That’s great news for everyone interested in science and history. As it turns out Google and PopSci just made their entire 137-year archive available online… good times!

“We’ve partnered with Google to offer our entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It’s an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates our ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology’s incredible potential to improve our lives. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.”

Source: http://www.popsci.com/archives

I was in desperate need for an DDate equivalent running on Windows. DDate is an unix implementaion of date accoridng to the erisian calendar described in the principia discordia.

I only found some C Implementations. And since it’s fun to do I ported the original Discordian Date C code to C#.

You can download the C# sourcecode, licensed under CC-BY-NC here.

I also created a web page which displays the current discordian date and offers you to convert any gregorian date into discordian date representation.

This page can be accesses here. You can call another page with parameters and you only will get the ddate output back:

for example: http://ddate.schrankmonster.de/DiscordianDate.aspx?year=2009&month=6&day=9

Source 1: http://ddate.schrankmonster.de/
Source 2: http://dropbox.schrankmonster.de/dropped/SharpDDateLib.zip

We just arrived in Munich.

On September 28th the Falcon 1 rocketship reached orbit:

“In an era when most technology based products follow a path of ever-increasing capability and
reliability while simultaneously reducing costs, launch vehicles today are little changed from those of
40 years ago. SpaceX aims to change this paradigm by developing a family of launch vehicles and
spacecraft which will ultimately increase the reliability and reduce the cost of space access by a factor
of ten. Coupled with the emerging market for private and commercial space transport, this new model
will re-ignite humanity’s efforts to explore and develop space.”

Source: http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php

Steffi and I made our own version of earth some years ago using 3D Studio and NASA Images – we even made an animation. But this guy does a way better job – creating a photorealistic earth:

“For some time now, I’ve been studying how to build Earth in Blender. I’ve read quite a few tutorials, studied NASA’s Blue Marble images, and received critique from other Blender enthusiasts. I now have some satisfactory results, which I’d be happy to share.

I’ve put together a 21-page tutorial which explains how I achieved my Earth renders. I know there are already a lot of Earth tutorials out there – but none that I found helped me get quite the effect that I wanted. My tutorial combines what I gleaned from all the other tutorials, with what I learned on my own through hours of experimenting. I’m sure it’s not perfect – but I think it will be helpful for anyone interested in the subject.

The tutorial focuses on three different models of Earth – a photographic-style Earth, a Blue-Marble-style Earth, and a night Earth. It demonstrates how to render details such as proper specular shading and ray-traced cloud shadows.”

There’s a free pdf tutorial available that shows how to create these 3D renderings with blender.

Source 1: http://chamberlinproductions.110mb.com/mappedearth.html
Source 2: “what’s the size of the earth compared to”
Source 3: http://web.olp.net/wildernesslodge/Earth%20Tutorial.pdf

“Last week, the Indlebe Radio Telescope, situated on the Steve Biko campus of the Durban University of Technology, successfully detected its first radio source.
The Indlebe Radio Telescope is a transit instrument that operates at the Hydrogen Line frequency of 1420 MHZ and uses a very sensitive radio receiver to detect extraterrestrial radio signals.
Stuart MacPherson, project leader in Electronic Engineering at the university, said he and his students were amazed when they realised the telescope had picked up a signal.
“We had made significant changes to the receiver to increase its sensitivity. When we went in that morning to check the data, we found that it had detected a source,” he said.”

It’s unlikely to be from an unnatural alien source but if you take in account that all the equipment was built by students on the campus of Durban Universit… that is just astonishing.

Source 1: http://www.thirdeyeconcept.com/forums/index.php?page=258
Source 2: http://indlebe.dut.ac.za/

It’s just great to see more and more big archives are getting available online. This time the National Space Agency of America opened it’s picture library:

“NASA Images is a service of Internet Archive ( www.archive.org ), a non-profit library, to offer public access to NASA’s images, videos and audio collections. NASA Images is constantly growing with the addition of current media from NASA as well as newly digitized media from the archives of the NASA Centers.
The goal of NASA Images is to increase our understanding of the earth, our solar system and the universe beyond in order to benefit humanity. “

Source: http://www.nasaimages.org/

That’s the best news for months!! After TVR being out of business for some time they seem to be back in business now – they even presented the new Sagaris 2008 modell yesterday.

“Announced this morning by TVR Managing Director, David Oxley, at an exclusive preview event held at the new TVR development works in Lancashire, England – TVR Production has resumed!

Upon the momentous occasion, which included invited members of the TVR Car Club, TVR staff presented the TVR Sagaris model year 2008. Exterior design has remained the same except for new 5 spoke wheels, while the interior receives a new center console with satellite navigation.

As promised back in 2006 by TVR owner, Nikolai Smolenski said “My intention is to expand the sales and distribution of TVR cars throughout Europe, the rest of the world and USA markets is a key part of the business strategy of the company.” Built as a left hand drive model, the 2008 Sagaris confirms it will be exported internationally.

Preliminary pricing puts the 2008 TVR Sagaris just below 85.000 Euros.”

So now the only thing I need is the money to buy one of these beasts… I’ll have one in black or white

the re-designed interior included satnav…touchscreen…

…and re-designed exhausts… I actually liked the side-exausts better…

the new bonnet … and the gorgeous speed six…*raaawwr*

Source 1: http://www.worldcarfans.com/9080710.012/page1/tvr-production-restarts—2008-sagaris-presented
Source 2: http://www.tvr-car-club.co.uk/tvrpreviewevent.asp

The internet makes things possible some people dreamt of for years. One of these things is the possibility to stream live-voice-chat over the internet. Many people used the citizens’ band radio – CB radio – for the last decades:

“Citizens’ Band radio (CB) is, in many countries, a system of short-distance, simplex^[1] radio communications between individuals on a selection of 40 channels within the 27 MHz (11 meter) band. The CB radio service should not be confused with FRS, GMRS, MURS, or amateur (“ham”) radio. Similar personal radio services exist in other countries, with varying requirements for licensing and differing technical standards. In many countries, CB does not require a license and, unlike amateur radio, it may be used for business as well as personal communications.”

For several years now there is a group of people from virtually everywhere in germany who connect their CB radios to the internet – they link their “gateways” together using a software normally used by online gamers called “TeamSpeak”. All you have to do to take a look is to read this short how-to and follow the steps.

Here’s a sneak-peak at the current status of the server:

There’s even a livestream available (but sometimes not working):

Source 1: http://www.freiesfunknetz.com/
Source 2: http://www.goteamspeak.com/

They landed on the mars again…and they will launch a space shuttle within the next 22 hours if everything works out as planned. So maybe you, just like me, are interested in getting some live-information about that.

There’s NASA TV but on the NASA website you only get low (150kbit) bitrate streams. If you want better quality, just try these links:

300kbit Stream
500kbit Stream
1200kbit Stream

Of course you can always go with the standard website livestream…

You do realise that, despite that fact no mass media is talking about it, there are still robots around and on Mars doing research for the last years? Yeah you’re right: Spirit and Opportunity are still well and alive on Mars. There were several other missions and this newly released 9.9 Tbytes of data (adds up to 16.8 Tbytes) is just fantastic stuff.

See an avalanche on Mars:

“How much data was released? 2422 observations, making up 9.9 terabytes “in over 225,599 standard PDS and extras products” according to our database specialist. This was for data between orbit ranges 4400 and 6999, or between July 05, 2007 and January 23, 2008 (which is a lot of loops around the Red Planet!)

We have now released a total of 16.8 TB worth of data, or nearly 500,000 image products. Please check out the latest images on the HiRISE website on the “March 2008: New HiRISE Images Released to the Planetary Data System” page.”

Source 1: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/HiBlog/?p=147
Source 2: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_007338_2640
Source 3: http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/
Source 4: http://hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/
Source 5: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Since two of my colleagues wrote about their work at Microsoft Research I wanted to write at least something about it…just like Andreas said:

“One reason I recently don’t blog too much is the fact that I am a bit restricted in what I can tell. Being involved in some exciting projects, the confidentiality of these projects does not allow much publicity.”

So really the only thing I can write about is that I am honored to work with these great people and being part of the process of creating great software.

So – for now I am on my way back to Cambridge – the next article will be written from there…

Of course I will write about all the things when I am allowed to do so…

Source 1: Martin Calsyn
Source 2: Andreas Heil
Source 3: http://research.microsoft.com/ero/

Oh well, there’s this “Current Map of The Solar System” by the Armagh Observatory:

“The image below is an up to date map of the solar system displaying the orbits of the terrestrial planets and the estimated position of thousands of known asteroids. This diagram is missing comets, space probes and, of course, the undiscovered asteroids. Even conservative estimates would suggest that for every asteroid on a dangerous Earth-Approaching orbit there are hundreds more which have yet to be discovered. There are over 300 known objects on Earth-crossing orbits, the majority of which are potentially capable of causing death and destruction on a scale unheard of in human history.”

To make this clear: red and yellow = (possibly) EVIL! ZOMG!

“Small green points mark the location of asteroids which do not approach close to the Earth right now. This does not exclude the possibility that they will do so in the future but generally we can consider the Earth to be safe from these for the near future. Yellow objects (with the exception of the one in the middle which we astronomers call the Sun are Earth approaching asteroids which are called Amors after the first one discovered. Amors have orbits which come close to the Earth but they don’t cross the Earth’s orbit. However, their orbits are close enough to the Earth that they could potentially be perturbed by the influence of the planets and begin to cross the Earth’s orbit in a short time. There are over 300 known objects on such orbits.

Finally the red boxes mark the location of the Apollo and Aten asteroids. These cross the Earth’s orbit and are the most directly identifiable astronomical threat for the near future.”

Source: http://szyzyg.arm.ac.uk/~spm/neo_map.html

It looks to me just like something that might explode….

thanks do #blogs.de irc channel for the link.

Source: Google Maps

It just seems like make is going to get some interesting pictures tomorrow:

“We’re using weather balloons to go up to approximately 100k feet armed with 4 cameras… 20 megapixels of camera! We’ll be taking shots every 7 seconds for two hours and measuring the temperature with the Make: controller and thermistors!

It took 16 people working on this, countless cases of mountain dew, lots of take-out food, and a lot of sleepless nights, and we intend to fly Sunday!

Cloud cover, snow, and mechanical failure may postpone the launch, but we’re ready to give it our best shot this weekend.

In this Make: Video Podcast, you’ll learn all the details of how to put a weather balloon up into space! The weather balloon will make it up to about 100,000 feet. That’s almost 20 miles up and more than twice the height of being in an airplane. It’s high enough that the sky is black and you can see the curvature of the earth.”

Oh well it’s no big deal really . The theory behind it was discoverd in 1851 and it proofs that the earth rotates under the pendulum. Uh, of course you can grab some more sophisticated theory insights here. So what’s up with that thing? It was voted to one of the ten best webcams on earth. Go and have a look.

Source: EarthCam.com Top Ten
Source: Webcam

Thank god there’s a small device available that informs you when gamma or x-ray radiation is currently killing you.

Good to know that after you got killed by the radiation someone else (probably doing the job you did previously) can use your NukAlert for another 3 months-years…

Source: http://nukalert.com/

“MIRAVI stands for MERIS Images RApid VIsualization and it’s a data-driven system for real time image rendering and quality analysis. Those images, though fascinating, are not suitable for scientific use. Scientists usually prefer to work with MERIS data products, which fully exploit the 15 spectral bands of the instrument, and which are generated with sophisticated algorithms.

MIRAVI generates the images directly from the MERIS raw data (i.e. the Level 0 data), usually available within 2 hours from data acquisition, depending whether the raw data have been transmitted directly to ground stations, or first recorded onboard then transmitted to ground stations.

The MIRAVI image processing does not intend to provide a very accurate geolocation or calibration. The high geolocation accuracy is achieved within the standard MERIS data products (less than ½ pixels).

MIRAVI generates the images using the MERIS Full Resolution (FR) mode (resolution about 260 m) which is activated systematically over land and coastal areas of Europe, Africa and Asia, and non-systematically over America. In its Reduced Resolution (RR) mode (resolution about 1200 m), MERIS operates systematically along its orbit illuminated by the sun.”

Source: http://miravi.eo.esa.int/en/

Do you remember the landing of the two mars exploration vehicles calles Spirit and Opportunity in 2004? Well I think you do. They were built to last 90 days. But it’s now more than 1000 days – more than 10 times the timespan.

Well well, the two sneaky space travellers are kind of tattered – ones wheel isn’t working anymore and the other one had to get his brain “reformated” several times…but all over all they are in good shape for very old fellas.

Source: http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/home/

Everybody will need one of these when the guardians attack zion…

“In 1990, we started to develop a Wearable Power Assist Suit, and in 1991 we fabricated a Powered Arm constructing the master and slave system in one unit by utilizing a rubber tube air actuator and sensing cuff, [ref. 1]. In 1994, we developed a Wearable Powered Suit constructed with powered arms, a powered waist, and powered legs [ref. 2], and finally in 2002, we developed a Stand Alone Type Wearable Power Assist Suit [ref. 3]. This suit was composed of newly developed air bag actuators driven by micro air pumps, newly developed muscle hardness sensors, and an embedded micro computer. The muscle hardness sensor was developed for detecting the muscle force driving joints. The micro computer was for calculation of the necessary joints torques to lift heavy objects. The calculation equations was derived by body mechanics. This suit could run continuously 20 minutes with 12 volts Ni-Cd portable batteries. The latest power assist suit can generate higher assist power, and is composed of compact body, a compact embedded micro computer, small and flat rotary sensors, and has newly designed muscle sensors which are embedded in 3-D mesh [ref. 4].”

Source: http://www.we.kanagawa-it.ac.jp/~yamamoto_lab/pas/index.htm

…build yourself a “just-like-the-original” power consuming flight simulator. I am not sure what would be more expensive. This setup or the ultra-light aircraft which is currently simulated…

Follow the link and see other home-cockpit-setups.

Source: http://www.shorttext.com/z0gv5

I do like two car manufacturers (well, their cars to be precise) more than all the others. One of them is Mercedes-Benz and the other is…TVR. Yes, the brits.

They make great looking powerful sports cars and I hope one day one will be mine They are quite affordable compared to other supercars – for example you can get a brand new TVR Sagaris (4l V6) for 80k EURO…a pre owned 2004 Cerbera (4.5l V8) comes for about 48k EURO…did I mention they do not come below 380 bhp and weigh as much as two packs of chewing gum? (I’ll have to pay royalties to Jeremy Clarkson for that…damn!).

The fact is that the Cerbera has gone out of official production in 2004. But now TVR is auctioning the last made Cerbera on the Internet:

Yes, you can get that brand new, pepper white, 420 bhp supercar…just sign up and bid…well if you have the money (which I don’t)…

Beside the Cerbera I fell in love with the Sagaris…look how gorgeous it is:

raaawwrrr!!

I just found the sagaris video:

If you want to buy me one…contact me

Source 1: http://www.thelastcerbera.com/
Source 2: http://www.tvr.co.uk/overview_sagaris.php

I want to share with you a fantastic page where Pascal Buire discusses his investigations on Google Earths tiling and algorithms:

“This is my analyse about how google map works, et specially how the tiles are encoded. Google map uses pre-rendered tiles that can be obtained with a simple url. This article explains how to build the url for a tile from its geo coordinates (latitude/longitude)”

Google Earth mirroring anyone?

Source: http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/googlemap.asp

I told you that there will be a 720p movie of the planets rendering available soon. And here it

It’s also available through the podcast or directly linked here.

“Taken by Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong, this pan shows lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin unpacking the EASEP which stands for the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package, from the side of Lunar Module ‘Eagle’.”

This is only one of several other panoramic views of the moon.

Source: http://moonpans.co.uk/vr/

A couple of days ago I wrote about a website that has some interesting pictures of the planets of our solar system compared to each other in size. The idea was great but the quality of the pictures was bad. So we decided to push our knowledge about 3D tools a bit and render our own high-quality version.

But first a before-after comparision:

before

Aaaaaand:

after

Tell us what you think of it!

We will add some more pictures in the next hours, beside that a short movie in 720p is in the rendering process at the moment.

Last time I worked with 3D tools they were called “3D Studio Max 3.0″…which is quite a while ago. 3D Studios current version number is 8… You can grab your own trial version here.

We actually experimented a lot with the tools…look what earth became after just seconds of play:

yes,we even hair-styled earth!

Source 1: original article and picture
Source 2: 3D Studio MAX trial

“A number of amateur astronomers and Space Station enthusiasts regularly take photos as ISS rises above the horizon in westerly direction and sets towards the East. In response to a recent article on this website, you sent us some of your ISS images. A selection of your photos is presented below.”

Source: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMY46XAIPE_index_0.html

…well… any other planet and star…

Yeah I know…the picture is shabby…I’ll maybe create a better looking version…

Source: http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

The americans managed to crack…well they call it different but the fact remains that they cracked the PRN codes of the european global non-military positioning system called “Galileo”

“Because GPS satellites, which were put into orbit by the Department of Defense, are funded by U.S. taxpayers, the signal is free — consumers need only purchase a receiver. Galileo, on the other hand, must make money to reimburse its investors — presumably by charging a fee for PRN codes.”

Source 1: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/521790/?sc=rsla

Source 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_positioning_system

“2001 seconds is a complete re-edit of Stanley Kubrick’s original Space Odyssey from 141 minutes to 33 minutes 21 seconds.”

Source: http://swith.gazaxian.com/2001seconds.htm

Have you ever seen the Jetsons? If so, you might remember the vacuum elevators. Well. If you ever wanted to have one of those, you can now:

“It is our self-supporting vacuum elevator; a light and resistant structure built with aluminium and polycarbonate. By simple principles of physics; the difference in air pressure above and beneath the vacuum elevator cab literally transports you by air. It is the vacuum pumps or turbines that pull you up to the next Floor and the slow release of air pressure that floats you down.

Pneumatic Vacuum Elevators are easier to install, maintain, and operate than traditional elevators. They are especially ideal for existing homes due to their compact design because excavating a pit, and hoistway are not required. Air pressure above and beneath the elevator cab are the key to transporting.

The reliability and safety of these vacuum elevators are unsurpassed due to the physics behind the design; it is virtually impossible to get stuck between floors, or freefall.”

Source: daytonyelevators

Vertical-axis wind turbines not only look very sci-fi, but when you add LEDs to the border of the turbine you can use them as a display:

So I leave you with a patent pending revolution which produces power and is virtually silent…whatever that means.

Source: http://www.quietrevolution.co.uk/

If you not have known yet: Mentos and Cola is a great combination for some explosive fountains.

There’s a short video you shouldn’t miss on that:

Great historical speeches and sounds for free download. Including Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein,Robert Frost,…

Source: http://www.freeinfosociety.com/site.php?postnum=460

Despite focusing on the lies we were told about the PS3 in the last year and months here are the hard facts with the source of the information for backup:

• 
  
  You won’t get HDMI and Wireless LAN with the “cheap” EURO 499,- version which means you even won’t get BlueRay-HDTV movies with this SKU.


• 
  
  32,5 cm x 9.8 cm x 27,4 cm and 5 kg is HUGE compared to:




• 
  
  The Xbоx 360 weights 3.5 kg and is 30,9 cm x 8,3 cm x 25,8 cm
  or even


• 
  
  The Xbоx weight 4 kg and is 32,0 cm x 10,1 cm x 26,0 cm


• 
  
  you won’t get a controller with rumble/vibration… because of the innovative motion sensors…


• 
  
  you get GigaBit ethernet… for what purpose?

stay tuned for more tales of interest…

Source 1: PS3 press release
Source 2: PS3 controller press release

Hurray!

“This week on Top Gear, the show got a thrilling new look, and so did we. Plus, the boys made a people carrier into an exciting convertible, James enjoyed a new Honda, Jeremy enjoyed a Swedish supercar, and Richard didn’t enjoy a Micra. At all.”

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/

If you did not know: You can have a great astronomy picture each day…

“Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.”

Source: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Sixt gave me a brand new BMW 320i touring. What a great car! It could use some more bhp but it was fun to drive in every way: Fast and Slow.

Since my GPS logging tool is not working at the moment I just made a picture of the timer that comes with BMWs iDrive. So it’s 9 Minutes 25 seconds for the complete racetrack…very nice.

You were told that water does never ever flow uphill. But now this is proven wrong…and who did it? A german engineer working for americans…

“When a liquid drop is placed on a surface held at a temperature much higher than the liquid’s boiling point (such as a drop of water in a very hot pan) it hovers on its own vapor cushion, without wetting the surface. This phenomenon is called film-boiling and occurs beyond a surface temperature called the Leidenfrost point (about 200 – 300 ºC for water on flat surfaces, depending on surface quality).”

“This method uses heat to pump liquid, and could therefore be used in pumps for coolants, for instance to cool microprocessors. Such a pump would need no additional power (it’s run by the heat that needs to be removed anyway), it would have no moving parts, and it wouldn’t require a thermostat. Whether this method will actually be powerful enough for applications in, say, a laptop, is not yet known.”

Source: http://www.uoregon.edu/~linke/res_droplets.html

Answer: Nine.