Sunday Things - interminable edition
posted in Links by Cargo Cult on Sunday December 9 2012
This 'ere blog-thing has been going for over six months now. How long can it continue? Let us find out.



Bonus Gratuitous Self-Promotion corner:

Sunday Things - another edition
posted in Links by Cargo Cult on Sunday December 2 2012



Bonus Hard Science Fiction for Free corner:
- Blindsight - deliciously hard science, describing the discovery of a less-than-inscrutable alien presence. Whole book online, Creative Commons licence! Mr. Peter Watts has other books online, a donation jar, and the scars from the outlandishly sci-fi-style necrotising fasciitis (WARNING: GORY).
- Short stories from Greg Egan - razor-sharp fictional physics from Australia-land. The interstellar, no-faster-than-light human civilisation in the you'll have-to-pay-for-it Schild's Ladder was fantastic. And all too plausible.
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BREAKING NEWS - ROCKS DISCOVERED ON MARS
posted in Space by Cargo Cult on Sunday November 25 2012
I love the raw images service provided by the Mars Science Laboratory teams. Inexplicable lumps of an alien world appearing like jigsaw pieces, just asking to be reassembled into something more understandable.
So, more images got posted, this time from the 100mm narrow-angle MastCam. Strange glimpses of twisted rocks, distant dust-obscured mountains, the tea-coloured sky...
Cue the Hugin.

The weirdly squishy-looking rocks to the centre-right, the angular broken blocks, the distant hills, the layered, eroded outcrop to the centre-left... Rocks!
It's kind of pointless turning this into an interactive panorama, what with the field of view being ~60×30 degrees...
Edit 2012-11-27: now updated and extended with images from Sol 109, here's an increasingly gigantic, unofficial panorama:

There's thumbnails for yet more images arriving. Too much data...
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Sunday Things - Sunday edition
posted in Links by Cargo Cult on Sunday November 25 2012
More links for your perusal. Please note: additional additions greatly appreciated! Post 'em in the comments. Or send an email. But enough of that, back to the Sunday Things:




Bonus Robots and Computers corner:
- Mars Science Laboratory papers - high-grade planetary science for the Curiosity rover, available free to the public until November 30th.
- The Lorenz Cipher and how Bletchley Park broke it - in-depth article from the late Tony Sale. See also: Colossus!
- Robot could explore lunar caverns - remember my obsession with holes on the Moon and Mars? Someone must have listened.
- Internet background noise - the endless hiss of spambots, worms and who-knows-what lurking on the 'net. See also: the Cryptosphere.
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Mystery Project - part 2
posted in Electronics by Cargo Cult on Friday November 23 2012
I'm good at having weird things arrive through the post. The latest acquisition?




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