Top-notch coverage of SS1 from Boing Boing today:

Xeni on NPR: SpaceShipOne wins XPrize, earlier space history at Mojave. Xeni Jardin: The age of commercial space flight officially began this morning: SpaceShipOne successfully completed the second of two flights into space within 5 days, securing its win of the $10 million Ansari XPrize. On today's edition of NPR's "Day to Day" I speak with host Alex Chadwick about today's historic news -- as well as some of the lesser-known space history surrounding Mojave airport, now America's first licensed spaceport. Link to today's segment.

Image: shot by BoingBoing pal Wayne Correia (background link, email link), who says, "It was so beautiful to watch it shooting straight up from 47,000 to 370,000 ft. when the pilot ignited the rocket. When the craft landed, Paul Allen, Burt Rutan and Sir Richard Branson went out in a pickup truck to the tarmac so they could greet the pilot and tow it back to their hangar... the three of them were just hanging off the back of the tailgate with the craft in tow, the pilot standing on the roof of the aircraft holding an American flag which he'd just taken into space." Link to Wayne's full-size photo. [Boing Boing]

Click on the link at the top of the piece- there's waaaay more on BB.

I love the image of Rutan, Allen and Branson on the tailgate.

7:55:44 PM     leave/read comments []

WWW.YOUFORGOTPOLAND.COM

Does what it says; says what it does.

Via Peace Dividend

In a related story:

Poll Results Show Race for President Is Again a Dead Heat. The latest New York Times/CBS News Poll, taken after the first debate, shows that John Kerry reassured many Americans of his ability to handle an international crisis. By By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and JANET ELDER. [The New York Times > Home Page]


7:36:40 PM     leave/read comments []

Click his nose to make him BiG.

4:28:47 PM     leave/read comments []

Japan-Urinals (Mainichi).

Surveys finds many Japanese men prefer to sit down to urinate. [Nippon Goro Goro]

Truly a boon for married women! As is the Sound Princess, apparently:

Tokyo - When Naoko Ito uses a public bathroom, she cringes in embarrassment at the thought that other patrons can hear the sounds coming from her stall.

That's when she turns to the "Sound Princess".

Ito, like a rapidly growing number of Japanese women, presses a device installed in public toilets to simulate the sound of water flushing - and mask the cruder noises of nature.

"I usually use the flushing sound when I go to a public bathroom, such as at a department store, because I get a bit self-conscious," said Ito, a 60-year-old waitress.

"The core of our clientele is schools and companies," Toto spokesperson Kumi Goto said. "Japanese women are very embarrassed by the sounds they make in a toilet."

The Sound Princess is fairly simple. The user passes her hand over a sensor, and the convincing sound of a torrent of water comes from a speaker.

The trend is not limited to women these days. Some schools have done away with urinals because boys are increasingly too embarrassed to use the stalls, since going there would tell onlookers exactly what's going to happen next.

Well, now we know why the men are sitting down on the job.

3:15:20 PM     leave/read comments []

SpaceShipOne rockets to success. Rocket plane SpaceShipOne flies to more than 114km to win the $10m X-Prize for private space travel. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

Zowie-0-Wowie!

Congrats to Burt Rutan and Co. on winning the X-Prize! Maybe they could give NASA some pointers on how to keep the shuttles flying. Because if the shuttles don't start flying again the International Space Station might be overrun with garbage. (Now I know why I wanted to be a garbage man when I was three!)

1:57:21 PM     leave/read comments []

Wow, in one week, this blog will be one year old! My, what a year it's been. I think I'll repost some items from the back pages this week, leading up to our first anniversary.

Today- the first post from the current, post-crash of 10-23-03 blog:

Dept. of Whinge

Ah, to live in a world where everyone is young, everyone is beautiful and nobody ever gets old. So, maybe you have to have some ponce with a flare gun blow you right out of your pastel Quiana Dress when you hit thirty, but hey, at least you won't have to stare down forty from your parents' basement.

Yeah, it's been one of those days, where the world of Logan's Run (well, the first part, actually) is looking pretty good. Nothing like being turned down cold after applying for a couple of crappy McJobs to make you REALLY feel like the lowest of the low. Feh.

Not only that, but even the lowly amoeba has got one on me (two, come to think of it), it has a job and it can achieve virtual immortality through binge eating! How does an amoeba reproduce? It eats. And eats. And eats some more. And when it's had just enough to burst, it turns into TWO amoebas! Immortality through binge eating! And we have the nerve to call ourselves "higher organisms!"

No, we have sexual reproduction, which means two creatures have to get together to make one new creature. And then, to add insult to injury, the two creatures that got it on to make the one new one have to go and die, as to not strain the food supply for the youngsters and their offspring.

So, to review:

Amoebas and "lower life forms"- eat all you want, you'll make more....copies of you!

Humans and the rest of us "higher life form" smartypants- sex=death and ungrateful youth.

Man, that is one sharp serpent's tooth.

Ah, the more things change.......

1:28:23 PM     leave/read comments []