And American Science Dies a little More

The giant particle accelerator The Tevatron is shutting down 9/30/11 and a great project becomes victim like SETI, to budget cuts and apathy. (and lets man up here...a healthy dose of ignorance maybe? naaaaaaa, America is the greatest country in the world! It would never bend to the unwashed and uneducated! but I digress)

From the Dvice article:

• The Tevatron particle accelerator was one of the most powerful machines ever constructed. When completed in 1983 it's two massive underground rings could power beams of accelerated protons and anti-protons at energies of up to 1 teravolt and smashed them together, pulling pieces of the fabric of our universe out of the resulting subatomic debris.
• The floundering economy and the politicization of science has meant that there's increasing reluctance to fund major research that doesn't have immediate and tangible benefits.....

and what will you say to your grand-children Mr. Senator / Mrs. Representative when they ask why isn't America great any longer humm?

Read the Dvice article here

Returning to Earth Aboard Soyuz

Astronaut and blogger Ron Garan blogs of his experiences aboard the ISS and his return to Earth. Shortly before Garan was to return home he writes:

• (I) had a video-conference from the International Space Station with astronaut Scott Kelly who told me about his experience, his own ride home from the ISS on a Soyuz spacecraft was like.
  

Kelly said and Garan attests to the description of the return flight as:

• plunging over Niagara Falls in a burning barrel

Ron's page describing final preparations for the return aboard the Russian work horse. There are an amazing amount of things that must be done.

Check out his post here

Thanks to Boing Boing for the info

Source Code to Become a Series

Mark Wilson over at About SF writes that The movie Source Code is coming to the small screen as a series. The new series is being developed by Mark Gordon (he was a producer on the film) at ABC Studios and has been sold to CBS, with the pilot being written by Steve Maeda (Lie to Me and Lost). The skinny is that there will be 3 former federal agents who involved in the top-secret program. It really is starting to feel more Quantuum Code ummm I mean Leap. The idea has been pitched and sold to CBS but there is no long term info on who will head up the series or the cast, just the pilot is being considered right at this moment.

How We Play Football in Alabama And Other Short Stories From Doug Hilton

Hey! Regulars to Beam Me Up and the podcast will recognize Doug Hilton. Well, Mr. Hilton just wrote us a short note, of extremely good news. Here ya go...

• My 42-story anthology of short sci-fi stories has been published on amazon kindle for all the world to see. Here’s a link to the book in the Kindle store:
• How We Play Football in Alabama And Other Short Stories From Doug's World
  
• Here is the link to the book HERE

Cover art and interior illustrations are by Richard H. Fay.

The title story is very funny. If you are interested in a taste of Doug's writing can log to the Beam Me Up podcast episode 246 for his cover story How We Play Football in Alabama

Beam Me Up Episode 280 now online

his week on episode 280 of Beam Me Up I start off with a funny track from Star Wars Fan Girl called the Star Wars Blu-Ray rap! Once again fans are up in arms with George’s ‘tweaks’ to the Star Wars Universe.

The first story this week is a tale for all the world in the same universe as Firefly. But even if not, Good Business with Guns from Devin Miller, is a fun telling of the Empires outer fringe worlds and how everything old is new again and in boarder towns, as is often the case, a person’s reputation is maintained at the business end on a gun. Our reader for this story is Ron Huber who always adds his own spin to everything he reads.

Our second story was written and read by C.J. Wolf titled After Hours at the Black hole. Often when you throw something away, you would rather it not reappear and certainly not at the worst of times. C.J. Wolf puts a whole new spin on “the trash man” with deviating effect!

From the blog

The Blu-ray movie disk is on tap this week as a review is the film “Source Code” directed by Duncan Jones and starring Jake Gyllenhaal Michelle Monaghan Scott Bakula. Kind of a retelling of the classic science fiction theme. Around the World in 63 Seconds From the ISS A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. Stunning pics of Vesta from Dawn and musing as to what exactly happened when the UARS burned in.

That’s this week’s program, last in September. Next week starts my favorite month. See you then.

UARS incomming!

Friday afternoon is the latest for the NASA Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) will fall to Earth. No info yet where, but "certain" North America is not a "target"

Here is a YouTube video I found on IO9 showing the orbital path.

Vesta from Dawn

This image obtained by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta. The video below is a series of photos built up from the same framing camera on Dawn. These images will go a long way towards helping scientists determine the processes that formed Vesta's striking features. As the film shows, Vesta has a massive impact event recorded in the southern hemisphere as well as striking formation of ridges running around the equator of the asteroid. These images were obtained when Dawn was about 1,700 miles above Vesta's surface. Later this year, most likely in October, NASA plans to have Dawn lower it's orbital height to gain even higher resolution photographs.

The Star Wars Blu-Ray Rap by Fan Girl

Yep, Here you go, the Star Wars Blu-Ray Rap. You know you want to listen, you HAVE to listen!

From YouTube via Dvice - Fan Girl raps on George's latest "creation" It lives! Bwwaaaaaaaahahahaha!

Around the World in 63 Seconds From the ISS

A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica. Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, El Salvador, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Lake Titicaca, and the Amazon. Also visible is the earths ionosphere (thin yellow line), a satellite (55sec) and the stars of our galaxy.

There is a smoother version on this same page but some of the graphics are missing, and yes the thunder storms are just plain amazing!

Review: Source Code

Source Code

Directed by Duncan Jones

Starring

Jake Gyllenhaal as Colter Stevens
Michelle Monaghan as Christina Warren
Vera Farmiga as Colleen Goodwin
Jeffrey Wright as Dr. Rutledge
Cas Anvar as Hazmi
Russell Peters as Max Denoff
Michael Arden as Derek Frost
Scott Bakula as Donald Stevens, Colter's father (Voice cameo)



One moment Army helicopter pilot Colter Stevens is on a mission in Afghanistan and the next he is on a train with a young woman facing him from the seat across from his telling him she took his advice.

After asking several questions to help him figure out what is going on, only to get more confused, Stevens sequesters himself in the rest-room of the car to get his bearings only to find a stranger peering out of the mirror (aka Quantum Leap). His identification says that he is Sean Fentress, a school teacher.

When he exits the rest room, he is confronted by the woman in the facing seat, Christina Warren. As he slowly gains info concerning his new identity, the train explodes and Colter
finds himself now inside a tight, dim capsule with an insistent woman’s voice asking him inane yet unsettling questions.

1. Stevens, it would seem, has been recruited by a mysterious government project called, Beleaguered Castle and Colter himself is in a device called “Source Code” which allows the user to experience the last 8 minutes of someone else’s life. All of this explained to him by Air Force Captain Colleen Goodwin, whom it would seem is Colter’s only connection with the outside world.

From here on out, Stevens relives Fentress’ last eight minutes of life over and over as he tries to identifying who blew up the train even though Goodwin insists that it can not be done, because it is in the past and can not there for be altered.

Source code has a very Quantum Leap feel, or maybe even ground hog day, but being a big budget big screen movie you have very little of the personal human touches that Dean and Scott brought to the project. Source Code, maybe because of it’s eight minute window, is frenetic and often violent, and at times often ill timed preachy and opinionated. The camera angles and movement are often mimicking the movements of the actors head and eyes from their point of view. On a home screen this trick isn’t as noticeable but on the big screen, I bet it was unsettling.

I won’t give away any important ah ha! moments or the ending, but they are not quite what you would imagine.

Now the extras are fairly run of the mill, but at least we have some. For the director track, the director is joined by Jake Gyllenhaal who played Colter Stevens and they do a good job of getting their ideas across. It’s the rest of the extras I have a bit of an issue with. You see the interviews and scientific comments as well as history and classical (and not so classical) volumes are laid out in such a way that you must play the movie with some or all turned on or off. If you are clever enough you can have one or two playing with your first viewing. (I really hate that! I want my first view to be as close to theater as I can get it) and the balance with the second viewing which would say be the director’s comments. This of course would sully one view and have way to much interference on the second. So if you are like me, you have to watch the movie 3 times. First time clean, second time director’s comments and finally the science info, book and movie info and Chicago history. So you can imagine that third viewing becomes a bit tedious (I almost passed on it and I wait for the blu-ray FOR the info!) So I can only give the extras a 7 because they are VERY informative and a great director’s comments, overall it is even more tedious than the Adjustment Bureau .

So score....because it isn’t QUITE the run of the mill ending and the fact that someone had the cajoles not to make a chase me, chase me some more - movie and not pound us over the head with special effects and cgi 8.5. Extras that were difficult to use and read but really informative
7.5 gives the movie blu-ray an overall 16 and a final movie review of 8.

Beam Me Up Episode 279 now online

Fast moving and plenty of stuff this week on Beam Me Up episode 279.

I start things off with one of the fast pieces of music for the animated series Naruto Shippuden Syoujo by Scandal.

In this week’s blog, it seems everyone is talking about the star system discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope. One planet but two sun which brings to mind almost immediately the Star Wars World Tatooine! Everything from a ghost planet to a frozen -100 degree world was bandied about.

The Russian resupply crash was caused by a clogged fuel line in the third stage engine of the Soyuz rocket. This particular fuel line was driving a turbo pump that pumps fuel into the main combustion chamber, so when the pump failed, the third stage shut down. However knowing the cause and getting back on track for a crew change in early November a tall order at best.

Hey, did you ever see James Cameron's "The Abyss"? It still rates right up there as one of my all time favorite science fiction movies and not for the end, because the end was a cop out and a sell out and didn't come within a row of assholes of making sense, but up to that point wow, it's Alien only underwater where EVERYTHING kills you! The reason there was never a remake or part two? No one would go back for a remake. Well I found this series of “the making of” on the movie “The Abyss” and if you never saw the movie you don’t know what you missed and if you did, then check out the “making of” because it is fascinating!

NASA has a newheavy-lift launch vehicle that they say will provide an entirely new national capability for human exploration beyond Earth's orbit. The Space Launch System will give the nation a safe, affordable and sustainable ….hummm I heard that somewhere before...

Up for discussion is five possible ways time travel may work.... the functional word here is MAY because I seriously doubt WILL.

And for our story this week. Part 2 and the conclusion to Adam-Troy Castro’s wonderful and controversial “ Arvies”

Kepler Discovers Tatooine?

From the Boing Boing blog I see where the Kepler Space Telescope has discovered Tatooine! Yep, well almost. One planet orbiting two stars!!! Now there is something I bet you never thought you would read in print...well as news at least!

Studies of Kepler 16b continue to turn up strange and unusual items. Recent articles noted that 16b had very strange orbital dynamics which expressed itself as orbits of varying speeds. It was thought that the anomalies might be an unseen "ghost" planet. However the truth might be even weirder. The unseen companion may be a very dim star with 16b in orbit with it and the main star in the system. 16b of course would be no Tatooine. Even orbiting as close to the primary as it does, (orbiting as close to it's sun as Venus orbits our sun) because both stars are so dim that instead of being a hot desert world like Tatooine, it would instead be in permanent arctic like conditions. If 16b had a solid surface, temperatures there would be a bone chilling -100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cause of Russian Progress Crash Determined

This recent Device article reports that A Russian investigatory commission has discovered that the crash. There was some worry that worry was that a design flaw might be the cause. The commission's findings point instead to something almost as bad. A manufacturing fault.

From the article:

• (The crash was) caused by a clogged fuel line in the third stage engine of the Soyuz rocket. This particular fuel line was driving a turbo pump that pumps fuel into the main combustion chamber, so when the pump failed, the third stage shut down...

This is still a bit problematic. The question is, can we trust the manufacture and assembly infrastructure will be up to the task of finding just where the part failure crept in? The Russian space agency has promised to launch another resupply module and launch some of the backlog of satellites to prove that the Soyuz rockets are still safe before they send up another manned mission to the ISS. But having this all happen before the mid November cutoff deadline for keeping the ISS manned is going to be a tall order.

Making of the Abyss

Hey, did you ever see James Cameron's "The Abyss"? I know this is horribly dated, but I am willing to bet to this day there has not been a movie made that matches the scale or technical difficulty that this movie took to make. It still rates right up there as one of my all time favorite science fiction movies and not for the end, because the end was a cop out and a sell out and didn't come within a row of assholes of making sense, but up to that point wow, it's Alien only underwater where EVERYTHING kills you! The reason there was never a remake or part two? No one would go back for a remake.

So anyway, here is part one of six. If you have not seen this making of and liked the movie...do yourself a favor and watch this.

Animation of NASA's Space Launch System

From the NASA site is a short animation of the proposed Space Launch System.

As the site states:
>an advanced heavy-lift launch vehicle that will provide an entirely new national capability for human exploration beyond Earth's orbit. The Space Launch System will give the nation a safe, affordable and sustainable means of reaching beyond our current limits and opening up new discoveries from the unique vantage point of space.

Check out the animation here

Five Day Forcast?

No, I am not hawking for Snorgtees but I just had to put this graphic up that you can get on a tee. Thanks to Xnewsman for the mood lifter!

5 Time Travel Theories That Could Still Be Possible

From Device is this list of still "possible" time travel theories that might be possible. What do you think?

1. The Einstein-Rosen Bridge

• From the movie Contact, Eleanor Arroway is whisked through long conduits that bridge the enormous distances between points in space, to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, we find that this is a VERY popular ftl theory.
  
• Traveling through these conduits, you're essentially traveling forward in time at a rate which would be the ratio between the length of the wormhole and the actual distance in real space.

2. Travel by Self Hypnosis

• If particles such as photons exhibit wave like tendencies, and — according to quantum theory — those patterns can be interfered with by particles in another quantum universe — could brain waves, as well?
  

(all aboard the starship B.S. editor)

3. Traveling through "Quantum Foam"

• Technology would convert a person down to a quantum data stream and then projects them to a specific, calculated target through quantum universes in holes in what is called "quantum foam" (which) is the theoretical, irregular arrangement of quantum disturbances at the subatomic level.
  

(volunteers to be blasted to the sub-atomic level please.....editor)

4. Particles and Waves

• Theory has it that particles such as photons exhibit wave-particle duality in which all particles exhibit wave-like properties and vice-verse at the quantum level. Based on this theory, radio waves, at the quantum level, could theoretically interfere with the quantum reality of another universe......

5. Travel by TARDIS (or and now for some complete b.s.)

• Inside the Doctor Who universe: All Galifreyan time capsules draw energy from the Eye of Harmony, which is the harnessed energy of an exploding star. The Eye, can be described as existing both on Galifrey and at the heart of each time capsule. This tremendous energy moves the TARDIS through the "Time Vortex,"

I think until someone calls B.S. on this one I guess it's theoretically possible.

Complete DVICE article

SfFy's Eureka canceled...Eureka NM Is Go!

Yep, you read that right. SyFy has canceled Eureka but that hasn't dampened the enthusiasm that Bob Brumley, the chief executive officer of Pegasus Global Holdings, has for Eureka....Eureka New Mexico that is.

This according to Mike Hinman writing for the Airlock Alpha blog. Brumley wants to invest $200 million to build a town on 20 square miles of land that he will call "The Center." It will be the model of a future city, completely self-sustaining with environmentally friendly technology. The new town will even be used as a place for scientists to live, experiment and test their innovations.

From the article:

• A final site hasn't been chosen yet for The Center, but New Mexico's governor is working rather closely with Pegasus Global to finalize the deal and get construction underway.

"Ghost" Planet Discovered

Now here is something VERY weird. NASA using the Kepler Space Telescope have located an planet that defies the laws of physics. Kepler 19-b circles its' sun in an orbit that should for all intents and purposes be impossible. Kepler 19-b speeds up and slows down its orbit for no apparent reason!

From the article:

• (Kepler 19-b) completes one orbit every nine days and seven hours. (But here is where the problem appears) sometimes it will complete the orbit five minutes faster than it should, and other times it will be five minutes slow.
• The explanation for this ... anomaly is the presence of a ... companion planet. (However no one has yet found) any direct sign of this planet, designated Kepler-19c. That makes this invisible exoplanet the first ever that is only known from its gravitational effect on another planet.
  

Centers for Astrophysics article

"Ghosts With *&^% Jobs

From IO9 I find this short film about the future of the US' economy. Ghosts With Shit Jobs, a mockumentary about the crap gigs of 2040 AD



Ghosts with shit jobs web site

Beam Me Up Episode 278 now online

This week on Beam Me Up, episode 278 I play part one of Adam Troy-Castro’s amazing short story “Arvies”. Adam’s tale flips our assumptions of what is true or false or what is alive or dead. What is a person and what is not.

From the Beam Me Up blog

I play the new Symphony of Science music, which features the voices of Morgan Freeman,, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking among others.

Next I review the Disney CGI animation Tangled which all in all the best thing that can be said about the movie is that it may not take any chances, but is endearing in its own right. Plus the added benefit of high quality animation only adds to the enjoyment.

Next, From the NYT via Boing Boing comes evidence of the earliest tool manufacture. From the science journal Nature, tools from Kenya that were dated to about 1.7 million years ago. This is the earliest found so far.

Astronomers are studying the nearest and brightest supernova of of a type that has not been observed for 40 years.

A recent study suggests that super-massive black holes can trigger the formation of stars, thus 'building' their own host galaxies. This could also explain why galaxies hosting larger black holes have more stars.

NASA's 6.5-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite will be re-entering Earth's atmosphere in what NASA has described as "an uncontrolled fall" sometime in late September or early October.

Was there ever an Apollo 18? Well technically...yes. In July 1975 there was indeed an Apollo mission. It was the last Apollo mission and the last manned US space mission until the first Space Shuttle flight in April 1981. This last mission was called the ASTP and it was the first joint U.S./Soviet space flight.

Antipodean's September 2011 issue, #159 is now online.

and finally Photos taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of Apollo 12, 14 and 17 have proved to be some of the sharpest ever taken of the landing sites. Even experiment packages can clearly be seen!

Most Detailed Photos of Apollo Landing Sites Taken

Photos taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of Apollo 12, 14 and 17 have proved to be some of the sharpest ever taken of the landing sites.

Photos taken of the Apollo LEM's landing sites, from an altitude as high as 15 miles, clearly show the astronaut's paths as well as the tracks of the Luna "buggy". Experts in Apollo hardware can even identify the PLISS (portable life support system) backpack worn by every astronaut who ventured onto the Luna surface. (due to weight restrictions of the accent module, the packs could not be recovered)

NASA site

Thanks to Dan for the heads up.

Was There Every an Apollo 18?

No you say? Just some science fiction movie maker's fever dream! Well as Xnewsman points out that if we want to get very literal there was indeed an Apollo 18 flight.

In July 1975 there was indeed an Apollo mission. It was the last Apollo mission and the last manned US space mission until the first Space Shuttle flight in April 1981.

This last mission was called the ASTP and it was the first joint U.S./Soviet space flight.

From the WIKI

• The mission included both joint and separate scientific experiments (including an engineered eclipse of the Sun by Apollo to allow Soyuz to take photographs of the solar corona) and provided useful engineering experience for future joint US/Russian space flights, such as the Shuttle–Mir Program and the International Space Station.

Ultimately though it's main purpose was symbolic; the ASTP was a symbol of that the two superpowers were trying to get along. But it did prove useful to understanding how the two very dissimilar systems could be harnessed to work together.

It was also the only space flight taken by one of the original Mercury 7 astronaut candidates. Deke Slaton was removed from consideration early in the Mercury selection due to a heart irregularity. Not to say that there still wasn't some politics going on. Jack Swigert was removed as a crew member for just such political reasons. I would suggest looking up the Apollo 15 stamp scandal.

Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite Will Soon Visit Lower Atmosphere

NASA's 6.5-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite will be re-entering Earth's atmosphere in what NASA has described as "an uncontrolled fall" (don't you just love these euphemisms?) — but precisely when and where the satellite will re-enter remains a mystery. (excuse me but is this not the very nature of an uncontrolled fall?)

It is a bit too early to say with any accuracy where or what exactly will come down. There is little doubt that some of the satellite will make landfall sometime between late September and early October.

From the article:

• Much of the satellite which measures 35 feet long and 15 feet wide, is expected to burn up in Earth's atmosphere, but at least one computer analysis has predicted that as many as 26 components — weighing in at a total of over 1100 pounds — will actually break atmosphere and make landfall, falling within an estimated debris footprint length of 500 miles.

Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite article

Which Came First - The Black Hole or the Galaxy?

You know, if this question had been put to me before, i would have said the galaxy. I was under the impression that galaxies grew like the solar system where the material that made up the solar system grew together and slowly formed and compressed until Sol began fusing blowing the remaining material out to form the planets. that was until I read this article in the Daily Galaxy.

From the article:

• A recent study suggests that super-massive black holes can trigger the formation of stars, thus 'building' their own host galaxies.
• (this) could also explain why galaxies hosting larger black holes have more stars.

A team of astronomers came to this unusual conclusion by observing quasar HE0450-2958, the "naked quasar" or "homeless" quasar. It gained that designation by not appearing to have a host galaxy. Astronomers to this point thought that the quasar's galaxy was hidden behind large amounts of dust. But using a near infra-red observatory (dust glows brightly under near infra-red) they found no associated dust clouds. However a near by galaxy with dust clouds was making start at a staggering rate!

Antipodean SF September 2011 issue, #159

Antipodean's September 2011 issue, #159 is now online. Antipodean's focus is mostly Australian flash fiction.

The current issue includes:

Lewis Boathaven by Wes Parish
Equality 2.0 by M. Jordan
Silence is Golden by Stuart Bennington
Housebreaking by Stephen L. Thompson
Mistress by Theron Fairchild
Doctor Atomic by Shaun A. Saunders
The System by Jamie Richter
Conditioning Therapy by Kevin J. Phyland
The Kiss by Kate Roediger
Adoption by Harris Tobias

Brightest Supernova in 40 Years Observed

Astronomers are studying the nearest and brightest supernova of of a type that has not been observed for 40 years.

Discovered in the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101, a spiral galaxy a mere 21 million light years away, located in the constellation Ursa Major, better known as the big dipper.

From the article:

• The supernova, dubbed PTF11kly, is still getting brighter, and the team's best guess is that it might even be visible with good binoculars for days.

Wiki article

Science Digest


Thanks to Dan for bringing this to my attention

New Symphony of Science video out now!

"The Quantum World"
A musical investigation into the nature of atoms and subatomic particles, the jiggly things that make up everything we see. Featuring Morgan Freeman, Frank Close, Michio Kaku, Brian Cox, Richard Feynman, and Stephen Hawking.

Oldest Tools Pushed Back to 1.7+ Million Years

From the NYT via Boing Boing comes evidence of the earliest tool manufacture. From the science journal Nature, tools from Kenya that were dated to about 1.7 million years ago. This is the earliest found so far. Previous estimates ranged from 1.4 million to 1.6 million years ago.

A skull belonging to Homo erectus was excavated last year from the same sediment level suggesting that this species of pre-humans was responsible for the tool manufacture.

What makes the find even more amazing is the type of tools uncovered. The oval and pear-shaped hand tools are refer to as Acheulean technology. Tools that were sophisticated displayed signs of symmetry, uniformity and planning - a specialty of early humans.

The strata from which these tool types were uncovered in, (1.7 million years ago) often contain artifacts from an earlier and simpler technology or Oldowan artifacts which were tools mainly made up of sharp stone flakes and roughly worked rock cores. Finding the two tool types side by side was a bit unsettling, but technologies that were not mutually exclusive.

What has not been reasoned out yet is whether the technology was imported from somewhere else or originated from Oldowan toolmakers in the area.

Wiki article on Acheulean NYT article

Review: Tangled

Tangled

Starring
Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murph

Runtime 100 minutes

Tangled is a CGI masterpeice from Disney Studios. It is also their 50th animated feature length movie. Tangled is for all intents a loosely based retelling ot the German fairy tale "Rapunzel" by the Brothers Grimm.

The plot really doesn’t take any chances. The king’s wife is ill. It is known that there is a flower in the kingdom that has great curative properties. So the king sends out to his subjects that the flower must be found. The flower however is jealously hoarded by Gothel who uses it to keep herself young for years. However the flower is found and it is used to cure the queen. It comes to pass that the sovereigns are gifted with a baby girl with shockingly golden hair. Gothel not to be robbed of what she feels is hers alone comes to the child’s bedside to steal the hair from the child, knowing that it must have the same properties as the flower because they were both bright and gold as the sun. Upon cutting a lock the hair changes from golden to brown and loses all magical properties. Seeing this Gothel kidnaps the baby Rapunzel and sequesters her in a tall tower where she never leaves. Gothel never allows her to cut her hair and uses it as she used the flower to stay young.

From here the plot progresses to her meeting a young thief who she bribes into escorting her to the city to see the lights that appear only on her birthday. The thief is pretty much standard Disney fair. A bit of mild bad boy with a good heart. And of course he is being chased and of course he is betrayed and of course she is lead to believe that he cares not for her. Which of course does a 180 in the movie as needed. Of course there are no loose ends, everybody get what they secretly want and the evil people are eliminated in the most bloodless way possible. Happy happy happy.

As much as I would love to trash this movie I can’t. Disney shows that it can still compete and do it strikingly well against the other large animation houses. This feature set a new standard and holds some records in CGI. Rapunzel’s hair has 10,000 separate pieces of animation. The movie holds a record for the largest cgi crowd scene at 3000 different cgi actors. The much talked about Chinese lantern scene contains a stunning 45,000 animated floating lanterns! The lighting as well as the texture mapping are a feast for the eyes.

So all in all the movie may not take any chances, it is endearing in its own right. Plus the added benefit of high quality animation only adds to the enjoyment. Over all I would give the movie an 8 losing only to a plain vanilla plot. The extras are pretty much non existent. Mandy Moore, and Zachary Levi, spend a few moments giving you a run down on what makes the movie special, there are some out takes and that is about it so extras are a 5, which pulls the movie down lower that it deserves so I will give it an overall 7. Remember I am rating a dvd/blu-ray which is supposed to be better for graphics and the amount of data they can cram. That being said the movie is good simplistic fare, but don't waste your time on the extras.

BMU # 277 Online

In Beam Me Up episode 277 we take on Labor Day weekend by doing as little as possible!
This week’s program came out fine though. I start of with y John Anealio doing Summer Glau.

Then for our first story which this week is episode 16 of the ongoing saga of the Dark InSpectre series by Jason Kahn. This week find inspector Garrett following clues and a psychic scream to locations that offer little advantage to our inspector. We find him in the worst of places, knowing even worse things. Things that others would kill to prevent from ever seeing the light of day.

The final story is part four and the conclusion to Keith Latch’s ‘The Stars Fell’. Sophie’s life now smothering unhappiness. With the loss of her entire family has taken away her reason for living or any reason TO live. It had been three weeks since the accident and she had hardly left her bed, but now, something strange had happened, she had been drawn outside by the most unusual occurrence….. The Stars were Falling……

In blog and other articles….from Earth / Sky a short article on the status of Cern antimatter containment, Dan drops in this month’s sky based occurrences, I read off the things to look for from the third to the tenth of September.

In the blog, Located about an eighth of the way toward the center of the Milky Way from the Earth is the strangest planet….one made of diamonds! ISS Crews NASA and Russian mission control are all holding their collective breathes as technicians try to uncover the cause of the Progress supply ship malfunction. If it can not be uncovered then the ISS will have to be abandoned as there is now no other system ready to lift crew to the station. In what has to be a WTF moment…. Chinese scientists are studying ways to capture an asteroid and bring it into Earth orbit! Why? There’s money in them thar asteroids! Especially metallic based asteroids.
Xnewsman sends in a link to a you-tube video concerning computer banking as predicted in 1969 and you know, they got a lot right! Chat-bots are often used as Web chat support agents to help you solve basic problems. When they are interacting with a person, they seem very strange as they converse in an almost lifelike fashion – but you have got to see what happens when two of these things are hooked up to talk to one another! I play the audio and it is plain rib cracking funny! And finally – Rover Opportunity, in the seventh year of it’s 90 day mission has arrived at the Martian crater Endeavour to help researchers understand ‘compositional differences’ of the rocks surrounding the crater. Crater Endeavour is much larger than the last one visited by Opportunity, which was the Victoria crater.

Opportunity Studying 14 Mile Wide Martian Crater

Rover Opportunity, in the seventh year of it's 90 day mission has arrived at the Martian crater Endeavour. The rover's first mission is to study 'compositional differences' of the rocks surrounding the crater. Differences that the rover has not come across in the seven years on Mars. Opportunity drove about 13 miles from it's last crater of exploration, Victoria to reach Endeavour. Victoria was only about a quarter of the size of Endeavour.

Another point of interest is that Opportunity has driven 20.8 miles since landing on Mars. It has been in operation 30 times longer than it was designed to.

Though some scientist have called the findings in error, Both both rovers made discoveries suggesting a wet environments on ancient Mars.

From the article:

• NASA will launch its next-generation Mars rover, Curiosity, between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011. It will land on Mars in August 2012.

read complete Science Daily article here

Chatbot Weirdness!

Chatbots are often used as Web chat support agents to help you solve basic problems. When they are interacting with a person, they seem eery as they converse in an almost lifelike fashion. Researchers with a bit too much free time on their hands wanted to know what would happen if you connected two Chatbots together so they could talk to one another. The results was something even the researchers has not expected. Watch what happens.

The Future of Banking from the BBC in 1969

Here the BBC from 1969, suggest banking and purchasing in the future. They got a lot right but failed to see how ubiquitous the system could and did become. Mainly because it became so much easier to install in any business environment and also the size and relative cost of the computer equipment needed to keep these type of records.




Thanks to Xnewsman for the article