A Confluance of Awesome

Wil Wheaton on Leverage.

Just so totally cool.

40 Years Ago (Updated)

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could open a window into the past?

Right now, forty years ago, Apollo 11 is nearly 100 hours into the mission that will land two men on the surface of the moon.

Columbia and Eagle are mated up, but the LEM is still resting inside Stage 3 of the largest and most powerful spacecraft ever built, the Apollo moonship.

The astronauts have just armed the explosive bolts that will separate the LEM from its cradle. In a couple of minutes Michael Collins, the command ship pilot, will fire Columbia’s maneuvering thrusters and extract the lunar lander. Then the combined Columbia and Eagle will leave the now spent 3rd stage behind and continue on to the moon.

I clearly remember watching this event on my folks’ crappy little black and white TV set.

I was seven years old – and the flight of Apollo 11 is still one of the defining moments of my life.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could look back in time and live it again?

You can.

Every single minute of it.

This will be running continuously on my big screen computer until Columbia splashes down a week from now.

God, I love the internet.

_____________________________________

Update:

Well, let's correct that previous statement to read: "God, I love most of the internet - except for the trollish Trolley MacTrollersons of it, I mean.

Over on the Discovery site, Bad Astronomer Phil Plait talks about efforts to digitally restore the orignal video recordings from the Apollo 11 mission and make them available to the public. Predictably, a science-impaired troll named Virgil showed up and started in with the whole tired "The moon landings were faaaaaaaake!" conspiracy crap. Feel free to head over there and slap the idiot around a bit.

Sunset

Over on the Whatever, Scalzi posted a picture of sunset in Ohio.

Ho hum.

Oh sure, it's pretty and all, but there's no drama. Just another beautiful sunset over Ohio corn fields. Flat, boring old Ohio. Yawn.

This is what sunset looks like here:

My thermometer is falling past -10F at the moment, and the last of the moisture has precipitated out of the atmosphere and condensed as hoar frost on the tree limbs. The world is still and deathly quiet, the last of the orange sunlight glitters on the snow of the Chugach range and when it finally goes, well, it may not come back. Somewhere, far down the valley the wolves are howling and I think I heard the shrill trumpet of a woolly mammoth...

That's a sunset.

Ohio, phsssft. Big deal.

Now, if you'll excuse me I need to go bring in some firewood before we all freeze to death.

UCF Meetup

UCF'er Jeri is dropping by Stonekettle Station this afternoon.

The rest of you are invited, should you be in the neighborhood.

Shiny

Notice anything new?

Yep, just upgraded to Firefox v3.0.1.

Woohoo!

Its still got that new browser smell.