Fantasist's Scroll

“To the stars through hardship.”

That’s roughly what Ad Astra Per Aspera means. I think the effort is worth it, though. There’s been a lot of talk lately about President Bush’s new space plan. Basically, his plan has two branches. First, establish a moon base. Second, send a manned mission to Mars.
This Wired News article talks about the first step, building a permanent moon base. This, of course, has been the dream of many of us since the very early days of space travel. I know that I’ve been waiting for it since I was a little kid. I even remember getting a book from a school book fair that had cardboard cut-out toys that which was all about a moon base. But, something happened. We lost our way and this dream got shelved. Now, President Bush has revived it. Let’s hope it stays alive.
The second part of the space plan is to send a manned mission to Mars. Again, a dream of many of us for many years. I started to think about this after I started listening to the environmentalists yapping about the state of the Earth’s ecology. In fact, I’ve said for years that if it’s so bad, we need to invest in getting off the planet! Now, it seems, we may.

Of course, there’s a lot of talk about how much this will all cost. Honestly, I’m not sure why it matters. It sure didn’t matter when we went to the moon. All that mattered was that we got there and beat everyone else. I’d say the same thing applies here, too. Now we have to compete with the Chinese and the Indians, who both have viable space programs. Sure, the front-runners are the Chinese who have only recently put an astronaut in space, but still, they’re gaining. We need to beat them to the Red Planet. I mean, c’mon. “The Red Planet”? How can we pass up the chance to make headlines about beating the Red Chinese to the Red Planet?
Seriously, maybe some good, old-fashioned competition can restore our country to the greatness we once enjoyed. I sure hope so. And, I’d love to get a call from a grandkid on Mars.

Er, a mechanical dog for the military?

Okay, I’m not sure why they don’t use the real thing, but according to this story on WiredNews, the US military is working on building, essentially a robotic dog. The idea is to have a robot that can carry more of the soldier’s gear and still be able to keep up with them over rough terrain. Interesting, but the robot looks like a clunky, mechanical dog. The article even makes the comparison. Seems to me, with all the problems that they seem to be having creating this robotic helper, it would be better to stick with the K-9 units. But, then, I’m an old-fashioned guy.
In any case, it’s an interesting story.

The future of transportation?

Funny, that’s what they said about the Segway… But, this time, I think they might actually have something. This time it’s a mono-wheel motorcycle. Well, an almost uni-bike. It actually has other wheels for, er, something. From the pictures in the article on WiredNews it’s hard to tell what they’re for, but they are there. Well, at least they’re there in the pictures. There’s not even a prototype, yet. The plan is for it use electric and hydrogen power and it’s going to be a lot faster than the Segway. At 35mph in the “learning mode”, I would imagine that this is meant to be a replacement for Vespa, at the very least.

In any case, it’s cool. And, I think it’s actually on its way!

Can this possibly be a real story?

I feel like I should put this up on April Fool’s Day, but it seems to be a real story. Apparently, the Pentagon is considering using the Segway in battle. Yeah, that’s about what I thought, but it’s a real news story. According to this story on CTV News, the US military is looking at making autonomous robots based on the Segway for use in battlefield conditions. It’s only in the planning stages now, but it actually sounds like a good idea. At least on paper.
It might even be what saves Dean Kamen from disaster. After all, the Segway didn’t really “revolutionize” city transportation the way all his backers said it would. Ah, well, at least there might be a government contract in it for him yet!

Good luck, Mr. Kamen!

An you thought you spent a lot of money on gaming?

Okay, I know I must spend several hundred dollars a year on role-playing game junk, of one kind or another, but $17K for a single 20-sided die? Yep, someone paid that for this Roman 20-sided die. Of course, it’s probably the oldest 20-sider that exists, but still… Hey, I’ll have to remember that the next time my wife says something about me buying yet another $40 RPG book!

It’s a crazy world.

Well, it looks like we’re finally sending a probe to Jupiter!

Though, it doesn’t look like it will have HAL or anything even like HAL on board, the probe itself looks rather like the Discovery of Arthur C. Clarke fame. According to this article on Atrobiology Magazine Online, the probe is being sent to study Io, Callisto, Ganymede and Europa to study any potential life that might be found there. But, we all know it’s just a rendevous with the Monolith. Of course, we’re a little behind schedule, but we’ve been busy. No, really!

Seriously, though, I look forward to this test of a nuclear drive system. It’ll be one way to do some “proof-of-concept” work for future manned missions. I just hope the funding doesn’t get cut before it gets off the ground.

Frozen squirrels?

It sounds rather strange to me, but according to this article on Wired News, there’s a squirrel in the arctic that can lower it’s body tempurature to below freezing and still be able to walk around. Scientists are studying this incredible adaptation to see if they can synthesize it in humans. It would be a giant step toward all the cryogenic sleep chambers that science-fiction loves so well. Not to mention what it might do for real-world space travel!

In any case, it’s an interesting article and a fascinating concept.

Ever wanted to have a blog recorded in Shire Reckoning?

How about Islamic dates? Well, now, you can do just that in MovableType thanks to my CustomDates plugin. I started with code from a plugin done by zumaidi and posted on the MovableType Support boards. Then, I added a CPAN module by Tom Braun for calculating the date according to Shire Reckoning.

As far as I can tell, no one has done this before. Not sure why no one’s done anything sooner, but I was totally dissatisfied with the lack of a custom date feature in MovableType. Luckily for me, one of the better features of MT is that it’s extendable with PERL. So, I put this little baby together. It’s not perfect, but it does a fairly good job. I still need to make some improvements and add in some more date systems, like Hebrew and the Forgotten Realms, but it’s good enough to release now, I think.
You can see and example of it running at my test blog. Of course, as I add and test new features, that test blog will change a bit.

Enjoy!