blivet 2.0

Anybody seen or heard from Matt Rossi of Once I noticed I was on fire, I decided to relax and enjoy the fall lately? Just curious…

Do Maps Have Morals? at The MIT Technology Review.
Saw this via O’Reilly Radar in the aggregator (NetNewsWire) and had to go visit.

I don’t know if maps have morals, but you sure can make ‘em lie. Not that I would ever use maps that way, mind you. I only use my skillz for good, not evil. I’m a white-hat cartographer…

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, all. I put the flag up first thing this morning (since it is an occasion for such display) and got some garage cleaning out of the way while it was below 100F.

Later this weekend are loose plans for a trip to the nearby mountains, some grilling of helpless vegetables over open flames and other generalized recreational activites. We’ll probably go stalking some igneous geology, too.

Be careful out there…

I am tardy in noting Scientific American’s 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense. A continuation to the National Center for Science Education’s Responses to Jonathan Wells’s Ten Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher I suppose.

Today is Craig’s 54th birthday and in three days he and his wife Ann will have been married for 30 years.

Fantastic! Our best to both of you!

Voyager Probe Poised to Plunge into Interstellar Space [space.com]
The Voyager 1 spacecraft is on the verge of slicing into interstellar space, NASA officials said today.< …>

Now team members agree that the Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is plunging through the outer layer of the solar system, where the Sun’s influence ends and the electrified solar wind slams into the thin expanse of gas between stars.< …>

“Voyager has entered the final lap on its race to the edge of interstellar space, as it begins exploring the solar system’s final frontier,” said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which built and operates Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2.< …>

“The consensus of the team now is that Voyager 1, at 8.7 billion miles from the Sun, has at last entered the heliosheath, the region beyond the termination shock,” said MIT’s John Richardson, principal investigator of the Voyager plasma science investigation.

The release notes that Voyager’s power supplies could last until 2020.

David Singer has started Read This Blog! Some of you may recall Defenestration Corner. We had the pleasure of meeting David and his family during one of their forays to Las Vegas.

Welcome to the WordPress neck of the woods!

[url corrected. Thanks, Susan]

Just a small follow-up to the upcoming 100+ degree days:

It would seem that they (100+ days) were already here.

[image from nearby Weather station CW3549]

Via Susan comes Google Maps meets Cheap Gas. Fantastic. Just select your city (hopefully it is there) and you can see the location of the cheapest gas available.

Today (May 21) is my lovely wife’s Birthday . She is my best friend and partner, I would be lost without her. Happy Birthday, Sweetie!