Shopping lists

No matter what you are throwing away, somebody will find it endlessly fascinating. Witness Bill Keaggy, who loves other people's grocery lists. Which reminds me, I still have some errands to do.

Playing U7 - again

UltimaVII, one of the older, but better, fantasy games ever, now can be played on WinXP or Linux too. Exult, an U7 game engine lets you play and revive the game in its full glory. That is, if you have a soundcard compatible with the game. In those days, Soundblasters were almost omnipresent, but now that's not the case. I can play the game with all FX, but the midi songs. If you decide to play again, it might be helpfull to remember that the way to succeed in Ultima 7 is SERIAL KLEPTOMANIA ;)

kristof_ Sun, 10/12/2008 - 12:43

Last implementations of Exult add sound effects and music to the game. They are available as separate download packs.
See : http://exult.sourceforge.net/docs.php#wave_sfx

Star Atlas

KStars is getting better with every release. Originally intended as an educational planetarium program, it now includes stars up to magnitude 7 or 8, which makes it already usable as a star atlas for owners of a small sized telescope.

However, if you want to make real deep sky observations, magnitude 8 is just not detailled enough. And that's the only drawback of KStars; you can add different star catalogi, but there are no detailed ones available. For "professional" use, XEphem is the real pogram to use. I discovered this page, where the Tycho2 and Hipparcos catalogi for use with XEphem can be downloaded. It provides you a star atlas with 2 400 000 stars up to magnitude 13.

Pioneer 10 spacecraft sends last signal

The Pioneer 10 spacecraft has sent its last signal to Earth. Pioneer's last, very weak signal was
received on Jan. 22, 2003. NASA engineers report Pioneer 10's
radioisotope power source has decayed, and it may not have enough power to send additional transmissions to Earth.

"Originally designed for a 21-month mission, Pioneer 10 lasted more than 30 years. It was a workhorse that far exceeded its warranty, and I guess you could say we got our money's worth," said Pioneer 10 Project Manager, Dr. Larry Lasher.

Pioneer 10 was launched March 2, 1972 for a flight to Jupiter, making it the fastest human-made object to leave the Earth; fast enough to pass the moon in 11 hours and to cross Mars' orbit, about 50 million miles away, in just 12 weeks. Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt, considered a spectacular achievement, and then headed toward Jupiter. In 1983, Pioneer 10 became the first human-made object to pass the orbit of Pluto, the most distant planet from the Sun.
Following its encounter with Jupiter, Pioneer 10 explored the outer regions of the solar system, studying energetic particles from the Sun (solar wind), and cosmic rays entering our portion of the Milky Way. The spacecraft continued to make valuable scientific investigations in the outer regions of the solar system until its science mission ended March 31, 1997.

Pioneer carries human greetings in the form of a gold anodized plaque with symbolic drawings, an attemp of the NASA engineers to send out a
human greeting card into outer space. Carl Sagan designed the plaque to be universally (in the truest sense) comprehensible, at least to any civilization sufficiently advanced to capture it. However, it will probably be mankind itself which will bring the spacecraft home, as we probably will encounter Pioneer in the future during high speed space
travel.