Monster Monday

[captqitn]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

[Tripp]

NOO.!!! NOOOOO!!!!!!

[Jesse]

Awesome photo!

[Doctor Rock]

AHHHHH! 

I'm sorry, but if you keep scaring me like that, I will be too stressed out to post! 

[Doctor Rock]

Back on line with my computer!  It's fixed.  It was a hard-drive problem.  Got it replaced with a bigger one.  I didn't loose anything except some money and time. 

[Bizarro]

Just a good thing you kept all your data, really. I keep hoping cloud storage will come way down, so I can just keep everything important in the cloud and not worry about it.

[Doctor Rock]

Just a good thing you kept all your data, really. I keep hoping cloud storage will come way down, so I can just keep everything important in the cloud and not worry about it.

I use an external hard drive and an app called Time Machine that records pretty much everything that's going on my 'puter as long as I remember to hook the computer to the hard drive from time to time.  But that wasn't even necessary, as the repair dude was able to clone my old hard drive into the new one. 

[Bizarro]

I am really nowhere near as careful about backup as I should be. It's a minor miracle I haven't been stung.

[Bizarro]

So I've been noticing an absurdly bright, unevenly shaped light in the east part of the night sky. At first, it was so bright, I kept dismissing it as an aircraft, but finally I had enough sense to notice it didn't move. I used the Google Sky Map app and lo and behold, it's Jupiter. A bit of Googling, and it turns out that Jupiter is 75,000,000 km closer than normal (the closest it will be for the next 11 years) and is one of the brightest lights in the night sky until late next month. The reason why it's a bit uneven looking is that four of it's moons are bright too and can be seen with even a consumer grade telescope, I am told.

Anyway, something to look for tonight, starting about an hour after sundown. Something cool to show the kids.

[Bizarro]

More deets:

http://www.astronomy.com/~/link.aspx?_id=6c4d3aa7-af73-4345-a79d-0992b9aad468

[Bizarro]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/xJ4rWjV35Uk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/xJ4rWjV35Uk</a>

[Doctor Rock]

So I've been noticing an absurdly bright, unevenly shaped light in the east part of the night sky. At first, it was so bright, I kept dismissing it as an aircraft, but finally I had enough sense to notice it didn't move. I used the Google Sky Map app and lo and behold, it's Jupiter. A bit of Googling, and it turns out that Jupiter is 75,000,000 km closer than normal (the closest it will be for the next 11 years) and is one of the brightest lights in the night sky until late next month. The reason why it's a bit uneven looking is that four of it's moons are bright too and can be seen with even a consumer grade telescope, I am told.

Anyway, something to look for tonight, starting about an hour after sundown. Something cool to show the kids.

Cool!  I'm sure some naive folks looked at that and went "ooh, UFO!".   

I had a fairly decent knowledge of the sky when I was younger and lived in a place with a good viewing.  One of the things I hate about living in the big city is that I don't get to see the stars.  Too much light pollution.

[Bizarro]

She did well, really. I still think her show is a lazy, Manic Pixie Dream Girl mess without enough funny jokes, though.

[Bizarro]

Bonus nerdery: sighting opportunities for the International Space Station.

http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/skywatch.cgi?country=United+States

It will be visible for two minutes in my area tonight.

[Bizarro]

By the way, the Google Sky Map app rocks it HARD.