"Death in the Delta Quadrant"

So - it's a tongue in cheek Star Trek parody murder mystery. I'm in it. So's izzy_stradlin. It's £10 per ticket, and includes a Fish & Chip supper (apparently it's traditional for this kind of murder mystery night, or somesuch). The interval includes a quiz type thing, and there's prizes for the groups that do the best job of working out whodunnit.

It's on the 5th of July. Tickets are selling pretty quick, and it's pre-bookings only... So if you want to go to it, you'll need to get tickets soon. Give me a shout if you're interested (along with some cash, ideally) and I'll sort it.

Let me know ASAP if you're interested.

Water ice on Mars & the whimsy of science!

I've been following the Phoenix mars lander on twitter. This is quite amusing in and of itself, as the updates are written in an enthusiastic first person voice. It gives the lander itself a personality, which I think is fantastic - more space probes should have gleeful sense of wonder about them!

Anyway - last night, this came over the feed:

MarsPhoenix: Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!

Not only have they now observed water ice on mars up close, but they have a space probe that says "w00t!". How cool is that?

okay, so I know it's somebody posting from NASA and pretending to be the probe, but hey - it's a fantastic way to convey what's happening and it opens things up to people who might be bored by the more traditional dry, scientific tones. I'm reminded of several years back, seeing a CGI space probe on TV (tomorrows world or something similar, I think). Rather than being set to the usual "silence of space" soundtrack or something classical... was cheerfully nipping along to the theme music from "Bewitched".

Science should have more Whimsy!

Meanwhile, in twitterville...

What have I been twittering about?

• 12:26 Oooh... New version of the SIMILE Timeline widget... now properly styleable, apparently! Huzzah! #
• 15:23 Swearing. Shocking change from the usual situation: the object of my ire is Internet Explorer! Better software falls out the back of dogs. #
• 16:39 Needing to raise IE as a bug again, damnit. #

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