I managed to take this photo of Jupiter by holding my Sony DSC-T1 digicam up to the eyepiece of my Telescope. Not bad, if I do say so myself (and in comparison to my past attempts!).
If you look very closely (try clicking on the image to get the full-rez version), you can see a blurry moon (of Jupiter) to the left.
Here's a shot of the Moon (Earth’s Moon):
I got spam from California High Speed Trains identifying me as a business leader (clearly I’m on a mailing list somewhere). The information on the website is sketchy. It’s really just trying to convince visitors that high-speed rail is a good idea.
But I’m watching a video produced by KQED Quest. From what I can gather, they are not planning to build the awesome maglev train used in Shanghai. It looks like conventional electric rail, with a supply wire hung above the track. The video also shows more conventional trains running on the same tracks. In all, pretty lame.
The Shanghai Maglev technology (developed by Transrapid) is superior in every way. The track is typically slightly elevated, preventing wildlife from having their habitats cut in half. It needs no structure above the track, making it much more attractive. It’s much quieter, because there is no mechanical contact between the train and track. For this reason, the ride is also smoother, and faster (430 km/h vs. 354 km/h for the proposed system; the maximum design speed is 550 km/h).
Japan also has a maglev train, but their approach is different. The trains must roll on wheels until reaching a critical speed, and require more power. It also requires superconducting electromagnets.
The California project is expected to require $42 billion and take 12 years to implement. It’s a pity it won’t be state-of-the-art when complete.
Earlier I discovered a post on Gizmodo telling me how to download the 2.0 release and manually install it. After a harrowing 30 minutes while I feared I was going to lose my photos and notes, and another 15 minutes syncing all my music & videos, I finally got it all back to where it was. (Note: be sure to back up your phone first. If you manually update it, the backup and restore doesn’t happen. The Backup command has moved to a contextual menu on the iPhone in the left column.)
I grabbed a couple of free iPhone apps, and installed them. Then I bought a few more apps, and when I tried to sync, iTunes reported errors like:
The application "Poker" could not be installed because the application could not be found.
Huh. I figured it was because there was not enough free room, but after deleting The Incredibles and trying again, I kept getting the same error.
I finally decided to power-cycle the phone, and quit & relaunch iTunes. As I write this, I’m watching the sync progress. It seems to be working. Not sure what the actual problem was.
I’ve decided to convert my old motorcycle to electric. This involves ripping out all the gas-related parts, and putting in an electric motor, batteries, and associated control electronics to make it all work. I’ve started a new blog for the project, go check it out:
Updated 2009-10-22: I added a step after a great new “I Love xkcd†video was posted.
Follow these steps (even if you seen some of this before):
I Love xkcd from NoamR on Vimeo.
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Not all Americans suck.
