Methane

2004.03.30

Mars methane from biology or geology?

This is pretty exciting news, in some ways even more exciting than the ancient coastline news. Put the two together, and it becomes a near certainty that life either exists on Mars today, or once did. There's always a catch however, since nothing so huge is ever proven so simply. The methane could be the result of volcanic activity on Mars, or even the end product of comet or asteroid impacts. Still, there is a strong possibility than the gas is the byproduct of Martian microbial life.

We probably won't be able to find out for sure until the next Mars mission later this decade. The two rovers on the planet now are near death, and as far as I don't don't have instruments capable of detecting life in the first place. They're geology rovers. If the Brits, who's Beagle 2 rover did carry life detection instruments, hadn't crashed it into the planet, we might have a concrete answer today.

If there is or was life on Mars, it's not going anywhere. We'll just have to wait a few years to find out.

Speed Record

2004.03.29

Scramjet smashes world speed record

This is pretty cool. It's unusual for a speed record of any kind to be broken by something going twice as fast as the previous record holder, but that's what NASA's scramjet aircraft did by travelling at over 8000 kilometres per hour, or Mach 7. Granted, the plane needs a rocket boost to get up to speed, but the scramjet technology is clearly viable beyond Mach 6. Just the idea of an engine that powerful having no moving parts is impressive to me.

When people talk about hypersonic planes going from London to New York in two hours, this is the kind of technology that could get us there. It's obviously going to be a long time before that's possible. It might even be a long time before a manned test of the engine is possible, but hopefully not. As disapointing as it would be for scramjet technology to become the primary way into space, it would probably be cheaper, which could mean we'd be able to do more. There's still something cool about rediculously powerful rockets burning a rediculous amount of fuel and making a rediculous amount of noise. Maybe it's a guy thing.

Combat Gadgets

2004.03.25

New high-tech tools help soldiers pinpoint gunfire in Iraq

As cool as new weapons technology is, stuff like this is just as neat. The idea that a set of sensors can analyze the hypersonic shockwaves from bullets and calculate where the bullet came from is amazing. It won't be long before that device is shrunk down and put in a button on the top of every soldier's helmet.

The soldier of the future is going to be loaded with so much high-tech gear that they'll have almost superhuman senses and powers. The amount of destruction that a single Army squad can cause is massive, especially when compared to what those same few people could have done 100 or 200 years ago. The gap is only going to widen.

Oceans

2004.03.24

The chances that life evolved on Mars billions of years ago became a couple of hundred times more likely yesterday, when NASA announced that their rover Opportunity is driving around an ancient sea bed. We're talking flowing, salty, surface water.

The next step is to send a probe which can collect a good number of soil samples and actually send them back to Earth for proper study. We most likely won't find evidence of life until that is done, assuming it's there to be found. The discovery also suggests that Mars could be made habitable for Humans one day in the far future. Clearly the planet was once warm enough for liquid water to exist on the surface, so there's no reason to think it couldn't be made that way again with a few thousand years of terraforming work.

I hope I live to see the manned mission to Mars.

Transportation

2004.03.23

This past Saturday I went to the Richmond Auto Mall and bought a new car. Well, it's actually a black 2002 Mazda Protege 5, so it's not technically new, but close enough. Now that the hanging-by-a-thread Festiva is gone, I don't have the constant stress of knowing that my car might break at any moment. No, that stress has been replaced by another kind: debt. Hopefully, if the rest of the year goes well with work, I can pay off a significant portion of it. We'll see.

This means I've successfully stuck to three of my four resolutions, even though two of them are ongoing. Moving out could be significantly harder now that I've got car payments, but it might not be impossible, so we'll see.

This afternoon, NASA is supposed to announce another significant finding made by Opportunity on Mars. They can't be announcing even more proof of water, can they? Hopefully it's something bigger.

Competition

2004.03.22

GTAA Can't Appeal...

As a Capitalist Libertarian, stuff like this drives me crazy. Air Canada has proven, on more than one occasion, that it is run by incompetent upper level managers. It is now operating under bankruptcy protection, meaning creditors can't touch them, and they don't have to pay their bills, sort of. That's bad enough, but now they're being given a government sanctioned marketplace advantage simply to try and "get them back on their feet"? Isn't the whole idea to figure out how to operate the company in a profitable manner, so that when the bankruptcy protection is taken away, it works? How can that be done if they're given unfair advantages over the competition?

Part of me thinks that bankrupt companies should just be allowed to die. I suppose that's bad for the job market, and in turn for the economy. Still, isn't there some kind of limit? How many times is the government going to bail Air Canada out? I say let them go under. WestJet can buy all of their planes for pennies on the dollar and become the largest airline in Canada overnight. They must be doing something right over there.

Asteroids

2004.03.19

With a near pass by a small asteroid coming up, people are talking about asteroid defense again, albeit briefly. It's quite possible that a medium sized asteroid could escape detection entirely and impact the planet, potentially killing hundreds of thousands of people and causing ridiculous amounts of damage. Small and medium sized rocks could probably be stopped with nuclear weapons today, if we were able to detect them with enough warning.

It's even more frightening that we haven't had a massive impact in several hundred thousand years, and they're supposed to occur every hundred thousand years or so. Obviously we aren't talking about mass extinction events here, but still it would be quite devastating. The problem with the larger threats is that we don't have the technology to destroy or deflect them; not without several months or perhaps even years of warning.

Seems like more than enough reason for a robust space program to me, since right now our only defense is hoping nothing happens.

Commute

2004.03.18

Driving to Andromeda every morning would take me between 45 minutes and 1 hour, leaving around 7:30 and getting there at 8:15 or 8:30. The folks at Atmosphere don't start until 9:30, which means I can leave at 9:00 and arrive about 25 minutes later, completely missing the rush hour traffic. It feels great.

No one likes rush hour traffic. It's a problem for which no one has an answer, because even when they build a new bridge or public transit line, all it does is relieve some of the pressure. Of course, that pressure is quickly taken up by an increasing population and roads that don't get any bigger. Until we have flying cars, gridlock is always going to happen. I bet that even when we do have flying cars, gridlock will still happen, because by then there will just be too many people for the space.

Maybe that's when a plague or the next ice age will kick in? Mother nature has a way of breaking up parties.

Working

2004.03.17

I'm starting a new job today at Atmosphere Visual Effects today, since Andromeda has wrapped for the season. I'm looking forward to it. Still, change of any kind usually makes me nervous, though most of the changes I've experienced recently have been good.

Is fear of change genetic, common to all people? There are always exceptions of course, but I wonder if there is a natural longing for things to remain the same forever.

More Planets

2004.03.15

Distant object could be 'tenth planet'

This is something we've seen before, and are almost sure to see again. There are some huge objects in the Kuiper Belt, and the question of whether or not they are planets might be one that's never answered. The problem is that you've got too many hardline scientists with different opinions on the topic, who will never be able to agree on a global classification of what a planet is.

It seems to me they should just decide on a size. If an object orbits a star in a roughly circular motion, and is so many thousand kilometres in diameter or more, then it's a planet. A planet in the middle of an asteroid belt might just be a giant asteroid to some, but others will insist on calling it a seperate world. It seems to me that since Pluto has already been called a planet, despite some astronomers wishing it weren't, anything that's a similar size should be a planet as well.

A twenty planet solar system isn't nessesarily a bad thing, even if astronomers today can't name planets worth shit. Sedna? Quaoar? Come on guys!

Bombs

2004.03.12

Imagine you're sitting on the train, on your way to work, when all of a sudden you're dead. That's what happens when terrorists blow stuff up and kill people. They KILL people. I suppose it's not really their fault though, right? They're just victims of American corporate imperialism. We were asking for it, right?

Whenever I hear people talk like that, I sometimes think that it would be better if they were blown up in the next attack. There are a lot of people who just don't get it. Terrorists are out to destroy our very way of life, everything that goes with it, and they're willing to die to get it done. You can wave a couple of peace fingers at them all you want, or send them a bunch of flowers, but they're still going to kill you.

The problem with terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda is that they don't want something simple, like a Palestine without Israelis. What they want is the total destruction of western civilization. How exactly do you appease that? How do you come to any kind of middle ground? You can't. All you can do is kill them before they kill you.

The Hit

2004.03.11

I'm not going to comment too much on the Bertuzzi hit. Here's my ruling: suspension for the remainder of the 2003-2004 season and post-season. People who don't play hockey won't think that's enough, but their opinions are nearly meaningless in this discussion anyhow. Jail time is a ridiculous consideration, considering that stuff like this happens reasonably often, except it usually doesn't result in a serious injury.

The thing that really gets me is the media attention over this. I'm not talking about the sports media, but the mainstream press as well. I'm seeing headlines all over the place that read "hockey hit results in broken neck" and such. Considering that a fractured vertebrae, the injury Moore suffered, is about as similar to a broken neck as a groin pull is to a shattered pelvis, I'd say that's more than the usual amount of allowed headline exaggeration. If you break your neck, you'll either never walk again, or you're dead.

I also don't want to hear any more comments from bleeding heart left wing pacifists, who think the world should be made of candy and gumdrops, talking about how hockey is no different from the Roman gladiatorial games and shouldn't exist in our "evolved" society. Oh please! Physical competition is always going to exist in our society because it's programed into our genes. People who play hockey know that something like the Bertuzzi hit could happen anytime, because some players just don't know when to stop. Boxers go into the ring knowing that they could take a punch the wrong way and die, but that doesn't mean the guy throwing the punch would be smacked with a manslaughter investigation. It's a sport, and these things do unfortunately happen, even if they shouldn't.

In any case, it's going to be hard for Bertuzzi when he comes back. There are going to be a lot of people who just won't like him anymore. There's simply no excuse for hitting someone from behind, it being the ultimate act of cowardice and dishonor. He's a good guy at heart however, which is why the way he's feeling and will feel for years is going to be more of a punishment than any suspension. From now on, he'll always be remembered for this, and should be.

A History of Gaming Controversy

2004.03.09

When Two Tribes Go To War

Check out this Gamespot article on the history of gaming controversy. It goes all the way back to the 70s with Death Race, right up until now. These days, gaming controversy isn't something that interests me anymore. As far as I'm concerned, the arguments have been made and won by the video game industry. The ESRB rating on every video game box lets you know how appropriate a game is for a certain maturity level. If people choose to ignore the rating, or stores choose to break the law and sell mature titles to children, that's not the video game industry's problem. It's a free continent, and I want to be able to play whatever the fuck I want.

A couple of other notes:

Do NOT go see the film Hidalgo. It is absolutely awful.

Saw the new trailer for Troy, which should be up on the official site soon, and it looks awesome! I can't wait!

I Hate Sheila Copps

2004.03.08

Copps may contest Valeri's victory

That blood sucking demon bitch, Sheila Copps, is at it again. She's on the way out and she knows it, so what better way to leave the tiny spotlight she has somehow managed to create for herself than kicking and screaming with her nails digging into the floor.

Paul Martin and the Liberals may be a bunch of corrupt old windbags who are part of a party who has been in power for far too long, but if they can ensure that I never hear the name "Shiela Copps" again on the news, they'll be okay in my book.

Planning

2004.03.05

I can only imagine how hard it must be for a city planner to watch a proposal get rejected by politicians who simply don't want to risk anything so they can ensure reelection. I was happy to read that the RAV project here in Vancouver was approved last week, barely. The project aims to build a Skytrain line between downtown Vancouver, Richmond, and the airport. As it stands right now, getting into Vancouver from Richmond during rush hour will take at least 40 minutes.

People in Richmond can take a look at what No. 3 road will look like once the line is completed by visiting one of the displays currently being shown around the city. There are a couple of concept renderings of both elevated and ground level systems. My vote goes for the elevated system. It's a lot more convenient for drivers on the ground, since they don't have to wait for constant train traffic, and it's a lot more fun to ride. Besides, I would hardly consider the view of endless malls and huge outlet stores "ruined" by an elevated concrete train track.

The RAV line isn't going to matter for me personally, because I certainly don't plan on living in Richmond when 2010 comes around, but it's the kind of city planning project that will either make or break an entire region of Vancouver for decades to come. That's definitely interesting.

Call the Penalties!

2004.03.04

I'm going to do something I don't usually do: talk hockey. I really don't understand how so many coaches, general managers, players, and commentators can look at the game and not see the problem staring them in the face. Everyone talks about how the game has slowed down, isn't as exciting, or is too low scoring. I can look at almost any game these days and say with certainty what the problem is. Referees.

First of all, we need to go back to the one Ref system. Having two Refs out there only causes confusion and inconsistency. One of them calls the game one way, and the other a different way, so the players can't tell what's allowed and what's not. Sure, one Ref can't see everything at once, but at least he'll be able to call the stuff he does see with some kind of normalcy.

Second, we don't need to make the goal line closer to the boards, stop goalies from playing the puck, widen the blue and red lines, shrink goalie equipment, play four-on-four, or eliminate the two line pass. All we have to do to speed the game up is start calling the holding, hooking, tripping, slashing, and interference penalties that have been allowed to become a part of the normal routine. The can-opener is supposed to be illegal, the pick is supposed to be illegal, and holding someone against the glass is supposed to be illegal. If the 6'5", 240 pound players who can't skate worth shit can't play the game without doing all of that, then they shouldn't be in the NHL.

I figure it would take about a month of horrible, penalty filled hockey games before the players caught on and actually stopped taking penalties. I'd gladly suffer through a month of boring hockey knowing that the games I would be watching afterwards might be five or ten times as exciting. All it would take would be some Refs with the guts to call what they see, and a commissioner with the balls to back them up.

Too bad it's not going to happen.

Water

2004.03.03

If I were a scientist, or if I weren't bombarded with the "Mars used to be wet" theory for years, I might be able to get a little more excited about one of the Mars rovers finding conclusive evidence that Mars used to have abundant water. As it is however, the discovery is somewhat anticlimactic.

Maybe I just hope for too much from our space programs. I was hoping that Opportunity had found signs of current or ancient life, or that it had found liquid water instead of just evidence that it used to be around a few billion years ago. I suppose it's technically exciting, but I was hoping for more. There's still some time of course. The two rovers will be driving around for a couple more months yet, and there will be more robotic missions in the future. Still, I seem to be crying out for an "OH MY GOD" discovery that doesn't look like it will come.

Things are moving too slowly for me.

Catch Up

2004.03.02

The problem with DVD releases is that they happen so quickly these days. More and more movies and television shows are being released on DVD, which of course means that there are more and more of them I want to buy. I picked up seasons three and four of Babylon 5 this weekend, along with season three of Stargate SG-1. Just those three box sets cost me a couple hundred dollars, which is quite a bit. When I think that I've still got to get all of Deep Space Nine, five more seasons of Stargate, not to mention all of the movies and such, I figure I'll be spending a rediculous amount of money on DVDs over the next little while.

No big deal I guess. I do like to spend money. It's not always a good thing.