Doom3 engine proves incapable of piloting a lunar lander

In an attempt to net $350,000 of NASA's money as winner of the 2007 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, Armadillo Aerospace - headed by John Carmack, creator of the Doom video game - created a lunar lander dubbed Module 1.

The lander proved successful in the first half of the challenge, but upon attempting the second half the engine developed a crack. The resulting fuel leak caused the lander to run out of fuel completely and plummet to the ground 7 seconds short of the required flight time.

After an engine replacement, the lander barely left the ground for the second stage of the flight before the replacement engine also cracked. In one last attempt the team attached a more powerful engine from a rocket they called Pixel. Bad idea. The more powerful engine exploded on the launch pad, causing a large fireball and a loud bang that could be heard more than a kilometre away.

So it's been a while

I was messing around on the interwebs today doing that "link-crawling" thing where you just click from page to page looking for interesting shit, and it occurred to me that I hadn't updated this blog in quite some time. I like to pretend that at some stage someone will stumble across this page and be absolutely crushed by the lack of any recent updates. Although this is no doubt nothing more than fantasy, I've decided to make this update about making updates to prevent any unnecessary anguish/suicides.

Since I'm a little light on stuff to talk about, I figure I'll explain what I've been doing in the time since my last update and today. So where to start...

I've been doing a lot of reading, and by a lot I mean an absolutely ridiculous amount of reading. At this point in time I'm reading 4 books simultaneously and they are all non-fiction: you can imagine how boring it is, but it's mostly necessary if I ever want to advance in my career path. The books, for those interested, are:

• AJAX & PHP by Cristian Darie, Bogdan Brinzarea, Filip Chereches-Tosa, and Mihai Bucica
• The PHP Anthology Vol. II by Harry Fuecks
• Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL by Kevin Yank
• Coder to Developer by Mike Gunderloy

It's pretty obvious where I'm heading as a career path. So basically I've been busy as hell reading, learning and attempting to educate myself bit by bit so that I can occassionally bust out some amazingly long words and pretend I know what they mean, like some kind of pretentious parrot. Awesome.

I think I've rambled on enough now, I just wanted to contribute something to this blog to keep it current. At some stage I'll have a poke through the science news I have yet to catch up on and look for some good stuff to poke fun at, since that's what I do because it makes me feel big.

Where did my middle click go?

I recently changed my mouse here at work, and all of a sudden my middle click stopped working in Firefox (well, it stopped working everywhere, but that's where I noticed it). I decided to Google for this problem to see if I could find out what was going on. Whenever I middle clicked it seemed to simulate an Alt-Tab.

I found a few hits, which indicated to me that it's a fairly common problem. Just in case anyone is experiencing a similar issue, the solution follows.

Basically for whatever reason your mouse wheel isn't being treated as the standard "Button 3". You can fix this by going to Control Panel, Mouse. My mouse wheel was mapped to "Next window", thus the Alt-Tab behaviour. I selected "Middle-click" and hey presto, problem solved!

I just wanted to write this quick update to help anyone who may have the same problem. Hell, if you happen by this post BEFORE you have the problem, you can now avoid it altogether!

Harry Potter article: NO SPOILERS

The "weapon" spoken of is an orb that supposedly contains a prophecy having to deal with Harry and Voldemort.

Harry decides to break into the Ministry of Magic and steal the orb before the Death Eaters can get to it, but he is confronted by them once he releases it from its protected base. While escaping the Death Eaters, the Prophecy Orb is broken. In a wizard duel with Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius Black is killed.

Harry's short duel with Bellatrix is interrupted by Voldemort's return, which in turn is interrupted by Dumbledor's return. Dumbledore and Voldemort duel. Voldemort realizes he cannot defeat Dumbledore and attempts to possess Harry to get Dumbledore to kill them both at the same time, but Dumbledore doesn't fall for it. Voldemort and Bellatrix get away, but the other Death Eaters are caught by the Order and returned to Azkaban, where it is believed they will not stay long as the dementors have all left.

Back at Hogwarts, Dumbledore explains to Harry how the Orb only contained a record of the Prophecy, and that it being destroyed meant that Voldemort would never learn the whole prophecy, as predicted by Prof. Trelawney before Harry was born. The Prophecy, in short, ultimately states that as they have the same powers (Voldemort transferred some of his power to Harry when he tried to kill him), neither Harry nor Voldemort can live while the other survives, indicating that one of them must kill the other in order for the war to end.

I have no idea what any of that means, but apparently it spoils the movie so I just had to post it. Also, rumour has it:

BELLATRIX KILLS RON

VOLDEMORT KILLS SNAPE

HARRY KILLS VOLDEMORTE


I figure the book deserves equal coverage. Finally I leave you with a quote from an amazingly spastic Harry Potter fan:

So, i'm a Harry Potter fan. Unapologeticly so. Eagerly awaiting the last book. However, it seems wherever I turn, some motherfucker seems determined to divulge secrets and key plot points. I've seen paid ads flashing spoilers in large letters. I've seen asswipes with these same reveals in their goddamn avatar.

Ignore them, you say? Hard to do, when they crop up everywhere. Even worse, I read fast. In fact, I don't really read individual words, but blocks of type. So by the time I see what's there... well, i've seen what's there.

I'd really like to be able to browse this, my favorite forums, this week without ruining a book i've been waiting years for. Why in the hell do people find this amusing? What do they get out of it? Is there any way to petition Lowtax to at least dump the spoiler ads? Or will I simply be mocked out of town for being "thin-skinned" and liking a "children's book"?

I'd like to introduce these fuckers to my wand- a regulation-sized Louisville Slugger, applied liberally about the head and shoulders.

- NiteCrawler (SomethingAwful forums)

Mars crater descent delayed

See that crater? That's Victoria Crater, and it's going to freaking destroy one of the most amazing rovers ever to set foot on the breathtaking landscape of the red planet we call Mars - a rover known by the noble name of Opportunity. Dust storms have delayed Opportunity's descent into Victoria Crater which was expected to occur around the 7th July, but eventually, later this month, she will take the dangerous plunge into the crater, a descent from which she may never return.

Unfortunately for Opportunity, "late July" may mark the end of her extremely long life on Mars, which seems to have been oddly plagued by bad luck, if she can't navigate the treacherous terrain in order to climb back out. Lets take some time out and review the history of our stalwart champion of interplanetary exploration. Lest ye be forgot, Opportunity; this is your life.

25^th January, 2004. Opportunity successfully lands on Mars on the majestic plain known as Meridiani Planum. Somehow, against all odds (the Meridiani Planum being a rather large expanse of relatively flat land) our little rover friend bounced right into a crater. That's right, her first bounce upon landing launched her over 200 metres into a god damn crater. The crater proved to be no particular challenge to the rover however, prompting NASA scientists to say "We meant to do it all along".

January, 2005. After returning some valuable information to NASA about her landing location, and undertaking an exploration of a second crater, Endurance Crater, Opportunity headed to the site of her discarded heat shield, presumably because NASA scientists wanted to check out the awesome job they did littering on a whole new planet. Upon arrival, she took an awesome photo of the smashed up heat shield and found the first ever meteorite located on interplanetary terrain - since dubbed 'Heat Shield Rock'.

April - June, 2005. Tragedy strikes! Opportunity goes and gets bogged in a sand dune. For almost two months. Apparently all six wheels became lodged in the sand, prompting Steve Squyres (leading scientist on the Mars Exploration Rover effort) to declare "We're going to be here awhile." After careful work, Opportunity was freed from the sand trap and continued on her merry way in early June.

29^th May, 2006. As the first anniversary of Opportunity's incredible escape from the sand trap at Purgatory Dune approaches, an unexpected event occurs. Opportunity, once again, gets stuck in the sand. Again, careful work yielded results as NASA scientists manoeuvred the rover out of the sand trap.

From here Opportunity continued on her way to Victoria Crater, via Erebus Crater, ready for more work after already outliving her life expectancy of just 90 Martian days (sols). Currently Opportunity has lasted an incredible 12 times longer than expected - over 1100 sols! She nows waits, poised on the brink of oblivion staring down into Victoria Crater. Even if she doesn't make the journey into and back out of the crater, Opportunity will have far outlived anyone's expectations. I salute you, Opportunity, may you do us all proud!

Why are we naked?

One of the spanners that creationists would no doubt love to throw in the gears of evolution is the apparent lack of body hair or fur on us humans, compared to say apes or this ridiculously hairy dog. What evolutionary advantage could hairlessness possibly provide, aside from making us humans ridiculously sexy? The answer lies - in an obscure round-a-bout way - with Jessica Alba.

By now I'm sure that you're aware of how evolution takes place, but in case you're not I'll cover it briefly. Within DNA there is encoded an incredible amount of information about the development of the organism that contains it. This code, as a species reproduces, has a tendancy to change due to occassional mutations. These mutations can sometimes prove beneficial to an organism's survival, thus allowing said organism to reproduce and push that mutation along down the species' lineage.

Some mutations are rather trivial and have little or no effect on survival, such as eye colour, hair colour and difference in skin pigmentation. Other mutations, such as those that produce *ahem* features like Jessica Alba's are indeed beneficial to the reproductive process. That being said, there is a large gap between the appearance most would consider worthy of courting, and the appearance of "beautiful people" like Alba and Brad Pitt. This is the main reason why we still have a wide range of appearances - we're not simply evolving into Jessica Albas. The truth is, when it comes to appearance, most people will settle for whatever they can get. Now, about the hair thing...

There are a few theories as to why humans have evolved into our current, relatively hairless state. One of these theories, and my personal favourite, is that those of us who were born with significantly less hair than others found themselves much less prone to parasites that would otherwise be thriving in a thick coating of hair. With our ability to create fire and stay warm at night, this development did not have a negative impact on our survivability, and thus increased it. It's possible that as we progressed, we began to associate hairlessness with healthiness, and thus chose less hairy people as mates. This would go a long way to explain why women are less hairy than men, and why they care a lot less about hair on men, than we do about hair on women.

So you see? It's all about evolution trying to make us more appealing to the opposite sex. Oh, plus the whole parasite thing, but the Jessica Alba part is much more exciting.

T. Rex's shitty little arms

So you think you're tough eh? Think you're strong? Think again. Check out the arms on the highly scientific diagram of a Tyrannosaurus Rex over to the right there. Can you see how spastic and tiny they are? Well here's news for you: those guns are capable of lifting 400 pounds. When was the last time you did that Mr. Lundgren?

That being said, the Tyrannosaurus Rex was apparently in a constant struggle to find something those arms were actually useful for. The most recent theories seem to suggest the arms are nothing more than vestigial limbs, left dangling there for absolutely no reason other than "Heck, why not?". But I'm smarter than that. I've come up with quite a few possible uses for these so-called 'pointless' limbs. Allow me to share:

1) Clapping excitedly. Having hands and arms, while existing as an upright biped, allows the impressive function of clapping excitedly. Other species such as rabbits, mice and otters are unable to clap and are therefore likely due for extinction very soon. The Tasmanian Tiger couldn't clap, look what happened. Think the Wooly Mammoth could clap? Think again! Now where is the gargantuan cousin of the elephants? DEAD. I think the evolutionary advantage of excited clapping is abundantly clear.

2) Juggling. The rather small arms of the Tyrannosaurus weren't able to move very far, their movement restricted not only by their diminutive size, but also by the fact that all-in-all, these arms are just plain stupid. However, one needs not move their arms very far in order to juggle. In fact, once you're good enough at it, juggling involves very little arm movement! Juggling is indeed an often overlooked use for these pathetic extremeties.

3) Prevention of overwhelming awesomeness. It has been suggested by some that the Tyrannosaurus Rex - were it any more awesome - would simply collapse under the weight of all that awesome. To prevent this from occurring, it seems Mother Nature had the fantastic idea of completely fucking up the T. Rex's arms, thus providing a natural counter-balance to the impending awesomeness implosion. Oh Mother Nature, you card!