While browsing through the activity logs for the blog, I ran across a referring link that aroused my curiosity. When I followed the link, I found myself looking at our blog in Chinese! Apparently, Babel Fish, a service of AltaVista offers a universal web page translator.
It won’t translate words in images or Flash™ and it leaves unknown words as they were. Fun to try in a couple of different languages.
Today’s Dilbert Comic Strip is dedicated to the bluetooth-toting mall and sidewalk loudmouth, the ringtone-in-the-meeting inconsiderate doofus and to the distracted-while-dialing-the-wireless driver.
It ain’t a phone booth – other folks have to listen to your inane crap and dodge your distracted a$$ in traffic. Hang the *&%$ up!
NASA Scientists announced today that there is compelling evidence that liquid water flows on Mars: From NASA:
NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows in Brief Spurts on Mars
NASA photographs have revealed bright new deposits seen in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them sometime during the past seven years.
“These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, Washington.
Image right: A new gully deposit in a crater in the Centauri Montes Region. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems
Liquid water, as opposed to the water ice and water vapor known to exist at Mars, is considered necessary for life. The new findings heighten intrigue about the potential for microbial life on Mars. The Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor provided the new evidence of the deposits in images taken in 2004 and 2005.
“The shapes of these deposits are what you would expect to see if the material were carried by flowing water,” said Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. “They have finger-like branches at the downhill end and easily diverted around small obstacles.” Malin is principal investigator for the camera and lead author of a report about the findings published in the journal Science.
We’ve blogged before about “Distracted Drivers” and offered humor in “Top 10 Reasons Why People Use a Wireless While Driving.” Now, Governor Schwarzenegger has signed a law to require the use of hands-free devices except for emergencies. That’s good, but it won’t take effect until next July.
From sacbee.com
Governor launches cell phone law
The law that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Friday banning motorists in California from holding cell phones while driving does not take effect until July 1, 2008, but the governor is urging drivers to begin complying now.
“You can use a cell phone, but use a headset or use a speaker system and you will be fine,” the governor said during a signing ceremony at a hotel in Oakland.
State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, predicted Senate Bill 1613 — the law he pushed through the Legislature after four unsuccessful attempts — will save lives by decreasing driving distractions.
Under the law, motorists will be required to use a headset, speaker phone, ear bud or other device that frees up both hands when they talk. Motorists who need to make emergency calls are exempted.
Violators will be fined $20 for the first infraction and $50 for subsequent violations.
The Damsel and I have been planning a vacation. One of my co-workers recommended Google Earth® as a possible tool to help with the planning. So I tried it and now I can’t put the @!?*%$& thing aside.
Image: screenshot of approach to St. George UT
The graphics and virtual reality are extremely intriguing to a pilot who isn’t an active flyer these days. You can get your copy from Google Earth, but you have been warned.
Maybe I can get The Damsel to post one of her pretty photos while I futz around with this.
Since the James Webb Space Telescope is a ways off, I’m delighted to see the engineers get the Hubble Space Telescope back in operation.
From NASA:
NASA Issues Hubble Space Telescope Status Report
NASA engineers successfully activated the Advanced Camera for Surveys at 9:12 a.m. EDT Friday aboard the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope. Checkout was completed at 10:20 a.m. EDT with science observations scheduled to resume Sunday, July 2.
“This is the best possible news,” said Ed Ruitberg, deputy associate director for the Astrophysics Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “We were confident we could work through the camera issue, and now we can get back to doing more incredible science with the camera.”
Engineers began uploading commands to the instrument Thursday, June 29, in an effort to restore operational status. A pre-programmed observing timeline for normal camera science operations will begin executing at approximately 8 p.m. EDT on July 2.
Engineers received indications on Monday, June 19, that power supply voltages were out of acceptable limits, causing the camera to stop functioning. The instrument was taken off line, so engineers could study the problem and determine the appropriate remedy. Hubble observations continued using other onboard science instruments.
The third-generation Hubble instrument consists of three electronic cameras, filters and dispersers that detect light from the ultraviolet to the near infrared. Astronauts installed the camera during a servicing mission in March 2002. It was developed jointly by Goddard, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; Ball Aerospace, Boulder, Colo.; and the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore.
For information about the Hubble Space Telescope, visit:
About the James Webb Space Telescope:
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope, scheduled for launch in 2013. JWST will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way Galaxy. JWST will peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own Solar System. JWST’s instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range.
JWST will have a large mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Both the mirror and sunshade won’t fit onto the rocket fully open, so both will fold up and open only once JWST is in outer space. JWST will reside in an orbit about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth.
JWST will orbit the L2 Lagrange Point, in the vicinity of the WMAP probe we blogged about yesterday.
Scientists believe the Big Bang occurred because of an observed “cosmological background radiation” seen in all directions from the vantage point of Earth. Since June, 2001, a space-based instrumented observation platform called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has been collecting data that allows scientists to literally look back in time and space to virtually witness the birth of the universe.
In the video below, you will see a journey back through space/time starting from the WMAP probe in it’s orbit and continuing outward past Mars, the Asteroid Belt, Jupiter, Saturn, through the Oort cloud and into interstellar space. The journey continues through a “local” nebula in Orion and thence out of the Milky Way and past thousands of galaxies back into the time of primordial blue giant stars and ultimately past the “dark ages” and into the afterglow of the Big Bang. Then, brilliant light and, finally, darkness at “before the beginning of time.”
Please take this thrilling journey back to the beginning of time: (press 
to play)
Some history about WMAP:
WMAP was launched on June 30, 2001 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base aboard a Delta II rocket.
WMAP completed its prime 2 years of mission operations in its L2 orbit by September 2003. Meanwhile, the 2002 and 2004 Astronomy and Physics Senior Review granted WMAP mission extensions, endorsing the proposed 8-years of mission operations, to end September 2009.
In February 2003 the WMAP Team released a set of 13 papers (241 journal pages) along with flight data from the first year of observations of the CMB. In March 2006, the WMAP Team released 3-year data, including full polarization data, and papers describing the data processing, systematic error analyses, calibration, and other critical aspects of the experiment.
And, finally, a schematic diagram of the trip you just took back over more than thirteen and a half billion years in about a minute!
Schematic of the cosmic chronology
Images and video courtesy of NASA