Potpourri XXIII

Wow! Another inbox-clearing evening ahead. Let the madness ensue...

My supervisor is a regular subscriber to Connections, the magazine of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). Every month they provide a useful graphic showing some aspect of engineering education. You probably have to pay to get the pretty version, but the free data portion is still worth reading.

A good article on "Web 2.0 best practices," forwarded by Darlene.

Here's something I've never heard of before: an "existential coach." Linda Deluca is one of my followers on Twitter. Her site sufficiently interested me that I thought I'd highlight it. Enjoy!

There's a new theory on what makes moon dust sticky in some situations and repellant in others. This is necessary stuff to understand if we're going to spend six months or more there.

A comprehensive index of NASA images can be found here: www.nasaimages.org

The Mars Spirit rover is starting to show signs of age, including amnesia. I don't think anyone on Earth is going to call this a mission failure (except maybe NASAWatch). Spirit and her sister Opportunity were built to rove around for 90 days, and we're now on year five! These are the dudes and dudettes I want designing my next car!

Computer hackers broke into files about the F-35 Lightning II fighter. The Obama administration is proposing $17 billion on the government's cyber-security. It might be worth it.

The Parabolic Arc blog is reporting that White Knight Two has had its fourth flight test.

NASASpaceflight.com is saying that an Aerospace Corporation report proves that an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) is capable of launching the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle into orbit. I don't think NASA ever denied that. The reason the agency went with Ares was due to cost issues--how much stuff you have to upgrade or modify to make EELV Orion-friendly. I guess I know what I'll be reading tomorrow.

Harrison Ford, who's a pilot and owner of several fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, is joining a lobbying effort to stop the government from raising fees on private aircraft. I wonder if he voted for Obama.

Apparently I missed Homer Hickam at the Student Launch Initiative this weekend. Darn.

The new Star Trek prequel is getting good buzz from everyone who's attended premieres. The trailers look good, anyway. The movie's director JJ Abrams spoke to a TED forum back when he released Cloverfield. The presentation is an illuminating insight into his directing mind. I also found a Ray Kurzweil TED speech as well. Kurzweil is sort of like Robert Zubrin in that he's very, very bright, and once you've heard his standard stump speech--Kurzweil on the Singularity, Zubrin on Mars Direct--you don't need to hear it again. And I just watched this one by Sir Ken Robinson on education and intelligence--very much worth hearing.

A few links from Father Dan:

• Need a good workout? Try to keep up with Nancy Pelosi on video as she stands up and claps every time Obama says something.
• A creepy story on cell phone tapping--not by government, but private citizens with new toys and too much time on their hands.

And others from Hu:

• The new generation of UAVs is getting several upgrades. The day of the fighter jock is nearing an end.
• Mike Griffin took a shot at the Office of Management and Budget's treatment of NASA's budget.
• SpaceX's latest launch has been delayed.
• Huntsville/Madison County, AL are still good places to work.
• Folks still questioning the long-term viability of the Department of Defense budget.
• We've got another "czar" in our government, this one to deal with the southern border.
• Microsoft has hired someone to help them recover from Vista. Good luck with that. I've got a laptop with Vista on it. One of the most expensive doorstops I ever bought.

This one from Lin, a follower of this site: an Australian news site is reporting that the Antarctic ice cap is growing, not shrinking.

Remember this? The "Stand By Me" Songs Around the World video on Vimeo.com is now being sold on DVD. I presume there's more in the nature of bonus features, since Vimeo is free...

And so...

Potpourri XV

Brain hurts tonight, so I'll do another dose of potpourri. I've done my analysis of the Department of Defense budget, but the blog entry will have to wait.

Fedora tip to Cousin Susan for a hiking shoe recommendation for the Europe trip. A little pricey, but not much worse than the pair of Eccos I bought last summer. Thanks, cuz!

This item came from my historian buddy Tracy...a little lesson on manners in the age of the PDA. I loved her attached comment: I've noticed more often that my teenaged daughter will text and text, and then say, "Oh, I'm just going to call them." What a concept.

Speaking of the DoD budget, here's an editorial complaint about said budget. Not sure I agree with that perception, though I do find it odd that Gates's original statement did not include a final price tag for everything, just a list of changes up or down.

Another link from Hu, this time on the Air Force treating Predator drones/UAVs as "fighters." And while I'm at it, I might as well give a plug for Hu's defense, space, and technology business research service, "MyKickStart." Hu is based in Huntsville, so the slant is providing articles of interest for companies based here in HSV, but he gets good stuff from around the world, some of brilliant, some of it hilarious. For subscription information, send Hu an email at subscribe@mykickstart.com.

Feel like shipping wine somewhere in the U.S.? Best read this first. Then this. (Fedora tip to Melissa for finding these.) My current plans involve shipping wine to family and friends in Florida from Europe. It's not worth the aggravation and the paperwork.

And a last thought about Microsoft Office 2007. I finally attended a couple classes today on the new versions of Word and Excel (PowerPoint tomorrow). Looking back on it, I probably should have taken these classes before my computer made the transition. The training session consisted of receiving a couple of handouts and listening to a Microsoft employee (sales dude) on a telecon about the new features of the programs. And let there be no doubt these are mostly new programs. Some keystrokes are the same for those of us who don't like the mouse. Most of the icons are the same. But the menu logic and organization of most basic functions have completely changed. This has led me to a few assumptions about how Microsoft developed this software set:

• The programmers are mostly under 30. The interface has a heavy emphasis on mouse- and button-driven functionality.
• The programmers assumed that users would receive some sort of training.

The transition to this new software was not designed for companies with little to no training budget. It was not designed for long-time Microsoft users who are self-starters and rarely RTFM. I say this because users like me--who just jump right in and figure they're getting the same stuff with a few extra bells and whistles--find or found the transition utterly frustrating because of the radical changes to the interface. My only suggestion for self-starters is: don't. Find a class. Press F1, or RTFM. Save yourself the aggravation. Microsoft Office 2007, like Vista, is almost a completely different animal. It takes a special sort of software to irritate me on the very first screen ("Where's the friggin' 'open document' icon??").