Welcome, Charlie!

Last week, we adopted a new puppy! Charlie is cute, but he's also a handful. Here's a great video of him:



If the video isn't appearing here, just go to YouTube.

Battlestar Makes it to the Top Ten

An excellent Top Ten List from the Letterman Show: Reasons to Watch the Final Season of Battlestar Galactica.

I especially like that Tricia Helfer (Caprica Six) is #6.

More Firefly!

I've really enjoyed reading every issue of Astonishing X-men (most area available in graphic novel form), written by Joss Whedon. I'm sad to say that the final issue will hit the newstands within a few weeks, and then Joss is moving on to something new.

I was poking around the web to find out what Whedon is doing, and discovered that he is releasing a new limited series just for Firefly fans: Serenity: Better Days. Published by Dark Horse Comics, the three issues follow our favorite ship and crew in the days when they were all still together.

Read about Serenity: Better Days #1 here, and pre-order all three at TFAW.

BSG Last Supper

Take a look at this Battlestar Galactica Last Supper.

GTD: Five great Apps for Mac

ZenHabits (creator of the Zen to Done productivity system) has posted quick reviews of five different applications for Mac OS users who want to implement David Allen's Getting Things Done method on their computer.

He also Added his own home-grown method at the end of the article.

See 5 Amazing Mac Apps for Getting Things Done.

An Astronomer on Mars

Cool image of the Earth and Moon as seen from the HiRISE instrument aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Explorer in orbit around Mars. You can see a better version of the photo and read the whole story here.

This reminds me of the somewhat famous image taken by the Voyager I spacecraft as it was headed outward in the 70s.

At the Planetary Society I found a gallery of photos of the Earth taken only from Spacecraft. Check it out!

A Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead

I love the internet. Someone has posted a fake movie trailer on YouTube for the film A Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead, a wonderful mashup of the Beatles black-and-white classic and Nigh of the Living Dead.

Excellent!

Bussard Fusion: Looking for Funding

George was telling me about a lecture he watched on the web by Robert Bussard, an aging physicist (perhaps best known for designing the Bussard Ramjet) who recently came very close to a fusion power system which generates more power than is put into it.

His small company Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC²!) was funded by the U.S. Navy until recently, and he and his colleagues did not discover the amount of success they had achieved until weeks after they were forced to shut down their lab.

The reactor is constructed using six rings assembled into a box. Each ring contains copper windings, allowing a magnetic containment field to be created when power is applied. Here's a concise story at Defense News that does a pretty good job of outlining the project and its uncertain future (it looks like the U.S. Dept. of Energy doesn't like competition).

If you really want some in-depth information, check out the paper by Bussard: The Advent of Clean Nuclear Fusion: Super-performance Space Power and Propulsion.

Teri and Paul go a Cruisin'

Teri and I spent seven days aboard the Carnival Glory, touring the western Caribbean. We saw Mayan Ruins, snorkeled above a barrier reef, and rode a zip line. You can get all the details at the blog I created, Teri and Paul at Sea, which chronicled our adventure.

I never thought I was the kind of person who would take a cruise, and now that I've tried one, I'm still not sure. I created a Squidoo Lens to share my advice about cruises called Cruising for People Who Hate Cruises.

My Financial Management wish comes true: Yodlee

I was telling Teri that I wish I could log in to a single web page and see all of my financial accounts at one time. Well, along comes Yodlee (I read about it at Stop Buying Crap).

I haven't opened an account yet, but I'm gonna try it out real soon now.