Technology

Pretty site. Good sense. Browse Happy.

Yesterday was the 35th anniversary of one of humankind’s defining achievements. Amazing how far away it seems now.

Space probe Cassini is going into orbit around Saturn this evening. It has been travelling for close to seven years to get there. In December, the Huygens space probe it has been carrying along for the ride will take off for a landing on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, which appears to have an atmosphere and oceans of some sort. Cassini is one of the last relics of NASA from before the “Faster, Better, Cheaper” era, and as a result is a big, nuclear-powered – through radioisotope decay – Cadillac of space probes. Wonder if future missions will start looking like that, now that we have the “Moon, then Mars” agenda? :) ...

My first computer was a Commodore 64, so, like a lot of folks my age, I feel sort of proprietary about the Commodore name, even though the company went out of business years ago. That being said, I’m not sure how I feel about this digital music player, named after the VIC-20. Keeps the name out there, but I guess I would like it better if it wasn’t called the “e”-Vic. The C64 joystick should be neat, though. Too bad they probably won’t include Conflict in Vietnam. ...

This list has some great suggestions. Personally, I suggest games. I’ve spent many an hour staring at the trading screen in Madden 2004 or optimizing my cities in Civ III without once having to look at the Internet. Books are also a good choice, but I usually find I’m not in print-reading mode if I’m noticing the Internet is down. TV, not so good. Using the TV as a substitute for more interactive activities you’d rather be doing tends to lead to lots of fiddling around with the DVR, which can be irritating to those attempting to watch with you. ...

Since I use them as my primary browser and email programs, I should point out that Firefox 0.9 and Thunderbird 0.7 are now available for download from the Mozilla site. I have noticed a couple of problems with the update feature — which has caused some folks to not be able to use the browser — but I suspect that may be due to site traffic as “us geeks” flood the servers. Seems to be calming down now, though. ...