October 2007

Godsign

Quite a creative godsign

February 2005

Space & Science

My surfing journey began with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory website, explaining information about its programs and missions. In the technology section, we find robotics and rover developments. Link to flash exhibits of one year on mars: Mars Exploration Rovers. Or maybe you would rather visit the stars and galaxies pages. I clicked the star award link on the about page, some award sites list previous winners and explanation of site in their archives. This was a bonanza of worthy space website links. First I clicked great debates in astronomy, which dealt with cosmology and way over my head. Next site I visited was red colony, devoted to colonizing and terraforming (transform a planet without life into a planet that can sustain plants and animals on the surface) Mars. I prefer it to the mars society. Final site I visited was from stargazers to starships. This is a great educational site for all, I spent an hour on the different pages. Below is an explanation he wrote and the quote on black holes is from a page on site. Parent page of all is www.phy6.org/.

"From Stargazers to Starships" follows an earlier site "The Exploration of the Earth's Magnetosphere". "Stargazers" deals with the world of gravity--of massive planets and stars, and the way spaceflight is achieved despite their strong pull. "Exploration" on the other hand looks at the hot (but usually rarefied) gases which fill most of space, which are ruled by magnetic and electric forces rather than by gravity. The polar aurora, the radiation belts, the solar wind, magnetic storms, "space weather", cosmic radiation--this is the site which tells you all about them.

The Black Hole at the Center of our Galaxy

Our Sun is part of a huge wheel-shaped collection of stars. On a dark night they form a glowing band across the sky--"The Milky Way" to ancient Greek observers, and to us, our galaxy. When you look at any part of that glow, you are looking through the wheel edge-on, and what you actually see is the light of many, many distant stars, whose light blends to a glow.

What holds the wheel together? Astronomers have long suspected it was a very massive black hole, and that every galaxy had such a central mass, created early in the history of the universe. Their suspicion focused on a compact radio source, also found to emit x-rays, hidden behind dust clouds in the constellation of Sagittarius, the archer.

Now they have some pretty convincing proof. A large star in that region was found to orbit a dark concentration of mass, estimated at 3.7 million times the mass of our Sun (give or take 1.5 million). The laws of physics have ruled out any explanation but one--that this is indeed an enormous black hole.

Web Design

The Open Source Web Design project was founded in September 2000 by Frank Skettino. It is a community of designers and site owners sharing free web design templates as well as web design information. Helping to make the internet a prettier place! They have a forum to ask design questions in. Here is an example of two simple designs by the same author. I like the color mixture in Bladed template. Another good site for design templates would be Elated.

Large Files

YouSendIt is a free web service whereby recipents can download files too large for email. On the YouSendIt Web page, you fill in the recipient’s email address, click the Browse button to locate the file you want to send, optionally enter your email address and a message, and click the Send It button. The recipient then receives an email message containing a link that downloads the file. If you don’t want to reveal your recipient’s address to YouSendIt, just send the link to yourself and forward it manually with whatever additional text you’d like to add. Files remain available for 7 days and allow only a limited number of downloads to prevent abuse. This is a good way to send large photo files, those full color 5.1 mg digital camera pictures.

Net Radio

Shoutcast is a listing of net radio stations. Index page lists the top 25 that people listen to. But - in the right corner you can change the page by bandwidth or genre. RadioParadise would be a good station to start off with - to get the feel of features and layout of different stations. Left column is the bandwidgth to listen to depending on net connection (dialup or broadband). This station supports 48K, which is the new compression mode for dialup. I use 128K MP3, which brings up default player and buffers the audio stream. I keep this window open in explorer and use a second for my net whatever I’m doing. Say I hear a song I like and wonder who the band or song is. Upper right corner is the playlist. Whats cool with this station is you click on the song and it brings up a forum thread on the song or band. Have to scroll down to see that. First part is buy song thru apple or album thru amazon (hey - nothing wrong with trying to make a nickle or dollar). SomaFM is a Frisco based underground/alternative station, consisting of 7 stations. Worth a look at.

Snobbery

I am not a wine drinker, but some may find this article on wine snobbery amusing. The author, Natalie MacLeon, is a wine writer and member of the National Capital Sommelier Guild. A link to her monthly wine picks and a page on food and wine matching. Or maybe you would rather have a cocktail.

Even among fine wines, there’s always been a caste system, with first-growths and premium crus outclassing less noble growths. When Napoleon III ordered the ranking of Bordeaux wines at the 1855 World Fair in Paris, it was done according to price rather than quality—even though the two were not necessarily synonymous. Since then, various waves of nouveaux riches—from Bay Street bankers to high-tech flyers—have turned to "label drinking." If you have instant wealth, you need instant culture; and wine has long been the first-reach substitute for self-esteem and social grace.

What distinguishes the true snob from the wafflers who call themselves connoisseurs is attitude. Connoisseurs will try new wines from new regions; snobs are convinced that only traditional châteaux can make fine wine. Connoisseurs dare not opine on areas outside their expertise, snobs know that intense conviction is sufficient, and factual support merely incidental. Connoisseurs may open a bottle of wine in the kitchen; but snobs never miss the spectacle of decanting in front of guests. Connoisseurs judge wine based on what’s in the glass; snobs go by what’s on the label.

Graphical User Interface

GUI Guidebook is a website dedicated to preserving and showcasing Graphical User Interfaces. Site is meant to be an online museum of graphical interfaces, especially those old, obscure and in desperate need of preservation. Whether you want just to look back and refresh some nice memories from years ago, or are interested in seeing how the GUIs evolved throughout the decades. Do you remember windows 3.1 or PageMaker?