Thursday, December 8, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Best Pictures from Space of 2011
Phil Plait posted a photo gallery of his favorite pictures from space of 2011. If you missed it go look at them. It starts with Trey Ratcliff's single exposure handheld High Dynamic Range photo of Endeavour going into the clouds. That made me cry. So many people missed that launch that wanted to see it, like President Obama. But Trey stuck it out and got that picture in less than ideal conditions. But he had alternative equipment and got a good shot that caught the eye of a lot of people. I love that the photos from the space station shot by actual people are mixed up with automated photos taken from satellites.
The US has been doing that since before they had a good way to convert the image into electrical signals, modulate radio waves with the data, and transmit them back to the ground. The original camera based satellites launched in 1960. Code named Corona they were primarily for spying on the Soviet Union. They used film that they would drop back to earth. The satellites flew specific missions with a limited supply of film. They only stayed up for a few hours or a few days. They dropped capsules containing the film. As it parachuted down the capsule was captured by prop planes. It sounds a little bit like a Soyuz landing, only they don't get caught by a slow plane before they hit the ground. But while satellite technology has leapt forward, Soyuz is still pretty much the same thing as in the 1960s.
Other satellites programs attempted to develop the film in space, take TV pictures of them, then beam those back to earth. TV wasn't nearly high enough resolution then, any more than it is now, so of course that was pretty much a waste of effort. But I suppose trying it motivated them to get to where they are now — charge coupled devices capturing very high resolution images that can be transmitted quickly after they're captured.
When I think back over the year to the images that most impressed me I think it was video of things I wasn't expecting. The Aquarius and Curiosity launches that had video of spacecraft separation. I was NOT expecting that! That's amazing to me! The quality is not that great, but it's not really about the image this time as what it's showing. It's just so cool that they put that camera there and were able to get an antenna aimed right to be able to lock onto the radio signal back here on earth! Bet they wish they'd put a camera like that on Phobos-Grunt. Based on the number of views of these videos it's clear that I am a very rare bird to think it's interesting. Maybe it's a cop-out to pick these unpopular videos as my favorites because it would be too hard to choose between the really astonishingly good photos I've seen this year. Let's say they aren't the best artistically, they are just the most hopeful to me as a person who thinks like an engineer.
For artistry I pick the solid rocket booster footage from the shuttle launches. Despite no editing and being very long it is beautiful to me. I'd like a good editor to make about a 5 minute mix down of this footage. My favorite part is the audio. Because the microphone is attached to the structure that is vibrating with the pops and creaks of expansion and contraction you can hear it plainly even in thin to no atmosphere. It's all just surreal and beautiful to me. I salute the engineers and technicians and invisible people who mounted those cameras, got them back when the rockets were recovered, downloaded and compiled this video and uploaded it for my enjoyment. Unlike with the Trey Ratcliff photo there is no way to know who they are and that just makes it extra poignant to me. I like to think about things like the person who packed those parachutes in the SRBs and how he made those lines get cut at just the right time. That's just one guy. He did that. I salute you, parachute rigger. Nice work. It's beautiful and I'm glad somebody got pictures of it.
The US has been doing that since before they had a good way to convert the image into electrical signals, modulate radio waves with the data, and transmit them back to the ground. The original camera based satellites launched in 1960. Code named Corona they were primarily for spying on the Soviet Union. They used film that they would drop back to earth. The satellites flew specific missions with a limited supply of film. They only stayed up for a few hours or a few days. They dropped capsules containing the film. As it parachuted down the capsule was captured by prop planes. It sounds a little bit like a Soyuz landing, only they don't get caught by a slow plane before they hit the ground. But while satellite technology has leapt forward, Soyuz is still pretty much the same thing as in the 1960s.
Other satellites programs attempted to develop the film in space, take TV pictures of them, then beam those back to earth. TV wasn't nearly high enough resolution then, any more than it is now, so of course that was pretty much a waste of effort. But I suppose trying it motivated them to get to where they are now — charge coupled devices capturing very high resolution images that can be transmitted quickly after they're captured.
When I think back over the year to the images that most impressed me I think it was video of things I wasn't expecting. The Aquarius and Curiosity launches that had video of spacecraft separation. I was NOT expecting that! That's amazing to me! The quality is not that great, but it's not really about the image this time as what it's showing. It's just so cool that they put that camera there and were able to get an antenna aimed right to be able to lock onto the radio signal back here on earth! Bet they wish they'd put a camera like that on Phobos-Grunt. Based on the number of views of these videos it's clear that I am a very rare bird to think it's interesting. Maybe it's a cop-out to pick these unpopular videos as my favorites because it would be too hard to choose between the really astonishingly good photos I've seen this year. Let's say they aren't the best artistically, they are just the most hopeful to me as a person who thinks like an engineer.
For artistry I pick the solid rocket booster footage from the shuttle launches. Despite no editing and being very long it is beautiful to me. I'd like a good editor to make about a 5 minute mix down of this footage. My favorite part is the audio. Because the microphone is attached to the structure that is vibrating with the pops and creaks of expansion and contraction you can hear it plainly even in thin to no atmosphere. It's all just surreal and beautiful to me. I salute the engineers and technicians and invisible people who mounted those cameras, got them back when the rockets were recovered, downloaded and compiled this video and uploaded it for my enjoyment. Unlike with the Trey Ratcliff photo there is no way to know who they are and that just makes it extra poignant to me. I like to think about things like the person who packed those parachutes in the SRBs and how he made those lines get cut at just the right time. That's just one guy. He did that. I salute you, parachute rigger. Nice work. It's beautiful and I'm glad somebody got pictures of it.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Is FedEx rural-phobic?
I live in the country. My address is a US Highway. I buy things online. Computers, socks, hats, lawnmower belts and blades. The UPS man recognized my last name and said he was sorry when my dad closed his company. He tells me gossip about my neighbors who also can't get jobs and are home all the time. He's like a part of the community, even though I am definitely not. I have no idea who he was talking about that's moving to North Dakota to be a bricklayer.
The UPS deliveries come from my county seat. The driver comes to my gate, opens it, brings me stuff, and closes it behind him. But FedEx comes from across the state line near a small airport that takes FedEx planes. My house is about the same number of miles from both places, but for some reason FedEx freaks out when they leave the big city. Big being a population around 175,000. Compare to where my UPS deliveries come from, population around 9,000.
Guess what I ordered from Shenzhen? Yep, a new video camera! It is cleverly disguised as a cell phone and is therefore subsidized by AT&T with the tower at the end of my driveway, so I've got that going for me. Apparently I can't have my new toy though. FedEx thinks I'm alternately lying about my address or they are looking for me where I am not. I have PROOF I was here this afternoon.
"Met Customer Woman." Can't be more plain than that. UPS can do it, what's wrong with FedEx? I want my new toy! I want Siri to tell me all about Chek Lap Kok! I suppose it's in Hong Kong? That sounds AWESOME!
I wonder why there's no way to put in instructions for how to find my house on the FedEx website? I can see that they don't know where it is. They don't bother to call the phone number that's printed right on the label. So why not let me put in the coordinates? Wouldn't latitude and longitude help? Mailbox addresses are so antiquated. They're relics like land line phones and over-the-air TV. We need something better. A nice QR code for the coordinates perhaps. I can copy and paste it. I'm sure Google can put it in the Chrome autofill.
Nobody around here can figure out where my mailbox is. (The mailman doesn't believe I actually live here. The first time he drove down the driveway to bring me something that wouldn't fit in the box he asked me if I'm some kind of book editor. I told him I am. He thinks this is just my office. So small.) The voter registration people even put me in the wrong county. The computer tells them my address is 12 miles north of here in the next county. It would be so simple if I could just tell people the latitude and longitude in decimal degrees, or upload a cell phone picture of my house with location turned on. Instead they told me to go to the Secretary of State website, fill out a form, print it, and mail it to the county seat. Isn't that adorable?
Now it might not be that Fed-Ex is rural phobic. They might just be incompetent. I followed a saga on Twitter recently where Amy Berg's new Macbook Air was delivered to the wrong address. (She's a TV writer) She convinced Apple she didn't have it and they sent another one, again, delivered to the wrong place in LA. I guess there was a Customer Woman to sign for it so she just took somebody else's package. (Chek Lap Kok!) Amy did finally get her computer after about 2 weeks.
I think all this is a problem technology can solve. I am available as a consultant, FedEx. Call me! You have my number. It's right there on the box.
The UPS deliveries come from my county seat. The driver comes to my gate, opens it, brings me stuff, and closes it behind him. But FedEx comes from across the state line near a small airport that takes FedEx planes. My house is about the same number of miles from both places, but for some reason FedEx freaks out when they leave the big city. Big being a population around 175,000. Compare to where my UPS deliveries come from, population around 9,000.
Guess what I ordered from Shenzhen? Yep, a new video camera! It is cleverly disguised as a cell phone and is therefore subsidized by AT&T with the tower at the end of my driveway, so I've got that going for me. Apparently I can't have my new toy though. FedEx thinks I'm alternately lying about my address or they are looking for me where I am not. I have PROOF I was here this afternoon.
"Met Customer Woman." Can't be more plain than that. UPS can do it, what's wrong with FedEx? I want my new toy! I want Siri to tell me all about Chek Lap Kok! I suppose it's in Hong Kong? That sounds AWESOME!
I wonder why there's no way to put in instructions for how to find my house on the FedEx website? I can see that they don't know where it is. They don't bother to call the phone number that's printed right on the label. So why not let me put in the coordinates? Wouldn't latitude and longitude help? Mailbox addresses are so antiquated. They're relics like land line phones and over-the-air TV. We need something better. A nice QR code for the coordinates perhaps. I can copy and paste it. I'm sure Google can put it in the Chrome autofill.
Nobody around here can figure out where my mailbox is. (The mailman doesn't believe I actually live here. The first time he drove down the driveway to bring me something that wouldn't fit in the box he asked me if I'm some kind of book editor. I told him I am. He thinks this is just my office. So small.) The voter registration people even put me in the wrong county. The computer tells them my address is 12 miles north of here in the next county. It would be so simple if I could just tell people the latitude and longitude in decimal degrees, or upload a cell phone picture of my house with location turned on. Instead they told me to go to the Secretary of State website, fill out a form, print it, and mail it to the county seat. Isn't that adorable?
Now it might not be that Fed-Ex is rural phobic. They might just be incompetent. I followed a saga on Twitter recently where Amy Berg's new Macbook Air was delivered to the wrong address. (She's a TV writer) She convinced Apple she didn't have it and they sent another one, again, delivered to the wrong place in LA. I guess there was a Customer Woman to sign for it so she just took somebody else's package. (Chek Lap Kok!) Amy did finally get her computer after about 2 weeks.
I think all this is a problem technology can solve. I am available as a consultant, FedEx. Call me! You have my number. It's right there on the box.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Landscaping by Elimination
Yard work involves me indulging all my whims and prejudices regarding flora. I built my house right in the middle of the woods and started mowing between the places I wanted to go. Then for the last 6 years I've been sort of tidying up between those paths. I never buy plants. I strictly practice landscaping by elimination. I hate briars. All briars. If it grows up trees and bushes and it has thorns it is my mission to cut it off at the ground and pull it down and burn it up. Blackberry really pisses me off. I hate blackberry briars. The thorns have some kind of toxin on them that makes them hurt more than they ought to when they stick you. I cut them down. I burn them up. I do this yard work when it's cold enough to wear a thick long sleeved shirt and leather gloves.
My favorite tree is sparkleberry. I have a lot of these growing in my yard. I pull the briars out of them and prune them into pleasing shapes. When I find a chinquapin coming up I cut the briars away from it and encourage it. I also encourage blueberries. They come up all over my yard. Wax myrtle, black gum, French mulberry, sassafrass, oak, cherry, elm, ironwood, dogwood -- I've got it. I have a lot of longleaf trees in all stages of development. When they are in the wiregrass stage they are like puppies to me. Cute as can be. I mow around all the wiregrass stage longleaf. When they start to shoot up there's always one that gets an early lead and its shade leaves the other ones at a disadvantage. Steps must be taken.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
There is no such thing as Girls' Science!
That evolution video is on boingboing. I picked up this link from the first comment. Creationists can call me a show mare and I don't care, but THIS? This offends me to the CORE. Girls' Science? What part of this is science?! It's the cosmetics aisle with a pink border! There is nothing that is not wrong with this. I think the Mystic (Krazy) Crystals offend me the most.
Wait, there is one thing I can approve. They got the apostrophe right in Girls'.
Wait, there is one thing I can approve. They got the apostrophe right in Girls'.
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