Why is it that we find no end of forgiveness from God but can barely find any beginning of forgiveness from His followers?
Monday, June 14, 2010
Witness the fiery re-entry of the HAYABUSA probe over Australia
Remember when the Mir space station came crashing and burning out of the sky nine years ago? I was watching that on TV and among friends we jokingly quoted Kirk's line from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: "My God Bones. What have I done?"
Well, this ain't the flaming destruction of a space vessel for once. This is the atmospheric re-entry of the HAYABUSA Asteroid Explorer mission, videoed from a NASA DC-8 over Australia. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched HAYABUSA in 2003. A few years later it landed on the asteroid Itokawa. Then HAYABUSA scooped up some samples and made the five-year journey back to Earth, using a high-tech ion engine to return its precious cargo.
The capsule containing the asteroid samples has been located at its calculated arrival point in western Australia (gotta love mathematics aye?). And soon the asteroid rocks and dust will be in laboratories undergoing analysis.
That is about as successful a space mission as I have ever heard of in any recent memory. Congrats to JAXA and the HAYABUSA crew on a job well done!
Introducing the solar-powered lightbulb
Nokero, a company in Hong Kong, has developed a solar-powered lightbulb with an eye toward markets in developing countries. The N100 solar LED lightbulb "is about the size of a standard incandescent bulb and has four small solar panels in its rainproof plastic housing. Five LEDs and a replaceable NiMH battery inside provide up to four hours of light when the device is fully charged. People hang it outside during the day and then turn it on at night." According to the company, using the lightbulb around the equator will give it a better charge than those in more northern or southerly latitudes. The LEDs are said to last 50,000 to 100,000 hours while the solar panels are good for 10 years.
One bulb is $15. But for $480 you get 48 bulbs.
A solar-powered lightbulb. Truly we live in the age of wonders! :-P
New trailer for STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC
Star Wars: The Old Republic is looking so good that I have quietly but seriously wondered if this is going to be a real video game at all. What if it's just a front for a "covert operation" by George Lucas to sow the ground on a fertile part of the Star Wars mythology that hasn't been done yet? So far we've seen Star Wars: The Old Republic trailers, online comics, extensive bios and background material, at least two hardcover novels to be released later this year...
What if Star Wars: The Old Republic is like what Shadows of the Empire was in 1996: everything that comes with marketing a video game, without an actual game?
(Look, Star Wars conspiracy theories are few and far between. Indulge me a bit willya? :-)
But while we're waiting for the game itself to materialize on store shelves, BioWare and LucasArts have just released a new Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer at E3 2010. Check it out!
Dang. That looks as good as anything we've seen in a live-action Star Wars flick. Maybe even better. Dare we hope for a CGI-rendered Episodes VII-IX someday?
If Lucas writes it and gives it to BioWare to animate, I'd buy a ticket for that (something I didn't even do for the Star Wars: Clone Wars theatrical release).
Sunday, June 13, 2010
THE KING AND I: 5 days until opening night (I've got a new role!)
We spent seven hours almost nonstop (braking only for a dinner break) on the technical rehearsal for The King and I this afternoon and evening! Considering that we had been told this could have gone into 10 p.m. and beyond, it went better than expected. This was sort of a "rough cut" of the full performance: with the exception of costumes and makeup, we go through everything in the show with all the props and set pieces etc. It's mostly to get the lighting and sound all right, but also to make fine adjustments on actors' blocking and such. So we scheduled for plenty of time today to get it all straightened out.
One thing that was a new experience for me is that today was the first time in four shows that I was fitted for a wireless microphone. Feels like I'm in the real big leagues now!
And I've wound up with one additional role - albeit one that will go uncredited - for this performance. What is it? Hmmm... don't wanna say here, but for those of you who know me fairly well and who might remember how long it took for me to learn how to whistle, you might appreciate this especially :-P
Five more days 'til the curtain opens for the first time. Tomorrow night: our first dress rehearsal! And having seen what some of the actors look like in makeup already, I am becoming increasingly curious about what I'll look like as a man of Siam :-)
The King and I plays this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Rockingham County High School. Click here to visit Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's website for more information.
Friday, June 11, 2010
The World Cup starts today!
The World Cup kicked off today in South Africa. Let's hear it for soccer!
I have nothing else to say. The only reason I made this post is because if made one about "World Cup" and included the words "soccer" and "sports" and "South Africa" and probably also "Uruguay" and "Argentina" and "Spain" and "Belgium" (can't forget our good friends in Belgium... yeah hey to you too Benny) then The Knight Shift blog is no doubt going to get slammed with a wazoo of hits during the next 72 hours or so :-P
Seriously though: good luck to everyone!
(And lest y'all think I'm completely clueless about the World Cup, I'll have y'all know that I not only watched the Three Tenors in Concert live during the World Cup in 1994, but I'm also a proud owner of the CD too!)
THE KING AND I: 7 days until opening night
Exactly seven days from now, Yours Truly and dozens of others will be going through a five-step makeup process to make us look Asian. An hour and a half later the curtain opens on Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of The King and I.
Between now and then lies "Tech Week": where all the wires and cables and lights and plugs and whatnot get set about and we run through this show full-strength a few times, on the lookout for "wardrobe malfunctions" and any other problems that might present themselves in the run-up to Opening Night.
Here's some of the set that the crew has put together...
Looks like something out of a Persian bordello, aye? That's the King's dais (which if you come to the show, you will see me perched on in Act I, Scene 2 :-)
Costume fittings were this morning. I got to try on my attire for the role of Phra Alack. I'm gonna look like either a Scottish Liberace, or the glitziest royal court eunuch ever. The getup that I'll be wearing for the "Small House of Uncle Thomas" ballet scene was still... ummm... being worked upon. All I really know for sure is that I'll look like a ninja. Make of that what you will.
Everyone is totally jazzed about this show! Lots of good people have been working for the past two months and more to make this happen and it's really been something to see it all come together during the past couple of weeks. We know it's gonna be awesome and we hope that you'll be able to come and enjoy the show! Click here to visit the Theatre Guild website for more information.
MONSTERPOCALYPSE to reteam Tim Burton with John August?
That's the word from no less an authority than DreamWorks Studios' website. We heard a few weeks ago that a big-screen feature based on the board game Monsterpocalypse was in very early production. That John August might be getting attached already (he previously wrote the screenplays for Burton's films Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride) suggests considerably more movement afoot than we might have previously thought.
In the meantime however, those clever and industrious folks at Team Covenant have put together this jaw-dropping fan-made trailer for a Monsterpocalypse movie. It premiered at MonCon 2010 in Tulsa a few weeks ago and it totally captures and conveys the atmosphere of Monsterpocalypse!
Well done, Team Covenant! And dear reader: if you'd like to share this with others (you know you wanna) please point 'em to MonsterpocalypsetheMovie.com (easy to remember aye? :-)
Psychologists determine Darth Vader suffered from mental illness
According to the study which will soon be published in the journal Psychiatry Research, Darth Vader was examined per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSMV IV). Of the nine borderline personality disorder criteria, Anakin/Vader fulfilled six of them. Five are required by the DSMV IV to be diagnosed as suffering from the disorder.
From the article...
For instance, the future Darth Vader showed both impulsivity and anger management issues as an overexcited, lovelorn Jedi. He went back and forth between idealizing and devaluing Jedi mentors, such as a humorless young Obi-Wan Kenobi.So Darth Vader has issues. Geez... ya think?!? I thought that was pretty obvious, personally.Abandonment issues also surfaced. Skywalker had a permanent fear of losing his wife, Padme Amidala, and he went so far as to betray his Jedi mentors and companions to try to prevent her death.
Two displays of dissociative episodes took place when Skywalker tried to distance himself from stressful events. The first episode took place after he slaughtered a local tribe of Tuskens responsible for his mother's death. A second episode occurred following his murderous rampage among young Jedi trainees, as he voiced paranoid thoughts about Obi-Wan Kenobi and his wife.
Lastly, any "Star Wars" fan would recognize Skywalker's identity issues and uncertainty about who he was. His fateful turn to the dark side and change of name to Darth Vader could represent the ultimate sign of such identity disturbance, the researchers said.
It's prolly just a matter of time before some enterprising psychology student hits the federal government up for a $100,000 grant to go to Gotham City and study the criminal insanity of the Joker :-P
5 real diseases that could turn you into a zombie
But anyhoo, io9.com has put together a list of five real-life maladies that could make you something like an undead horror. You'll have a whole new appreciation for rabies shots after you read this, along with knowing more about leprosy and necrosis than you probably ever wanted to have floating around your gray matter.
Exoplanet observed orbiting star for first time
Apologies for the absence, dear readers. Of which no less than three of you have insisted today that I must return 'cuz apparently this blog has become a daily fixture in the lives of some! I shall endeavor to do better but what can I say? I'm a busy lad, with many irons in the fire. And Lord willing I'll get to begin sharing some of those sooner than later.
But first: yay for Beta Pictoris! For at least the past two and a half decades this has been a candidate star for having a planetary system. And now thanks to the European Southern Observatory's honkin'-big 8.2 meter Very Large Telescope, we've got the first observation of an extra-solar planet orbiting a star (namely, Beta Pictoris).
Click to enjoy an extra-huge aperture of astronomical goodness!
Click on the above link for better explanation about how neat this is. And thanks to Shane Thacker for finding this story.
Monday, June 07, 2010
THE GOONIES is 25 years old today!
I'm thankful that websites like GeekTyrant are around to make note of good stuff that I've otherwise been too busy to keep track of.
Namely, that today - June 7th, 2010 - marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the release of The Goonies!
I have long thought of The Goonies as the definitive Eighties movie. That it's just as enjoyable (maybe more even) a quarter century later, is witness to that. The Goonies was the kind of film that made you really believe that there might be an old treasure map hidden away in the attic of your house, just waiting for you and your friends to go off looking for pirate booty.
So Happy Birthday to The Goonies! And maybe someday we'll finally get that sequel that Richard Donner keeps mentioning every so often :-P
Saturday, June 05, 2010
The case for universal data plans
In what some are calling a devious case of "bait 'n switch", AT&T announced this past week that it was getting rid of unlimited data plans and moving to "metered" plans... and just after Apple moved a buttload of those nice shiny new 3G iPads too!
So if you too are at wits end on communication rates, you are in good company with Molly Wood, who contributes a persuasive essay on CNET News demanding that universal data plans make more sense...
And although some elements of the new data plans will work for some customers, AT&T is moving in the opposite direction it should be going. I'm tired of multiple data plans, artificial caps, and arbitrary monthly usage charges. And I'm tired of paying the same companies multiple times for what is, essentially, the exact same service. That service? Data.Mash the above link for plenty more soundness and sanity about how we should fork over coin for precious data. I'll second the good lady's notion. What sayeth y'all?Between multiple cell phones, high-speed Internet connections, and even digital TV subscriptions, most households are now paying for data delivery at least three times over, and frequently paying the same provider twice. This is ridiculous, and it's time for some major consolidation. It's time for a universal data plan. I want to pay once (maybe twice) for data, I want that data to be unlimited, and I want to be able to use it in any fashion I choose.
John Wooden, greatest basketball coach ever, has passed away
John Wooden coached UCLA to ten national championships. But since his passing last night he's being remembered by most as a teacher, a friend, and a gentleman...
"Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful."
Wooden was also quite a wise figure. ESPN has collected many of his quotes, including this one that I found especially noteworthy...
John Wooden was just shy of reaching his one hundredth birthday. An amazing long and wonderful life, he had.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Bargain basement Batmobile
This 1994 Pontiac Grand Am was purchased for $100 from a towing company in Michigan last summer. Its owner (one "Gabe") then set out to convert it into a Batmobile.
According to the story at GeekTyrant "After a few necessary repairs, work proceeded: Gabe sawed off the crushed roof and built a custom frame for the new roof and windows. Inspired by the Batmanesque charm of his creation, Gabe then rigged up and riveted on fins, reworked the nose, and spray-painted the car matte black. The car even features high-tech theft-prevention gadgets the likes of which even Wayne Industries couldn't develop. When thieves tried to steal the car last year, the steering wheel broke off. In the process of trying to hotwire the car, they also fixed the brake lights."
Click on the link above for more photos of the "Batmobile", which is now listed for sale on Craigslist. Price for this crimefighting car: $600.
And in related news, Batman himself was arrested in Los Angeles on a loitering charge. I guess hard times have hit everyone... including costumed vigilantes.
THE KING AND I: 15 days until opening night
Another rehearsal this evening. This one focused on the "Small House of Uncle Thomas" scene early in Act II. I keep thinking that the Uncle Thomas mask looks exactly like Chief Wiggum from The Simpsons and the mask for Simon of Legree resembles Gollum from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies.
"Wiggum and Gollum". Sounds like a law firm, aye?
I have to say, it's so weird doing this show at Rockingham County Senior High where I was once a student. We're using the J. Allan Lewis Auditorium (named after my late friend Allan "Doc" Lewis), on the same stage where I used to have drama class with Gene Saunders. Everything backstage even still looks exactly the same as it did all those years ago. It's almost enough to make me feel like a high school kid again :-)
The rehearsals will start to ramp up bigtime come Saturday. That's also when we'll be having our costume fittings and go through the makeup procedure for the first time. And speaking of that, I'm having a very hard time envisioning myself with Oriental features! Guess we'll find out what Chris Knight looks like as a man of Siam this weekend.
The King and I opens on June 18th. Visit the website for Theatre Guild of Rockingham County for more information. Hope to see y'all there!
