Archive for category Computer & Internet
Technicolor Astronaut
Posted by Danielle in Computer & Internet on January 5, 2010
Abduzeedo Wallpaper of the Week #80 - James White
A really awesome wallpaper/desktop pic, full of color and light, courtesy of Abduzeedo. Also comes in an iPhone version.
Moon Survives
Posted by Danielle in Computer & Internet on October 17, 2009
If I post on a Saturday, it’s because I have something fun to share. Today, it’s my winning entry for Veer’s Contest #24: Newsworthy, which started last Friday (LCROSS Impact Day, or perhaps we should call it No Visible Plume Day?) Annoyed by the “NASA is wasting our tax dollars to blow up the Moon!” comments online, as soon as Veer announced this contest, I already had the headline in mind (it was just a matter of finding as cratery a font as possible. If anyone ever comes across a genuinely cratered font, please let me know! This was as close as I could get on short notice.)
Silver Rockets
Posted by Danielle in Computer & Internet, Site on September 25, 2009
This awesome image is from deviantART — it encapsulates what I’m hoping to do with my new (ma)gnolia group, Silver Rockets:
Celebrating the awe and inspiration surrounding space exploration, human spaceflight and the great beyond. Science and art, fiction and non-fiction, poetry and latest news — welcoming both the dreams and realities of space. Come one, come all!
(Sounds similar to what I do here, I know — this is a way for me to add more links, things not so easily blogged, and hopefully more often than once a day, though I can’t promise that.)
Anyway, my links should be varied and interesting (I hope!), so if you’re a new ma.gnolia user, or an old one that has JUST NOW learned of the relaunch (go sign up!!), please join the group! (You’ll be glad you did!) And if you’ve NEVER heard of (ma)gnolia, it is a social linking tool — somewhat like Delicious — except infinitely more streamlined, sophisticated and elegant.
West Coast Defense
Posted by Danielle in Computer & Internet, Entertainment, Picspam on August 21, 2009
Images by Mike Horn (hornage)
I love Star Wars, so naturally this Flickr set of poster and wallpaper-quality pictures thrilled me to bits. (Not that I want the Imperial forces to invade San Francisco, of course… but the imagery is pretty darn awesome, I have to admit.) Get the whole set here!
Star Trek
Posted by Danielle in Computer & Internet on May 26, 2009
The Iconfactory has long been one of my favorite haunts, and yet again they’ve delivered, with official desktop wallpapers and icons from the new Star Trek movie. I mean… really, who wouldn’t want these on their desktop??
Cosmic Diary
Posted by Danielle in Computer & Internet, Perspectives on February 11, 2009
Cosmic Diary is part of the International Year of Astronomy; astronomers from all over the globe are talking about their jobs, their thoughts, and trying to share the day-to-day life of astronomy, as well as the science. I read a lovely article there yesterday on astronomy and journalism by Brother Guy Consolmagno, the American-born curator of meteorites at the Vatican Observatory. Definitely give the site a read; there’s astronomers aplenty reaching out to the public!
Soyuz, unwrapped
Posted by Danielle in Computer & Internet on October 22, 2008
The New York Times has a flash-based guide to the Soyuz spacecraft — think DK Eyewitness Guide, but animated. Very cool, worth paging through!
Brighter Star?
Posted by Danielle in Computer & Internet on August 8, 2008
Today’s Picture of the Day @ NASA is the Peony Nebula, and this dreamily-colored image is downloadable in standard desktop/wallpaper sizes.
If our galaxy were to host its own version of the Olympics, the title for the brightest known star would go to a massive star called Eta Carina. However, a new runner-up, now the second-brightest star in our galaxy, has been discovered in the galaxy’s dusty and frenzied interior. This image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the new silver medalist, circled in the inset above, in the central region of our Milky Way.
Dubbed the Peony nebula star, this blazing ball of gas shines with the equivalent light of 3.2 million suns. The reigning champ, Eta Carina, produces the equivalent of 4.7 million suns worth of light. However, astronomers say these estimates are uncertain, and it’s possible that the Peony nebula star could be even brighter than Eta Carina.
If the Peony star is so bright, why doesn’t it stand out more in this view? The answer is dust. This star is located in a very dusty region jam packed with stars. In fact, there could be other super bright stars still hidden deep in the stellar crowd. Spitzer’s infrared eyes allowed it to pierce the dust and assess the Peony nebula star’s true brightness. Likewise, infrared data from the European Southern Observatory’s New Technology Telescope in Chile were integral in calculating the Peony nebula star’s luminosity.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Potsdam Univ.
NASA Images
Posted by Danielle in Computer & Internet on July 29, 2008
NASA Images is a great new(er) resource developed last year as a joint project between NASA and Archive.org. If you’ve been looking for a one-stop resource for everything NASA does, you just found it!
NASA Images is a service of Internet Archive ( www.archive.org ), a non-profit library, to offer public access to NASA’s images, videos and audio collections. NASA Images is constantly growing with the addition of current media from NASA as well as newly digitized media from the archives of the NASA Centers.
The goal of NASA Images is to increase our understanding of the earth, our solar system and the universe beyond in order to benefit humanity.
To the moon, ISS!
Posted by Danielle in Computer & Internet, Tidbits & Sundry on July 18, 2008
An amusing interesting little post on Slashdot earlier this week:
“Michael Benson is proposing that NASA send the ISS to the moon instead of leaving it low earth orbit. (While we’re at it, we should re-brand it as the ‘International Space Ship.’) He points out that it’s already designed to be moved periodically to higher orbits so instead of just boosting it a few miles, strap on some ion engines and put it in orbit around the moon instead of the earth. That would provide an initial base for the astronauts going to the moon and give the ISS a purpose other than performing yet more studies on the effect of micro gravity on humans. Benson concludes: ‘Let’s begin the process of turning the ISS from an Earth-orbiting caterpillar into an interplanetary butterfly.’”
My favorite part? Among the tags listed on the article: “goodluckwiththat”.
Edit: If anyone’s interested, the orange moon icon used as this site’s favicon, as well as in the above graphic, is available here:
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