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Tuesday, February 25, 2003 ( 1:06 PM ) by David Barker Nuckin' Futs. Criminy. Hell is other people. It's almost as if it was a joke, but there's no hook for the humour. Except the sheer stupidity. It might be art, but there's no hint that it's just verisimilitude for the cognoscenti. It's an ampersand-octothorp-at-bang-ing lenticular cloud, for the love of God! Too much time. And internet access. And blue. And not enough brain cells. Free speech, they said. Think for themselves, they said. Information wants to be free, they said. Well, you get what you pay for. Some of the people, all of the time, they said. They were right. Sunday, February 23, 2003 ( 2:12 PM ) by David Barker Thank You, Andy. And Meade. Mostly Andy. Andy sent me the link to the tech specs for the actual telescope we were using. It's really quite a beautiful fusion of technologies; optics, clockwork, metallurgy... I gotta say again, it was very cool. The images still jump into my head at times. To be honest, both planets were little more than white orbs, with discernible but not spectacular features; the bands on Jupiter and the moonshadow, the rings of Saturn, a few each of the moons of both. Definitely not in the same class as the shots you see from NASA's probes. But it was like seeing Comet Hale-Bopp in the sky with my naked eye. It didn't look like much, but just to consider what I'm actually looking at, what it is, where it is, what it's doing and where it's going. Oh, man. Consider the lilies of the field. If that's not too hackneyed. Friday, February 21, 2003 ( 10:53 AM ) by David Barker Thank You, Galileo. And Andy. Mostly Andy I went to dinner at my friends Andy and Christine's last night. Andy just bought a new telescope, a Meade, looks like these guys. Christine has an open dinner every Thursday. Interesting people show up. And me. Well, Andy just got this telescope using part of his late grandmother's legacy. A few years back, with his old telescope, he showed me Jupiter and Saturn which were fairly close together in the sky and quite bright as well. I had never seen the moons of Jupiter or the rings of Saturn with my 'naked' eye before and it was just grand. Last night was even better. Not only could we see the moons of Jupiter again, but I could make out some of the cloud banding on Jupiter and after some prompting from Andy, I saw the shadow of one of the moons on Jupiter's uppermost cloud deck. We had looked at Saturn first and we could see the rings quite clearly, and although I couldn't discern them, two of the other guests could see the Cassini Gap in the rings. (Saturn has moons, too, but none as cool as Jupiter's Europa. Really.) Dinner was a fine roast beef, brussels sprouts (mmm!), carrots and mashed potatoes. Dee-licious. Lotsa fun. And educational. Almost like watching Bill Nye the Science Guy, only you get to have a nice meal too. Sunday, February 16, 2003 ( 3:06 PM ) by David Barker In Memorian, Eddie Daley, 24 Years Old Another Good One Gone... I had the very unpleasant news today that a fellow I saw and spoke to practically every week day was murdered in his mother's apartment last night, stabbed to death by an unknown assailant, maybe a botched robbery or home invasion. I saw the story in the newspaper and recognized the name - or thought I did - until I totally coincidentally saw another acquaintance who confirmed it. I hate those kind of coincidences. His name was Eddy and he thought it was cool when I shaved my head, because he already did his. There was stuff in the article that I didn't know, like he was hoping to become a policeman, that he was trying to move his family out of the neighbourhood. Fine fellow, intelligent, good sense of humour. Would have made a good father some day, I'm sure. He probably even tried to talk the guy out of the robbery or talk him down or something. Go in peace, Eddy. [edited Monday, February 17, 2003] Forget the link. Stupid Sun - as bad as CityTV for stupidity sometimes I swear - appears not to archive their stories. Must check this out. More later. The Toronto Sun story... Saturday, February 15, 2003 ( 12:34 PM ) by David Barker DAreDeVIL Because You Can't Spell 'David' Without It. Went to see Daredevil last night with Reid, Luisa, Michael, Ronnie, and friend Iain. Lotsa fun. Nice Ain't It Cool review of Daredevil. Gradually growing IMDb external reviews page (good and bad) for Daredevil. RTE review, decidedly unfavourable... My insightful comments at Reid's blog. Saturday, February 08, 2003 ( 3:18 PM ) by David Barker Proof That Humans Can Think Too Much And I Don't Just Mean Erich von Däniken and Graham Håncôck Either, I Mean Me, Too A CNN story about the experiments lost in the shuttle tragedy. There were ants on the space shuttle when Homer Simpson went up too. And there was an accident. Nuff said? Nuff said. Friday, February 07, 2003 ( 11:04 AM ) by David Barker A Little Bit Of Clever Can Go A Long Way Let's Just Hope Not Too Far... Hee, hee. I added this to the end of my job history on my Workopolis resume. And I'm going to add it to the others too. CIA - Office of Covert Operations Department of <CENSORED> April 1, <CENSORED> to Oct 31, <CENSORED> -- Task Force on Resume Fraud If you're not laughing go here or here. Monday, February 03, 2003 ( 2:49 PM ) by David Barker And Keeping With The Space Theme Because Life Goes On Here's what some people think about the live action version of the old English TV series Thunderbirds, which as you may know, I loved as a kid. Things went right for the Thunderbirds more often then than not. Nuff said. ( 2:10 PM ) by David Barker Well, Here's My Moral Dilemma Cuz Everyone Should Have One, From Time To Time The Columbia tragedy really got to me. To quote myself, "my life has more woes than 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure"; 9/11 was a shocker and a heartbreaker; a good friend died just over a year ago. I want to know what happened. I want to read about what other people are thinking, feeling and posting about it. But I don't want to read every single little thing like a rubber-necker driving past a car accident. I especially want to find out what happens now to the Space Race - and it's still a race but against ourselves. Yeah, bummer. I just feel like ignoring everything except what friends send me or from reputable sources. But I'm curious. I just hope I'm not morbid. I don't think I mind the appearance of morbidity. After all, my friends know me and those who don't - well. If you have something intelligent, constructive and/or maybe provocative, send it my way If I wasn't an atheist I'd say to you all "God be with you." As it is, go in peace. Ah, Jesus Christ, I hate this kind of thing. [edited 2:33pm EST] Okay, this isn't morbid Sunday, February 02, 2003 ( 4:05 PM ) by David Barker Wil Wheaton And William Gibson On The Shuttle Tragedy - Strange Mindfellows Wheaton - with reader comments. Gibson Apropos of coincidences, my middle name is William. Saturday, February 01, 2003 ( 11:34 AM ) by David Barker The Space Shuttle Columbia, On Shuttle Mission STS-107, Is Lost With All Her Crew. Please, Not Again. Never Again, Please. On reentry today, shortly after 9:00am, the space shuttle Columbia broke up at about 61,000 meters. On seeing the headline on cnn.com, I nearly cried. Here's the developing story from CNN. Here is Andrew Platzer's (a friend of a friend) blog posting from just a few days ago. How long before some terrorist splinter cell of al-Qaeda or Hamas (or the People's United Front for the Liberation of Some But Not All Palestinians) starts claiming credit for this? Especially since there was an Israeli astronaut on board. And what are we going to get from the environmentalists since NASA is warning that any debris (spread over central Texas) might be toxic? Posted Sunday, Feb 2, 2003 Columbia's break-up captured in a National Weather Service weather radar image from Dave's Handsome Radio Log Here's what NASA was front-ending their home-page with as of about 11:30am EST. "NASA STATEMENT ON LOSS OF COMMUNICATIONS WITH COLUMBIA
"Jesus Christ, at this rate, humans will never set foot on Mars. All our fucking eggs in one fucking basket. Shee-yit !!!!!!!" |
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