Gruntle update:
Lawrence Lee of Userland was kind enough to update Audrey’s ETP site so I could download the root file. [Thanks Lawrence!]. More thanks to those who commented on that thread. I have passed the root along to someone who should be able to make things work well.
I do have a confession to make. Until about 20 minutes ago I thought I had titled that post “Grumble.” Go figure.
Unlike the good folks in Santa Fe, we dodged last night’s temperature bullet — it only got down to an official 35°F. A long ways from *freaking cold*. Not that what passes for freezing weather in Las Vegas is that big of a deal, to our household at least.
I grew up on the Great Plains and Audrey was raised in Denver, so we’re familiar with Winter. It is interesting to see the serious winter coats, gloves, scarves and wool hats get rolled out by folks here when it gets below about 45°. I wonder what they do when they go skiing?
We are also fortunate in that a couple of years ago we went to a native Mojave landscape scheme that allowed us to turn off the outside irrigation. None of our neighbors are in that position. Plus, many (most?) landscapers use Sonoran community plants as ‘native’ here. There is a sizeable difference between ‘native desert’ and ‘native Mojave.’ Plants like Saguaro, Ocotillo and Palo Verde are Sonoran and can die during a hard freeze. That happens about every 8 – 10 years, just long enough for it to slip from the collective consciousness.
You can wrap Sonoran plants and they will make it fine. It is just that most folks don’t do it when it does threaten a freeze, for whatever reason.
[this post has been edited]
Since it will go away on December 1, I have been trying to download Audrey’s ‘Edit This Page’ site for over a week now. I am using the standard URI (http://yourdomain.com/downloadMySite/MySite.root) with replacements without success. I keep getting the “Can’t call the script because the name “manilaSiteHostingSuite” hasn’t been defined” error. Grumble, grumble.
I just want to get her site root off the server… Gah!
I never want to deal with that software again…
I had expert assistance getting my original site into a form that WordPress can parse, I just have never gotten around to actually doing it outside of a test site (which worked great, btw). Yet.
Extremely rapid linkrot warning
Freeze Warning Las Vegas Valley (Nevada) URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LAS VEGAS NV 355 AM PST SUN NOV 27 2005 NVZ020-271930- /O.NEW.KVEF.FZ.W.0001.051128T1000Z-051128T1600Z/ LAS VEGAS VALLEY- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...LAS VEGAS...NORTH LAS VEGAS... HENDERSON...BOULDER CITY 354 AM PST SUN NOV 27 2005 ...FREEZE WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 8 AM PST MONDAY... THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN LAS VEGAS HAS ISSUED A FREEZE WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 8 AM PST MONDAY. ON MONDAY MORNING AN UNSEASONABLY COLD AND DRY AIRMASS WILL BE IN PLACE ACROSS THE REGION. AS WINDS BECOME LIGHT TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO PLUMMET TO AROUND FREEZING WITH SOME OUTLYING AREAS SEEING TEMPERATURES FALLING INTO THE MID TO UPPER 20S. AREAS UNDER THE FREEZE WARNING WILL EXPERIENCE TEMPERATURES AT OR BELOW FREEZING FOR SEVERAL HOURS. A FREEZE WARNING MEANS SUB-FREEZING TEMPERATURES ARE IMINENT OR HIGHLY LIKELY. THESE CONDITIONS MAY HARM OR KILL CROPS AND OTHER SENSITIVE VEGITATION. TO PREVENT FREEZING AND POSSIBLE BURSTING OF OUTDOOR WATER PIPES...THEY SHOULD BE WRAPPED...DRAINED...OR ALLOWED TO DRIP SLOWLY.
Alright! After Wednesday’s post, it looks as if the Hayabusa spacecraft has successfully sampled the asteroid Itokawa. [via Doug]
Japanese Probe Collects Asteroid Samples [Yahoo!/AP]
A Japanese spacecraft apparently succeeded in landing on an asteroid and collecting surface samples Saturday, part of an unprecedented mission to bring the material back to Earth, Japan’s space agency said.The Hayabusa probe touched down for only a few seconds on the faraway asteroid — long enough to collect powder from its surface — and lifted off again to transmit data to mission controllers, said Kiyotaka Yashiro, a spokesman for JAXA, Japan’s space agency.
Mmmm, space dust…
[update:] Perhaps not…
Japanese Space Probe May Be in Trouble [Yahoo! AP]
again, via Doug
This is not utter failure kind of trouble, more of the “appeared to be shaking due to a possible gas leak from a thruster” sort of thing. So, a little ’safety mode’ and check things out. I’m hoping they get get things squared away. Thus far, the JAXA team seems to be doing a pretty good job of pulling things out of the fire.
And all this time I assumed you needed to be good at something to turn it into your vocation.
Ex-FEMA Head Starts Disaster Planning Firm [AP]
Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, heavily criticized for his agency’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina, is starting a disaster preparedness consulting firm to help clients avoid the sort of errors that cost him his job.
Silly, silly me!
For the Americans and Americanophiles (is that a word? [no]) the fourth Thursday in November is Thanksgiving. A secular feast devoted to family and friends. And eating. Ideally there is lots of eating involved.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
This is great news.
NASA’s Spirit Rover Completes One Full Martian Year [Space.com]
NASA’s Spirit rover currently exploring Mars completed one full swing around the Sun Monday, giving researchers a year-long look at the Martian seasons.“We feel like, weather-wise, we’ve just about seen it all,” said Sharon Laubach, the rover’s integrating sequence team chief, in a telephone interview. “We’ve gone through all the seasons, we’ve survived Martian winter and gone through conjunction…yes, we’re having a party.”
While both Spirit and its robotic twin Opportunity hit the one Earth year mark of their mission in January, researchers said the Nov. 21 Martian anniversary holds far more significance for the long-lived rovers.
“It’s a big, important milestone,” said Steve Squyres, principal investigator of the rover’s science mission at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in an earlier interview. “We’ll have acquired an entire year’s worth of observations.”
One Mars year is longer than Earth’s (about 687 Earth days), with Spirit hitting its anniversary on the 670th sol –- or Martian day -– of its mission. Spirit has rolled across 3.3 miles (5.4 kilometers) of Martian terrain at its landing site inside the planet’s Gusev crater.
Opportunity will complete its first Martian year exploring the plains of Meridiani Planum on Dec. 11, mission scientists said. Both rovers touched down on Mars in January 2004 on a primary mission that spanned 90 days. (more)
So there is good news and bad news. The good news is:
Spacecraft Lands Successfully on Asteroid [AP]
A Japanese space probe successfully landed and then departed from the surface of an asteroid, despite an initial announcement that the attempt had failed, Japan’s space agency said Wednesday.
The bad news is they didn’t get samples.
However, on Wednesday JAXA said that data sent from Hayabusa confirmed that it had landed on the asteroid on Sunday for about half an hour. However, the probe failed to collect material, JAXA said.
But there is a possibility…
JAXA Associate Executive Director Yasunori Matogawa said it was the first time that a probe had successfully landed on an asteroid and then taken off.
(…)
He said the probe had moved as far as 62 miles from the asteroid but was now getting closer for a second attempt.
They are basically trying to do multiple ‘touch and go’ landings 180 million-miles out on a moving rock 2,300 feet long, 1,000 feet wide and has a gravitational pull only 1/100,000th of Earth’s. So they’re doing a pretty darn good job (IMO).
Guitarist Link Wray Dies at 76 [AP]
Link Wray was the father of the guitar style “considered the blueprint for heavy metal and punk music.” Round up a copy of Rumble (1958) and have a listen. Then consider when it came out. This is the passing of a tribal elder.
Powered by WordPress
copyright © Hal B. Rager 1999-2010, except when held by others