Iron Maiden: A Matter of Life and Death

This is the most recent album from Iron Maiden, and it's also one of the band's best. At a time in their careers when other bands are struggling to remain relevant or striving to make a comeback, the members of Maiden keep cranking out good songs and adding to the repertoire of heavy metal. They have held up well over the years, and their sound is still solid.

The cover: Eddie is in the army, and he is leading a band of soldiers with skulls for heads (contrast this with the body on the ground in front of the tank, which has a human head atop a skeleton). This is an apt illustration for the album, which has five songs dedicated to the subject of war. Religion is also a major theme on the album, and it is tied in with war on a couple of the songs.

Note: I found one thing interesting about the logo the artist created for Eddie's army. Take a look at it and see if you can find what looks funny (besides Eddie's face, of course).



Look at the placement of the magazines. I don't think those firearms could be functional. And if they could, I doubt they would be practical. Granted, this is a work of art, and the artist (Tim Bradstreet) was playing off the Jolly Roger theme by using Eddie's head as the skull and the crossed guns instead of bones or swords. He probably moved the magazines further up the barrels because he thought it looked better, but that's not a good place to put your cartridges. That's pretty far away from the firing pin, don't you think?

Anyway, on to the songs.

Opening the album is "Different World," a catchy tune that seems to advocate carpe diem, taking life as it comes. This is followed by "These Colours Don't Run," the first war song on the album. The song basically honors the sacrifices made by military service members, no matter what country they serve. After that is my favorite song off the album, "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns." This is another war song, specifically about the development of the atomic bomb. I like the way the whole thing is put together, and it features some great guitar and drum work. And you've just gotta love a song that manages to work in "E=mc2" as a verse in the lyrics.

Next up is "The Pilgrim," one of the religion-themed songs. Great tune. Sounds like it came off of Powerslave. Then comes "The Longest Day," another war song about Operation Overlord. Very good. "Out of the Shadows" is next, which is another favorite of mine on the album. Following that is "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg," which is another religion song about -- you guessed it -- reincarnation.

Then comes a song specifically about religious war, "For the Greater Good of God." Excellent song. After that is another great tune about religion called "Lord of Light." And then the album closes out with the nine-minute-twenty-second long anthemic "The Legacy," which is, surprisingly enough, a war song with elements of religion running through it.

In all, a great album, and a testament to Iron Maiden's staying power over the past quarter century or so. I'm glad I own it.

Well, that's it. That's all the Maiden albums I own. I never bought any of the live albums, and I missed a few studio recordings along the way, but I may try to remedy that. A commenter on a previous post recommended Brave New World highly, and I just may pick that up sometime soon. If I do, I will post about it. Until then, Up the Irons!

UPDATE: Here's a bit from "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns."

Iron Maiden: Dance of Death

One night I decided to look through iTunes to see if I could find some Maiden b-sides, and I came across this album, the most recent one at the time. Out of a curiosity I hadn't felt in a while, I looked up Dance of Death on Wikipedia and discovered that Bruce Dickinson was back. Adrian Smith, too. And I decided to take a chance and purchase a few songs. What the hell, I thought, it might be worth a few bucks just to see what the band is up to these days. This is the first Iron Maiden album I actually gave a chance to since No Prayer for the Dying, and I'm glad I did.

But first, the cover art: What a piece of crap. The all-knowing Wikipedia indicates that this was actually a computer generated draft that got green-lighted against the artist's intent, and I hope that's what it was -- a mistake. I shudder to think that this was actually what was meant to be on the cover.

Besides this sad art, the music on the album is strong, and the band turns in a fine performance. The first song I downloaded was "Montségur," a decent tune about a stronghold of the Cathars, and then I checked out "Paschendale," a great song about a major battle in World War I. "Paschendale" is eight-and-a-half minutes long, but it's well worth the time to take a listen to if you are a fan of Iron Maiden, heavy metal, or WWI history.

Next is the very good "No More Lies," and then the excellent "Rainmaker." I love the guitar work that opens and closes this song, and the chorus is catchy and easy to sing along with.

After that is "Journeyman," one of Maiden's few ballad-type songs. Full of acoustic guitars and sweetened by luxuriant strings, "Journeyman" seems almost out of character for Maiden, but it works. It's a great song, and I'm glad I ran across it.

Next is "Face in the Sand," another good song that features Nicko McBrain's apparent efforts to get in the Guiness Book of World Records for the longest continuous stretch of double-bass pumping by a heavy metal drummer. And then I finished my downloads with the title track, which is a decent song but not as good as others on this album.

Dance of Death turned out to be a good reintroduction to Iron Maiden for me, and I thank the band for fully embracing iTunes. Now, if they could just make some b-sides available for download ...

UPDATE: Here is a sampling of "Rainmaker."

Meteors over Texas

I'm sorry I was too far south to have seen this. That must have looked pretty cool.

DALLAS -- The fireball that blazed across the Texas sky and sparked numerous weekend calls to law enforcement agencies now can be considered an identified flying object.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday the fireball was a natural phenomenon -- not flying space junk -- and a North Texas astronomer said more specifically that it was probably a pickup truck-sized meteor with the consistency of concrete.

The object was visible Sunday morning from Austin to Dallas and into East Texas.

I have seen meteor streaks before, but nothing so big as this.

Wireless power

What could be more awesome than the ability to power or recharge all of your electrical devices without relying on cords?

OK, a lot (like faster-than-light space travel), but nothing else is so close to making the leap from science fiction to reality.

TECH 2: Radio-frequency Harvesting
Availability: April

>> THE INDUCTION SYSTEMS are only the beginning. Some of the most visually arresting examples of wireless electricity are based on what's known as radio frequency, or RF. While less efficient, they work across distances of up to 85 feet. In these systems, electricity is transformed into radio waves, which are transmitted across a room, then received by so-called power harvesters and translated back into low-voltage direct current. Imagine smoke detectors or clocks that never need their batteries replaced. Sound trivial? Consider: Last November, to save on labor costs, General Motors canceled the regularly scheduled battery replacement in the 562 wall clocks at its Milford Proving Ground headquarters. This technology is already being used by the Department of Defense. This year, it will be available to consumers in the form of a few small appliances and wireless sensors; down the road, it will appear in wireless boxes into which you can toss any and all of your electronics for recharging.

(Hat tip to Blogonomicon.)

Iron Maiden: The missing albums

And then something odd happened: I lost interest. I don't know why, but I did.

I didn't lose interest in Iron Maiden itself (I still listened to all the albums I had bought previously), I just wasn't motivated to buy any new Maiden albums. When Fear of the Dark was first released, I always thought I would buy it, but it was always "later." And I ended up never buying it.

And then The X Factor came out. I had heard that Bruce Dickinson was no longer in the band at this point, and I saw no reason to get this album. Some bands can change their lead vocalists and still have a decent career, and Dickinson himself was a replacement singer, but he had become such an integral part of the Maiden sound that I couldn't imagine the album would be any good without him. So I didn't buy it.

Then Virtual XI was released, and it completely flew under my radar. Ditto for Brave New World. In fact, by this time, I was totally unaware of Iron Maiden except for all of my older albums. It wasn't until one day when I went poking around online for some Maiden b-sides (there aren't any on iTunes, by the way) that I rediscovered the band. I saw that their most recent release was Dance of Death, and I looked the album up and saw that Dickinson was back. And some of the songs looked interesting.

So I bought a few songs. I will tell you about them in a future post.

Worst drummer

After praising the professionalism of Iron Maiden's drummer, Nicko McBrain, I now temper the mood with this, the worst drummer to sit behind a drum kit.



Egad.

Iron Maiden: No Prayer for the Dying

No Prayer for the Dying has a character that is distinct from its predecessor, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Where that work was a concept album that focused on the occult, this album touches on an assortment of topics with no real underlying theme. Dying is a rougher work; it's not as flashy, and even Bruce Dickinson's vocals sound raspier than usual in some parts. Something else different is the absence of guitarist Adrian Smith, who has been replaced by Janick Gers, another excellent guitarist. Though his solos seem more rugged than Smith's, Gers still turns in a fine performance.

Now, on to the cover art. Eddie has risen from the grave. After having been shattered to pieces on the cover of the previous album, Eddie is back to his original scariness, and he is ready to take out a few more victims along the way. An interesting note: The artwork you see on this post is how it was on the first release. On re-released versions of Dying, the cover was altered to remove the poor frightened gravedigger. I don't know why this was done. It's not like Eddie hasn't taken out victims before, as on the covers of Killers and Somewhere in Time, so it can't be that the image of the gravedigger being grabbed was too disturbing. There must be some other reason why the band felt compelled to remove the person, but I don't know what it is. And Wikipedia, that font of all knowledge knowable and noteworthy, doesn't offer a clue.

On to the songs.

"Tailgunner" opens the album. Dealing with the World War II Allied bombing campaign over Germany, this song takes the point of view of a bomber's tailgunner, obviously. A good song.

Next is "Holy Smoke," an indictment of televangelism. Upbeat and catchy, this song is very enjoyable. The title song is next, a decent effort that reminds me of "Revelations" from Piece of Mind. After that is "Public Enema Number One," a good song that sounds like classic Maiden.

Up next is "Fates Warning," a very good song about how fate might fit in with the events in our lives, followed by a mediocre song about an assassin called, appropriately enough, "The Assassin." (Iron Maiden's nothing if not practical in its song titling.)

"Run Silent Run Deep" comes next, a tune about submariners, and then comes one of my favorites on the album, "Hooks in You." This song is about sexual bondage, but I swear that's not why I like it so much. It's just a catchy tune. Really!

And the next song is another one of my favorites on this album, "Bring Your Daughter To the Slaughter." This song also seems quite sexual in nature, but, again, I swear that's not why I like it! Really!

Closing out the album is "Mother Russia," a song about the impending collapse of the Soviet Union. I like this song especially for the fine drum work turned in by Nicko McBrain. During the verses, he performs a syncopated rhythm with the hihat that is, in effect, a perscussion arpeggio (bass-hihat-snare-hihat-bass-hihat-snare-and so on). This results in a marching tempo that goes well with a depiction of a superpower known for its military might, and it is just one example of Iron Maiden's musical prowess. And I don't know if I've said it before, but I think McBrain is a superior drummer, and he seems to have so much fun at what he's doing.

A very good album full of great guitar and drum work and exhibiting raw power. It is a sound I can listen to many times over.

UPDATE: Here's the "Mother Russia" drum arpeggio I talked about.

Crashing satellites

Do you have any idea how crowded space is, at least that envelope surrounding Earth?

It's crowded enough for this to happen.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Two big communications satellites collided in the first-ever crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit, shooting out a pair of massive debris clouds and posing a slight risk to the international space station.

NASA said it will take weeks to determine the full magnitude of the crash, which occurred nearly 500 miles over Siberia on Tuesday.

"We knew this was going to happen eventually," said Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA believes any risk to the space station and its three astronauts should be low. It orbits about 270 miles below the collision course. There also should be no danger to the space shuttle set to launch with seven astronauts on Feb. 22, officials said, but that will be re-evaluated in the coming days.

And that's why we have these guys looking out for things. Keep a good eye out, fellas. There's more junk out there now.

Iron Maiden: Seventh Son of a Seventh Son

Iron Maiden's seventh studio offering is a concept album focused on the magical belief that the seventh son of a seventh son could be endowed with special powers. There are no songs on here about British battles, cinematic efforts, or literary works, but there are plenty of references to the occult. The album deals with prophecies ("The Prophecy"), clairvoyance ("The Clairvoyant"), madness ("Can I Play with Madness"), and the struggle between good and evil ("Only the Good Die Young" and "The Evil That Men Do"). Are you sensing a pattern here?

The cover art is a surreal landscape of ice, light, and magic, and Eddie has been reduced to a cybernetic torso clutching a screaming fetus still in the amniotic sack. His head is cracked, and it is on fire. He looks pissed.

This is not one of my favorite Maiden albums, but there are a few songs on here that I like very much. One is the opening track, "Moonchild," which features a lot of guitar synthesizer action right at the front. The others are "Can I Play with Madness," "The Evil That Men Do," and "Only the Good Die Young."

One other song worth pointing out is "The Prophecy," which seems to be a nod (intentional or otherwise) to Black Sabbath's "Heaven and Hell." Both songs end very similarly with the hard, electrified guitars fading and giving way to an acoustic melody that is repeated over and over until it too fades away. I'm not sure if Dave Murray and Steve Harris had this in mind when they put together the song, but "Heaven and Hell" is exactly what I thought of the first time I heard it.

In sum, this is a decent album. Not the band's best, but worth listening to.

UPDATE: The guitar synths of "Moonchild."

Iron Maiden: Somewhere in Time

When this album first came out, I didn't take to it right away. It had a different sound because this was the first time Iron Maiden made significant use of sythesizers. Of course, in the mid-1980s, it seemed just about every heavy metal and hard rock band experimented with synths, to varying degrees of success, and this new sound caught me off guard. I never expected Maiden to venture into such territory. As such, the album seemed a little weird at first, but it grew on me. The synth sound is subtle, acting more as accompaniment rather than stealing the show. The guitar licks of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith still stand supreme, excellent as ever, and Nicko McBrain really shines with his drumwork.

As for the cover, Eddie is now a cyborg, and he is back to his killing ways. The art is dense with references to previous Maiden works as well as the movie Blade Runner and the book it was based on, Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Someone put a list of the references and what they mean on Wikipedia, if you care to check it out.

The album opens with "Caught Somewhere in Time," a decent song about time travel, I think. This is followed by the popular "Wasted Years" (one of my favorites) and "Sea of Madness," one of those Maiden tunes that sounds strangely upbeat given its theme, which in this case is madness, if you couldn't guess. Next is "Heaven Can Wait" (complete with a sing-along section!), and then it's "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner," a song that's based on a short story that I am not familiar with at all.

After that come two songs that are among my favorites, "Stranger in Strange Land" and "Deja-vu." The former has a sound that is a little different from the usual Maiden fare, but it's very enjoyable. It is about a man who explores an icy wasteland. He dies, and his frozen, preserved body is discovered a century later by other explorers. This has nothing to do with the Robert Heinlein book of the same name. "Deja-vu," on the other hand, has everything to do with déjà vu.

Rounding out Somewhere in Time is the metal biography "Alexander the Great." The Maiden boys pretty much nailed it on this one. The song has a martial feel, totally befitting the subject matter, and the guitar solos are vintage Maiden.

This is a good album, despite my initial trepidation over the synthesizers. It is full of solid songs, and it is well worth a listen if you like Iron Maiden but haven't checked out this whole album.

UPDATE: "Stranger in a Strange Land."

Iron Maiden: Powerslave

Another excellent album, and one of my favorites. This is the fifth studio offering from Iron Maiden, and on this cover Eddie has become an Egyptian deity rendered in stone as part of some pharaoh's tomb.

The album opens with "Aces High," one of many Maiden songs about historic British battles. The subject here is the Battle of Britain, a World War II aerial battle for supremacy in the skies over the United Kingdom. After that is "2 Minutes to Midnight," one of the best songs in Iron Maiden's catalog and in the history of heavy metal. Everything about this song just seems right, and it deserves to be on any "best of" list of metal songs. Subject: the Doomsday Clock.

Next comes the instrumental work "Losfer Words (Big 'Orra)," and then it's "Flash of the Blade," another swordplay song that I like very much. Following this is yet another song about swords, "The Duellists." I'm particularly fond of the guitar solo in this work, which to me is the perfect embodiment of the Iron Maiden sound.

Then comes the manic "Back in the Village," another favorite of mine. I read somewhere once that this song is supposed to be a sequel the "The Prisoner" on The Number of the Beast album, but I would have no idea that were the case just from listening to the lyrics. Admittedly, I didn't watch the television show of the same name very much, so maybe the lyrics make sense to someone who is more familiar with"The Prisoner."

Here's a sample of the lyrics:

Turn the spotlights on the people,
Switch the dial and eat the worm,
Take your chances, kill the engine,
Drop your bombs and let it burn.
...
No breaks on the inside,
Paper cats and burning barns,
There's a fox among the chickens,
And a killer in the hounds.

Make sense to you? Ultimately it doesn't matter much, I like the song anyway.

After that is the title track, "Powerslave," a very good song about Egypt, pharaohs, the process of dying, and deification.

And the last song on the album is the thirteen-and-a-half minute metal epic "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Very generously based on the fantastical poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, this song is way up on my list of favorite Maiden tunes. Part of the reason why is because I was already a fan of Coleridge's poem before this album came out, and you can imagine how happy I was to see that a band I already liked and respected was daring enough to do a rendition of one of my favorite literary works. And it works. It's a great song and it tells a great story.

By the way, my fondness for The Rime can be seen in the structure of this very blog. I took "Painted Ocean" from a line in the poem (which is quoted verbatim in the Maiden song). The "strange power of speech" refers to the mystic power the titular Ancient Mariner possesses. And my pseudonym, Albatross, is one of the key metaphors in the poem, at various times signifying salvation, victimization, penance, and salvation again. It's a strange poem, but it's well worth the read if you've got the time.

I'm glad Iron Maiden did a version of The Rime. It's one of the reasons I like them so much.

UPDATE: "The Duellists": Never very popular, yet oh so good.

Worst guitar player

I've been talking a lot lately about Iron Maiden and how good they are. Now, just to shake things up, here's the world's worst guitar player.



Gadzooks.

Iron Maiden: Piece of Mind

Excellent album.

This is Iron Maiden's fourth studio offering, and it is the first one to feature Nicko McBrain behind the drum kit. I liked Clive Burr, but McBrain -- like Bruce Dickinson -- brought a character to the band that made it somehow more Maidenesque. The drummers' styles are definitely dissimilar, and, because the first track opens with a rapid fire drum intro that hits you like a slap in the face, you can tell right from the start that something's different.

On the cover, we can see that Eddie has been caught. He's been lobotomized, and now he is locked away in a padded room. The brain operation apparently doesn't take hold because, as you may have already guessed, Eddie comes back to grace each new album cover with more maniacal mayhem as the years go by.

Piece of Mind demonstrates the wide range of influences that guide the band members' songwriting skills. On this album, we have two songs that are based on movies, one that's based on a classic science fiction novel, one that's based on a poem, and another that's based on Greek mythology.

The first song on the album is "Where Eagles Dare," a good song that's based on the movie of the same name that starred Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton. A very good movie, too, if I can remember from so long ago.

The next song is "Revelations," a Bruce Dickinson offering with a great guitar solo, and then comes "Flight of Icarus," a Maiden hit that is based on the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, his son who flew too close to the sun. After that is "Die With Your Boots On," which is one of my favorite Maiden songs, and then it's "The Trooper," a very popular song at the time that tells the story of British fighters during the Crimean War, taking its cue from the poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Next up is "Still Life." This song is notable for its intro, which is a backwards masked message. Apparently the band had come under some criticism for supposedly including secret hidden Satanic messages on its albums, so the band threw it back at the critics by including an obvious backwards message at the beginning of "Still Life." It's a joke, and it's pretty funny.

After that is "Quest for Fire," a catchy song based on the caveman movie, and then comes "Sun and Steel," one of those odd Iron Maiden tunes that actually has an upbeat feel to it despite its dark subjet (swordplay and death). Maybe it's the harmony they use in the chorus when they sing of "Sunlight falling on your steel," maybe it's something else, but the song gets my toe a-tappin' and actually puts me in a pretty good mood.

The last song on the album is "To Tame a Land." It's based on Frank Herbert's Dune, a fabulously sprawling novel about power struggles on a desert planet. So, why didn't Steve Harris just use the title of the novel and call the song "Dune," like the band usually does with works based on books or movies? Apparently they respected Frank Herbert enough to ask his permission. And he responded like an ass. So they gave it an odd, stupid sounding name instead. Too bad. It's a good song anyway.

Overall, Piece of Mind is a great album, and it solidifies the sound of Iron Maiden for years to come.

UPDATE: Be prepared for the onslaught of Nicko McBrain!

Iron Maiden: The Number of the Beast

This is Iron Maiden's third studio album, and it's the first one from the band that I bought. This album marked a turning point in the band's history for a couple of reasons. First, it marks the introduction of Bruce Dickinson as the lead vocalist, whose style is distinctly different from that of his predecessor, Paul DiAnno. Second, it's the album that brought widespread popularity to the band, especially with such hits at "Run to the Hills" and the title track.

On the cover, Eddie is now huge. He's manipulating the devil, who is in turn manipulating a man over a burning hellscape. This is Eddie in all his big scariness, and I kind of like the fact that, despite his gargantuan size, he still wears jeans and a T-shirt. Incidentally, according to Wikipedia, the cover art as you see it above is a mistake. The sky is blue not by intent but by printer's error. It was supposed to be black. Newer prints of this compact disk apparently render the sky in its proper blackness.

The album opens with "Invaders," a good (but not great) song about Vikings. Then comes "Children of the Damned," which is based on the science fiction film of the same name. This song is classic Iron Maiden in its slow beginning that builds up to its rapid fire conclusion.

The next song is "The Prisoner," which is based on the UK television show of the 1960s (it even uses dialog from the opening of the show to introduce the song). Very good. Then comes my favorite song on the album, "22 Acacia Avenue." This song continues the story started on the first album with "Charlotte the Harlot" and on the second album with "Drifter."

Next is the title track, "The Number of the Beast." Opening with a quote from the Bible (The Book of Revelations, of course!), the song jumps right into a macabre representation of a man's bad dream. This is one of Iron Maiden's enduring hits, as is the song that follows it, "Run to the Hills." This song tells about the suffering of American Indians at the hands of the white man, and, though it is a very popular piece, it's not one of the better offerings on the album.

"Gangland" is next, a mediocre song about the Mafia, and then comes "Hallowed Be Thy Name," one of the best Iron Maiden songs ever produced. This song relates the last minutes of a man condemned to hang, and it features one of the long-winded wails Dickinson is known for.

All in all, The Number of the Beast is a solid album. It's not really a favorite of mine, but it's good, and it served its purpose of introducing me to Iron Maiden.

UPDATE: For your entertainment, a great ending to a great song, "22 Acacia Avenue."

"Earth-hunter telescope prepared for launch"

Good. Get it up there.

TITUSVILLE, Florida - NASA unveiled a modest telescope on Friday with a sweeping mission — to discover if there are any Earth-type planets orbiting distant stars.

...

Named after the 17th century astronomer who figured out the motions of planets, Kepler is scheduled for liftoff on March 5 aboard an unmanned Delta 2 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Once in position trailing Earth in orbit, Kepler will spend at least 3 1/2 years focused on a star-rich patch of sky between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.

Equipped with a 95 megapixel camera -- the largest ever flown in space -- Kepler will attempt to find Earth-sized planets flying across the face of their parent stars.

...

"This is a very small signal and it's very difficult to predict," said James Fanson, Kepler project manager at the U.S. space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The plan is to stare at this place for three years and wait for the stars to wink."

When talking about when and if we can ever find an Earth-like planet, Fanson had this to say: "We're privileged to live in a time and in a country that has the technology to answer these questions scientifically."

Amen. That's one of the reasons the United States is a great place to live and a great place for the planet. We just may end up saving the human race someday.

Iron Maiden: Killers

Killers is the second studio album released by Iron Maiden, and it is also the second album from the band that I bought (The Number of the Beast was the first). On the cover, Eddie is now in action, having presumably just dispatched a victim with an ax to earn the title of "killer." This artwork first brought Iron Maiden to my attention, and I think it is one of the best renditions of Eddie that has been produced.

The album opens with "The Ides of March," an instrumental anthem heavy on the snare drum and solo guitar. This song leads right into "Wrathchild," which starts with a pumping bass line followed by furious rhythm guitar work and gritty solos. This is my favorite song on the album.

Following "Wratchchild" is "Murders in the Rue Morgue," a song loosely based on the Edgar Allen Poe short story of the same name. Then there's the frenetic "Another Life" and "Genghis Khan," another great instrumental that allows the band mates to show off their technical prowess. Then the galloping "Innocent Exile" is featured before the album's namesake "Killers" shows up.

"Killers" is another favorite of mine, as is the next song, "Twilight Zone." And then comes the closest thing Iron Maiden has for a power ballad, "Prodigal Son." Don't get me wrong, this song still rocks, but it's about as close to love and sentimentality as the band can do.

The album then closes with two more hard rockers, "Purgatory" and "Drifter," and there you have one of the iconic albums from the metal scene of the 1980s.

UPDATE: A little bit of "Wrathchild" for ya:

Iron Maiden: Iron Maiden

On Blogonomicon, Alan was describing an album that he said he bought "deaf", which means he bought it because the cover art caught his eye and he had no idea what the band actually sounded like. That spurred me to comment on the post about my all-time favorite band, Iron Maiden:

As a young lad, I had seen Iron Maiden's previous album Killers on record store shelves. I knew nothing about the band at the time, and I knew just a little about heavy metal, but I remember the cover art was shocking and intriguing, and it was like nothing I had seen before. Every time I went to a record store I would look up Killers just to gawk at the strangeness of the cover for awhile.

And then I heard on the radio that Iron Maiden's next album, The Number of the Beast, had just been released, and I remember telling myself that if the cover art for that album was just as twisted as the other one, I just might buy the album to see what this band sounded like.

So, I checked out the album cover. And it looked just as wild. So I bought it. And I have loved Iron Maiden ever since.

It's true: Iron Maiden is the one musical ensemble that I have consistently listened to since the early 1980s, and I've never tired of listening to them. After buying that first album, The Number of the Beast, I went back and bought the band's previous two albums, Killers and Iron Maiden, and my favorable opinion of them was solidified. Over the years, I've bought most of the band's studio albums, and I don't think I've been disappointed yet.

One thing Iron Maiden was known for was eye-catching cover art, and the album I'm featuring on this post is the band's first offering from 1980, Iron Maiden. That thing on the cover is Eddie, the band's mascot. Supposedly the name comes from the British pronunciation of head, which is sometimes said with a silent initial letter, as 'ead. The band had a giant head that they used as a stage prop, and they got Derek Riggs to paint a rendering of that head for their first album. The look was strange, wild, and disturbing, and it evidently struck the band's fancy because they have used Eddie on all of their album covers.

As for the music on this album, it's great. Punkish in parts, it's still fresh metal, and Steve Harris's bass skills are evident throughout. The choice of subject matter sets the stage for Iron Maiden's career, and they take on such topics as novels (The Phantom of the Opera), life on the streets (Charlotte the Harlot, Running Free), the macabre (Iron Maiden), and instrumentals that speak for themselves (Transylvania). The band returned to these and related topics throughout their career.

This album is a great start to a band's long career.

UPDATE: Here's a sample of one of my favorite songs on this album, "Charlotte the Harlot."

Hell in space

Well, I guess this is one world we can strike off the list of potential sites for colonies.

WASHINGTON — Astronomers have found a planet with a galactic case of hot flashes.

In just six hours, this planet four times the size of Jupiter heats up by more than 1,200 degrees, according to a study published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

...

Normally, the planet [HD80606b] is a toasty 980 degrees or so. But in the few hours it whips around its sun the planet gets zapped with mega-heat, pushing the thermometer closer to 2,240 degrees.

During its brief close pass to its sun, the planet is 10 times nearer its star than Mercury is to our sun.

When it comes closest to its star, it becomes one giant "brewing storm" complete with shock waves, [UC Santra Cruz astronomy professor Gregory] Laughlin said. The radiation bombarding the planet is 800 times stronger than when it is farthest away.

Then just as quickly, the planet slingshots away and radiates the heat to the cool vacuum of space. It glows cherry red and the temperature plummets, Laughlin said.

"Utterly bizarre," he said. "It is thoroughly completely uninhabitable. In a galaxy of uninhabitable planets, this one stands out as being completely inhospitable to life."

A Class Y planet in the Star Trek universe, I'm sure.

Remembering Outland

Does anyone else out there remember the movie Outland?

It was a space western starring Sean Connery, and I saw it when it came out in 1981. I was fourteen-years-old at the time, and I remember that I liked it, but I can't recall any specific details from the movie except that the guy that ran the mine had an indoor golf video game that involved the hitting of real balls into a movie screen.

I just might have to rent that movie again to see if it holds up after all these years.

"Group: Spears song has secret obscene meaning"

I think they may be on to something. Too bad it's so unoriginal.

NEW YORK - The Parents Television Council is warning parents about the Britney Spears song "If U Seek Amy" and urging radio stations not to broadcast it because the nonprofit organization believes it "would violate the broadcast indecency law" if aired between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

Saying the title phrase quickly out loud produces a sound akin to spelling out the F-word, said PTC president Tim Winter. "There is no misinterpreting the lyrics to this song, and it's certainly not about a girl named Amy," he said of the track, the third single from Spears' new Jive album, "Circus."

In case you don't get it, If-U-Seek-Amy roughly sounds like F-U-C-K-me. Or something like that. I think the Parents Television Council is right in that Spears is engaging in a bit of double entendre flirtation, but I also think they are making too much of it. Too bad the bit's been done already. April Wine did a much better job of it in 1982 with "If You See Kay."

"Shadow of vigilantes appears in Mexico drug war"

There is a war going on south of here, and now it looks like the citizens may be involved.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Shadowy vigilante groups are threatening Mexico's drug gangs near the U.S. border in retaliation for a wave of murders and kidnappings that killed 1,600 people in this city alone last year.

One group in the border city of Ciudad Juarez pledged last week to "clean our city of these criminals" and said their mission was to "end the life of a criminal every 24 hours."

...

In an e-mail to news organizations, the "Juarez Citizen Command" said it was funded by local businessmen sick of abductions and extortion in the city, home to factories that export goods to the United States.

While none of the city's 1,600 [murders] in the last year were undoubtedly the work of vigilantes, a body was found on January 7 with a message next to it that read: "This is for those who continue extorting."

And six men in their 20s and 30s were shot dead and dumped together in Ciudad Juarez in October with a cardboard sign reading: "Message for all the rats: This will continue."

And the Mexican government's response?

"We cannot tolerate the presence of these type of faceless, anonymous groups," said Manuel del Castillo, a spokesman for the state government.

The disturbing state of Mexico continues to worsen. Let's hope (beyond hope!) that the situation improves.

Farewell

I don't do politics much on this blog, but I wanted to take a quick moment on the last official day of his tenure to thank George W. Bush for his service. He had the guts to depose Saddam Hussein, which his father and Bill Clinton should have done, and that made an impression on me. I also met Bush once when he was the governor of Texas, and I remember him as polite, amiable, and well-spoken. I hope history is kinder to him than his contemporary critics were.

Bush made mistakes, but most presidents do, and he was too often vilified just because that was the cool thing to do for the media and the lefties out there. I know the new president, Barack Obama, will also get criticism -- much of it unfair -- but I doubt we will see the kind of slobbering hatred that was directed toward our 43rd president. Let's all be nice for at least the next four years. That doesn't mean you can't be critical of the president. Let's just not get out of control.

Thanks, George Bush. You've done well.

Welcome Barack Obama. Good luck.

Calling B.S. on the flat earth myth

This is a letter to the editor from the January 13, 2009 edition of the Express-News:

Sailing off the edge

Gov. Rick Perry says the idea of regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant is a ridiculous notion for someone like him with “common sense” (“Session may be tinted green,” Metro, Jan. 2).

A thousand years ago, people with common sense thought the world was flat.

Barry Bradley

B.S.

Two-thousand years ago people with any education and those that made their living off the sea knew the world was a sphere. Educated people because they would have studied Aristotle, who knew the earth was round. Sailors, fishermen, and coastal dwellers because they would have seen the visual effects of a curved earth on distant ships.

Mr. Bradley, if you're going to engage in political hyperbole and submit it to the newspaper for publication, you might do a quick fact check first so you're grounded in fact.

Kayaking along the Texas coast

If you're not from Texas, you may not have an idea how big the state actually is. It's huge. And the Texas coastline is extensive. It reaches from Louisiana all the way down to Mexico, and there are long stretches that are wild, uninhabited, and uncharted.

So, a reporter from the Express-News decided to charter it.

In a kayak.

Colin McDonald is from the Pacific Northwest, and he's fairly new to Texas. His assignment is to paddle from the Louisiana border down to where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico, and he's going to blog about it along the way. The Uncharted Coast is just up and running, and McDonald is already off to a great start documenting the sections of the coastline ravaged by Hurricane Ike. He's already visited Pleasure Island, Sabine Pass, and the McFadden Wildlife Refuge, and he's had to contend with a blustery cold front.

I like what McDonald and the Express-News are doing, and I plan on following his journey every blog post of the way. I wish him well, I hope he stays safe, and I look forward to his reports.

Fighting panda extinction

OK, folks. It's time to realize that pandas just aren't as cuddly as we would like them to be.

BEIJING - Officials at the Beijing Zoo are considering changes to keep visitors away from Gu Gu the panda.

For the third time, the panda has attacked a visitor who climbed into its space.

Officials say a man climbed a nearly 5-foot-high barrier to retrieve a toy dropped by his 5-year-old son.

A spokeswoman says Gu Gu, which weighs 240 pounds, clamped down on the intruder's leg and refused to let go.

Zookeepers had to use tools to pry open the animal's jaws. The victim suffered damage to major ligaments and is recovering from surgery.

In October, Gu Gu bit a teen intruder. And in 2007, he bit a drunken tourist who jumped into his pen and tried to hug him. The tourist retaliated by biting the bear in the back.

Really, we should probably leave them alone. They obviously don't like us.

"Researchers make car parts out of coconuts"

Cool idea. And the research is being done in Texas!

A team at Baylor University has made trunk liners, floorboards and car-door interior covers using fibers from the outer husks of coconuts, replacing the synthetic polyester fibers typically used in composite materials.

The approach has potential because coconuts are an abundant, renewable resource in all countries near the equator, including the Philippines, Indonesia and India. The husks are burned or thrown away, generating garbage. This is the first time that coconut fibers have been used to make these automotive products, said Walter Bradley, an engineering professor who is leading the project.

...

Preliminary testing shows that the coconut composites can meet the specifications for industrial tests, Bradley said. In fact, the mechanical properties of coconut fibers are just as good, if not better, than synthetic and polyester fibers when used in automotive parts, he said. Also, coconuts also do not burn very well or give off toxic fumes, which is key in passing tests required for their use in commercial automotive parts.

Sounds good to me. It's a renewable resource, and it will reduce the need for petroleum to make synthetic materials. If the idea pans out, I'll gladly buy a car with coconut composites in it.

Questioning gender-neutrality in language efforts

I do so briefly in a post on Strange in San Antonio.

Shortening the lives of mosquitoes

Well, this is encouraging.

WASHINGTON - Old mosquitoes usually spread disease, so Australian researchers figured out a way to make the pests die younger — naturally, not poisoned.

...

Once a mosquito encounters dengue or malaria, it takes roughly two weeks of incubation before the insect can spread that pathogen by biting someone, meaning older mosquitoes are the more dangerous ones.

The Australian scientists knew that one type of fruit fly often is infected with a strain of bacterial parasite that cuts its lifespan in half.

So they infected the mosquito species that spreads dengue fever — called Aedes aegypti — with that fruit-fly parasite, breeding several generations in a tightly controlled laboratory.

Voila: Mosquitoes born with the parasite lived only 21 days — even in cozy lab conditions — compared to 50 days for regular mosquitoes, University of Queensland biologist Scott O'Neill reported in the journal Science.

Let's hope this pans out. Mosquitoes are a species with nothing going for them as far as the human condition is concerned. They spread diseases, and their eradication can save a lot of lives. If we can't do it with pesticides, this way sounds promising.

Happy New Year

It's time to start 2009, and, looking at the archives, it's hard to believe that I've had this blog for almost four years!

If you've been here before, you'll know that Painted Ocean is a bit eclectic. It lacks the specific focus that my other blog Strange in San Antonio has, but I started it that way just to see what it would eventually develop into. I started posting things that just happened to strike my fancy or that would urge me to say something, and I've even dabbled a bit in photoblogging here. But I think things have started to settle.

Here are the main themes that I seem to keep coming back to on Painted Ocean:

1. Space exploration - I am a product of Star Trek, The Martian Chronicles, Battlestar Galacitca (the old and the new, which starts again January 16!), The Foundation Trilogy, Dune, Star Wars, and much more. I am fascinated by the expanses of our galaxy and universe and all the wonderful, amazing things in it, and I truly think the future of the human race is in the stars. We are explorers, and we should not resist the urge to expand our reach to the rest of our solar system and beyond. As such, I watch what NASA and the other space agencies are doing, and I root for them in all their ventures.

2. English - I love to read. I don't always have the time to read for pleasure, but I enjoy reading stories and poems, and I admire good writing. I think the English language - given its mongrel pedigree - is an especially rich language for expression, and I love wordplay and clever constructions. So occasionally I will post something that strikes me as impressive, funny, or quirky.

3. Pandas - I have never understood why the human race invests so much emotional capital in the panda. Sure, they're cute, and they are in danger of losing numbers, but this species above all others has the power to affect people beyond the regular conservationists and animal lovers. Pandas turn men, women, and children (and especially news reporters!) into sentimental goofs, even to the point of enticing people to give hugs to these wild animals! That's crazy, and the phenomenon fascinates me.

I will continue to post on such topics and on anything else that strike my fancy. Posts to this blog tend to be a bit sporadic, but I will try to do better in the future. Thanks for reading, and have a Happy New Year.

Tiny Mimas, huge Saturn

Saturn is a gas giant, and we all know it's really big. But this photograph, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, really puts the ringed planet's hugeness into perspective.



That's Mimas in front with Saturn filling the background. As a reference, Mimas is 392 kilometers in diameter, or 244 miles. That's pretty small, but it's still a decent-sized object, and it really highlights the immenseness of its mother planet.

Someday, I'm sure, we will have humans traveling to these sections of our solar system, and hopefully such sights will be seen with actual human eyes, live and in full color. Perhaps such flights will even become commonplace, though I'm sure that will be well after my time.

But I hope we get there, eventually.


Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. More information on the picture here.

Merry Christmas!

That's all.

Hoaxing is hard

Sometimes, you have to be pretty obvious. Xkcd proves that.

Fighting panda extinction

Maybe we shouldn't give them such calm, quiet-sounding names.

HONG KONG - A giant panda named Peace bit a park keeper's left leg while he was laying bamboo leaves in the animal's pen at a Hong Kong amusement park, officials said Tuesday.

The worker was recovering well in hospital after the attack at Ocean Park, which has four giant pandas from China, park spokeswoman Christie Lau said.

Lau said park officials were still investigating the Nov. 30 incident involving the male panda, whose name, An An, means "peace" in Mandarin.

They are wild animals, and they will act like it from time to time. And I don't think they're very cute, either.

Gravity waves

Do you think the rings of Saturn are perfect and crisp? They're not.

Here's a photo of Saturn's F ring, which has been warped by the gravitational influence of the small moon Prometheus.

Magnificent.

Image courtesy NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Original with explanation found here.

Choosing the wrong article

Not long ago, the wife bought a set of Christmas CDs. Each disk represents a different style of music, and my eye was caught by the cover art of the rhythm-and-blues disk.




I'm not really a prescriptivist, but the choice between "a" and "an" is pretty clearly determined by the sound of the word or letter following it, not the letter itself. As such, this collection of Christmas tunes should have been titled "An R&B Christmas" instead.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to claim the world is coming to an end over such small errors in English, but I always thought the distinction between "a" and "an" was rather instinctive with native speakers. Perhaps I'm mistaken, or perhaps this CD was manufactured in some place where English is not the primary or preferred language.


Yep, I was right. I just checked. This CD was made in Quebec.

Happy Thanksgiving

That's all.

Fighting panda extinction

Love the pandas, but don't hug them. Really, please, don't.

BEIJING - A college student in southern China just needed a hug, but he probably shouldn't have picked a panda for his warm and fuzzy moment.

Instead of a hug, the panda bit the student after he broke into the animal's zoo enclosure.

...

The official Xinhua News Agency reports the hospitalized student later said the panda was so cute and cuddly he never expected to be bitten.

Remember, pandas are wild animals, not teddy bears! They don't love you, and they never will, no matter how much you want to save them and hug them and make them breed when they don't want to!

If you want love, save a dog from the pound. Or just be a friend to someone who needs one.

Stretching a euphemism

When you are a police officer, and a dog at a suspect's home attacks you, I think most people would expect you to dispatch that dog quickly with your weapon.

See, I used a euphemism. I used dispatch rather than kill or slay. That seems more apt to me than what an SAPD sergeant said to explain one of his fellow officer's actions.

SAN ANTONIO -- A San Antonio police officer shot and killed a dog Thursday during a search for two robbery suspects on the city's west side.

...

When some other officers surrounded the home, the homeowner's dog came out and charged at one of the officers, said Sgt. Lloyd Jackel of the San Antonio Police Department.

"He hollered at the owner to secure the dog three times," Jackel said. "The owner was attempting to come out and do that, but the dog got too close and the officer felt threatened, (so) he had to come out and euthanize the dog." [emphasis added]

(from KSAT-12)

Euthanize normally means to put an animal out of its misery or to put it down in a painless manner. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't blame the police officer for shooting the dog, but I don't think euthanize is the right word to use here. The bullet probably hurt a bit, and I don't think the dog was suffering to begin with. So, if I were the sergeant, I would have just said, "He had to come out and kill the dog for the safety of everyone involved." I think that's a good enough word.

Construction morning

Girders captured in the morning light.

Remembering those who served

It's Veterans Day.

Thanks to everyone who wore the uniform.

Language quote of the day

The difference between actual things and the words people use to signify them, as explained by a medieval theologian.

The philosopher knows only the significance of words, but the significance of things is far more excellent than that of words, because the latter was established by usage, but Nature dictated the former. ... The unsubstantial word is the sign of man's perceptions; the thing is a resemblance of the divine Idea.

Hugh of St. Victor, from the Didascalicon

A bit of Platonism going on there, but that's no surprise. A lot of old Western thinkers loved that ancient Greek thinker.

Raptor afternoon

Have you ever seen an F-22 up close?

Yes, they're loud.

Thanks to the folks at Lackland AFB for a wonderful air show November 1 and 2, 2008.

Boo!

Just in time for Halloween: Test Pattern and its commenters serve up some of the scariest movie lines.

So much goes into a good fright flick. To me, it's all about the suggestion. Your own mind can always create a scarier monster than anything the special effects department can dream up with latex. Movies that create a sense of true dread, that set up a scenario where you can feel the fear without being overwhelmed by monsters and gore, will win me every time.

I feel that one of the most overlooked elements of a great horror movie is the dialogue. Dramas and comedies are expected to have eloquent or snappy dialogue, but horror-movie lines often get lost in the avalanche of fake blood. Yet a great horror-movie line can chill you to the bone and stay with you for months. It can also break your heart.

Here are my favorite scary movie lines, from Aliens:

Newt: My mommy always said there were no monsters - no real ones - but there are.
Ripley: Yes, there are, aren't there?
Newt: Why do they tell little kids that?
Ripley: Most of the time it's true.

Still creeps me out, even twenty years later.

Could I make "ostrich" instead?

Here's a Scrabble temptation, if ever there was one.

Doomed moon

One of Mars's moons is destined for disaster. Drink it in, while you have the chance.

Image courtesy of NASA. From the original caption:

This moon is doomed. Mars, named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons--Phobos and Deimos--whose names are derived from the Greek for fear and panic. These Martian moons may well be captured asteroids originating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps from even more distant reaches of the solar system.

The larger moon, Phobos, is a cratered, asteroid-like object in this stunning color image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Phobos orbits so close to Mars that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In 100 million years or so, Phobos likely will be shattered by stress caused by the relentless tidal forces, the debris forming a decaying ring around Mars.

Answering the quiz

So, what is welder Romero working on?

It's a rocket.

Here's the caption to the photo, which can be found in NASA's image galleries.

A welder at NASA's Glenn Research Center (GRC) grinds welds on an Ares I-X rocket segment being readied for shipment to Kennedy Space Center. Ares I is part of the next generation of launch vehicles that will return humans to the moon and later take them to Mars and other destinations. Ares I is an in-line, two-stage rocket configuration topped by the Orion crew vehicle and its launch abort system. In addition to the vehicle's primary mission -- carrying crews of four to six astronauts to Earth orbit -- Ares I may also use its 25-ton payload capacity to deliver resources and supplies to the International Space Station, or to 'park' payloads in orbit for retrieval by other spacecraft bound for the moon or other destinations.

The Ares I-X is scheduled for a test launch in 2009. GRC is designing and manufacturing several components of the test rocket, including the upper stage mass simulator and the service module and spacecraft adapter simulators.

Image Credit: NASA/Marvin Smith

Good work for the betterment of mankind.

Calling B.S. on a comic book character

I know -- it's a comic book character I'm about to bring up.

By their very nature, comic book characters defy conventions, timelines, physics, metaphysics, religions, common sense, and willing suspensions of disbelief. So I should just relax when I note an inconsistency in a comic book and move on. Right?

But this time I couldn't.

I was reading a Marvel comic book to my son, one in which the Avengers come across the Marvel version of Hercules. There's a misunderstanding of epic proportions because Hercules only understands Greek (helpfully translated by the editor), and the demigod ends up fighting the Hulk for a while before Captain America -- who understands a little Greek from the time he spent in the country during World War II -- convinces him that he needs to team up with the Avengers to stop a giant, rampaging Cerberus. An understanding is born, and the three-headed monster is defeated.

No problem there. Standard Marvel fare. But what bothered me just a touch was the language Hercules used. Rendered in [bracketed English] so you can tell it's a translation of Greek, the language was presented in mock heroic tones with Hercules speaking of great feasts and feats of strength and general pleasure in good fights. And what caught my eye was a mild oath uttered by the ancient Grecian.

It was zounds.

I remembered from my studies of medieval and Renaissance literature that zounds is an abbreviation of "God's wounds," an exclamation used to express suprise or anger. It was used in that sense by Hercules in the Marvel comic book, but "God's wounds" is an allusion to the wounds suffered by Jesus Christ during the crucifixion. It's an oath born out of Christianity, and one that would be familiar in Christendom, but hardly in ancient Greece. Even if Hercules were real.

I know, I know -- it's a comic book. I should relax. Actually I am pretty laid back about it. It really doesn't bother me that much, but it did give me a good prompt for a blog post.

What's next? Thor screaming "Gadzooks"?

Quizzing you

Quick quiz, what is the welder named Romero working on?





Hint: It has to do with a theme of this blog.

Getting to space, privately

I think we need more of this.



Thanks SpaceX.

Walking in space, Chinese style

The Chinese achieve a significant milestone in the progression of their space program.

BEIJING - Chinese celebrated their nation's first spacewalk Saturday, gathering at outdoor TV screens to cheer live video of the milestone for a program that has ambitions of building a space station and challenging the U.S. and Russia in off-world exploration.

...

The spacewalk was mainly aimed at testing China's mastery of the technology. Mission commander Zhai Zhigang's sole task was to retrieve a rack attached to the outside of the orbital module containing an experiment involving solid lubricants.

...

In step with its growing list of achievements, China's military-backed space program has grown progressively less secretive, and officials have hinted in recent days at a desire for greater cooperation with other nations. China plans to mass-produce the next version of the Shenzhou ship to service a future space station and says it may make such missions available to other countries.

As with anything about China, I have mixed feelings about this achievement. I think it's great that other nations are at least showing an interest in working together to advance humanity's chances of becoming a space-faring species. On the other hand, this is China.

Calling B.S. on an insane saying

Here is a letter to the editor that appeared in the Sunday, September 21, 2008 issue of the San Antonio Express-News.

Review the history

In order from highest to lowest, the 10 U.S. cities with the highest poverty rates are: Detroit, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Miami, St. Louis, El Paso, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Newark.

The last time the following cities elected mayors who weren’t Democrats was: Detroit, 1961; Buffalo, 1954; Cincinnati, 1984; Cleveland, 1989; St. Louis, 1949; Milwaukee, 1908; Philadelphia, 1952, and Newark, 1907.

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

C. F. Eckhardt, Seguin

No, no, no, no, no! I am tired of hearing this stupid saying! Please, quit using it!

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is not the definition of insanity. The definition of insanity is really "the condition of being insane; a derangement of the mind". I know, I know, people like to use that line repeated by Mr. Eckhardt of Seguin because it makes for good hyperbole, but that is not an accurate saying, and it was never uttered by any person such as Einstein.

In fact, the line actually is this: "Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results." It's from a book by an American writer named Rita Mae Brown. It may have been a clever line at the time Ms. Brown published her book, but it's not anymore. It's overused and it's trite. Please, let's not utter it again.

Rant over.

Downtown afternoon

A view of downtown San Antonio on a bright day.

Calling B.S. on Star Trek

Someone had to. It might as well be a talking dinosaur.



I'm with T-Rex on this one. Star Trek made time travel too easy for it to be a compelling plot point in later episodes, and T-Rex is right to wonder why they don't do it all the time!

My own personal pet peeve with Star Trek concerns warp travel. If it takes seven (or twelve or twenty) days to get to the next starbase at warp three but only three seconds at warp nine, then why not go full speed all the time! C'mon, it makes no sense to be dawdling about the universe in a huge ship with a well-trained crew when you could be handling crises in an instant!

Captain, we need to dock at Station 33.3 for vital repairs.

Very good. Set a course. Warp five. Engage.

But Captain, that will take us 23 hours. We can get there in like ten minutes if we just go warp nine.

Oh. OK, I forgot. Let's do it then. Warp nine. Engage.

Makes sense to me.

Streetscape morning

A dripping potted plant on a pole in downtown San Antonio.

Shadowy Mimas

Have you ever wondered what a moon might look like with the shadow of planetary rings falling across it?

Wonder no more, and gaze upon Saturn's moon Mimas.

Image courtesy NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Read more about it here.

Most unmatched headline of the day

As Hurricane Ike roars ashore, KSAT-12 in San Antonio has a bold headline followed by an unmatched second hed.

AP: About 1M Stayed Behind
Authorities in three counties alone said roughly 90,000 stayed behind, despite a warning from forecasters that many of those in one- or two-story homes faced "certain death."

There's a big difference between 1,000,000 and 90,000.

Since the home pages of the news stations have been changing frequently, I include the screen capture for illustration purposes.

Remembering September 11, 2001

Image courtesy of NASA. Read about the image here.

A domain for the tree people

One of my e-mail addresses ends in ".net", but sometimes I find my fingers accidentally typing ".ent" instead. Obviously, this doesn't work, but wouldn't it be cool if there was a domain reserved just for the Ents?

River Walk afternoon

Sometimes, a placid river runs through a busy city.

Somewhat ambiguous headline of the day

"Methodist promises stroke center" [S.A. Express-News]

And in other news, the vows made by Catholics please the middle-of-the-road voters.

Clunky news story line of the day

This comes from WOAI-TV in San Antonio:

Another employee has filed a lawsuit against BexarMet, its General Manager Gil Olivares and Adolfo Ruiz, Bexar Met's lawyer.

This most recent lawsuit, was filed by Humberto Ramos. Ramos claims his phone was illegal wiretapped. He states the lawsuit was filed because of BexarMet's "mismanagement, improper employment practices and other improper conduct." [emphasis added]

What a sloppy construction. Wouldn't it have been better to write, "his phone was tapped illegally"? Or just "his phone was tapped"?

BACKGROUND: Bexar Met is a San Antonio-area water company that is currently entangled in a corruption scandal.

Cityscape afternoon

Have you ever been to downtown San Antonio? If so, have you ever noticed the gold-domed building?

"Talk about amazing animal magnetism..."

Gee, what else will Google prove useful for?

A study of Google Earth satellite images has revealed that herds of cattle tend to face in the north-south direction of Earth's magnetic lines.

Staring at cows may not equal the thrill of spotting celebrities in public or rubbernecking at car accidents, but the researchers found nonetheless that our bovine friends display this strange sixth sense for direction.

Their field observations of red and roe deer also showed those animals facing toward magnetic north or south.

I wonder if the sun's path has anything to do with this, like helping warm up the large animals.

Oh, by the way, I object to Jeremy Hsu of Live Science characterizing automobile accidents as thrilling.

Asking for a new term

Xkcd takes on the disconnect between scientists and journalists.




I think the problem here is the use of the word "quantum" to describe this kind of teleportation. To most people who aren't scientists, "quantum" means something akin to large or great or awesome. A "quantum leap", to the laity, means a big change.

So, to avoid the confusion demonstrated in the xkcd comic, perhaps scientists might think about renaming the concept. Instead of "quantum teleportation," which may be more accurate, perhaps they could refer to "particle teleportation," or something similar.

That would probably clear things up a bit for the masses. Or at least for journalists.

No fishing

No one's fishing today.