MarsBlog.net

Apparently, I’m a pseudonym…who may in reality be the window-washer at Orion HQ…

As for the MarsBlog quote, it would be more worrisome if everybody in Constellation were in lock-step unanimity the same way that we see with some of the smaller organizational units that are attacking Ares I. I am sure that T.L James is entitled to his opinion, but I would like to know more about his credentials, experience, and specifically where he is coming from with his comments. I am neutral about James, but Rob Coppinger has broached the topic of T. L. James” credibility over at Flightglobal. The name is probably a pseudonym, so it will not be easy to confirm that James is telling the truth. As for his claim of “working on Orion”, we need to know what his specific job role is. Is he a structural engineer, a software guy like Metschan, or does he wash the windows? I’m not too worried about James, in any event.

Funny to discover this after spending nine hours in the office, on my day off, not washing windows.

As I’ve mentioned from time to time, I don’t discuss Orion in any detail because I don’t care to test the limits of what might get me in hot water in regards to insider information, competition sensitivity, and export control concerns. Simple as that.

Posted on February 6th, 2010 under Constellation, Meta, Orion. Tags: Constellation, nasa, Orion. Comments: 4

Yeah, I know I said I was going to be posting more frequently. Unfortunately for my vow, I got caught up in the long-delayed overhaul of People’s Press Collective for most of the past two weeks. Now that it’s nearly finished (which, websites being what they are, is a Xeno’s Paradox-based perpetual condition), I’m back again.

And ye gods, I hate it when people write blog posts promising that they’ll write more blog posts. Well, other people…

Posted on January 25th, 2010 under Meta. Tags: People's Press Collective. Comments: 1

Part of the reason that posting on MarsBlog has been so lackluster over the past year is that my other project, People’s Press Collective, has been claiming nearly all of my time outside of work. Since I live about forty minutes from downtown Denver, and end up down there for events 2-3 nights a week, it’s been awfully hard to find the time (or motivation when time is available) to blog from my trusty deskbound desktop PC at home.

For that and other reasons, I finally invested in a new HP dm3 laptop yesterday. Or maybe it’s a netbook. I’m not really clear on the distinction, and this one seems to be in a gray zone in between, having a dual-core 64-bit processor and faster bus than an obvious netbook and a slightly larger size, but similarly missing the optical drive of a laptop and a typical laptop’s voracious appetite for battery power. Oh, and it has a slick magnesium case, which makes it look much more hardy than the toy-like netbooks (or medical-equipment-like white Apples, for that matter).  

So, with any luck, this should make posting a lot easier, and thus somewhat more frequent.

While I’ve had limited time thus far to play with it (that will come in the airport this week), I have tried out some video from the HD camcorder I picked up last month, and it is truly amazing. The desktop didn’t have enough memory to view native .MT2 files without a lot of choppiness  (and since it was RDRAM, was not cost-effective to expand), but the little laptop was all set up and ready to go, with all the right codecs already installed for Media Player. If you haven’t played around with HD video, it’s incredible how much sharper and more “real” it is than what you may be used to from YouTube or online television watching. I still may need to get a new desktop at some point to process video, but for viewing it, I don’t think I could ask for much better.

Posted on December 20th, 2009 under Meta, Miscellaneous, Useful Technology. Tags: Add new tag, blogging, camcorder, HD video, laptop, marsblog, netbook, technology. Comments Off

While visiting family in Michigan over Thanksgiving, I happened to mention to my uncle that I had bought a slide scanner a couple of years ago, and that I had scanned in my grandfather’s (his father-in-law’s) old slides from the early 1960s. This led to him dropping off a box the next day, with around 300 slides he took in the mid-1950s, for me to take home and scan for him.

A number of them are of aerospace interest, as they show various then-current planes, including  a tarmac filled with C-97 Stratofreighters and a Flying Boxcar:

What I didn’t expect was this slide:

It appears to be a shot of WWII hero and actor Audie Murphy during the filming of The Guns of Fort Petticoat, a movie taglined at IMDB thus: “GOOD WOMEN…BAD WOMEN…BRAWLING WOMEN…BRAVE WOMEN! They were all soldiers in skirts! “  I cropped the slide down to about half size, but there is a boom microphone to the right and a camera in a blimp to the left (above the shoulder of the guy in the white hat).

You just never know what you’re going to find.

Posted on December 14th, 2009 under Entertainment, Meta, Miscellaneous. Comments Off

…is five weeks older than Apollo 11.

Yes, it’s the Big 4-0 today.

Oddly enough, what’s harder to believe is that February was MarsBlog’s 7th anniversary.  It doesn’t seem that long.

Posted on June 9th, 2009 under Meta. Tags: 1969, apollo 11, birthday, Meta. Comments: 3

My other blogging project (the one that’s been taking all my time lately, hence the infrequent MarsBloggage) was named today as one of the best state political blogs by the Washington Post.

People’s Press Collective and our friends at Complete Colorado and Face the State took three of the five spots on the Colorado list (the other two being lame left-wing hate holes). Of the five on the list, PPC is the only one which is an entirely un-funded effort…which is actually embarassing to admit, since we’re a bunch of capitalists who ought to be making money off of it, but I confess this fact merely to illustrate what can be done on a shoestring.

It takes very little in the way of financial resources for those with sufficient motivation to make a difference in state-level politics through citizen journalism and activism, something that center-righters getting fired up by the tea-party movement ought to be aware of. A website and a camera or two is all one really needs to get started, and once established a site like PPC is a good venue for retaining the activists and the civic involvement the tea parties are spawning.

Posted on April 8th, 2009 under Meta, Miscellaneous, PPC. Tags: Chris Cillizza, Colorado Pols, Complete Colorado, Face the State, People's Press Collective, politics, PPC, Squarestate, tea party, WaPo, Washington Post. Comments Off

More proof (as if our own mortgage meltdown wasn’t enough) that one should be wary of “irrational exuberance” during economic booms: Iceland’s Government Topples Amid Financial Mess

The value of the country’s krona currency has plummeted, hitting many Icelanders who took out special loans denoted in foreign currencies for new homes and cars during the boom years. In addition, Iceland must repay billions of dollars to Europeans who held accounts with subsidiaries of collapsed Icelandic banks.

Oops.

On the bright side, the krona’s slide means visiting Iceland is cheaper than usual (last I checked, the exchange rate had dropped from $1=100kr to $1=225kr). Looks like for all the crap I had to put up with on my vacation last summer, putting off visiting Iceland for another year is going to work out in my favor.

Well, so long as the Øbama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate holds off on hyperinflating the dollar until after I get back.

One curious point in the article is the description of outgoing Prime Minister Geir Haarde as a “fiscal conservative”. Wikipedia’s bio page describes his education so:

He received his bachelor’s degree in the United States at Brandeis University as a Wien Scholar, graduating with a degree in Economics, then went on to earn two Master’s degrees – in International Relations from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University and in economics from the University of Minnesota.

Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with the economic philosophies of those schools to assess just how conservative Geir might be.

Posted on January 27th, 2009 under Meta, Miscellaneous, PPC. Tags: economy, Geir Haarde, Iceland. Comments Off

The flight home for the holidays gets worse each year.

Four years ago, I ran into Michael Moore in the line at the coffee stand at the airport.

Three years ago, my luggage got lost coming through Detroit Metro. Both ways.

Two years ago, I got trapped in Denver for six days due to a blizzard, missing Christmas. And then got delayed getting back for two more days due to fog one morning at O’Hare.

Last year, I got stuck overnight in O’Hare and spent much of Thanksgiving Day there.

This year I thought I’d be smart and avoid DTW and O’Hare altogether, by flying through Milwaukee, and save a little money as well. Then barely missed the big wreck at Denver, got stuck overnight at Milwaukee due to a blizzard, flew in to Manistee in another blizzard with whiteouts and driving winds, got delayed flying out yesterday due to freezing rain, and when they did attempt to leave, the plane slid on a patch of ice while turning onto the runway and slid its nose gear into the grass, causing another day’s delay.

And then when I left Traverse City this morning, I got the full search at security, including a full visual inspection of a box of fudge I was carrying after a swab test of the package returned some sort of suspicious indication. (I knew there was a reason everyone disliked the “fudgies” we had to put up with in the summers as part of being a tourist mecca, but I had no idea it was because they were terrorists.)

But I finally made it back, in one piece, and I did get a nice picture while I was waiting in Milwaukee:

More on last week’s topics when I get caught up.

Posted on January 6th, 2009 under Meta. Comments Off

I’ve meant to do this upgrade for months now, seeing as how I was about five years and two major releases behind on MoveableType.

Be aware that things may not be acting quite as they should yet, until I get the kinks worked out.

Posted on August 22nd, 2008 under Meta. Comments Off