It’s Friday and this story made me smile. Having just concluded a 30-year run of the Space Shuttle program, NASA continues its space explorations in a new era—one without low-orbit vehicles. NASA’s new space program is still on hold while the government decides its fate through a series of funding decisions. However, this hasn’t stopped NASA from launching rockets.
This particular rocket launched today from Cape Canaveral, Florida and set into a trajectory aimed at Jupiter. NASA believes that learning more about the largest planet will enable us to learn more about how our solar system and Earth were created. The rocket, so aptly named Juno is an Atlas V rocket and is being managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at a price tag of $1.1 billion.
The part that made me smile was that onboard this “un-manned” rocket are three Lego characters made from special space grade aluminum! These three characters were custom designed for this rocket and are in the shapes of Jupiter himself, his wife Juno and (presumably close family friend), Galileo Galilei. That’s right, NASA has sent the God and his company back home. The trip is a mere 1.7 billion miles away and expected to arrive around July of 2016. Let’s just hope there are no crying babies onboard.
Once in Jupiter’s orbit, the rocket is scheduled to make 33 revolutions in just about 1 year and will begin returning data sometime in 2017. Along with the flight crew and passengers, a plaque has been placed on board to honor Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter that reads:
On the 11th it was in this formation — and the star closest to Jupiter was half the size than the other and very close to the other so that during the previous nights all of the three observed stars looked of the same dimension and among them equally afar; so that it is evident that around Jupiter there are three moving stars invisible till this time to everyone.
Sending Legos into outer space actually has a legitimate purpose! It’s part of the Bricks in Space project, the joint outreach and educational program developed as part of the collaboration between NASA and the Lego Group to inspire children to explore science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Since Apple has had tremendous success with the App Store due to iPhone and iPad, they have decided to add its functionality to OS X. You can now buy full desktop/laptop software and games directly from the store with your Apple ID in the same manner as purchasing an app for your mobile device. OS 10.7 was the first full operating system available through this method and while it makes it much easier to obtain by not having to wait in lines or even leave your home, I think not having an actual disc for an operating system just makes you feel naked.
Launchpad is really cool for those familiar with iPhone and iPad. It pops up all of your applications into however many screens it takes to hold them and you can sort them into folders as well. The one thing I didn’t like about it (to no fault of its own) is that it shows ALL of your “applications” which means things like uninstallers, downloaders, helper apps and things meant to serve in the background all show up as icons. I suppose you could just throw these off into their own folder, but you certainly can’t delete them because you probably need them.
Mission Control allows you to see all of your running apps pulled back into a manageable space of running windows in which you could then move around to different virtual desktops to help minimize clutter and keep your productivity organized. What’s really cool about that is you can see all of your open windows without having to minimize each one to get to the furthest one back. Naturally, you can then click on any app you want to bring it forward.
Facetime is the same as it is on iPhone and iPad 2. Now you can Facetime your friends from your Mac directly to an iPhone over wi-fi. I thought that was pretty cool, but since I never used Facetime on my phone, why would I start now? It’s nice to know that I have the option though. It reminds me of all those movies where the secret spy calls in to his office and video chats over his phone with a user at a computer.
Resume is a hidden gem. This feature allows you to have multiple windows and apps running for you after you restart your computer or log off. If you think you don’t care about this feature, thing again! Imagine you’re working on a lot of stuff and your kid all of sudden needs to get into his/her account right before school to get some files. Before, you’d have to save all your work, remember where you were, close all your apps, log off and let someone else log in. With Resume, you can let the other person quickly jump into their account via Fast User Switching to get what they need and jump back into your account without moving a thing! Another example is, you’re in the middle of all your work when an update comes through and demands that you restart your computer. You no longer have to “do it later”. Resume will bring back all of your windows and work just the way you left it after a full system restart.
AirDrop is a new networking feature that takes the guesswork (and headache) out of networking multiple Macs. Let’s say you’re sitting in the living room and a family member is in another room. Both of you are on your Macs and now you want to share a file or two. You used to have to send these files via email or USB drive or maybe copy them to a pre-shared folder and the other person had to copy it back out. With AirDrop, all you have to do is drag those files onto the icon of the nearest Mac and it instantly appears on their machine. It doesn’t get much easier than that!
