Hubble, Mars, and Jones’ Big Ass Truck Rental And Storage
December 5, 2008
Hey WordPress! Kudos on the new dashboard design!
I don’t know what to say about this other than just watch it. Via Yewknee’s friday videos playlist.
Just in case you live under a rock and have never seen one of the amazing web comics on XKCD, just go read this one. Then bookmark it, add it to you RSS feed, whatever.
The mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope has been finally rescheduled for May 12, 2009. This is only a target date, but I’m glad they finally have some idea of when the mission will happen. The original date for the mission was back in early October, but a problem with one of Hubble’s main data relay units caused a full shutdown of its operations just a few weeks before the mission. This caused a delay of the mission so that engineers on the ground would have time to prepare a spare part that will be added to the mission’s payload. This will be the final servicing mission to Hubble, as it will be replaced in 2013 by the James Webb Space telescope. In other space news, NASA is delaying the next Mars mission, the Mars Science Laboratory, until 2011. It’s sad, but in the long run it will pay off, because the scientists and engineers need ample time to correct the issues. They’re really only a couple of months behind schedule, but due to Mars’ relative position to earth in its orbit, a launch window for Mars missions only occurs about every two years.
I promise I’ll have more music-related stuff coming soon. Stay tuned.
CNN regresses/Yellow is the color of 2009
December 4, 2008
No not really. But the dissolution of their science/space/technology division is just plain stupid. CNN, why did you do this? Yes, you say that your science coverage is being absorbed into the general editorial department, but in order to keep the same quality of science coverage we’ve enjoyed, you need a dedicated team to focus on it. I don’t see how that your science coverage won’t suffer as a result of this. I found this article via this post on Bad Astronomy, and I have to agree with Dr. Plait that right now is a time when we need more science and technology coverage in the mainstream media, not less. Miles O’Brien, I will miss your coverage of the shuttle launches. Best of luck in your future Endeavors. (pun intended)
Another trailer:
This is for the new David Fincher/Brad Pitt movie, the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I’m pretty excited about it, I must say… not only because they used an Arcade Fire song in the trailer, but because I’m a fan of all movies involving that director/actor combination. Via You Ain’t No Picasso.
Richard Avedon’s portraits of power. I’ve always been a big fan of his work. I can’t really put my finger on why, I just have.
According to this AP article, yellow will be the color of 2009. The Pantone Color Institute says that yellow, specifically a vibrant shade of it called Mimosa, will represent the hope and optimism that will be pervasive in the public consciousness next year. The article quotes PCI director Leatrice Eiseman as saying, “It’s invariably connected to warmth, sunshine and cheer — all the good things we’re in dire need of right now.” I agree wholeheartedly.
Remember a few years ago when people were talking about that huge tower planned for downtown Nashville? The one that was gonna be taller than anything in Atlanta… and second only to New York and Chicago? Well, fahgettaboutit. This article on WRKN explains how the current economy has caused the tower to shrink… to being smaller than the batman building. Sadness… I had been looking forward to that building for a few years. I like tall buildings.
Sharon Van Etten lands the space shuttle….just kidding
December 1, 2008
I have to say that despite the horrific mess of driving through Knoxville yesterday, this year’s Thanksgiving break was a good one. Megan and I went back to east TN to visit my parents, and even got to go skiing wed. night after rushing to get there early enough. The snow was in good shape (for the southern Appalachians, at least) and we had a blast. Don’t get me wrong, skiing in NC or any where in the Appalachians doesn’t hold a candle to skiing in CO or anywhere in the rockies, but it’s better than nothing.
Today’s links:
Sharon Van Etten on RCRD LBL blog. I remember being served Red Stripe by her at the Red Rose in Murfreesboro years ago. She played at the Basement a few months ago and it took me a while to realize from where I recognized her. It’s awesome to see her getting some recogition in the blogosphere.
Weezer will be releasing an album of old recordings that “for some reason didn’t make the final cut” for their other albums. Very exciting. They can’t seem to put out anything new that’s worth more than a few listens on the way home from the record store, so the random old gems are gonna be the only way they can please the die-hard old school Weezer fans such as myself. Via Billboard.com:
On the heels of the release of the second volume of Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo’s home recordings, the group is now taking a look back into its own vaults. Cuomo tells Billboard the tentatively titled “Odds and Ends” will feature “great songs” which “for some reason didn’t make the final cut” for an album.
The Space Shuttle Endeavour touched down at Edwards Air Force Base in California yesterday after thunderstorms and crosswinds at Kennedy Space Center caused NASA to use its backup landing plan.
This may be old news by now, but the fragments of the meteor that streaked across the Canadian skies last week have finally be located. Apparently it was a pretty big one weighing a few tons. Image via Universe Today.
University of Calgary graduate student Ellen Milley poses with a fragment of a meteorite in a small pond. AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Geoff Howe
Some links… happy Turkey Day
November 26, 2008
Disclaimer: Posting may be pretty sporadic over the next few days as Megan and I head to east TN to visit my family for thanksgiving.
Today I just have some links for you. No rants. Just some links… mainly because Kottke.org had my RSS feed full of goodness this morning. The following three are from Kottke.
Photography is for Jerkoffs.
A very clever way to put the impressiveness of a magnetic hard drive into perspective.
Chinese use rockets to get the cables for a bridge higher than the Empire State Building across the gorge over which it is being built.
Via NME: It’s finally official. They’ve teased us for over a year now, but Blur is reuniting for another album. Let’s hope they tour too. I’m skeptically excited.
The Boston Globe’s website continues to post amazing hi-res photographs of even more amazing things, such as this series of International Space Station.
And now, for your daily dose of WTF?!?!? Blowjobs as performance art:
Enjoy your thanksgiving!
The big 27…. and some faces.
November 24, 2008
Sorry for the dry spell in posting… last thursday was my birthday and that combined with having to take my cat Sherman to the vet (he’s doing fine now) resulted in me not having time to surf the interwebz for goodies and bring them to you.
Yep, I’m 27. That famous age where so many rock icons lost their lives. I’d better watch myself over this next year… I hope I can make it through, but being a rock legend isn’t easy… nope. A list of rock icons/musicians who’ve died at 27-
Jim Morrison
Jimi Hendrix
Janis Joplin
Kurt Cobain
Brian Jones (Rolling Stones founder)
Robert Johnson (legendary blues guitarist/singer)
Dave Alexander (Stooges bassist)
D. Boon (of the Minutemen)
Ron McKernan (of the Grateful Dead)
There are many more in the “27 Club,” but I won’t post them all here. Check out the Wikipedia entry if you’re interested.
According to Stereogum, this is Katy Perry, not Zooey Deschanel:
WTF???? Seriously? If you asked me who this was, I would say definitively that it’s Zooey Deschanel. This is uncanny. Either way, they’re both on my celebrity crush list.
This guy really knows his various British accents. I love listening to accents. My favorite has to be New Zealand though.
Stargate Universe coming in 2009/Kerry Collins the songwriter
November 19, 2008
Wow. I’ve only been doing this for about a month and I’m already getting requests from a promotions company to review an album. Look for some mp3’s and my take on the new local band Blue Eyed Blacks, and their first album “Black Eyed Soul” soon.
If you know me at all, you know that I’m a huge sci fi nerd, and that I’ve been an avid fan of both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis for many years now. SG-1 was the longest running sci fi television series ever, lasting a whopping 10 years. They started Atlantis as a spinoff in 2005, and even had some interesting interplay between the two series while they overlapped. While I was sad to see SG-1 come to an end in 2007, I knew it was time, and quite frankly, the new SG-1 team just wasn’t quite the same without Richard Dean Anderson’s character, Colonel Jack O’Neil. I was heartbroken initially upon hearing that this current season of Atlantis will be its last, which prompted me to do a little research as to the reasoning for this, and in the process I discovered that executive producers Brad Wright and Robert Cooper are up to something new: another spinoff series called Stargate Universe. There’s not much info about it yet, but according to the press release, it will be set on a ship rather than earth or a remote base, and the crew will be a group of earth explorers who get stuck on this ship and have to fend for themselves as the ship carries out its unalterable mission of exploring the entire universe. Yes, not just one galaxy… the whole universe. I’m cautiously excited about this new direction for the franchise. I really hope the writers keep the same level of character development of the other two and keep using the layers and layers of mythology developed in the SG-1 series. Read the full press release to get the details if you’re interested.
I’m not a sports fanatic by any means, but I have been following my hometown team, the Tennessee Titans, for several years now, and of course I’m quite happy to see them leading the NFL at 10-0. Their veteran quarterback Kerry Collins apparently has an unlikely side-hobby: songwriting. Only in Nashville.
And now for some debunking. I came across this video on Oddee.com and couldn’t resist posting it because of the astonishing absurdity.
Because the show on which this guy Ramana is performing is in Dutch I really don’t know how seriously they’re taking him, but how can anyone not see that big wooden post (and base) to which he’s attached? Are people completely blind?!?!? I have much respect for the needle and thread trick he does, and for any tricks that require real skill and years of practice. I also think his performance art installations of hanging on the sides of buildings are interesting in a purely artistic sense, but this particular levitation stunt is just silly. “Illusions” that are obviously the result of specialized props just piss me off.
Random interesting tidbit: Scientists have created microscopic Obamas out of carbon nanotubes.
And The Relatives release “Animals”/Space Shuttle mission underway
November 17, 2008
And The Relatives, a local indie rock trio featuring my friend and fellow Scene contributor Patrick Rodgers on drums, have released their first proper EP “Animals.” Their EP release show was this past friday at the 5 Spot, but I was unable to attend due to a huge conference at work. I highly recommend checking them out this thurs. Nov. 20th (I may be there- it’s my birthday afterall) at the End with The Ettes, The Howlies, and Mean Tambourines. For a couple of free mp3’s, head over to Out The Other. They are part of a new collective of bands/artists known as Holly House. I’ve heard this name a few times over the past year or so, and recently I checked out their website to find that they have quite a lineup of bands associated with them. They seem to be onto something good here- a collective of bands just trying to make good music and help each other out with booking, etc… Basically it’s like Movement Nashville, but not so focused on the commercial/business aspect. The artists/bands associated with MN are very commercial sounding (and sometimes acting), and I think that leaves a bad taste in many mouths amongst local bands who really just want to make good music, regardless of the commercial appeal. I have nothing against a band trying to make a little money doing what they love, but sometimes it’s just too blatantly obvious that they’re making their art fit into a certain formulaic mold, at which point I usually say “no thanks.”
This is slightly old news by now, but the Space Shuttle Endeavour blasted off from Kennedy Space Center Friday night at 7:55pm EST and successfully docked with the International Space Station at 5:01pm EST Sunday. You can watch live footage from the mission at NASA TV. While we’re talking about NASA, there’s a little speculation about the future of NASA under the new Obama Administration. Current NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has said that he will stick around only if Obama wants to keep things going steady on the current course of developing the new Constellation program, and retiring the Shuttle in 2010. For more info see the full story at Universe Today.
Some random links:
10 fascinating last pictures of famous people before they died.
Obama plans to begin doing weekly YouTube video updates. FDR 2.0 maybe?
Plasma plants may vaporize garbage while generating power.
Photographs of female body builders. Not for the faint of heart….
And finally I’ll leave you with this bit of inspiration, thanks to the Holly House website:
Brian Wilson/Robert Schneider encounters
November 12, 2008
So the Brian Wilson record signing at Grimey’s was a bit anti-climatic, but it should be expected, I guess. We stood in line outside in the cold for about an hour to get in. To my dismay they’d just sold out of his new album on vinyl, so I had to get it on CD. (The deal was that you had to buy a copy of his new album there at Grimey’s in order to get him to sign it, and you could also bring 1 other item.) My other item was the awesome original mono version that Megan got me for Christmas last year. Mr. Wilson was robotic in his signing, to put it lightly. He didn’t even make eye contact with anyone.
But the man is lucky to be alive after going through all that he has- his father’s treatment of him, drug abuse, mental illness, losing his brothers, the tension between him and Mike Love… the list goes on and on. All that, and yet he still managed to be one of most profound and influential musicians/producers/composers of modern times. He is indeed the “Mozart of rock” as he was introduced on the stage monday night. This leads into my next item of interest- we ran into none than Robert Schneider of Apples in Stereo at the actual Brian Wilson show at the Ryman monday night. I saw him from behind and before I knew it, had blurted out “Robert Schneider!” He turned around and was very cool and friendly. I mentioned that I’d seen him perform as Marbles at the End opening for Of Montreal once and he was very appreciative. He seems to be in that sweet zone of moderate fame, where not too many people recognize him, but the ones that do aren’t obsessive about it, and it happens seldom enough that he’s appreciative and always willing to talk/take photos/etc… We took a photo with him and went on our separate ways. The show was nothing short of amazing, and from what I’ve heard from people who’d seen Brian before, it was actually better than other recent appearances. His band the Wondermints are absolutely phenomenal, and nailed every single note of the complex harmonies involved with both the Beach Boys material and Brian’s solo stuff. They recreated the sounds in the recordings (yes even the complex Pet Sounds material) with stunning aural accuracy, and the sound mix was almost flawless. I feel like it was worth every penny, and I got to photograph it for the Scene as well, which made it even better.
Frankly I’m a bit surprised this is public information, but as the article mentions, presedential codenames are a bit obsolete and unnecessary, given the strict security and hi-tech communications used by the secret service.
Barack Obama: Renegade
Michelle Obama: Renaissance
Malia: Radiance
Sasha: Rosebud
Diamonds made from tequila? Yes, indeed. If you told me that before I read this article I’d say you were full of shit, but it’s true.
The Phoenix Lander mission is officially over. They haven’t been able to communicate with it for a couple of days now, and the sunlight will only get dimmer and dimmer as the Martian winter sets in. This article seems to indicate that, while unlikely, the possibility does exist for Phoenix to re-awaken in October of 2009 when the Martian spring begins.
steve cross loves music and science 