i saw an article in today’s Courier-Journal about an interesting project at the University of Kentucky College of Engineering called BIG BLUE (Baseline Inflatable Glider Balloon Launched Unmanned Experiment). Essentially, it’s a balloon-launched glider designed for atmospheres like Mars. Mars has an atmosphere that is 1% as dense as the Earth, so flying is MUCH harder. The cool thing about this plane is that the wings are deployed at an altitude of 100,000 feet. And they are just unfolded — they are inflated! But you can’t fly with non-rigid wings, right? Right. Well, those crafty sons-of-guns came up with the idea for a ultraviolet-hardening epoxy to harden the wings at altitude! Crazy stuff.

Anyway, NASA is partially funding this project, and they have an article about it’s test flight.

The official site (fairly crude) is linked above, but if you want to see some cool wind-tunnel footage of these wings, you can go here and some documentary footage of the launch can be viewed here.

dav urban: ya know whats wrong with the interent?
dav urban: http://www.love.com

Server Error
This server has encountered an internal error which prevents it from fulfilling your request. The most likely cause is a misconfiguration. Please ask the administrator to look for messages in the server’s error log.

dav urban: their ain’t no love man
dav urban: no love at all
BenCorvus: that is comedy
BenCorvus: it made me chuckle

So, in my traverses and conversations today, I’ve stumbled upon a number of really, really spectacular Flash sites worth checking out.

First off, Ninjai is a multi-chapter Flash story that is really well done. It’s akin to Ninja Scroll with the wandering ninja / fighting in trees / lots of blood sorta feel, but this is far and above most Flash that you see. I love the idea that people are attempting to tell fluid, complete stories. The technology has certainly evolved to that point anyway.

The second one (and perhaps even more spectacular than Ninjai is Broken Saints, which is a HUGE 24-part graphic novel that is being developed entirely in Flash. I’ve only watched one part of the story (the chapters are about 20 minutes long), but the imagery and storytelling is rather wonderful. The site itself leads to at least what could be a good hour of poking around, too. What sets this one apart from Ninjai is that most of the art in Broken Spirits is hand-drawn, which gives is a fuller edge than that of Ninjai, which is computer drawn and designed (mostly).

Many dismissed Flash in it’s early days as trite, silly, and not functional enough to warrant necessity. While in it’s early stages, much of that was true, but HTML wasn’t exactly beautiful around 1995 either! Both things, and the technology surrounding the Internet in general have progressed by leaps and bounds, and this is the outcome.

Oh, yeah, let us not forget MiniGolf

Now, i can’t read Chinese, or Japanese, or really ANY Asian language, but I know some awesome Flash (the Macromedia low-bandwidth web movie stuff) when I see it.

A good example of simple, yet strangely complex and cool Flash is here. And here. And here.

Neat-o keen flash Kung-Fu/Matrix style 2D fights, with good sound, and solid animation. It’s pretty sweet!.

Oh, the main website is here, and you can translate the page (somewhat) with Babelfish

Just got word that BlandPlanet has a new design, and is being updated rather regularly.

BlandPlanet, for those of you who don’t know, is the rambling of a mad man! Ok, so maybe it’s not… It’s essentially all things Gary. Anime, video games, music, you name it. It’s there…

Now, just as soon as Gary (aka MaxMok) gets me a nifty little BlandPlanet button, I’ll put it up.

I guess it was bound to happen someday.

There can be a lot of stress in tech companies, but who knew it would ever manifest itself in this way? Yeah, we techies are a lot of geeks, some of us even perhaps a wee bit socially inept, so was this really unexpected? Lest we remember Columbine and the other countless school shootings.

I always found my success in finding a good job just retribution for being bullied by the “cooler” kids in school (whom are now laying lawn-timbers for Joe’s Landscaping, I might add).

Though, it seems he might have been fed up with RealPlayer

Next week will be the Christmas Edition of the most listened to Canadian technology web-radio show, Does Humour Belong In Technology. Don’t listen, what ever you do!

And this is for Adam and Jase.

Now, I’m no big fan of Christianity, but I am a fan of history, and the printed word. We all remember who Gutenberg was, right? No, not STEVE Gutenberg, but
the famous German man who invented moveable type, right? Good, well, a couple of places have put their copies of the Gutenberg online.

Here is the British copy.

And here is a copy of it in Germany

Everyone knows about Netscape, right? Yeah, it was the first browser to really catch on among most early internet denizens. But, in recent times, Internet Explorer has really caught up with, and eventually surpassed Netscape. Even I, true believers, am now a loyal user of Internet Explorer. It is more standards-compliant and quicker than Netscape 4.75 would ever be, and for once, Microsoft’s release schedule actually looks timely comared to Netscape’s.

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Not only was it out-of-date, but it would crash more often (for me) as well. Memory leaks, Java problems, you name it. I cursed it. I really did. It felt bad. As if I was in some Chinese kung-fu movie. My little son has scorned his family. I as, the petulant father, must now kick him out of the house. YOU HAVE DISGRACED OUR FAMILY! OUT! OUT! And so Netscape slinked away, sobbing… all the while, plotting to impress his family to return to their good graces.

Fast forward a couple of month to right now. Netscape 6 has finally been released. I’m not about to attempt a review of it, but you can try it out yourself, and tell me what you think. Oh, if it pisses you off, go and download Mozilla M18. Mozilla is the foundation of the new Netscape. It’s open source, lightweight, and pretty stable. You will notice remarkable similarities between Mozilla and Netscape. This is because they are essentially the same. I sort of regard them as twins… one just has a different mindset than the other, and it obscenely fat.

Anyway, download, enjoy… tell us what you think.

Hey folks, I just got my interview with Adam and Jase from Does Humour Belong in Technology? back! And boy is it long… You can check it out here.

For those of you who don’t know what DHBIT is, it’s a Canadian LIVE technology web-streaming radio show. Whew! They give a show each Sunday at 7PM PST, and you can listen to it with any MP3 player, and even interact in a chat room while listening. Check them out here.