At least I’m younger than Spunik.
Interesting Space.com article on Spaceflight technology’s next 50 years, as the race began 50 years ago with Sputnik 1 blasting into orbit.
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Tag: of interest
Of interest: Benjamin J. Romano posts on the Seattle Times blog that Microsoft Photosynth was used to process images from the latest Endeavour mission.
“A few days before the shuttle launched, Microsoft posted several sets of photographs of the shuttle in the Vehicle Assembly Building and on the launch pad. They were in the company’s new 3-D photo-viewing environment, Photosynth.
“The new collection includes images of the shuttle captured Aug. 10 before it docked at the International Space Station. “Endeavour did a complete somersault enabling astronauts to photograph the shuttle’s bottom-side. The photos were then sent back to NASA for analysis and later shared with Microsoft LiveLabs to compile a ‘synth,'” a Microsoft representative said in an e-mail. The new photo collection can be accessed here.”
Adam Sheppard, GPM in Live Labs, posted about the collaboration with NASA, as Space Shuttle astronauts photographed the shuttle (including the damage on the bottom).
Click here to install the Photosynth viewer and experience for yourself.
Of interest… Guy Kawasaki’s Visit to Trek: Two Guys in a Barn…
“The Discovery Channel Team dominated
this year’s Tour de France with three riders in the top ten (Contador-1st; Leipheimer-3rd; Yaroslav Popovych-8th) and first place in the team classification. The team used Trek bikes called Madone
Worth a read and a look.
I don’t like the smell of laser toner, and it turns out that it could be more than just annoying.
In his blog, Dennis Rockstroh references an article on ConsumerAffairs.com that calls out that laser printers are fairly active polluters.
“Working around some laser printers, especially in a closed area, may be equivalent to breathing in cigarette smoke, says a study.”
The study referenced is from the Queensland University of Technology, at Brisbane, where researchers “believe tiny particles of that toner escape from the cartridge during ordinary use, especially when the cartridge is shaken.”
From the article…
“[The researchers] say the problem can be mitigated by placing printers in a well-ventilated area so the particles can escape. Printers should not be placed in small, closed rooms, they say.
“The researchers said they investigated 62 different laser printers and classified 17 of them as “high emitters.” They characterized the worst of the 17 as releasing particles at a rate comparable to emissions from cigarette smoke.”
The researchers looked at printers from Canon, HP, Ricoh and Toshiba — my Brother laser wasn’t referenced — and published their report in a recent issue of Environmental Science and Technology.
IMHO, good to keep the window open, or consider adding a fan vent to your printer room.
Of interest… the InsideMicrosoft blog news channel says that there’s drop coming in the street prices on the Xbox 360…
“Leaks are coming at the rate of several a day that an Xbox 360 price drop is imminent, sometime in the next ten days. A Circuit City ad shows that you should be able to get an Xbox 360 Premium, the most common version of the system, for $350, fifty bucks less than now, starting August 12. A Core system, without a hard drive, will go for $280, a drop of $20, and the big hard drive’d Elite will drop thirty to $450. The Premium comes with a free copy of Rockstar’s Table Tennis (which rocks).”
Hmmm… should be an interesting Holiday season. Perhaps with more interesting stories to come aroun Xbox 360 and HD DVD.