The Troubadour: 07/01/2013

Hello Troops,
Today you get to see the latest in space fashions right from the world's leading fashion houses.
I asked for something new and different to take the place of the old Space Center t-shirt for our Farpoint Cadets. What I forgot to mention was our minuscule budget.
I got a call to sit down with the heads of the fashion houses to see their Farpoint creations. What do you think?

Les Maths Sont Portable Collection.
It can also come with rectangles, cubes and for those
willing to pay for originality, rhombuses

Les Tirettes Sont Trop Communes Collection
from the Jupiter Line for those awash in cash

Son ou le sien et ceux confus
Collection, again from the Jupiter Line.
The backpack is an extra $1200

l'espace est noir Collection
Great for funerals

Rêveur de West Point Collection
From the Battlestar Line.
Great military look

Docteur de l'espace Collection.
For the fashionable Starship Doctor

Commande de flotte Collection
This one was tempting.
Can you imagine all our cadets decked out in this collection?

Complètement Impraticable Collection
Yes, it looks fantastic, but the
name of the collection states the problem.
Not something wearable with the
possibility of a failure in the ship's gravity generators

Une électrocution attendant pour se produire Collection.
Great, fine and all that, just don't wear it in the engine room.

Je suis un chef de bulle Collection
My personal favorite from the woman's' line, but
perhaps distracting during red alerts.

Troops, its was an impossible decision. I had to select something for our Farpoint Cadets that was comfortable, quick to put on and take off, inexpensive, and fashionable enough for our cadets to feel comfortable wearing them about town. Did I mention inexpensive?
None of the above designs met the criteria.
"Haven't you got anything else?" I asked the designers. They looked confused. I needed to explain. "We can afford the shoelaces and maybe the socks, but everything above the socks is just too expensive. Our cadets can't walk around in fashionable shoelaces and socks, can they?" I asked the designers. "I need fashion on a budget."
"Nous ne pouvons pas vous aider. Vous demandez l'impossible!" Monsieur LaPeau exclaimed; his face twisted with muscle spasms. He motioned for his aide who quickly produced a small pill from her handbag.
I heard someone knocking on the window behind me. I turned around. Outside stood two young men wearing the answer to our problem. With them was David Kyle Herring, another designer who had fallen on hard times. He motioned for me to step outside. Obviously he wasn't invited to present his Farpoint collection.
"What about those two boys out there? What are they wearing?" I said to Monsieur LaPeau while pointing out the window.
Monsieur LaPeau looked out the window and scoffed. "Ceux sont de la Chambre des Herring. Qui porterait quelque chose de la Maison des Herring ? Vous évidemment devez goûter si vous aimez cela." And with that, he stomped out of the showroom, followed by his aide.
I waited for them to leave, then rushed outside.
"Did you buy anything yet?" David Kyle looked desperate, and in need of a good meal.
"I can't afford those prices, besides everything I saw in there was impractical."
"Isaac, Rich, over here pronto," David Kyle took me by the arm and introduced me to his two young models. I looked at the shirts. The fabric resembled the stretchy Under Armor material and it came in at the right price.
"Sold," I said extending my hand. We shook hands and the rest is history.

Issac and Rich modeling the new Farpoint Cadet shirts

The back has the Farpoint motto: "Go Boldly".
Notice the word Farpoint is printed down the left back side of the shirt.

Cadets, your shirts are in. You may pick yours up at our next monthly meeting. I may also drop a few off so you can have them at the two space centers when you go in to volunteer.

Mr. Williamson

Space and Science News

Recent Rocket launches place satellites in orbit

Ariane 5 lifts off from French Guiana. Credit: Arianespace

There's been a salvo of international space launches since the NASA spacewalk emergency. As far as satellite launches go, the most recent was Thursday's (July 25) launch of an Ariane 5 rocket by the European Space Agency. Lifting off from the site in French Guiana, the rocket placed the 6 and a half ton Alphasat 1-XL satellite into orbit. The Alphasat is a new and larger satellite chassis that will allow ESA to place larger and more powerful communications satellites into space. Along for the ride, was smaller satellite INSAT-3D, a weather satellite for India.

There goes another Atlas 5, from Cape Canaveral AFS. Credit: John Studwell/AmericaSpace.

The Atlas 5 just keeps on going... Saturday July 20 saw the venerable rocket liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida with the Navy's MUOS-2 communications satellite. The launch occurred from Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) after a slight upper winds delay. This was number 2 of a planned series of 5 MUOS satellites. The United Launch Alliance (ULA), which operated the launch for the military, claimed that this was the heaviest satellite taken up by the Atlas 5 so far. ULA has another rocket launch coming up in 3 weeks.

Blastoff of the Long March 4C from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. Credit: Xinhua.

China is always busy launching satellites these days. On Saturday July 20, A long MArch 4C rocket carried 3 satellites into space, testing technology for maintenance in space and other experiments. On Monday July 15 a Long March 2C had blasted off, this time from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, and carried a satellite that included scientific, and possibly military, experiments.

Mark Daymont

Spacerubble.blogspot.com

The Imaginarium

Offers a master's degree in Imagineering

Make the ordinary, extraordinary

AMC found an unusual and creative way to advertise a show.
Getting stuck behind this with a minivan of young kids - not a good thing.

Octopus lamp

How you look taking a picture or video with an iPad

Russian President Putin at a press conference. Check out his notes.

This is a protest I can support

Old Soviet, Communist Logic

A Kindergarten Teacher's way of doing it.

Statistics can get you every time

Hello Troops,
A sobering thought starts today's post to the Troubadours; this is the transition week from the last month of summer vacation to the start of school month. School is just around the corner. Teachers are already preparing themselves mentally. Parents are anxiously waiting for their freedom's return. Walmart has their school displays up, calling your attention to their Low Low prices on notebooks, pens, pencils, and erasers.

You can't run from your destiny. You have no other choice than to accept the unavoidable. Prepare Ye, Prepare Ye, for the cold dark days of winter are coming.....

Yes more lessons,
Yes more books,
Yes for teacher's dirty looks

Mr. W.

P.S. You won't believe this, but just as I'm typing this my neighbor across the street has just stepped onto her porch with her 12 year old son. She's shaking crumbs from what appears to be his black and gray school backpack. The coincidence was too good.

Space and Science News

Every 26 months there is an opportunity to send a vehicle from Earth to the planet Mars along an efficient, low-energy trajectory. The trip can take six months or more. Probes to Mars often fail; as of July 2012, the success rate was 47 percent. Since the 1960's many unmanned spacecraft have attempted the journey to Mars, but less than half ever made it, as depicted in this infographic.
Source: Space.com

A Factoid

After 40 Years, the Popularity of Table Top Gaming

Rises Despite High Tech Competition

Tabletop gamers, new and old alike, say they are drawn to the freedom of a game system that doesn’t limit their choices. Whatever they want their characters to do generally is allowed and, as a result they say, the experience feels more “real” than playing a video game, in which the world is like a beautiful cage — vividly portrayed but also limited by its programming. Read More

Could you pass this 8th Grade test from 1912?

A Factoid

"Length of a Human DNA Molecule:"
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/StevenChen.shtml

"Finding the weight of DNA in a human:"
http://brainmass.com/biochemistry/all-topics/413145

Wonder how long all of the viruses found in Earth's oceans would stretch?

See our list "Ten Mindblowing Facts About Earth's Water:" http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/facts-about-water/

Created by All Science, All the Time

Scientists Freeze Light for One Minute

In what could prove to be a major breakthrough in quantum memory storage and information processing, German researchers have frozen the fastest thing in the universe: light. And they did so for a record-breaking one minute.
It sounds weird and it is. The reason for wanting to hold light in its place (aside from the sheer awesomeness of it) is to ensure that it retains its quantum coherence properties (i.e. its information state), thus making it possible to build light-based quantum memory. And the longer that light can be held, the better as far as computation is concerned. Accordingly, it could allow for more secure quantum communications. Read More

There is No Pink

There is no pink so get over it. From now on Troubadours should set the proper example and call the color what it truly is, white minus pink.

This is one very white minus green room!

OK Troops, You've done well. You faithfully read and watched all the above items and feel so much smarter than you did before; I think you deserve a reward. Its time for

The Imaginarium

I've told you over and over, if you want to be an imagineer you must constantly strive, day in and day out, to make the ordinary - Extraordinary. It is your destiny.....