Fiat Lux
This caught my eye tonight: the backstory of the Sputnik launch that kicked off the “space race” between the US and the USSR is finally coming out. Here’s a snippet, click through for the rest (it’s worth a read):
When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph.
But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.
And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket.
It’s bad enough that the US is involved in a massive, costly and ultimately unwinnable war. It’s even worse that, despite the lessons learned from Vietnam, we don’t take good care of the ones who pay a fearful price when fighting that war.
Read this rundown on returning vets.
“Your broke it, you pay for it” is the rule at Pottery Barn, shouldn’t it be the rule for the Army too?
As I slowly made my way through my much-neglected feed reader this morning, an offhand link from Ruhlman’s blog caught my eye: a short interview with Alton Brown to help promote “The Next Iron Chef”. It’s a fun read.
Along with The Barefoot Contessa, Alton’s one of the few people still watchable on the Food Network. I loved his two “Feasting on Asphalt” specials. His goofiness can occasionally be a little annoying, but given how FN has eviscerated nearly all their real cooking shows, I suppose it’s the price he has to pay to keep “Good Eats” on the air.
At any rate, “The Next Iron Chef” has been added to the TiVo. I really hope it doesn’t suck.
Scott and I watched the Tuscany episode of “No Reservations” last night and got into a discussion of some possible options for homemade pasta this weekend. If we do haul the much-neglected pasta machine out of the closet today I may get a blog post out of it.
You might notice that the blog looks a bit different tonight.
Scott decided that it would be fun to go to the WordPress Upgrade Party that the inimitable Matt M held Wednesday night. I figured, it was a good time to see if I actually could port the blog over from Movable Type to WordPress. With 1220+ entries in the database, I was more than a little worried that trying to move them all would be hell and result in me having one massively screwed-up blog.
Well, I was wrong. The process was unbelievable pain free. Absolutely everything just worked. Amazing. I’m so used to tech stuff almost-but-not-quite working; for something to NOT screw up or require weird hacking to get it right felt…. wrong.
At any rate, I got the data ported over last night; tonight was the fun stuff. Find a theme, customize the sidebar, add a few plug-ins. The move is about 98% done, but if you catch any weirdness or bad links, please let me know. I still need to re-add the comment policy and a link to my old travel blog, plus decide what kind of spam filtering I’ll be doing. Akismet is up and running, but that may or may not be enough.
So…. after 4+ years, it’s farewell to Movable Type. I feel a little sad about it, but it’s time for a change.
Like it? Hate it? Let me know!
My employer launched a new product at midnight last night. As a result, I’ve been alternating between working furiously and sucking down quantities of coffee, as this photo illustrates.
I’m beat.