io9: Race Relations in the Space Age

An adorable, moving video about breaking all sorts of glass ceilings in pursuit of one's dreams (also, Star Trek pioneering integration FTW):

http://io9.com/5981089/a-sweet-animated-tale-of-challenger-astronaut-ronald-mcnairs-early-experience-standing-up-to-racism

Ronald McNair. I didn't know who he was until I saw this, but I'm glad I found it. I'll admit to tearing up a little at the end. (Challenger, why?) He's one of the many unsung heroes of science -- much as the Catholic Church has a body of saints, I propose that science establish its own roster of martyrs for the cause. McNair would be up there with Galileo and Marie Curie.

Hipster Ipsum

A funny, ironic (of course) article I found on Boing Boing:

http://boingboing.net/2011/08/15/hipster-ipsum-filler-text-for-your-next-design-project.html

Lorem ipsum is itself derived from Cicero (and I use "derived from" very loosely in this context, considering how mangled it actually is), so I suppose further adulteration isn't too far from the spirit of the thing.

Oh, and see the illustration, of course. :-)

Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock

The classic game, new and updated for the 23rd century:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock

I am amused.

I found this not long ago on a Wikipedia crawl (you know, where you just keep clicking on interesting links until you look up half an hour later and find that you've ended up on a page completely unrelated to the one you started with). I think I was looking at cathedrals at one point.

Edit: I am told that I am completely behind the times, and that this game is old news in the nerd (and especially the Trek) community. I can't say I'm surprised.

MSNBC: Endeavour Crew Recreates Star Trek Movie Poster

The space shuttle Endeavour embarked on its last mission four days ago (after its decommissioning, the only remaining operational shuttle of the original NASA fleet will be the Atlantis). Traditionally, every mission has a themed poster. This mission, STS-134, modeled its poster on the recent Star Trek film poster, which I think is quite fitting, and quite clever. (The inner geek (or maybe not-so-inner geek) in me just had a field day.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43038704/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/endeavour-crew-recreates-star-trek-movie-poster/

What would have been even better would be if it were the shuttle Enterprise, but that was mostly a test shuttle and was decommissioned early in the shuttle program. Still, a girl can dream.

Faux-Starfleet Pods at the Mall

I was at the mall again last weekend (I think I've filled my mall quota for the year; I've been thrice this summer already) because my family decided to celebrate the occasion of my twentieth birthday by taking me to get my ears pierced (upon which I discovered that my ears are asymmetrical, but that's a whole different story). Anyhow, as my sister and I were exiting the store, we happened upon this:


I thought it looked uncannily similar to the pod in which Spock maroons Kirk on the ice planet in the recent Star Trek film; I half expected someone in a Starfleet uniform to pop out of it. Turns out, it's an artificial tanning device. Weird.

MSNBC: The Proliferation of (Odd) Vending Machines

Vending machines: no longer just for snacks and soda. Behold:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37089469/ns/travel-destinations/?GT1=43001

A pizza? A real pizza? Out of a vending machine? I feel a bit like I'm living in a science fiction novel (reminds me a bit of the synthesizers in Star Trek, actually).

It's all a bit unnecessary, but I can see why they'd be fun. I can imagine having pizza vending machines at Stanford; it would definitely help when we've got ten minutes between classes, and we have to bike across campus, too.

(It's labeled humor because I find strange and whimsical things amusing. Go figure.)