23:00 29 Apr 2003

CDI.org has a story titled FINDING SADDAM HUSSEIN’S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. At this writing, clicking the link gets you a 404. Not found. Heh.

Probably was never there in the first place.

20:30 29 Apr 2003

Los Alamos is missing thousands of computers according to this report. (via DefenseTech.) Great. Now how are all those people going to play solitare at work? And this just days after stories that we’re going to begin developing more nuclear weapons. What could possilby go wrong?

20:23 29 Apr 2003

Dr. Weevil (don’t ask – I don’t have any idea) has a Ba’ath Poker Party page on his site. He doesn’t have the Iraqi version of the cards, but it’s still a good way to track got ‘ems and need ‘ems.

20:04 29 Apr 2003

DeepDiscountDVD has the new Extreme Edition Terminator 2: Judgement Day for $15.95 shipped. Release date is 03 Jun 2003. Thanks for the tip, KTLA.

08:17 29 Apr 2003

It seems that the rumors about the US pulling out of Saudi Arabia are true. At least if you beleive this Reuters report. That’s fine by me, since Saudi Arabia has made little more than token gestures to control its ties to terrorism and didn’t allow us to fly attack missions out of its territory against Iraq. Besides, there are probably several airbases just to the north that will do just fine. And they’re closer to Syria. Just in case.

23:14 28 Apr 2003

Wow. Terminator 2: Judgement Day is going to be released on DVD. Again. This time, it’s The Extreme Edition. (Next will be the Extremely Special Ultimate Edition, complete with the actual chip from the first T-800 sent back in time. Plug that into a USB 2.0 port and see what happens. Not compatible with IEEE1394.)

Included in the Extreme Edition, though, will be a high definition version of the film. Not a trailer. Not a sampler. The whole movie. It will be encoded using Microsoft’s WM9 codec. It will be mastered from a 1080p digital master. You’ll need at least a 1.8gHz P4 crunching numbers in your PC, but it should be incredible. This is old news, but I just came across it. There was a war on, and all.

Here’s an extensive AVS Forum thread discussing the release. Enter at your own risk.

20:08 26 Apr 2003

Bruce Moomaw at SpaceDaily.com has another piece on the future of the space shuttle and International Space Station. NASA has floated the possibility of flying the shuttle unmanned after the Orbital Space Plane begins flying around 2012, but Moonmaw suggest flying the shuttle as an unmanned ISS support vehicle right now. There are basically two missions still on the board for the shuttle: ISS construction and support, and the Hubble Space Telescope. Never mind that the ISS is pretty much a joke, but those missions could be flown without a crew onboard if NASA developed an automated docking system for the shuttle to use.

As for the Hubble, he has this to say

According to the Rand Corporation, every Shuttle launch costs fully $760 million. For the cost of any two Shuttle servicing missions (and perhaps less), an entirely new Hubble Telescope could be built — with its cost greatly reduced by making it a near-copy of the earlier one except for new instruments and minor engineering improvements, thus eliminating that huge share of the original Hubble’s cost that came from having to design it in the first place — and launched on a Titan 4 when the previous Hubble wore out completely.

There are currently two missions on the board to the Hubble: a servicing mission originally scheduled for 2004, and a final mission in 2010 to bring it home. Why not scratch those missions, leave the Hubble up there for as long as it works, and shoot another one up when we need to?

Or we could reproduce the Saturn V and launch 5 Hubbles at a time. Or we could launch four Skylab-type modules, hook them together, and have a real space station. Heck, we could even go back to the moon. Or we could send a Skylab to Mars. We could pretty much do anything we damn well wanted if we had some Saturn Vs. Just a thought.

15:12 24 Apr 2003

Over and over we heard about them. They were a reason to both go to war and a reason to not go to war. They were a direct threat, we were told. But an invasion of Iraq risked setting them off in spectacularly destructive ways. There was no way we could fight a conventional military campaign without risking doomsday. Then, when the war started, reports started trickling in, but all were disproved pretty quickly. The massive finds, the headlines, the repercussions. All were empty threats. Now, with the fighting winding down to nearly nothing, not a trace can be found. They existed at one time, it seems, but now we can’t find them. What if they never existed at all? What if we were wrong, or worse, lied to? If they exist, and the threat is real, why can’t we find them? Why haven’t they revealed themselves?

I’m referring, of course, to the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. The waves of terror attacks that our invasion would set off never materialized. We seem to be having trouble tracking them down. But if we can’t find them, they must not have existed, right? We were lied to, right? All to justify a war, right? See? Even if they DO exist, they can’t be much of a threat, can they? Our inability to find them and the fact that they haven’t killed thousands of Americans by now MUST indicate that the threat isn’t real. Right?

Come to think of it, the same argument could be used for another subject in the war against Iraq. I’m referring, of course, to Saddam himself. If he’s really THAT BAD, why haven’t we been able to parade him on the front pages? Maybe he never existed. Maybe he was just a fabrication, or at least an exagerration, to justify the war. He may have been a bad guy at one time, but that was YEARS AGO. We should have given the UN more time. After all, if he was really a problem, we’d have found him already.

Unless they’re all well-hidden, I guess. You know, the same thing could conceivably be applied to chemical weapons, as well.

14:48 24 Apr 2003

The Colorado Avalanche were eliminated Tuesday night by the Minnesota Wild in the NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs. They weren’t shocked and awed, like the Detroit Red Wings, but instead surprised by irregular fighters after the main battle had apparently already died down. “The enemy we’re fighting is a bit different than the one we wargamed against,” Avs owner Stan Kroenke might have said. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The great Western Conference triumverate of Detroit, Colorado, and Dallas were supposed to slug it out against each other. Now two of those three are on the golf course. The Cup should be Dallas’ to lose, but if the veteran, talent-loaded Avs and Wings can get knocked off in the first round, there’s no telling what the weeks ahead may hold.

I don’t know what Detroit’s situation is, but next year might be the last good chance for the Avs. Goalie Patrick Roy has hinted at different times that he’s near the end of his career. Next year is the last on his contract. Peter Forsberg’s contract is up now, and there’s talk that he may be done with the NHL. I doubt that’s the case, and I’m sure the Avs will re-sign him, but how much longer will Peter the Great keep it up? Joe Sakic, Rob Blake, and Adam Foote aren’t exactly young, either. With the possibility of a lock-out after next season, and the probability that some sort of salary cap will be put in place, will it even be mathematically possible to keep teams like the current Avs, Wings, and Stars on the ice? I’m not optimistic.

The Avs have won nine straight divisional titles, which is an NHL record. They should be the favorites again next year. They’ve been to six conference finals in the past eight years, which is incredible. But they only won two of them, although both times they went on to win the Cup. I’ve had the feeling that one day Colorado fans will look back at these years of plenty and wonder why another title or two wasn’t won. There’s always next year, but it may be that last next year where this group of stars has a chance to shine.

20:58 23 Apr 2003

SpaceDaily has a number of good pieces on the space shuttle. One of the most recent discusses the potential ramifications of the findings of the Columbia investigation. There’s a lot of discussion about the workability or unworkability of escape capsules and near the end is this

In short, the Shuttle, as a manned vehicle, remains a flying deathtrap, and very likely there is no workable way to change that fact.

A flying deathtrap. This guy is even less of a shuttle fan than I am. I just think the shuttle is a disappointing waste of money that’s managed to kill off almost every meaningful space program.

Also, after speculation last week that flights may resume by the end of the year, NASA says no shuttle flights until 2004. Exactly how long would it take to reproduce the Saturn V?

Update 23:26 23 Apr 2003

Here’s the offical site of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. I caught part of the hearing on NASA TV (very cool if you don’t mind not ever knowing what’s going to be on) and they posted the link afterwards. It’s pretty dry, but it’s straight from the horse’s mouth.