AlienSplicer

Archive for the ‘Miscellany’ Category

This footage was taken some time last year.  It was my half-hour morning commute into town.  Mostly long, straight roads, so not particularly exciting — slightly more so since it was compressed to 5 minutes  If only it really only took that long …

This was taken with a Flip Mino, sitting on my dash on a Yellow “the POD” — a bean-bag style camera mount.  Good for vibration control, but not particularly anti-tilt proof because the Mino is so thin.  Adding a mini-CD between camera and POD helped.

Radivoje Lajic’s house, in the northern village of Gornji Lajici in Bosnia, was recently hit by a meteorite.  An event so rare that it makes for a good story.  But that’s not all of it.  This is the sixth meteorite to hit his house since the first one struck in 2007. 

What are the odds of that?  They are, in fact, so high that they seem to rule out coincidence.

Experts at Belgrade University have confirmed that the rocks are meteorites and scientists have been trying to determine what it is about his house that seems to attract them.

Resources:
Man hit by six meteorites is being ‘targeted by aliens’

Rather than let the A/C condensation that drips out to just soak into the ground, I placed a small bowl under it allowing it to collect, creating a sort of “watering hole” for the animals around the house.  Here are a couple of critters I caught with my Flip UltraHD one morning about a week after placing the bowl there.

Things happen in our yard and on our porch. We’re aware of some of it … some of it may be aware of us.

Just got back from taking Son#2 out for his first driving lesson — he got his Learner’s Permit yesterday.  We spent quite a bit of time in an empty school parking lot, driving around the rows as if they were roads, learning to turn and to stop.  We’ll be back at it again tomorrow and just about every day after that.  Practice, practice, practice.

Things happen in our yard and on our porch.  We’re aware of some of it … some of it may be aware of us.  Here is Angela’s Porch Cam, Episode #1:

Everything but the content has been restored … hopefully we’ll be able to get that done soon … otherwise, I’ll have^H^H^H^Hget to start with a clean slate.

I realize that I’m occasional guilty of it myself, but I’m constantly telling the boys they should not go into the garage barefoot. They pay me lip service and go get shoes, but I know they’re not convinced because we go through it again the next time.

But today, I found this little critter while moving things around out there and took the opportunity to show him off to both of them, as well as to explain that at only two inches long, it would have been rather toxic to get stung by it.

This is not the first time we’ve found a scorpion. Shortly after we moved in, one of the cats cornered and killed one in our bedroom and, another time, one near the back door. But we haven’t seen any since.

When I showed this scorpion to the boys, they each made brief sounds of acknowledgment and understanding. But, somehow, I don’t think it really sunk it. I’m fairly certain that finding it had a far greater impact on their mother and I. But I’ll remind them about it every time they head out to the garage in bare feet.

For some time now, I’ve been in the habit of using a sticky-note pad for keeping notes at my desk.  When I get a call or need to jot down an idea, I just write it on the sticky-note.  Once the note was full, I’d peal it off and stick it to a growing stack of sticky-notes on the corner of my desk where it could be referred to later.  Unfortunately, this methodology has gotten rather unwieldy; the pile of notes were slowly taking over my desk and I couldn’t have them with me if I was working anywhere else.  So I decided to get a notebook.

Although I could have used just about any kind of notebook, I felt this would be an ideal excuse to get a Moleskine notebook.  I’ve been looking at them for years.  Every time we’d go to a book store, I would inevitably find myself in front of the Moleskine display, carefully selecting and looking through them, but never purchasing one.  Not only are they a bit on the pricey side, but I never really had a need for one and it would have been a shameful waste of a high quality notebook.  So, having finally found a need, I ordered a couple from a popular online retailer.

They arrived last week, but spent the rest of the week sitting on my desk.  They came individually wrapped in cellophane and I just couldn’t bring myself to tear one open.  On Monday, I finally talked myself into unwrapping one and carefully explored it — my Moleskines have an oilcloth cover, an elastic closure, a ribbon place-holder, and a small expandable pocket inside the back cover.  All of it’s lightly ruled pages were pristine and empty.

It was Wednesday afternoon before I could finally bring myself to soil the first page with my hand-writing.

Now, however, I’ve sorted through the stack of sticky notes, recording those that still have value in my notebook, and have disposed of them all.  Sticky-note Corner is gone — it’s place is now reserved for my notebook while I’m at my desk.

I’m still using sticky-notes, but only to jot a quick note while on the phone.  Anything important is now immediately transcribed into my notebook and scratched off the sticky-note which, when finally filled up, is now simply tossed out.

When Professor Michelle Khine began working at the University of California Merced last year, she was ready to get started with her research in microfluidic devices, but didn’t have access to a clean-room or the very expensive equipment needed to fabricate the tiny devices.  With no other choice, she went MacGyver on her limited resources and found a different way to make what she needed.

Khine and her team now create their design in AutoCAD, prints it on Shrinky Dinks with a laser printer, and shrinks it in a toaster oven.  The Shrinky Dinks apparently shrink faster than the ink, causing it to bulge outwards — making the whole thing a perfect mold for creating thin, rounded channels in PDMS — a clear, synthetic rubber.

As a demonstration of the usefulness of microfluidic devices created in this manner, they’ve created a functional gradient generator — a simple device that mixes two colors of food-color, creating a rainbow-like color pattern — and that Chinese Hamster Ovary cells can easily flow through them — microfluidic devices are sometimes used in biological research as well.

Atlhough this wasn’t originally her intention, Professor Khine says “This is certainly becoming a major thrust of my research.”

Link: Shrinky-Dink microfluidics: rapid generation of deep and rounded patterns

It appears that NASA’s Moon colonization project, currently planned for around 2020, may tread on the sovereign rights of the Galactic Government and the property rights of everyone who has purchased Lunar property from the Lunar Embassy.

I first posted an article excerpt about Dennis Hope and the Lunar Embassy four years ago.  At the time, I thought he had made an interesting use of a loop-hole in the 1967 “Outer Space Treaty,” to which all signing countries agreed that they could not claim sovereignty or control over any of the other planets, moons, or solar bodies in our solar system.  Hope realized the treaty only prevented governments from claiming them, but nothing prevented him, as an individual, from claiming ownership.

So in 1980, he filed a claim declaration at his local courthouse and sent letters to the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, and United Nations stating his ownership rights and his intention to subdivide and sell parcels of the Moon, Mars, and other planets in the solar system; that if they had a problem with this, they should contact him.  According to the 2003 article, he never heard from any of them regarding his claim. So he setup shop has been selling acreage on the Moon for $19.99, plus $1.51 in Lunar tax, an acre for more than 20 years.

However, I recently learned — gotta love the Discovery Channel — that NASA has begun a long term project to return to the Moon: beginning further exploration to locate rocks that contain water, learning how to extract water and oxygen from them, and figuring out ways to deal with lunar dust, all with the intent of eventually building a permanent outpost or colony.  Their first experiment, looking for water, happens next year.  They expect to have a mostly self sustaining colony in place by 2020.  All very cool stuff.

But to me, this seems to be somewhat at odds with the goals and direction of Dennis Hope and the Lunar Embassy.  Mind you, exploration itself doesn’t seem to be a problem.  The FAQ page of the Lunar Embassy indicates that NASA is allowed and encouraged to explore the Moon and other Celestial bodies — providing they don’t permanently setup shop there.  So I was curious what the “official” stance of the Lunar Embassy was concerning NASA’s planned colonization and asked them about it via their website:

Eric: How does NASA’s new lunar colonization program affect your ownership of the Moon and, ultimately, other extraterrestrial bodies?

Dennis: First of all NASA is an extension of the US Government.  According to the 1967 “Outer Space Treaty,” of which the USA is a signatory, article two states, “No nation by appropriation shall have sovereignty or control over any of the satellite bodies.”  This means no government on Earth may own, control, of have the right to create or effectively enforce laws on these planetary bodies.  So to answer the first question, NASA has no control over what we do with the claimed properties of Dr. Dennis M. Hope in 1980.

Eric: I see that they are planning further exploration, beginning next year, and expect to semi-permanently house colonists by 2020.  Have they purchased land for this colonization or negotiated rights to do so? If not, do you expect to take legal action to enforce your property and rights?

Dennis: We are planning to start building a City on the Moon in 2012.  Again because of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 they are not allowed to own land.  Their words, not mine.

Eric: I’m also curious of the ramifications if the chosen NASA colony site happens to be on property already deeded to someone else …

Dennis: By the time NASA is funded to create a colony on the Moon we will have been there for 8 years.  The Galactic Government is the governing body for all planets except Earth in this solar system.

That part about building a city is pretty cool.  I double-checked the Lunar Embassy site and found that they plan on building a large pyramid shaped city (enclosed, of course), that would be 3 kilometers wide at the base and a little over 2 kilometers tall.  They expect it to house up to 2 million people!  This is a huge project and would bevery expensive — There are apparently other programs underway at the Lunar Embassy that are expected to eventually pay for this extraterrestrial construction job.

While researching the NASA site to see if they would be cooperating with the Lunar Embassy, I found a document from the NASA Oral History Project[PDF], where Edward Frankle is being interviewed by Sandra Johnson on November 18, 2003.  Near the end of the interview, pages 67-70, they briefly discuss ownership of celestial bodies and even mention the Lunar Embassy.  Unfortunately, it’s pretty plain from this discussion that NASA has little regard for Dennis’ ownership claims.

In light of this, I’ve sent off a very short list of follow-up questions to Dennis Hope, but unfortunately, I have not yet received an answer.

I am also trying to find an appropriate person at NASA for a similar list of questions.