Sending a shuttle simulator to the Aggies

Well this is good news for space exploration efforts and for Texas. (Especially since we got robbed out of an actual space shuttle for the Johnson Space Center.)

NASA's long-running space shuttle program came to its end in 2011, but thanks to a recently signed agreement between the space agency and a Texas university, one of the winged spacecraft's iconic cockpits will continue to "fly."

The Shuttle Motion Simulator (SMS), which for more than three decades exposed astronauts to the sights, sounds, and motions they'd experience when they launched and landed on the real orbiters, is being moved 100 miles from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to Texas A&M University in College Station. Once there, the hydraulically maneuvered platform will resume work as a simulator.

"The SMS at College Station at Texas A&M is going to be returned to be an operational simulator," Paul Hill, director of mission operations at NASA Johnson, said. "And there, more students and engineers will have the opportunity not just to see it, but actually use it to develop new operations and develop new equipment to be used by next-generation spacecraft.

(from Robert Z. Pearlman at Space.com)

The Twelve Caesars - page 300, Domitian

Domitian pretended to be extremely modest, and though he displayed a novel devotion to poetry, which he would read aloud in public, his enthusiasm was matched by a later neglect and contempt of the art.


Who knew the ancient Romans had poetry slams?

The Twelve Caesars - page 296, Titus

Titus' reign was marked by a series of dreadful catastrophes - an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Campania (The eruption that destroyed Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Oplontis.), a fire at Rome which burned for three days and nights, and one of the worst outbreaks of plague that had ever been known. Throughout this assortment of disasters, he showed far more than an Emperor's concern ... . He ... devoted the property of those who had died in the eruption and left no heirs to a fund for rebuilding the stricken cities. ... He stripped his own country mansions of their decorations, distributed these among the public buildings and temples [stricken by the fire], and appointed a body of knights to see that his orders were promptly carried out. Titus attempted to cure the plague and limit its ravages by every imaginable means, human as well as divine - resorting to all sorts of sacrifices and medical remedies.


This passage portrays Titus as having a genuine affinity for his people and a concern for their welfare. If it is to be believed, this account demonstrates the emperor's eagerness to give of his own personal belongings to help relieve the sufferings of his subjects. This could be the best example of a benevolent dictator that we have from ancient history.

Well, benevolent toward his own people. There is that whole destruction of the Jewish Temple thing, too.

Blending philosophy and nativity

Hover text: I think you could get up to about 11:59:57 before you'd have trouble swallowing the chocolates fast enough. At that point, you'd need some kind of a liquify-and-chug apparatus to get up over the 11:59:59 barrier. Anyway, Merry Christmas!

Yes, a Merry XKCD Christmas to you all!

(Click here for more Zeno info.)

The Twelve Caesars - page 244, Nero

Physical characteristics of Nero:

Height: average.
Body: pustular and malodorous.
Hair: light blond.
Features: pretty, rather than handsome.
Eyes: blue and rather weak.
Neck: squat.
Belly: protuberant.
Legs: spindling.

... He was entirely shameless in the style of his appearance and dress, but always had his hair set in rows of curls and, when he visited Greece, let it grow long and hang down his back.


The only thing Suetonius left out was the Emperor's fantastic neck beard.


Nobody rocks this look like I do!

The Twelve Caesars - page 200, Claudius

Until this reign there had been two terms in the Law Courts, the summer and the winter; Claudius made them continuous. Another of his changes was to institute permanent courts ... for judging fiduciary cases, instead of entrusting them to the annually appointed Roman magistrates. He cancelled Tiberius' supplement to the Papian-Poppaean Law which implied that men over sixty years of age could not beget children; and sponsored a law authorizing the Consuls to choose guardians for orphans; and passed another law, ruling that no person who had been exiled from a province might enter the city or even Italy.

A new form of punishment which forbade some persons to go more than three miles outside Rome was likewise introduced by Claudius. ... Hitherto, when Romans wished to travel abroad, the Senate had considered their applications; Claudius reserved the right to deal with these himself.


In other places in The Twelve Caesars, Claudius is portrayed somewhat as a dolt, but this passage makes him seem much more competent. Not nice, but competent. He tended to the housekeeping of the Empire with the changes listed above and other changes listed elsewhere. And, even though it's likely that a great many people were unhappy with such changes (especially those with places to go to), it's obvious that Claudius was not distant from the workings of the government.

Claudius passed laws, changed laws, altered customs, and challenged assumptions. He even proposed adding new letters of his own invention to the Latin alphabet (they didn't stick, though). And it seems like he had a purpose in mind for each change, even if it may not be obvious to a reader today or a Roman in the past.


I offer you this backward C, for all of your "PS" sounds; this upside-down F, so you can stop using V as a consonant; and this half H, because it's all Greek to me.

The Twelve Caesars - page 249, Galba

One day, as Galba's grandfather was invoking sacrificial lightning, an eagle suddenly snatched the victim's intestines out of his hands and carried them off to an oak-tree laden with acorns. A bystander suggested that this sign portended great honour for the family. 'Yes, yes, perhaps so,' the old man agreed, smiling, 'on the day that a mule foals.' When Galba later launched his rebellion, what encouraged him most was the news that a mule had, in fact, foaled. Although everyone else considered this a disastrous omen, Galba remembered the sacrifice and his grandfather's saying, and interpreted it in precisely the opposite sense.


And thus a toss-off, dismissive joke becomes the inspiration for a man, signaling to him that he was destined to become Emperor of Rome.


-- Don't worry. It's good luck.
-- Yeah. In Haiti.

"NASA Telescope Confirms Alien Planet in Habitable Zone"

Great news!

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new explanet candidates, researchers announced today (Dec. 5).

...

The potentially habitable alien world, a first for Kepler, orbits a star very much like our own sun. The discovery brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet like our own — one which could conceivably harbor life, scientists said.

"We're getting closer and closer to discovering the so-called 'Goldilocks planet,'" Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said during a press conference today.

(from Mike Wall at Space.com)

Perfect. Let's get packing.

The Twelve Caesars - page 23 Julius Caesar

[As military commander, Julius Caesar] lost no opportunity of picking quarrels -- however unfair and dangerous -- with allies as well as hostile and barbarous tribes, and marching against them. At first the Senate set up a commission of inquiry into the state of the Gallic provinces, and some speakers went so far as to recommend that Caesar should be handed over to the enemy. But the more successful his campaigns, the more frequent the public thanksgivings voted; and the holidays that went with them were longer than any general before him had ever earned.


Nothing succeeds like success.



Absolute badass.

One of my favorite things, and one not so much

Steel drums and Dvořák.



But, hey, it actually comes out sounding pretty cool!

Two of my favorite things

Classical guitar and Dvořák.



Thanks, Jorge Caballero.

The Twelve Caesars - page 190, Claudius

Nevertheless, these honours did not protect [Claudius] from frequent insults. If ever he arrived a little late in the dining-hall, there was nothing for it but to tour the tables in search of a vacant couch; and when he took his usual after-dinner nap the company would pelt him with olives and date stones. Some jokers exercised their wit by putting slippers on his hands as he lay snoring, and then gave him a sudden blow of a whip or cane to wake him, so that he rubbed his face with them.


Now, this was a time before Claudius became emperor, so it is not surprising that his colleagues were not afraid of him. He didn't have his imperial power, yet. But it is a little surprising that he was treated so badly even though he was the brother of a very popular public figure (Germanicus) and the uncle of that public figure's popular son (Gaius Caligula), who just happened to be the ruler of Rome at the time and hadn't yet squandered the favor shown to him by the people.

If Suetonius's account of the practical jokes is accurate, then Claudius must have been a true dolt. Or, if not, then sufficiently timid to have attracted the constant attention of wiseacres.


OK, OK, I'll be your emperor! Just please, please stop slapping me!

"Pluto's Moons Could Spell Danger for New Horizons Spacecraft"

Let's hope this scenario does not come to pass for our Pluto-bound space probe.

When NASA's New Horizons spacecraft reaches Pluto in July 2015, it may find the region more hazardous than anticipated. The discovery of several moons around Pluto — and the potential for more — increase the risks during the probe's flyby.

The main problem is debris. The small moons are under constant bombardment from nearby space rocks called Kuiper Belt objects, but the moons' low gravity prevents them from holding on to chunks of dirt and rock that fly into the air when hit. The debris instead finds itself caught in orbit around Pluto, where it could pose a serious threat to New Horizons.

(from Space.com)

It'd be a shame if New Horizons meets an untimely end just as it arrives. I so want to see what that planetoid looks like close up.

The Twelve Caesars - page 230, Nero

Nero's confidence in the resources of the Empire was not the only cause of his furious spending; he had also been suddenly excited by tales of a great hidden treasure ....

When this hope failed to materialize, Nero found himself destitute -- and his financial difficulties were such that he could not lay hands on enough money even for the soldiers' pay or the veterans' benefits; and therefore resorted to robbery and blackmail.

First he made a law that if a freedman died who had taken the name of a family connected with his own, and could not show adequate reason, five-sixths of the estate, not merely one half, should be forfeited to the Privy Purse. Next, he seized the estates of those who had shown ingratitude to their Emperor (i.e., by not leaving him enough); and fined the lawyers responsible for writing and dictating such wills. ... His invariable formula, when he appointed a magistrate, was: 'You know my needs! Let us see to it that nobody is left with anything.'


Sound familiar? Like politics is all too universal? Human behavior constant throughout the eras?

I find it particularly interesting that Nero fined not just the writers of wills that fell short of his expectations but also those who dictated such wills, those poor people whose job was simply to write down what someone else had said. Even they felt the anger of Nero. I would have referred to those transcribing drudges as "dictators", but that would have reduced the proper infamy that that word carries in our language today. In this scene, only Nero would deserve that title, though the official position had already been abolished a few Caesars earlier.


Yes, I am dictating, but please don't say that word around me. You know, Dictaphone.

Happy Thanksgiving

What I am most thankful for on this earth:

Family.

Getting a laugh out of me

I love it when something can make me laugh out loud -- literally -- even when I am alone. By myself.

This entry from Cracked.com's article "27 Great Moments in History If the Internet Was Around" is just one of those somethings:



Doubting Thomas's reaction is classic.

Checking out the neighborhood

Someday, this could be what our new home looks like.


NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU

Imagine that. Then read more about this fabulous shot of new real estate here.

The Twelve Caesars - page 260, Otho

[Otho's] early wildness earned him many a beating from his father; he is said to have been in the habit of wandering about the city at night and seizing and tossing in a blanket any drunk or disabled person who crossed his path.


The interesting thing about this passage is Otho's apparent pastime in his youth: the practice of treating less fortunate people very badly by tossing them in a blanket.

Many years ago a very wise professor at the university I attended explained to the class that the strange practice of tossing someone in a blanket (which we had come across in a passage of Medieval writing, possibly Chaucer, where a character was treated in like manner) was actually a very violent act. It wasn't a simple celebratory act, which our modern, student minds had visualized as looking something like this:

Pictured: fun.
Image by Floyd Davidson

It was more an act where someone was wrapped up tightly in a blanket and beaten or tossed in the air, most likely to not be caught before hitting the ground. It was a very cruel act, and many, many years ago it was used as a form of punishment. Not something to be taken very lightly.

I found the information enlightening then, and when I came across this passage about Otho's young cruelty I remembered that old professor right away and all the bits of enlightenment he shared with me and my classmates. And those were good memories. The learning, that is, not the cruelty we learned about. Remember, the young Otho wasn't merely teasing those poor people on the streets; he was exhibiting a complete disregard for their welfare and safety.

The Twelve Caesars - page 129, Tiberius

[Tiberius] was, moreover, quite unperturbed by abuse, slander, or lampoons on himself and his family, and would often say that liberty to speak and think as one pleases is the test of a free country. When the Senate asked that those who had offended in this way should be brought to book, he replied: 'We cannot spare the time to undertake any such new enterprise. Open that window, and you will let in such a rush of denunciations as to waste your whole working day; everyone will take this opportunity of airing some private feud.'


Though Tiberius is infamous for his depravities, he seems remarkably pragmatic in this situation. Just as modern politicians need to be thick-skinned when it comes to public criticism, so too did ancient Roman public figures. There's a certain amount of futility in trying to punish every single bad comment that is directed at politicians, and that amount is a whole truckload. Besides, if you were to try to chase down all of the sneers and jeers against you (assuming you are a politician) you would be so occupied with this endeavor that you would get bogged down and have absolutely no time for the job that your constituents elected you to do. Tiberius recognized that, sick creep that he was.

Tiberius also raises the idea of free speech and freedom of expression (though only for Roman citizens, I'm sure) as an example of a good thing for a thriving society, and we here in the United States are certainly no strangers to this concept. He welcomed criticism, and we can only hope that our modern political types would follow his example.



Imagine that: Me, the paragon of free speech! Who'd a thunk it?

"Why the Milky Way May Be Facing a Midlife Crisis"

Does this mean it will want a really big Corvette, then?

Our Milky Way galaxy and its neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, seem to be going through a midlife crisis.

New research reveals that both galaxies are in the middle of transitioning from young, star-forming regions into older, stagnant ones, a transition that is revealed by the galaxies' color. Generally, such a change comes after two galaxies collide, astronomers said, but this pair seems to be making the shift on its own.

...

But the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy are shifting from blue to red without a collision, which was a surprising discovery, the researchers explained.

Since they are already slowing down, when they crash into each other in the future, the collision most likely won't generate a new powerhouse.

(from Nola Taylor Redd at Space.com)

"When" they crash into each other. Folks, our galaxy is doomed. But don't lose any sleep over it. It won't be for another five billion years or so. Plenty of time to engineer a new empire.