NPR’s science and culture blog has an interesting post up about why Pluto isn’t a planet and we should get over it. It’s something that I’ve been arguing about for a long time.

There are an estimated 70,000 KPOs (Kuiper Belt Objects) out there larger than 100 meters. More importantly, at least 3 KPOs are large enough for gravity to work its symmetric magic and pull rock and ice into a sphere. These are the newest class of solar system’s inhabitants the Dwarf Planets: Huamea, Makemake and, yes, Pluto.

With the discovery of the KPOs and, in particular, the KPO Dwarf Planets, Pluto lost any claim to being special. It was just one cinder-block in a field of cinder-blocks left over from building our solar system. It wasn’t even the biggest cinder block. In 2005 the dwarf planet Eris was found orbiting the Sun at distances beyond the Kuiper Belt in yet another new region of the solar system that astronomers call the Scattered Disk.

Face it, Pluto isn’t special.

[via Daily Dish]

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After only two days of reading, I have just finished the second book in the Hunger Games series, “Catching Fire.” The first book was an equally quick read and provided an interesting story set in a post apocalyptic American future. 

The second story continues where the first left off, with Katniss, the main protagonist, coping with the ramifications of her controversial and seemingly rebellious win in the Hunger Games. This win allowed her and her partner, Peeta (a pathetically sad  example of a man and a generally loathsome character), to survive — something unprecedented since there’s only supposed to be one winner (think of it as a gladiator style competition, but with kids).

Sadly, the first half of the book comprises of a woe-is-me story that wastes the reader’s time with almost nothing that advances the story. There’s hints of a rebellion in other districts and the government seems to know everything that Katniss does (even when she illegally hunts in the wilderness outside her district and kisses a childhood friend).

Which is all the more perplexing when she ventures back out into the woods and encounters refugees from another district talking of rebellion. It’s like she completely forgot about what happened in the opening pages of the story with regard to the President’s warning. 

Halfway through the book, the story takes a predictable turn and forces Katniss and Peeta back into the arena. Fantastic! We basically get to re-read book one all over again. There’s some slight differences. People seem to be more angry with the government and the tributes (gladiators) seem to bond prior to the games.

Once in the arena, the story dissolved into a poor tale of survival as Katniss and others grouped up to survive. She struggles with issues of trust, love, and survival — including trying to escape a fog that acts like a nerve agent, mutant killer monkeys, crazy talking birds, random tsunamis, and other assorted lethal traps. The whole time, Peeta worries over protecting Katniss, who can clearly handle him and anything else that comes her way. Like I said, we’re basically re-reading the first book, word for word.

The ending provides an abrupt, untidy, unsatisfying, yet completely predictable conclusion to the Games. A conspiracy among the other tributes to keep Katniss alive has been carried out all along, without Katniss (or the all knowing government) aware of it. The ending simply serves to setup book three. Great.

Sadly, I have no desire to read book three, yet I feel I must. It’s like how I started feeling about Lost — started off interesting, then get sloppy, but I’ve put all this time into it, so I must see how everything concludes.

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This is one of the many reasons why Vin Scully is the best.

Scully uses crowd noise as his orchestra. When Henry Aaron hit his 715th home run, Scully was there, and he called the home run, and then he took off his headset, walked to the back of the room, and let people listen to the crowd cheer. Like water out of a shower head. “What could I have said that would have told the story any better?”

Listening to Joe Buck and Tim McCarver during the playoffs and World Series was pure torture. Every silence to them is awkward and must be filled with useless anecdotes and mindless banter.

Can you believe Scully has been with the Dodgers for 61 years? Incredible.

This was a screenshot taken from my phone after running a speed test in San Francisco’s Financial District today. Pathetic.

Part 1 – (Fast forward to 1 hour and 39 minutes in the video, that’s when the coverage starts in this particular video):
http://www.justin.tv/twit/b/273782240

Part 2 –
http://www.justin.tv/twit/b/273789393

Part 3-
http://www.justin.tv/twit/b/273796620

gdgt live in SF prep, originally uploaded by Dave Schumaker.

Boxes and boxes of shwag sitting at gdgt HQ in San Francisco prior to tomorrow’s gdgt live in San Francisco event at the SFDC Galleria (from 7pm – 11pm). Make sure to come hang out with us!

Interesting read in Wired about the rise of Ticketmaster: “Everyone Hates Ticketmaster — But No One Can Take It Down”

In 2008, Ticketmaster had made veteran industry shark Irving Azoff—a man so cutthroat (and so short) he is known as the Poison Dwarf—its CEO. Manager of the Eagles since the mid-’70s, Azoff is famously aggressive. He once sent a gift-wrapped boa constrictor to a manager whose wife he considered snakelike, with a note that read “Now you have two!”

The media is abuzz about a mysterious “missile launch” that happened off the coast of Southern California yesterday.

Interestingly enough, while growing up, I remember seeing a number of missile launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base while at our home in Southern California, nearly 220 MILES east of Vandenberg’s launch facilities! I looked through my photo archives this evening and found a series of (very blurry) photos I took on September 19th, 2002 from my parents’ house in Redlands, California.

You can read more information about this particular launch (along with some REALLY COOL photos) right here. It was a test of the Minuteman III rocket and this specific launch is referenced as “Glory Trip 180GM.”

It’s a shame the Space Shuttle never ended up launching from Vandenberg. We would have had fantastic seats for the launch, even though we were 220 miles away!

Click here for larger size.

In 2008, a number of friends and I traveled around the Adriatic Sea on a sailboat, visiting various islands off the coast of Croatia. Toward the end of our trip, we stopped by the small coastal village of Korčula (map).

While there, I decided to take off for a bit and go on a hike outside of town. I stumbled across an old fort hiding in the woods.

Curious about it, I walked inside to explore it for a bit. I’ll admit, it was kind of dark, dusty, and rather creepy. But also pretty cool!

I even found a way onto the roof of the structure, where I took the awesome panorama that you see at the top of this post.

As I was falling asleep a few nights ago, I thought about this trip and this structure specifically. I still didn’t know anything about it and random internet searches over the past two years revealed nothing.

I had the idea to load up Google Earth and view a layer of Panoramio, which shows photos embedded at where they were taken. While viewing the area near Korcula, I noticed a number of photos near the fort I had stumbled across. And they were named!

The mystery was solved: Fort Wellington!

This is the English tower Fort Wellington that was built in 1813 on the place of the Venetian fortification of the open type from 1616. It is located on the hill above Korcula Old Town, about 20 minutes walk along the steps from Plokata – the main square.

This building is currently deserted and is dangerous to climb the staircase inside the tower, as they are old and unreliable. Forteca tower is also devastated by horrible mobile phone network cables and transmitting masts that are placed there by Croatian mobile phone company.

Built in 1813, dangerous to climb, but awesome views. So fun! Interestingly enough, when I visited in 2008, they had actually taken the transmitting masts off the top of the building and moved them to a structure located near the building.

Anyway, it was a fun mystery to finally have solved! I’m glad I took the chance to go exploring for a bit. Bonus: the views on the hike back down to Korcula was top notch as well!

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mary Roach has basically killed my desire to ever be an astronaut.

However, that’s not to say this book is bad. It’s actually a quick, very enjoyable, and entertaining read. But she tackles many of the less glamorous things astronauts must do or cope with — from having every second of their lives and missions pre-planned, to the difficulties involved in going to the restroom, or even eating the specialized food.

She walks us through the history of the space program while packing in quirky stories and mission transcripts (“Here’s another goddamn turd. What’s the matter with you guys?”), from its inception post World War II and sending monkeys into space to testing the effects of zero gravity environments on humans.

There were a number of times that I laughed out loud while reading this book on the bus or in a train and I noticed passengers sitting next to me would try to steal glances of the book I was reading. I can only imagine what kind of freak the person thought I was when they read something like, “Then along came Joseph Tash and his sea urchin splooge.”

Anyway, the book is a great read for anyone interested in the space program and presents the finer, less glamorous details in an amusing and fun to read manner.

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