Next Whatzit? – Saturday at 10 am CDT

Here’s advance notice that the next Whatzit? contest will start at 10:00 am CDT Saturday morning.

That’s 11 am Eastern and 8 am Pacific time.  For those in other time zones, you’ll have to figure out what time it’ll be.

Next Whatzit? …

Update: 

I’ve added a countdown clock.  Is it working in different time zones?

Last September moon

I took these two pictures of the moon tonight.  The first one was a little before dark and the second one about an hour later.  I used the Auto setting on both photos with a new 55–250mm zoom lens (zoomed all the way in) and hand held.  The second phot is a little blurry, but not bad considering I didn’t use a tripod.  This lens has image stabilization built in.  I think I’ll get better results on the full moon with this lens even if it’s a little shorter zoom, especially when using a tripod.

 Moon Sep30a Moon Sep30b

 

Banned?

Technical difficulties dogIt’s come to my attention that a couple of readers were told they were banned when they tried to make a comment on the Daily Afirmations post from earlier today.   I did a few test comments and had not problems until I commented on that post and I was banned also.

I have quarantined the post and reset the Banned list.  Must have been some code in there.

If you’re still having trouble, restart your browser and if that doesn’t work please email me and let me know.

Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.

 

Meet Frank and Louie

Twelve-year-old two-faced cat is world’s oldest

Frank and louisFrank and Louie, a gray feline with two mouths, two noses and three eyes, just turned 12 years old and is the world’s oldest, living two-faced cat.

Sara Wilcox, a Guinness World Records spokeswoman said he is the “longest surviving Janus cat,” referring to the name coined by British zoologist Dr. Karl Shuker, based on the two-faced Roman god of transitions, gates and doorways.

Frank and Louie has craniofacial duplication, an extremely rare congenital condition. The disorder, also known as diprosopia, can cause part or all of an individual’s face to be duplicated on its head.

It has been recorded multiple times in the domestic cat, but few two-faced kittens survive into adulthood, Wilcox said.

Frank and Louie was born on September 8, 1999. His remarkable life will be commemorated in Guinness World Records’ new 2012 edition, Wilcox said.

The rest of the story

Frank and louie2

 

SpaceX’s Vertical Landing Rocket

From Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda

So I watch this video and it flies in the face of everything that I know about space flight.  I hope it’s true, but I just don’t understand how it’s efficient to bring up extra fuel for vertical landings like this.  But I hope I’m wrong, and I’m living for the day that i can see it b/c… wow.  What is clear to me, is that if nothing less, SpaceX is willing to go out on a limb and try something amazing.  Or at least CGI render something straight out of the best science fiction.  What really did it for me was watching the second stage touch down… and then watching the capsule follow suit.  Where do you store the fuel for that?  My understanding of the moon landing is that the only reason that it was possible to pull a landing like this off was because of the drastically reduced lunar gravity… but then again, maybe we’ve made some advancements in rocketry in the last 40 years.  At least, I hope we have.

via+

More on SpaceX’s plans for the future