Free Spirit!

I've been fascinated by the Mars rovers ever since the Number Five-looking things made it through Martian Civil Defense and landed on the red planet. I know the word "hero" gets tossed around a lot these days, but if these little robots aren't heroes then neither is the person who calls 911 when they see someone in danger.

The nerds at JPL couldn't be any happier than I am that the rovers have lasted this long, or more worried about little Spirit getting stuck. So I've been following the effort to free the little guy for the last couple of months, keeping up with the rovers on Twitter, and generally irritating the crap out of my wife by telling her how much the right front wheel rotated on the last test, or making her look at pictures of what look like random areas of New Mexico or Utah.

So, does she ignore me, or tell me to grow up or get aggravated because I spend so much of my attention focused literally millions of miles away? Well, maybe a little. Can you blame her? But mostly she listens patiently, and looks at the stupid pictures, and then buys me this for Christmas.

So boys and girls, my Christmas wish for you is that you have (or find) someone who will give you things that make you happy, even when they know that they will have to look at (if not step on) the little pieces all over the house for months afterward. That's a real hero. Did I mention that she bought me a telescope as an engagement present to reciprocate for her ring? To be fair, I think my ex-wife gave me potholders or something the last Christmas we were together, and I gave her an emerald ring. I guess things average out.

Merry Christmas to me! Oh, and to the rest of you too, I guess.

Wocka Wocka

It has been called to my attention on several occasions recently that I am, in fact, a nerd. Or a geek, there is some dispute on the exact nature of my condition, but I am definitely some flavor of poindexter. This was confirmed today for the eleventy-millionth time when a student pointed me to this:

and I determined that it was possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen. That's right, it's a Pac-Man game built from Roombas. And the laptop he is running it on looks just like my oldest one, which needs to be repurposed, anyway. This could get ugly, though I suspect the cats would enjoy it immensely.

The part that will make some of you jealous, and the rest of you* sigh with pity at the way I like to spend my ever-diminishing spare time and disposable income? Part of my research is ways to make computing physical, so I could potentially kinda-sorta say this is work-related.

It's probably going to take me a while to gather the materials and clear time in my schedule. If I am in your house in the next few months and you own a Roomba, you might want to check for it after I leave. I'm just saying. In the meantime, Ida brought us unexpected clear weather for the next few days, so I guess I had better drag out the telescope again. This nerd business is an around the clock occupation

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* I'm pretty sure The Wife is a member of that second group.

Say hello to my little friend

I am possibly the world's worst astrophotographer. In almost a decade of trying, I have managed one fuzzy picture of Venus. Total. In my defense, I live in one of the worst locations for astronomy this side of Venus, there are only about half a dozen nights a year that the conditions are right, my yard is full of trees (less now), and my equipment is ancient. Also, my telescope is old. And I usually have to be drunk for it to seem like a good idea.

But I have resolved to forge ahead, and like virtually all men, I know that if I suck at something it can only be because I have not spent enough money on toys good equipment. So I am adopting a strategy of starting with something simple that I can probably do, like taking a picture of the sky at night, and then progressing to more advanced scenarios. Of course, this new strategy requires me to totally retool*. I think of it as answering our nation's call to stimulate the economy (hey, I'm a patriot).



This is Ed, my new telescope, doing something we probably shouldn't be watching with my new camera, which has yet to earn a name. Ed probably has a name for it, but I'm not going to ask.

I will probably be subjecting you in the coming weeks to terrible photographs of interesting subjects like a branch of my neighbor's crepe myrtle, or some smudge that I will claim to be some heavenly body or other, so don't say I didn't warn you. Eventually I will mount Ed atop Lex, the older, larger and wiser scope, which is when the really crappy pictures will start.

Oh, and in appreciation of Johnny and Daisy Fae pointing out that I could take a picture of the new camera using a mirror, here you go.



I took this in the side mirror of my car from about forty yards away. As I said, you've been warned.
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* I said "tool."

Robot Birthday

Yesterday it was my birthday. I hung one more year on the line.* It ended up being sort of a robot-themed day, partially through coincidence, if you believe in such things. I had decided while watching trailers before seeing Star Trek that I wanted to see the new Terminator movie on my birthday (NERDS!!!). I did not know that my wife had already bought me this:

Inevitable, really. I've been fascinated with automation and figuring out how things work as far back as I can remember. The first symptom I remember came when I was about five or six and I picked out a Big Bruiser from the Sears Catalog for my number one Christmas present. If you are too young to remember the Sears Catalog in its heyday, think of it as a paper version of Amazon.

A year or so later I got an Erector set, and built a skyscraper with a working crane.

The year after that it was a crystal radio kit, which I still believe is magic. I mean, I put the thing together myself. I know there was no battery in it, but I could listen to the radio (almost) as well as people with batteries. That might be the first "What the Hell?!?!" experience I can remember.

Subsequent Christmases and birthdays saw a steady procession of telescopes, microscopes, chemistry sets,



rock collecting kits, crystal growing sets and dissection kits. That's right, kids. In those days you could buy something in the toy department that would help you carve up little woodland creatures that you might capture around the house. It came with a frog and a couple of bugs in formaldehyde**, but how long is that going to amuse a curious 10 year old boy with a scalpel, tweezers and low power microscope?

This was all in addition to the dozens of watches, clocks, toys, tools and household appliances that I took apart to see how they worked. Of course, this included many of the items mentioned above. In my defense, most were broken when I started, I got almost all of them back together with no pieces left over, and I actually fixed a few things.

Then I got older and put away childish things. Except for the year after I was married and got the Big Trak.

Oh, and then the rockets.

And the RoboRaptor.

The cats are pretty sure he is mentally challenged.



So, that's a roundabout and memory-filled way of saying I've always been a science nerd and a sucker for cool toys, and I suppose I always will be.

As for Terminator. It was good. Star Trek was better. Oh, and this is what I built with my robot kit:

I'll be back.

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*With apologies to Paul Simon

** Kids today don't appreciate a good carcinogen in their toys like in our day. Nowadays you put a little lead in a toy car and everyone starts acting stupid. Oh,wait. Sorry.