Meandering Starre

After being a fan for more than a year, I’ve now read a story for Escape Pod. well, not a whole story, just part of one. I’m the interviewer in “How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out The People’s Justice.” Stephen, of Escape Pod, was the dog. My throat hurt for him while we were reading it. While I’ve not listened to it yet, the story is a good one, so I recommend going right to the site and giving it a listen (and then subscribing to Escape Pod if you have not already).

The aero geek in me, which does not get brought out much lately, had a field day today. First, I saw some fighter jets and got to argue discuss with Bill over lunch about what kind they were (F-16 and an F-14, I think), and then a friend sent me a link to this cool video of a Mig 29 R/C Airplane. It is a thrust vectored radio-controlled plane and the stunts are pretty cool. It’s long video, but you do not need to see the full video to enjoy it. If you have no idea what a “thrust vectored” plane can do, you should especially check this out and be awed.

Okay, I’m trying something. A test of sorts. Besides I apparently like e-stalkers. Who doesn’t right? So, if case you did not guess it, I am *trying* twitter. But twitter works best if you have lots of cool people that you are… twitting with. So, if you are a cool person (and if you read this you have to be at least kinda cool, or kinda bored) and you have a twitter account let me know who you are and I’ll follow you and you can follow me and we can fill the world with simple harmony. Or at least we can stalk each other (in a non invasive scary way, because real stalking is not actually a good thing. This post in no way supports real stalking. And I say this as someone whose been cyber-stalked). BTW I am Starre (can’t believe there was no Starre!).

Yes, I know the Evil Eyebrow already already blogged about this and many of my readers also read his blog. Oh well. This is still worthy of its own blog entry on my blog. Plus, when he wrote it had not happened yet.

Serenity and Firefly at 7:38 PM Eastern time (or so) on STS-117 have finally broken Earth Atmo and are now into the black. The DVDs were part of the recent launch and are being given to the International Space Station crew thanks to astronaut browncoat Steven R. Swanson (this event has its own blog). I swear Firefly fandom is contagious, like the black plague. But then it is the best show ever. And I do not exaggerate.

I’ve got a whole big list of things I want to blog about, but also two syllabi I need done by Monday, two articles I need done by last week, and a grant I need done ASAP, so for now just this short post.

This is a fun and fascinating activity. I strongly suggest you try it:
Go to: http://moon.google.com/

Gradually zoom into the surface of the moon to get some really amazing close-ups of what the surface of the moon is really like. Trust me, this is so worth the 20 seconds it takes!

The World Wide Web was born 15 years ago. The first web page was written by Tim Berners-Lee November 13, 1990 and over the Christmas holiday he built the first web browser and server (info from Wikipedia ). And thus the web was born unto the world. And there was much rejoicing. And there continues to be much rejoicing, especially the e-commerce site that make bundles of joy (in this case money) during the holiday season on the web.

So the web is a teenager. That must mean it is in its rebellion stage!

The point of this post is not to make sacrilegious comments about the web being born during the Christmas holiday (especially interesting because this is not when many really think Jesus was born (See http://www.new-life.net/chrtms10.htm which submits September 29, 5 B.C. as the best guess; or Wikipedia [perhaps not the best biblical resource, but hey if Nature finds it nearly as accurate for science articles as the Encyclopedia Britannica, then it might be pretty good religion resource also] places it no later than 4 BC and likely in the Spring or Summer; this website http://members.tripod.com/~PetraGrail/page5.html suggests Jesus was born September 11, 3 BC (and makes some interesting contentions); and http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/sukkoth.htm suggests the birth was in September-October), but simply to point out and celebrate the birth of the web, without which we would not have Amazon, Wikipedia, or even this humble little blog. (Not to mention the research I just did for this blog post on Jesus’s birth, it took me only a few minutes, whereas pre-web… who knows!)

So, Happy Birthday to the WWW!

I bought my lovely iPod in August (maybe even late July; I know I did have it when silly girl illegally changed lanes into the side of my shiny new Volvo the day before B’s birthday). When I bought said iPod it was one of the newest iPods out—a fourth generation iPod with color screen that merged the earlier iPod music device and photo device into one slim package. This iPod was released June 28th 2005 , about a month before I bought it. So, as of today this iPod has been “on the market” (or so I thougth) for less than 4 months.

Today I downloaded new iTunes software (this software has a crazy number of updates, I’ve updated the iTunes and iPod software at least 3 times since purchase) and when I was at the Apple site I clicked on a link asking “Which iPod are you?�?. As something of a quiz junkie, I thought I’d get a funky little quiz that would either tell me what type of iPod best fit my lifestyle or what type of I iPod I would be if I was an iPod. What I got was nothing of the sort.

Instead I opened a page advertising three types of iPods: the shuffle, the Nano, and the new video capable iPod. Umm… where is my 4 month old baby iPod? Apparently I am already outdated! With the advent of the video iPod, the slim and not-too-small 4th generation music & photo iPod is now defunct.

Now I am all for changing technology, innovation, and the likes. In fact, Apple has been most impressive with the speed that they are updating their line of iPods. However, it seems wrong on some level that my 4 month old iPod is now outdated. This does not encourage me to trade up (which I expect one of the main reasons for the frequent changes) or down (to the snazzy Nano, which, while cute, seems almost too small to me; I’d be afraid to drop it (and drop it I would) or that I’d sit on it and break it). It just makes me feel kinda sad (my iPod has few sisters and brothers) but also even more unique. Maybe when I finally do upgrade my limited release iPod will be a museum piece.

Although I must add, these frequent product upgrades by Apple do not make me want to buy a new iPod anytime soon, because I know in a few months a new one will be out. In this case, if I had waited 2.5 months I would have gotten 10 GB more for the same price!

A note to my loyal readers: I know it’s been a while. I have tons of blog ideas waiting to be written up, so check back this week. You could read about the 10 reasons to train for a marathon, my thoughts on Rent the movie, Bush’s popularity (it sucks), what $870,000 will buy you, comments on Civ 4, and more .