I Love that the President is a Nerd.

As Smitty knows, the White House has a policy that says that any policy proposal placed on the White House website that receives the support of 25,000 people, will receive consideration and a response from the White House.  This summer the White House released the recipe for its Honey Porter and Honey Ale after beer brewers petitioned the White House for its release.

Recently a bunch of nerds gathered the support of over 34,000 people in asking the federal government to begin the construction of our very own Death Star.

The White House did not disappoint.  Well, they might have disappointed people by shooting down the death star concept, but at least the denial was a very creative Star Wars-laden response.

Read it here.

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Mars or Alderaan?

While we have been discussing the 2nd Amendment here at ATK, the Curisoity rover has been blasting away on Mars with a gun - of sorts - of its own.

As you will see below, Curiosity has been zapping holes into rocks with a laser to examine their make-up.  See the before and after below.

So I wonder if the 2nd Amendment applies on Mars.  Does the 2nd Amendment apply to laser weapons?  If there are Martians there, could Curiosity defend itself?

Read more here.

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We're Tall

If you missed it last night, here's the vid of the Entry, Descent and Landing portions of the Curiosity rover landing on Mars.

Mars.

I think at about 28:00, touchdown is confirmed.  NASA JPL...erupts.  It's just awesome.




Video streaming by Ustream

Look what we can do when we put our minds to it!

Here are the first 2 shots from Curiosity, confirming not only that it landed in a series of really complicated maneuvers (including a parachute, retro-rockets and a crane), but that it works.  I'm all misty.

rear-facing "hazard cam;" lens a bit dusty, clear shadow of
Curiosity on the surface of...oh...ANOTHER PLANET

The surface of Mars, using a slightly higher-res camera.  To the
lower right is one of Curiosity's wheels. 

UPDATE BY BOB:  Even higher res image from same camera:

Higher res, (but not HD) image sent from Mars a couple hours after the above.  This one is double the resolution.



UPDATE 2 BY BOB - A shot of the parchute open above the lander as shot by the orbiter.


Unreal.  There it is.  In another 48 hours, we'll start getting hi-resolution color photos.

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FIRE! M..Meh heh heh...FIRE!

H/T to Beavis and Butthead, of course.

But anyway, ever wonder what 270 solid rocket boosters and 405 main engines look like blasting-off simultaneously?

Yes?

Great!  Since you've always wondered, here it is:  all 135 shuttle launches in the history of the program, launching simultaneously.

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We're Tall, O God, We're Tall

As you all have seen in the news, Ray Bradbury passed away a few weeks ago on June 5.  But just today, I stumbled across the video embedded below (H/T to It's Okay To Be Smart).  This video, taken with yesterday's news that Voyager 1 is now in the "heliosheath," just about to break through into interstellar space, make a powerful statement to me about the value of human imagination and education.




A ship of our creation, directly in communication with us, an extension of us, breaking through the "barrier" of our solar system, our sun, our home. We are tall today.

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This, I Believe

A blog I frequent, Skepchick, is one of my favorite skeptic/science blogs sites on the interwebs, and it has really quality writing from honest-to-goodness scientists on topics from their field of study to feminism to pop culture.  Skepchick is part of a network (the lead site in the network).  One of the other sites in this network is Mad Art Lab, a skeptics-meets-artists bog.

That's an "around the ass to scratch my elbow" way of getting us to Zen Pencils.  Zen Pencils is the work of an Asian-Autrialian named Gavin Aung Than who illustrates quotes and parts of speeches of famous and interesting people.  I really dig his work, and am always inspired by TR's "Man in the Arena" speech, illustrated here.

Two of Than's illustrations really jumped out at me.

This one, an excerpt from Carl Sagan, when used in conjunction with the last 5 paragraphs of Pale Blue Dot (animated here), sums up pretty much my entire belief system.  Than's illustration to Sagan's words that mean so much to what I hold true - somehow, "cartoony" lends a certain innocent simplicity and credibility to those words - that I get a little throat-lumpy and am pleased to share.

Finally, this illustration is one I am having Smitty Jr read, and one I'll share with the Wonder Twins.  This is how excited I want them to be when it comes to uncovering - in a real way - their world.  I want them to embrace science and learning and questioning and searching.  The cartoon, based on Phil Plait's (Bad Astronomy, another favorite blog) speech to a science fair, I think is built perfectly to reach a smart kid.

I like where Than is headed with Zen Pencils.  Not only did I not want to monkey with putting jpgs of his illustrations on here, I really want you to go to his site, hunt around, get inspired, and maybe even support him.

Happy Friday!

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Found: 2 Hubble-Class Space Telescopes.

"First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?" 

 - The Movie: Contact

Or three for that matter.

It seems that the National Reconnaissance Organization has just stumbled across a couple Hubble-class Space Telescopes they had laying around. While these were built to look downward instead of toward the heavens, it seems they will work damn well pointing upward.  NASA has plans to use them to seek out dark matter and save the U.S. $250 million over the cost of building a new telescope.

See the great article at the New York Times.

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Hopeless Romantic

I have a man-crush on physicist and Nova host Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Here's why:

My favorite answer is Time's "10 Questions" is #3.  We're made a star guts.  Awesomesauce.

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Mish Mash

No beer review yet again this week. Bob and I are making some tweaks to the labels at the bottom of each review. Soon, by clicking the Beer Review button, you will be able to view all the beer reviews on this site by either their layman's terms (dark, light, bitter, sweet, etc) or by their actual "official" designation through the Beer Judge Certification Program (Bock: Doppelbock; Light Hybrid: Kolsch; etc.). This is taking a lot of time to sort through, so bear with us.

A couple random notes:

First of all, in the true spirit of the Dark Side, Darth Vader was caught on camera recently robbing a bank. Good to know the Dark Lord of the Sith likes it keep it real.

We all know and hate the Westboro Baptist Church (note: if you Google their web site and click their official home page link, Google tells you the link is broken...heh...). These are the idiots who protest things like Marines' funerals with their "God Hates Fags" and "God Hate America" signs.

Well, it turns out they decided to protest Comic-Con in San Diego. They were met by the most immense counter-protest of Nerdly Power ever witnessed. It was a thing of beauty. A small collection of Fred Phelps' family members and incest victims on one side of the street, a line of 3 or 4 cops with huge face-splitting grins, and a few hundred nerds with signs that read "God Hates Kittens," "God Hates Jedi" (wielded by a guy in a Star Trek costume) and "All Glory to the Hypno-Toad."

Go here to witness the Power of Dorks. Nerd Power!!

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