That was Then... This is Now

July 20, 2009 (MTV) - An astronaut in a giant white suit stands next to an American flag on the moon’s surface: one of America’s -- and MTV's -- most iconic images. Photos and footage of Neil Armstrong’s first walk on the moon 40 years ago changed the way people all around the world looked at space. It also sparked a heated debate over whether the moon landing was staged or not, one that continues to leak through in pop culture even today. It didn’t take long after the 1969 landing for doubters to start stepping out. In fact, a public opinion poll conducted by the Gallup organization once showed that more than 6% of Americans believed the landing to be an elaborate government hoax. Part of that disbelief was of course fueled by a general feeling that something as amazing as a man walking on the moon was the stuff of science fiction. There were also rumors that the whole thing was filmed on a Hollywood set. These factors led to a memorable scene in the James Bond film “Diamonds Are ...

June 17, 2009 (ZDNet) - Whether it’s down to the sagging economy or the slow but inevitable death of XP, I’m hearing from many people who are looking to jump off the Microsoft software bandwagon and pitch up with the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) movement. But could you realistically move your home or business PCs over to open source software and make a 100% switch? This question intrigues me, and I think that ultimately there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to it. I think that some people could, others can’t, and others could, but simply won’t. At one end of the spectrum you have the home user who spends 90% of their PC time on the Internet. These folks could switch to FOSS in a heartbeat. Even if they do more, like write lists, maybe compile a few reports, and maybe even mess about with photos and a bit of video, switching to FOSS would be a doddle. At the other end of the spectrum you have large corporations running highly-complex systems. For these entities, changing anything ...

I've always been fascinated with "Relativity" by M. C. Escher ever since I first saw it many years ago. Turns out someone has done a "Lego" version of it! You can get the details of it here .