Ad Terras Per Aspera

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The rare occurrence of liquid water so near the surface raises many new questions about the mysterious moon.

“We realize that this is a radical conclusion — that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold,” said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. “However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms.”

Read more here.

Caution: This math may be wrong.

In episode 6 of Neon Genesis Evangelion, NERV borrows a positron cannon from a government research lab to deal with the latest threat. This cannon takes all of Japan’s power output, for 37 seconds, to charge the rifle for one shot. According to the CIA World Factbook, Japan produced 1.017 trillion kWh for the whole year in 2003.

1.017 trillion kWh per year/365 days/24 hours = 116 million kWh per hour

So, Japan produces 116 million kWh per hour. However, Makoto Hyuga states that it will take atleast 180 million watts to pierce the AT field of the angel Ramiel. Seeing as it takes 37 seconds to charge the rifle*…

180 million kW per 37 seconds * (3600 seconds / 37 seconds) = 17460 million kWh per hour

So, if my calculations are correct, the rifle would need 17460 million kWh to charge for an hour; unfortunately, this is quite a lot higher than the 116 million kWh per hour Japan produces, infact, it is 150 times more. So, if Evangelion’s Japan in the year 2015 is to be able to power the rifle, it needs to produce 150 times more power than 2003 Japan does.

_{* Counting from the ejection of the first shot’s fuse, to the pulling of the trigger for the second shot.}

Well, news of the suit between Toys R Us and Amazon over their partnership isn’t new. But this is getting a little extreme. They put up a picture of the Gundam Wing (and it looks like one of the toy ones too, not even a model) for the picture of the RX 78-2 Perfect Grade model.

Really smart. Gundam fandom DDOSing Amazon’s complaint email server in 3… 2… 1…

My first order from Hobbylink Japan has arrived. Three Gundam Markers for panel lining, and a spool of Tamiya masking tape. I ordered it Feburary 14th, and it took until today, March 4th. 19 fucking days. Next time I don’t use SAL shipping.

Update: (July 13th 2006) These debs are out of date and are no longer available for download. I have no interest on packaging these anymore.

I’ve recompiled Paul Wise’s Synfig Debian debs for Ubuntu, until Ubuntu Universe inherits them from Debian SID. Just add…

deb http://mjr.iki.fi/ubuntu/synfig/ ./
deb-src http://mjr.iki.fi/ubuntu/synfig/ ./

…to your /etc/apt/sources.list and run apt-get update and you’ll be able to use them. Please note, the binary packages are for x86 only; you’ll have to build from source to get these to work on other platforms. Also note, this version of etl is broken on x86-64, but has been fixed in CVS.

Thanks mjr, for hosting them!