Lifehacker has an amazing space desktop theme available for Windows, MaC, and Linux. Check out their post here. It includes the above wallpaper plus customized skins and icons to make your desktop look like Spaaaaace! The following are included for Windows:
I'm proud to announce that on July 23rd, I'll be attending the 40th anniversary celebration of the NASA Landstat program! This event will be held at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in downtown Washington, DC.
The Landstat program is responsible for mapping the Earth's surface from space. This helps present a definitive view of the state of the world's assets, such as our forests and water. In addition, it's used to monitor events such as the image of the 2010 Haiti earthquake embedded at the top of this post. From the site:
Landsat satellites have taken specialized digital photographs of Earth’s continents and surrounding coastal regions for over three decades, enabling people to study many aspects of our planet and to evaluate the dynamic changes caused by both natural processes and human practices.
During my visit I'll be able to view the latest Landsat science and images, tour the Goddard center, make my own Landsat images, speak with Landsat mission scientists and engineers, and interact with other participants and NASA's social media team
I'll be participating through the same NASA Social program (formerly NASA Tweetup) that enabled me to view the last Space Shuttle launch in person last year. For my coverage on that historic event, see my posts here, here, and here.
The app serves as a library of interactive books. The app itself is free, as well as one book download and introductory videos to the service. For additional content, users can subscribe for $10 every month or $30 every 6 months. I originally balked at the price, but the content is intuitively suited for a device such as an iPad - lots of sounds, videos, interative games, and much more beyond just a scanned PDF. It's basically like an enhanced version of Highlights for Children. The high level of quality makes it worth the price.
One big negative is the file size. It weighs in at just over 100MB, and can feel a little sluggish during operation. Since it's geared towards younger children, I don't see this being much of a problem. But for techies like myself, I'd prefer something a bit more slimmed down and speedier.
One improvement that I hope is in the works is interaction with physical libraries. Imagine if I could "check in" at the my local library with a service similar to Foursquare that's integrated into the Reading Rainbow app, and that results in extra awards or stickers. Even better: what if I could scan the bar codes of books that I read for other awards in the app? The possibilities are endless.
Since I'm a Jersey boy, I love public transportation. It's one of the best technological advancements that has practical applications for a number of people. Even if you didn't grow up using public transportation, you know what it looks like from movies, television, and other media.
I grew up taking the bus to the mall, the movies and into NYC. As i've gotten older, that love has lessened as my work commute on the Philadelphia trains (SEPTA regional rail) is ground to a halt what seems like every other day due to an obstruction or mechanical problem of some kind. I just don't remember having this many problems as a kid in the 80s!
Sometimes they leave their kayaks with a friend on the West Side, but other times, they just take them to work. “We’ll carry them from the water all the way to our office and then we store them right next to our desk."
The funniest image in my head is of these gentlemen calming walking through the door of their business with a dripping wet Kayak. I guess I've seen crazier things in New York ...
Image from NASA. Not the best impression to send to another species
Licking, eating, and drinking. This is one of the images inside of Voyager 1, a spacecraft launched by NASA in 1977. NASA has received confirmation that Voyager has reached the edge of the solar system, becoming the first man made object to do so.
Voyager's primary missions of analyzing the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn occurred in the early 80s. In the 90s, Voyager pointed itself back towards earth and captured the now famous Pale Blue Dot photo, showing our planet in all of us nothingness amongst the vastness of space. How many electronic devices do have that still work after all of that time? Who knows what Voyager will accomplish next?
The key to translating the plaque lies in understanding the breakdown of the most common element in the universe - hydrogen. This element is illustrated in the left-hand corner of the plaque in schematic form showing the hyperfine transition of neutral atomic hydrogen. Anyone from a scientifically educated civilization having enough knowledge of hydrogen would be able to translate the message
All of the other information, including greetings in multiple languages and scenes from Earth, is encoded on 12-inch gold-plated copper discs. As described, "each record is encased in a protective aluminum jacket, together with a cartridge and a needle. Instructions, in symbolic language, explain the origin of the spacecraft and indicate how the record is to be played. The 115 images are encoded in analog form. The remainder of the record is in audio, designed to be played at 16-2/3 revolutions per second. "
If we launched a probe now, would it contain a giant iPod? And would that iPod travel so far that it becomes reprogrammed by another species and eventually becomes self aware? That's exactly what happened with the Voyager spacecraft in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Check out the film clip below of Captain Kirk making the discovery:
