lit by the sun three-quarters of the time, and has possible resources to mine nearby. Two vehicles will be employed, the Orion exploration vehicle, and an all-purpose “pickup truck” of a landing vehicle which attaches to the Orion and can bring cargo and/or crew to the lunar surface in a manned or unmanned manner. It’ll cost a whoppin’ $104 billion to get back to the moon for the first trip, and we’re sure carting supplies up there won’t be cheap, but in the long run NASA hopes to be able to harvest hydrogen, oxygen and other nifty moon resources for the operation of the outpost, tasks which could eventually become simple enough to turn over to a commercial supplier. In an effort to keep costs down and build good will, NASA is welcoming other countries to join the effort, though NASA will be doing the actual design work. “This is not your father’s Apollo,” says John Logsdon of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. “This is not a flag-and-footprints. This is the idea of starting an outward movement that includes long stays on the moon.”
A few choice comments:
Xavier Gill
“…$104 billion…” Wow it’s a good thing there aren’t 37 million people living below the poverty line in the USA…oh wait
G. Snyder
“Comments about poverty lines are idiotic, as these are long term investments…investments which will secure the continuation of the human race (sounds like being a doom sayer, but someday the sun will blow up and take earth with it. It is not up for debate - that is what stars do.)”
OMAC
Yeah people are going to whine and moan about poverty this and environment that. What they fail to realize is that there will always be poverty, disease and environmental concerns. There will always be the haves and the have-nots. I think it’s a safe bet to say that every democratic country on the face of this planet has its homeless, poverty, racial strife, AIDS issues and envirionmental concerns. These things are not going anywhere. It is our responsibility, as citizens, not the governments, to end, or at least mitigate these things.
…
All very valid points. That said, let’s go! I think this will be the first step to A. store information about our history on the moon, B. understand and possibly start to implement terraforming, C. build a telescope on the moon for better research, and D. get more answers to aid our planet back to health
Will it bring all of this? Maybe, maybe not. who knows. It’s a great concept though.
Add comment December 5th, 2006
