Science Friction

X-Prize: The countdown begins

Well it seems that SpaceShipOne has successfully completed its first official attempt at the X-Prize, despite pilot Mike Melvill having to shut down the engines 11 seconds prematurely because the craft started to roll. According to unofficial radar readings the craft reached the required altitude of 100km while carrying the pilot and the equivalent weight of two passengers. The team must now repeat the feat within two weeks to take the $10m prize.

Trip to London

Thank you Xerox. On Wednesday I flew to London for a press briefing given by Xerox. I can't discuss the details because I signed an NDA. I had asked to be flown to London City Airport because I loathe Heathrow and besides, London City is quite convenient for, well, central London. Instead, I was booked to fly to, you guessed it, London Heathrow with British Midland. Now don't get me wrong but I have never been on a British Midland flight that has been on time. Nor has any member of my family. The airline couldn't even get journalists to one of its own briefings on time and despie a scheduled six hour layover at Heathrow, my father still missed his connection to Tokyo. Anyway, my fears were realised and we were an hour late leaving Dublin.

Still, there were compensations. I was met at the airport by a very nice man driving a Jaguar. Very comfortable. I was booked into the Langham Hotel, a very posh establishment just off Regent Street and a stone's throw from Oxford Circus. Since I had a few hours to kill I set off at once for Forbidden Planet and Foyles where I picked up Poker for Dummies, Charle Stross's Iron Sunrise and Ian Baxter's Exultant.

Interestingly, the last time I was in Forbidden Planet in London I was looking for a hardcover copy of Coalescent but all they had was trade paperback. When I enquired, I was snottily told "We don't stock Baxter in hardcover." (I eventually got a copy via Amazon). However this time when I went looking for the sequel Exultant, there it was in hardcover. That'll teach em.

A quick visit to Virgin Megastore later I was also heavier by two CDs - Kurt Elling Live in Chicago and Grant Green Grant's First Stand.

Dinner was interesting. I was seated with a guy named Rob Stewart from Portland Oregon. As far as we could tell we weren't directly related but I'm sure there's a family link somewhere in the mists of history.

Thursday was just one briefing after another from 8.20am onwards. Then back in the Jaguar and back to Heathrow arriving in plenty of time for my 19:45 flight. Which was delayed until 21:15. I finally got home at about 23:30 only to find that my iMac wouldn't boot up. After much tooing and froing with DiskWarrior and the OS X installation disks I finally seem to have it working again. However, this is happening all too often. I think it's time to upgrade to an iMac G5.

US Republican party has own jail for dissidents

During the Republican National Convention in New York City the NYPD detained over 1000 protesters in a temporary holding centre nicknamed Little Guantanamo. LG was located in the docks area of Manhattan and was full of toxic chemicals following a fire sometime previously. However, when the parents of one detainee – while trying to find out who had issued various health and safety certificates – asked who was managing the centre they were given the telephone number of the Republican National Party. Full story here.

Winning streak ends

The Big Quiz took place last night in the RDS. Organised by Scope Communications it was much larger version of the ComputerScope Channels Quiz that my team won last year. We took a prize fund of €5000 and donated it to Cancer research. My plans to do the same again this year were dashed but we had a good time. The team consisted of myself, Paul McKinley, Mabel Gargan an John McBride. We didn't do too badly. Out of the 280 teams present, making it the largest table quiz in the world to date, we managed to make it onto the leader board.

Spam problems

I think some spammer has put my e-mail address on one of their missives because my inbox is flooded with "Returned Mail" messages from the AOL mail delivery subsystem.

Just one simple question

Do you think anyone will be brave enough to ask this question?

Alone again...

After reports that radio signals had been detected from outer space, the idea that we might finally have proof of extraterrestrial intelligence has been squashed. Dr Dan Wertheimer, Chief Scientist of the SETI@Home project told BBC News: "We have nothing that is unusual. It's all out of proportion." [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

I feel good...

I went to see James Brown in Vicar Street last night, courtesy of EsatBT. The guy may be 73 but he certainly knows how to work a crowd. The band and backing singers did most of the work but the Godfather of Soul did his bit too. Get on up..