Month: October 2005

If you thought the Pod Races in Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace were cool, then the proposed Rocket Racing League will probably be right up your alley. The BBC reports on this very unusual new “sport:”

Peter Diamandis, the man behind the $10m X-Prize for suborbital space travel, has brought forward his new initiative: the Rocket Racing League.

The RRL will see Grand Prix-style races between rocket planes, flown by top pilots through a “3D trackway” just 5,000ft (1,500m) above the ground.
…
Dr Diamandis said the races would be run over aerial tracks that were about two miles (3.2km) long, one mile (1.6km) wide, and about 5,000ft high, running perpendicularly to spectators.

The X-Racers will take off from a runway both in a staggered fashion and side by side, and fly a three-dimensional course with long straights, vertical ascents, and deep banks.

Each pilot will follow his or her own “virtual tunnel” of space with the aid of satellite-navigation technology, safely separated from their competitors by a minimum distance.

Spectators will be able to follow the races by looking at the exhaust plumes in the sky and on hand-held GPS tracking devices.

This sounds way cool, but I’ll believe it when I see it…

You won’t hear any songs from The Doors in a commercial anytime soon, at least not if drummer John Densmore has anything to say about it. Unlike almost everyone else in the music industry, The Doors have not allowed their music to be used in advertising, but it’s only because Densmore has held out. He has exercised his veto ever since all members of the band made a pact in 1970 that “any licensing agreement would require a unanimous vote.” Says Densmore,

People lost their virginity to this music, got high for the first time to this music. I’ve had people say kids died in Vietnam listening to this music, other people say they know someone who didn’t commit suicide because of this music… On stage, when we played these songs, they felt mysterious and magic. That’s not for rent.

Amen. It’s nice to hear that at least someone hasn’t sold out…

Pimp out your ride with Exhaust Tube Spinners. I’m speechless…

Right on the heels of the somewhat more prestigious Nobel Prizes recently awarded for Chemistry, Physics, and Medicine, Slashdot reminded me about the 15th Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony of last week. What are the Ig Nobel Prizes, you might ask?

Every Ig Nobel Prize winner has done something that first makes people LAUGH, then makes them THINK… [They] are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative – and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology.

This year’s winners include:

• Medicine: Gregg A. Miller of Oak Grove, Missouri, for inventing Neuticles – artificial replacement testicles for dogs.
• Chemistry: Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota and Brian Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin, for conducting a careful experiment to settle the longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in water?
• Peace: Claire Rind and Peter Simmons of Newcastle University, in the U.K., for electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie “Star Wars.”
• Literature: The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters – General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others – each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them.

No cure for cancer yet. ;-p

The buzz over the weekend was the release of Google Reader, Google’s attempt at entering the RSS feed reader market. Initial reactions are mixed, and I myself still prefer Bloglines, although I admittedly haven’t played with Google Reader much yet. Here’s the tour and a FAQ…

The U.S. Navy is developing a new sonic technology to defend against torpedos:

The U.S. Navy wants to protect its warships with a system that will destroy incoming torpedoes by firing massive underwater shock waves at them.

The ships would be equipped with arrays of 360 transducers each 1 metre square – effectively big flat-panel loudspeakers – running along either side of the hull below the waterline. When the ship’s sonar detects an incoming torpedo, the transducers simultaneously fire an acoustic shock wave of such intensity that the torpedo either detonates early or is disabled by the pulse’s crushing force, according to the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is funding the project.

I can’t wait to see what will happen when environmentalists get wind of this one…

Bill Watterson, author of Calvin and Hobbes comics from 1985 to 1995, answers some fans’ questions in concert with the release of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (expensive, but quite worth it, IMHO).

Check out some really cool photos of the recent annular solar eclipse from Astronomy Photo Of The Day [1] [2] and flickr.

Andy Rooney’s segment on 60 Minutes from a week ago was a surprising yet illuminating departure from his usual staple of curmudgeonly old-man rants. In the segment, he went off on the War In Iraq and its effects on our economy. His last quote from President (and former General) Eisenhower is quite the kicker:

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Here’s a transcript and a QuickTime video.