hey Community,
Just wanted to let you know that the new Firefox Beta is out- in 45 languages – this one is almost the real deal, it’s the Firefox 3 RC or, Release Candidate. This is an almost final version of what they want to release to you, the public- so forego your ignorance
to browser superiority and travel to the next generation…. with the rest of the sane world
Until Next TTIIMMEE.
(my apologies for my absence from the blog world… personal business.)
-nate
oi Community!!
Spring is finally and it is B-E-A-UTIFUL! It’s 1:30AM and 48 degrees outside! And even better, today felt like it was 65 degrees! Mid 60s is my favorite weather in the world, so this is excellent! (well mostly excellent)
So, in Space News today,
The Space Shuttle Discovery is in placement for launch prep, launch is May 31st. The crew, consisting of five space virgins and two vets, is excited to add the main piece of the elaborate Japanese research complex, Kibo, to the International Space Station. Discover will shuttle the Japanese space lab’s Pressurized Module and Remote Manipulator System which arrived at the launch pad on April 29. With everything finally in place at the pad, pre-flight preparations will occur until launch on May 31st. (Japanese Site for their Space Lab; Kibo,
don’t worry, it’s in English!)
Until Tomorrow,
-nate
greetings Community,
Tonight I thought I’d reopen the book of blu-ray for you!
Samsung has decided that they are to be the [self proclaimed] main producer of blu-ray players and systems which seems kind of cocky to me, but they were in fact the pioneers of blu-ray so maybe this comment isn’t as unrealistic as it may seem… Samsung’s release of the first ever blu-ray player in June of 2006 was jus the beginning for them, today they released new blu-ray products, as innovative as they come. First up is a brand new disc playing system, BD-P1400, the player does the same thing most players do but apparently the image is a tad more crisp and prettier!
The real big deal is Samsung’s rabid attempt at saddling the market with their new “HT-BD2” home theatre system. The system’s claim to fame is that it is the first blu-ray ready system on the market- it’s bundled with another of Samsungs newer products, a player that plays both blu-ray and HD-DVD formats. Check these new products out at Samsung’s website- they set up an interactive multimedia website that guides you through their expensive ads. ☺
Check out my past blog posts on the subject of HD-DVD and blu-ray from April 7th and March 18th!
-nate
hey Community,
Back on the subject of the International Space Station, our South Korean astronaut, So-yeon Yi came back to earth after a mere 11 day space expedition. The crew experienced various problems flight home including straying about three hundred miles from the intended landing site in Kazakhstan!! I don’t know what you guys think, or what is considered normal in space landings, but 295 miles seems like a pretty substantial accident to me!
The main thing wrong with the flight was surprisingly not the distance mishap. The Soyuz-TMA spacecraft, of Russian design, is intended to transport people and supplies to and from the International Space Station. The Soyuz spacecraft was what Commander Peggy Whitson were provided with to return to Earth. The return to Earth, is usually consists of gravity forces up to six times the Earth’s natural gravity; this landing yielded forces eight times the Earths natural gravity! The spacecraft also had automatically switched over to the backup mode of approach- Ballistic Mode.
“Officials still aren’t sure what caused the second consecutive ballistic descent [in a Soyuz-TMA spacecraft] and the third in five years.”
Audio: Peggy Whitson interview on NASA TV. 6:24 MP3
The condition of the spacecraft’s hatch is also under steaming pressure- it appears that the hatch was significantly damaged upon landing putting the crew in serious danger. Not the best way to come back to your home planet, at least the local Khazakhstanians who came to assist in the spacecraft departure didn’t think the crew were aliens!
dear Community,
This week has been one of the busiest I have experienced this year- at my Student Assistant job for the UAF Student Activities Office we put on one of our school’s largest scale events of the year- Springfest. Springfest has made this whole week living hell, at least for my job’s purposes. I usually work approximately 40 hours every two weeks- this week alone the tally’s at 39 or so hours… with minimal sleep [attributed to later events].
Anyways Community, this post is going to be devoted to a Discovery Channel event starting tonight and lasting all week. The event: Alaska Week.
Alaska Week is comprised of a week of shows pegged at 9:00PM every night (8PM/Thursday) teaming with information on the present state of Alaska including a focus on issues such as fishing, oil mining and “global warming.” Alaska Week also includes special episodes of Dirty Jobs, Myth Busters and of course the premiere of Deadliest Catch. I truly recommend you check out the Alaska Week homepage to find out exactly what’s in store, and also to explore the extras such as Internet games including puzzles and the “Frontier Game” but most excitingly of all, the “Alaskan Adventure Sweepstakes!” v
I made a more chronologically accessible schedule for you guys, but if you want show descriptions, you can also visit the schedule portion of their site (beware, they are not in chronological order on their page as far as I know).
Thanks for stopping by!
-nate
Alaska Week
Begins Sunday, April 20, at 9 p.m. ET/PT
Expedition Alaska (Premiere)
Monday, April 21 at 9 p.m. ET/PT
Dirty Jobs: Floating Fish Factory
Tuesday, April 22 at 9 p.m. ET/PT
Deadliest Catch (Season Premiere)
Tuesday, April 22 at 10 p.m. ET/PT
Alaska Experiment (Premiere)
Wednesday, April 23 at 9 p.m. ET/PT
MythBusters: Alaska Special
Thursday, April 24 at 8 p.m. ET/PT
Alaska Oilmen: Gamble on the Ice
Thursday, April 24 at 9 p.m. ET/PT
FutureWeapons: Alaska Special
Friday, April 25 at 9 p.m. ET/PT
Surviving Alaska with Les Stroud
Saturday, April 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT
Man vs. Wild: Alaskan Mountain Range
hey Community,
So this is slightly off topic from what I usually blog about— well ok, really off topic, but I did a little bit of investigatory journalism this past week on a poetry slam I helped put together at my university. (Myself and another blogger, Kaleb Yates of If I were the Emperor of the United States… put this awesome podcast together for your enjoyment!)
If you think you may be interested in such a topic, please follow my link to Kaleb and Nathan’s Podcast!
OR
Just listen to it right here on Moose Goggles!
If you have any comments, just let me know on this blog entry!
-nate
p.s. I plan to put the whole Poetry Slam up as a seperate podcast episode- just not tonight!
hey Community,
Just figured I’d enlighten you on some Alaska-specific technology. I’m talking about the largest construction project that has ever been seen in Northern America. The pipeline! BP and Conoco Phillips have officially announced on Wednesday that they will band together to reach new lengths on the pipeline project. With their teamed effort there is no reason to go through Government relations. Like it or not Alaska is going to see another pipeline quite soon. The alliance’s closest competitor was Canadian company TransCanada who is attempting to achieve State Government approval and ask for 500 million dollars to start their line. BP and Conoco Phillips are using their own 600 million to live their dream. Their proposed pipeline will run along the Alaska Highway, into Canada and on to Chicago. This means a lot more jobs are going to open up accross North America, so if you’re looking to get a job as a welder or an engineer, you might want to check this out- but if you’re looking to get any other job I’m sure there will be an oppurtunity for you as well- this project is proposed to take roughly ten years!
hey Community,
Just a short blurb today to further update progress with the International Space Station- on Tuesday, the world saw the departure of the first South Korean into space. Yi So-yeon, 29, is the second Asian woman to experience space. As part of a 20 million dollar launch agreement, So-yeon will fly to the International Space Station as a guest of the Russian Government. So-yeon was one of 36,000 applicants to be the first astronaut out of South Korea. Luck was in So-yeons’ favor as Ko San, the man who was previously charted to fly in her position was penalized for stealing technical manuals from a Russian training facility by being switched to backup crew….
Now everyone, if you were part of a multi-million dollar space program, would you go on a stealing binge at the training facility you’re considered a guest at? Certainly not… South Korea must be pretty embarrassed about the whole debacle- what can they even say?
-nate
Yi So-yeon in various states of suiting up- far right- she is apparently in a state of pre-launch madness…
:)
“Toshiba’s defeat leaves 1 million customers worldwide with dead-end hardware.”
hello Community,
This is another [significant] update to a previous post of mine on the subject of the death of the HD-DVD format. I bring to you the return of the HD-DVD Format! This may sound like a good thing for consumers who chose to go with the HD-DVD Format but really it’s only mediocre. “Return” is merely a pun describing all that’s left for you (well, us) to do about losing the format war. Certain distributors of the format are refunding purchases partially or completely! This means that if you accidentally gave into HD-DVD, wherever you got it may take it back and give you a slight break!
Circuit City has extended their usual 30-day return policy to a 90-day HD-DVD player return policy.
Wal-Mart is completely refunding HD-DVD players purchased on or after November 1st.
Best Buy is giving away $50 gift certificates to customers who bought HD-DVD players [before February 23] and allowing them to keep their players!
Best Buy is also offering the option of getting rid of the players. No catch, go to Best Buy’s online trade in center and you can sell your player or your discs back to Best Buy. The prices are meager, but they are something (considering Best Buy is already giving you $50 back).
Well I hope that helps some of you, because it definitely helped me out!
thanks for reading!
-nate
hey Community,
It’s 12:00 AM and I have a series of updates for you concerning my Blog’s past subject matter. This post includes updates on the subjects of Firefox 3 and The International Space Station. Basically this is my first 2 in 1 blog. Tomorrow at 12:00 AM I will update yet another one of my past blog subjects- the HD-DVD Format. Don’t worry, there is relevance to these updates!
Enjoy!
Firefox 3 Beta 5 was released on April 2nd.
Beta 5 sees updates to various things from Beta 4, namely things that the Firefox community has had problems with or suggestions about. What does this mean for you? Big fixes with the Mac version leave it running smoother than before, as well as increased integration with all three major Operating Systems; Windows, Mac and Linux. Firefox 3’s main claim to fame is still the increasing of memory usage and web compatibility. Beta 5 is stable as far as the Mozilla team is concerned, but since this is the fifth and last beta, Mozilla hopes that they can address all issues (known and unknown) before final release of Firefox 3.0 in June of this year. Firefox also claims that F3 will be significantly more secure than Firefox Version 2 which is their main concern (F2’s security, while being excellent is less than ideal in the eyes of some F2 users). Browser hijacking and information phishing is more and more common as the world’s technology continues to expand in every direction.
If you’re looking for the fastest, most secure Internet today, Beta 5 is the answer!
The International Space Station received necessary supplies this past Thursday, the 4th of April. European crafted Cargo Ship “Jules Verne,” named for a French science fiction author of the 1800s, Verne wrote popular adventure/exploration titles such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days- along with H.G. Wells he shares the title as the “Father of Science Fiction.” Why is this figure relevant? As you may have noticed, the latest European portions of the ISS reflect on historical icons involved with new exploration for instance on February, 11th the world saw the addition of Europe’s Space Lab “Columbus.” Along with deploying a needed cargo ship, Europe officially tested a new line of spacecraft; the “Automated Transfer Vehicle.” The ATV is a fully automated spacecraft that is designed to hold three times as much cargo as it’s preceding class “Progress.” The purely expendable unmanned ATV can also be used to re-boost the ISS into a higher orbit.
Keep up to date with all things ISS at their NASA hosted page.
