I have to admit, few of our missions in space have captured my attention the way the Mars missions have. When I was a kid, I remember reading about the Viking mission in National Geographic. The pictures of a desolate rust-colored planet with the possibility of microbial life sparked my imagination and captured my interest for years to come. It’s no surprise then my interest in the Mars Exploration Rover mission is so strong. Nasa, Lockheed Martin and Disney have put together a 40 minute IMAX documentary that was released this month in time for the 2nd (earth) year anniversary of the mission. Having just seen it today, I would recommend this film to anyone with an interest in space science. While searching for more information on the history of our exploration of Mars, I came across a great resource on WikiPedia with information on Mars missions from around the world.
Category Archives: Tech
Google sells its soul for access to China
Congress invites Google – Questions arise over allowing censorship in China
Google had 2 choices: Stick to the moral high ground and keep their services outside of China, or give the Chinese government what they want (the ability to control information) and gain access to one of the worlds fastest developing economies. On their corporate blog, Andrew McLaughlin rationalizes the decision. Google claims that while outside of China Google’s service level within China was poor. However, poor as it may have been, the people of China (when able to get through) would have gotten the results the rest of us would. Now they can’t see those results if they run afoul of a government censor. The problem with the argument is that while Google will be more accessible now, the information will not. By enabling censorship Google is actively assisting the Chinese government in the repression of their own people.
Windows Vista – first impressions
I recently dusted off my trusty Compaq Evo and loaded the latest beta copy of Microsoft’s Windows operating system named Vista. Though I’ve only been running it a few hours, I can already tell that there have been a number of changes. There are certainly some improvements, but there are also a few things that make you scratch your head and say, “why did they do that?” I started a new article to chronicle my experience with the new OS. I’ll be updating it over the course of the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!