Poster Helps Users ID Computer Parts and Ports

Deviant Art's Pictorial Guide To Computer Hardware

I tinker a lot with my computer and have torn apart and reassembled dozens of computers over the last ten years.  All that time this new Pictorial Guide To Computer Hardware from Deviant Art would have come in handy.  I may even buy one anyway just because on some strange level I think it is kind of cool.  Basically the poster shows images of every interface, port, and cable connection found on personal computers going back all the way to before the IBM PC days.  It even includes photos of RAM memory chips and motherboard power connections.  It is available in sizes up to 2 foot by 3 foot through the Deviant Art web site.

Buzz Aldrin's Biography and Story of the First Lunar Landing

I’ve always been fascinated with space and with the astronaut corps in general.  Like many kids when I was young I wanted to be an astronaut.  Growing up in the early days of the shuttle program I made my fair share of space shuttle models and cried myself to sleep the day the Challenger exploded.  Even though my ambitions eventually turned to music and writing I still have a very soft spot in my heart for the topic, and picked up a copy of Buzz Aldrin’s new biography about the first lunar landing, Magnificent Desolationa few days ago at our local library.  It gives a very interesting look into Aldrin’s life and career, and serves as yet another reminder that climbing the highest mountain also means that you have farther to fall.

Aldrin starts the book by detailing the specifics of the Apollo 11 launch, moon landing, and return, but this is only the first quarter of the entire book.  From there we get a look at something much more personal, a proud American hero who, after achieving what only 11 other people in the world have done, found himself in his own personal desolation.  He suffered terribly from depression, partly from his constant quandry that after being one of the members of the first lunar landing expedition, “what do I do now?”  He also had some serious genetic issues stacked against him (both his father and mother committed suicide).  While other famous astronauts also went through similar bouts of depression Aldrin was the first to be brave enough to seek help, a decision that in the old Air Force climate cost him a promotion to General and effectively ended his career in the military.

Aldrin came out of this depression a better man.  Today he works with a foundation that encourages the commercialization of space, making it accessable to everyone instead of just the elite.  His ideas and tactics have not been appreciated by all of his fellow astronauts, and truthfully the idea of making the Rocket Experience  rap video with Snoop Dog still baffles me.

Lunar Landing Site Photos- Just Another Conspiracy?

NASA

I have always been fascinated with the moon landings even though they took place before I was even born.  Ever since they occured back in the 60′s there have been a small but vocal number of people saying that the entire moon landing sequence was faked.  My personal feeling on these conspiracy theorists is that they should go ask Elvis for his opinion, but still the debate raged on.  Now, forty years after the launch of Apollo 11 (the first mission that actually landed on the moon) NASA has proof that we were actually there in the form of photos from the recently launched Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

I doubt that these photos will satisfy any of the naysayers.  The photos are a little grainy and the resolution is not really good enough to make out fine detail, although you can see the tracks the astronauts left in the soil as they walked from the landing module to a scientific experiment site.  Personally I think the images are very cool although much less spectacular than I was hoping for.  Without the help of NASA putting arrows and markings on the photos I doubt I would be able to figure things out on my own.  If we have sattellites that can see my car in my driveway you would think that they would put something equally as powerful on this space probe.

It just so happened that a few days before the anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch I checked out Buzz Aldrin’s new biography, Magnificent Desolation.  It’s a good read.  Maybe I’ll blog about it tomorrow to give a little review.