I’m late to the party with this one, but it’s still worth talking about: NASA’s Phoenix probe, sent to Mars to examine the history of water on Mars, landed safely on May 25th. Not only have we successfully sent another probe to the red planet, we got a picture of it as it deployed its [...]
Category Archives: Science Stuff
And Now For Something Sciency
May 9, 2008 – 9:36 am
I ranted about politics a lot yesterday. Let’s balance that with some science!
(Say it with me: Science!)
Did you know the Earth might once have had multiple moons? The theory is that, when the Moon was created by the Earth being hit by something the size of Mars, a bunch of other chunks got blasted off, [...]
I’m a Confirmed Dragon*Con Guest
April 30, 2008 – 10:03 am
Hey, look at that. Time to finish my planned presentation on quantum computing, where by “finish” I mean “start”.
Spaceship Autonomously Docks With the ISS
April 4, 2008 – 9:20 am
Hey, look at that: the European Space Agency’s Jules Verne docked with the International Space Station under complete computer control. The Jules Verne uses laser-based sensors that are extremely similar to ones I’ve worked on. This means that the ESA and the Russians can dock to the ISS without a human pilot, but the US [...]
My Favorite Conference Talk So Far
March 18, 2008 – 5:01 pm
I’m away at a conference for the first part of this week, which is why I haven’t been posting and why Misty has been going just a little bit crazy. For your entertainment, I give you my favorite conference talk so far, judging on title alone:
Cybersickness determines the affective appraisal of a virtual environment.
Sadly, the [...]
Talk Like a Physicist Day
March 15, 2008 – 9:08 am
Well, drat. I missed Talk Like a Physicist Day yesterday. Luckily, I talk like a physicist every day! The Talk Like a Physicist site doesn’t actually have that many good examples; luckily, Chad Orzel is here to help. He’s collecting examples of physicist speak in the comments.
Ones that I use on a non-zero basis:
Canonical. The [...]
HDMI Cable Scams
January 11, 2008 – 2:03 pm
As part of the ongoing setup of my new work laptop, I had to get an HDMI cable to connect my laptop to my monitor. We ended up with a reasonably low-cost one from an online vendor. When it arrived, I was surprised to see the cable’s packaging claim that the cable “drastically reduces signal [...]
One Cool Physics Program
November 21, 2007 – 9:40 am
Those crazy MIT faculty. What will they think of next? In this case, it’s a computer program that lets you sketch simple shapes and then run a kinematic simulation using those shapes.
This would have been fabulous to play with when I was teaching physics.
Please Keep All Engine Parts Inside the Vehicle at All Times
November 14, 2007 – 10:01 am
Life is busy here at the Granade compound, what with hating on Guitar Hero and keeping Eli and now Liza in cages. All I have time for is to point out, once again, that rocket science is indeed hard. Armadillo Aerospace tried to win the X Prize Lunar Lander Challenge at the end of October. [...]
Notes from the National Geographic
October 15, 2007 – 9:08 am
Remember when I said I read National Geographic cover to cover when I get it? I read most of the current issue over the weekend and one of the things that struck me was the article on Biofuels. Check out the one on cellulose. Yes, that’s right, we could possibly fuel our future cars on [...]