My generation’s JFK moment, the odd joiner-event that most people remember where they were or what they were doing, was when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on lift-off some twenty-plus years ago. I was in second grade, and if memory serves my bat-shit-crazy teacher proceeded to tell us that the astronauts were going to live with the angels. And that the communists were some how to blame because they didn’t go to church and ate babies while sharpening their devil-horns. Yeah, my primary school education was awesome, no wonder I can’t do mental math or spell.

Fast forward and NASA seems to trying to recapture the golden years of Apollo with the Constellation program, a new model of rocket and a colossal amount of cash spent on, as far as I can tell, very pretty artists renderings (you could probably rebuild five ninth-ward houses in New Orleans for what they’ve spent on flash work on their site…and you could also probably rebuild an entire city with what they’ll spend on actually getting us to Mars). A good PR effort to distance themselves from two lost shuttles and the unfortunate incident with the adult diapers.

It’s hard not be interested though. To get inspired by spacecrafts named after greek gods again. We could use something like this on our national psyche, something besides suicide car-bombers on the news (when did something that awful become common-place) – a little hope and, not to be cheesy, but a little adventure. We used to be a nation of explorers, now we have handrails on sidewalks that drop off more than a foot, a childhood obesity problem and reality TV (the ultimate contradiction in terms). Used to be, seven people would risk their lives to hop in a spacecraft with a bazillion-and-a-half moving parts (designed in the 70’s built and by the lowest-bidding-sub-contractor to boot) just to push out a little farther, to explore a little more. Maybe its worth the money, maybe that’s why the Challenger was such an important event for us. We could use a little inspiration.

Realted
Charile Stross on the economics of Colonization
Buzz Aldrin Punches People
The Space Elevator Challenges

ZeFrank’s apparent one-off video on the writer’s strike made me remember how much I miss the glory that was The Show. Some of my favorites – Hindsight, Outside, Austrian Arrows, Ugly Myspace, and (of great personal significance to me) Scrabble.

Geeky, insightful and very, very funny.

Ninety-mile road rides, 24-hour Mountain bike races – Soemtimes it seems a little silly to me, all this self-inflicted ‘fun.’  Then there’s these guys –

And so the clock starts and the taillights flare, and they’re off again, strapped down, fueled up, and bound on an outlaw enterprise with 2,795 miles of interstate and some 31,000 highway cops between them and the all-time speed record for crossing the American continent on four wheels.

The gear is all bought and loaded. Twenty packs of Nat Sherman Classic Light cigarettes, check. Breath mints, check. Glucose and guarana, Visine and riboflavin, Gatorade and Red Bull, mail-order porta-pissoir bags of quick-hardening gel, check.

Yup, I’m not crazy. Read the full article over on wired.  (via kottke)

Fifty years ago the soviets pushed the technological envelope by doing something we now take for granted – launching a satliete.

Each of these first rockets was like a beloved woman for us,” he said. “We were in love with every rocket, we desperately wanted it to blast off successfully. We would give our hearts and souls to see it flying.”

Read More from Wired News.

Me: Guys this is really weird, but my computer slows down really
drastically around three-in-the afternoon each day.

Techsupport: That’s not possible. It just seems like that.

Me: Uh, well seriously, I try and open Photoshop and it takes like five minutes.
It’s been doing it ever since you guys installed that windows desktop search thing.

Techsupport: Well, the search tool has to index in the afternoon.
Try running lees applications at once.

Me: Couldn’t we just turn it off (Muffled rage, crushing phone)?

Techsupport: You need to be able to search your computer.

Me: Even If I can’t use my computer (setting Dell-tower on fire)?

TechSupport: You still need to be able to search your computer.

Me: What if we just got me a Mac instead (throwing flaming Dell down the stairs) ?

TechSupport: Macs would be too difficult for us to support.