Farewell Cassini!

"Cassini, in some ways, represents the best of humanity. It's really a testament to our endless curiosity, our collective passion to continue exploring the world and the solar system we live in."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/farewell-cassini-saturn-search-for-life-1.4285365

So many uses!

I have discovered today that Aurora Award trophies can also be used as earthquake detectors (the metal panels click together to make a very distinctive sound)!



While there was no actual earthquake, there is local shaking as they run steamrollers along the access road to where I live. As I could feel the subsonics rippling through the house (it resonated pretty well and actually kind of hurt my ears and definitely generated a feeling of discomfort... plus freaked out the cats), a weird clicking, almost glass-like sound would kick in a few seconds after the shaking started. When I went to investigate, the shaking would subside and the sound would stop. I finally had a long enough "run" of shaking just now to track down the source of the noise. A slight bend and the clicking sound was no more... for a while... as I write this, the shaking is so intense that it has started again. Oh, well.

Note: I have never received an Aurora Award, however I administered the awards in 1995 (at CAN•CON) and as such have a sample (unplated) award on the mantle in my living room [I was nominated for one, however I had to decline the nomination due to my involvement as a key administrator of the awards that year... too much ethics for my own good sometimes, heh].

P.S. The Aurora Award trophy is amazing... as you can see from the photo if you look through it sideways there is a maple-leaf cutout through all three panels that align. Also, from the side the tops of the panels look like the sweep of an auroral display (the photo does not show that very well). As a final wow, if you look at it from the top, the three panels form the letters "SF".

Ex-Alta 1 — very impressive!

Having worked on a CubeSat design team myself (I was working on the scientific payload), I know what a huge job it is. This is some pretty amazing work and some even more amazing troubleshooting and problem solving since it has been in orbit.

Space oddity: U of A satellite survives mission mishaps to capture super solar storm

Fyi, the Ex-Alta 1 website: https://albertasat.ca/.

Note: As I have written about before, we never finished our CubeSat (it was an entry to the first Canadian Satellite Design Challenge and Carleton did not win)... just so you don't think I've actually built a satellite: I have not. Worked on one, yes; built parts of one, yes; finished one, nope.

Warning: video contains drug use and tattooed nuns in lingerie, somewhat NSFW I would say... but I found the video to be very creative and the cover version quite passable and as heartfelt as you get from these guys.

Watch on YouTube

Mind you if you want to go full NSFW with The Flaming Lips, watch the video they did for their cover of The Beatles' "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" with Miley Cirus and Moby (really). I happen to think it's one of the most creative and transgressive videos I have seen this year (although it came out in 2014, I just saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago), but it's pretty messed up in so many ways. It's on YouTube at the moment (but not The Flaming Lips' site, huh), but I don't know for how long given its content: https://youtu.be/ic3n6sQDoJc.