24th anniversary of the Challenger disaster

I was a freshman in high school when this happened and was sitting in Electronics class. We had a small TV on during class and they interrupted the program to show the footage of the disaster. I felt odd the rest of the day and thought about it a lot for many days afterward.

 

 

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24th anniversary of the Challenger disaster

via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker on 1/28/10

Following Miles O'Brien's Twitter reminded me that today is the anniversary of the destruction of the Challenger space shuttle, which blew up shortly after liftoff on January 28, 1986. You can read O'Brien's memories of covering the aftermath as a young reporter in Florida.

Me, I was 4 when this happened. My memories aren't so interesting. What really sticks out for me is finding out, years later, about the mechanical malfunctions that caused the explosion, the bureaucratic mismanagement that lead known to malfunctions being ignored—and the good, honest people at NASA and contractor Morton Thiokol who tried to make their bosses fix the problem and, after the disaster happened, brought their stories to the public.

This clip from National Geographic's documentary "Challenger: The Untold Story" introduces Robert Boisjoly, an engineer at Morton Thiokol who spotted problems with the space shuttle's O-Rings in 1985, tried to stop the fatal Challenger launch and later testified before the presidential committee. His efforts earned him a Prize for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

 

 

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Treat For Tonight

Never have tried it....

Nexus One Video

A great 10 minute video of the new Nexus One Android phone. The animated backgrounds look VERY nice. This guy also gets a bonus for the Thomas Dolby "Aliens Ate My Buick" album and video on the phone.

Purple Moon Shiraz

We enjoyed a nice wine tonight with dinner. A 2008 Shiraz. I would definitely buy this again.

Grocery Go-Getter

Took the trike out this weekend to get groceries. The ride was a lot of fun and Sam came along for the ride. It was about a mile or so each way, but the overpass was the big challenge.

Sam's Awesome Lego Fire Truck

Unpack Trike -- Build Trike!

I spent a couple hours last night unpacking and assembling my new Haley Trike. I ran into some issues with the left brakes on the front axle, but resolved it this morning. I finished the project today in about 30 minutes. I had to contact Stephen at Haley Trike because the three speed shifter on the rear wheel fell apart and I couldn't figure out how to put it back together. He was nice enough to take one off the shelf and disassemble, reassemble it for me on the phone. The Trike rides smoothly and is a lot of fun. Now to pack up the kids in the box and head out!

Best beer I've had in a long, long time.

Just kicking it...

Another Ted Hero theme screenshot...

Ted's Hero Theme

Flashed a hero theme on top of Cyanogen 4.0.4. ROM. Looks good so far and doesn't seem to slow the phone down.

Tech Journaling via Twitter

I've decided to do some tech journaling to keep track of various projects I'm working on. I might throw some music stuff in there, too. I added a Twitter update window in the sidebar, but here are the links to the actual feeds.

Twitter page: https://twitter.com/duhproject

RSS Feed: https://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/69920177.rss

Old dog, new tricks...

Replacing the bearings on the old skateboard. I plan on teaching my neighbor how to Ollie and hopefully avoiding injury.

Battery usage gauge.

One of the niftiest features in cyanogens ROMs is the battery usage tool which tells you what is eating up the battery since your last plug in. Mine is almost always Bluetooth. Damn the Bluetooth!

Apps2sd installed!

I was able to partition my microSD card today with a ext2 partition. This allowed me to install apps to the SD card instead of internal memory on my G1 Android phone. This has freed up a lot of usable RAM on the device now and is faster than ever. Music and pics are still on a FAT32 partition alongside the new ext2 partition. Cyanogens ROM automatically moved my apps for me on reboot. Sweet!