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there’s an interesting interview over at astrobiology magazine with jill tarter (of contact fame) and margaret turnbull. they talk about their creation of a categorization technique for stars and how it was used to create the habcat, a catalog of nearby habitable stellar systems. this catalog will likely be used by the allen telescope array to determine it’s first list of targets when it begins operation in 2005. this article is not just an interview, it also does a good job of overviewing various seti projects as well as other general planetary classification information. i haven’t kept up with seti for a while. it’s good to see that this project is finally getting off the ground, let just hope they can keep up the funding and make some real progress in the search.

now this is cool, you have to check out this xul based rss news reader. if you don’t have a xul enabled browser like mozilla it’s not going to work though, sorry.

this past saturday my friends and i went to this great brazilian steak house in chicago called fogo de chow. it was hands down one of the best restaurants i’ve been to in a while. you can start your meal by visiting their huge salad bar and fill your plate or plates with the veggie fare. we chose to skip that part of the experience and jump right into the “meat” of the meal. my buddy brawnski suggested that we all not eat much beforehand, and rightfully so.


we sat down and the host explained to us how their system worked. you have a coaster in front of you that is red on one side and green on another. when your ready for some meat you flip it to green, otherwise you show it up as red. the whole time your eating these waiters dressed in brazilian gaucho garb, think matador, are walking around with 3 foot skewers of various cooked meats with different cuts. when one comes to your table and sees your green marker is showing he tells you the meat he has and offers it to you. if your interested then you use your small personal tongs and take the meat from him while he cuts it from the skewer. it’s very different than any other dining experience i’ve had before, which is what i think i enjoyed most about it.


i must have had 10 different types of cuts of meat ranging from lamb, pork loin, sausage, beef, filet mignon all the way to parmesan crusted or bacon wrapped chicken. they have various daily specials from what people have said so the selection may vary depending on the day of the week or time of year you visit. i didn’t have a single piece of fatty or grizzly meat and every bite practically melted in my mouth. to top off the meal, while your picking away at various meat offerings, they are bringing you unlimited garlic mashed potatoes, fried banana, and fried yucca. the service was really great and the environment was comfortable.


i’m sorry but if you leave fogo hungry or unhappy with your dining experience then it’s your own fault. this is a restaurant to be experience by anyone with a healthy appetite and who’s certainly not a vegetarian.

she’s been busy setting up her new digs over at www.martiegras.com. we’re loving the new domain and the colors aren’t bad either. font could be a little smaller but that’s just my personal preference. she’s now officially left the blogger world and entered the realm of movable type. being a mt convert she can now appreciate the true power of blogging with complete control over all facets of her creative juices. some pain is included, but what fun would life be without a few shots of pain to make it all worthwhile?

in a related article i found while searching for more information on spaceshipone, spacedev announced today that they are competing to supply a safe hybrid rocket propulsion system for the spaceshipone program. the coolest thing about this hybrid propulsion design is that it uses nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and htpb (tire rubber) as the safe, clean and inexpensive propellants.


on another note, the site appears to finally be up. there is a cool posterboard for spaceshipone and another for white knight. check out the data sheets for more details about the crafts and support vehicles. one other tidbit that i forgot to mention was that this effort isn’t just a grab for the x prize, their goal is to actually create a complete manned space program with all its support elements. the more i read about this project and this team the more geeked i get.

a company called scaled composites announced today that they’ve been developing a commercial manned space program in secret for the past two years. as the lead designer put it, “scaled composites … is tired of waiting for others to provide affordable human space access”. can i get a “hell yea” for this guy? finally someone is stepping up to the plate and putting forth some effort to tackle space exploration from a cheaper more cost effective basis.


one of the huge driving forces for this project is the elusive x prize. in short it’s a $10 million dollar prize that will go to the first team that:

• privately finances, builds & launches a spaceship, able to carry three people to 100 kilometers (62.5 miles)
• returns safely to earth
• repeats the launch with the same ship within 2 weeks

the effort by scaled composites consists of an orbital spaceplane called spaceshipone and a drop ship called white knight. there are pictures of the ships over at space.com in the article they have about the announcement. the scaled composites web site appears to be hammered and isn’t responsive to most http requests. i’ll post more info when i can get to the site. if the pictures and the brief articles are any indication then this is going to be an exciting attempt that could change affordable space exploration.

i’m finally beginning to get over some weird form of the flu. i’ve been out of work for three days now, laid up at home, and under different forms of pain. i went to see the dr today and got the green light to return to work. i was worried that i might still be contagious but she didn’t think i was but she did think it was best that i hadn’t gone to work. not only did my body need to repair but she’s seen this flu going around for a few months and is amazed by the people that continue to work through it, all the while infecting their coworkers. so now i’m drugged up and ready to try to work tomorrow … wooohooo.


i weighed myself this past saturday and saw no movement in the scale but this morning i got on the scale to get an idea what i was gaining. needless to say i was surprised that in 3 days of being sick i lost 5 pounds. it’s likely that it’s mostly water though since my temperature was up to 101 for 2 days. i guess we’ll see if it was or not in a few weeks. one thing is certain though, i don’t see myself going to the gym this week. i do hope that i can return to exercising regularly next week though, we’ll see.