techyum ::

An MSNBC article about the launch last Saturday of the US Air Force’s Space-Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) satellite gives those foaming-at-the-mouth mildly-left-of-centrists the opportunity to link to an oldie by a goody: the 2008 Space.com article listing the ten most important moments in space-junk history.

Said Top 10 List was published on the occasion of the shoot-down of USA-193, a military satellite launched in 2006 that malfunctioned and was destroyed in February 2008 by a RIM-161/SM-3 ship-based missile launched from the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Erie west of Hawaii in a move probably intended to tell China to quit eyeballin’ our space junk.

Poor USA-193 gets no respect, however; it’s only number 10 on the list. The other 9 make cheerful reading, including a woman in Oklahoma who got hit on the head by a piece of a rocket, the Australian discovery of supposed alien spheres later said to be water tanks from Gemini V, and the 1978 re-entry of Soviet nuclear-powered satellite Kosmos 954 over Canadian territory, for which the Sov’s were billed over CA$6 million, just for starters. There’s a significant dose of tragedy, as well, as with the Columbia disaster.

But what’s all this about the Space-Based Space Surveillance? No, it’s not a branch of the Homeland Security Department of Homeland Security Departments. It’s a Department of Defense program coordinated by the Air Force designed to track space junk viewed as potential future threats to “U.S. space assets.” The satellite launched this weekend is an SBSS pathfinder, the first of

There’s an official informational video about the system here, and you can check out the Ball Aerospace informational PDF that looks like it was crafted at the height of the Kennedy era when guys my Dad’s age were chainsmoking Tareytons and wearing black ties with short sleeve shirts.

If you’re into that sort of thing, users at YouTube have posted several different videos of this weekend’s Vandenberg Air Force Base launch of the Minotaur IV bearing the SBSS pathfinder, from varying sources. One was even shot from someone’s back yard.

Oh, and if you’re a complete nerd, CelesTrak.com has a completely awesome post-event analysis of the 2008 interception at USA-193 complete with bizarre screencaps straight out of a flight simulator circa 1983.

Looking over this detailed, researched list of 10 Fascinating Last Pictures Taken is a fairly intense experience: after all, it’s a “top ten” of the last photos ever taken of either a dead celebrity, or someone who died in a major catastrophe and their last photos were provided for public record. The last photo of Marilyn Monroe is bittersweet; the last photo of Princess Diana is heartbreaking and filled me with anger. Others are like the one above: #6 photographer Bill Biggart: it’s the last photo that came from his one digital camera before the second tower fell on him at the Twin Towers, 9/11. Listverse explains,

Photojournalist Bill Biggart was covering the events of September 11th and was tragically killed as the second tower of the World Trade Center came down. Four days later Biggart’s body was recovered from the rubble and his personal effects, including his cameras were given to his wife. Biggart’s widow later handed over the camera bag to a good friend and fellow photographer. She was convinced that no pictures had survived because the falling debris had blown off the backs of the two film cameras and the lids of the film canisters had been peeled back. His friend turned his attention to the digital camera that was covered by ash. The lens had been sheared off but when he opened the chamber that held the flash card he discovered it was in pristine condition. The card contained 150 pictures including the last picture taken shown above which is time stamped 10:28 am and 24 seconds. The time was 10:30am when the second tower came down.
Interesting Fact: When Biggart’s wife reached him on his cell phone shortly after the first tower fell. He told her not to worry, and would meet her in 20 minutes at his studio. “I’m safe,” he assured her, “I’m with the firemen.” It was the last time they ever spoke. About 20 minutes later, the second tower collapsed. (…read more, listverse.com)

It’s probably too late to order anything, but the Bizarre Magazine Gift Guide (NSFW) has some of the truly weirdest, funnest stuff: like the cuddly Roadkill plushie toy above, or the other oddities like pubic hair dye, ball and chain handbag and terrorist teapot. Nice!
Not on the list, but should be: the Cat Playhouse.

Image via the must-ogle Culture Jamming Gift Guide and Flickr user smashtheqube.
I may be rilly biased because pt and I are extremely close friends, but one look at The Culture Jamming Gift Guide at MAKE blog – hack, stick, throw, jam and inspire! and the deal is sealed. You need no more than this and the amazing dorktastic Ars Guide to geek out forever in your mad scientist fortress of doom. Plus, tips on building that death ray while cat camming the nooks and crannies of your underground secret laboratory via that fluffy white cat, you know, the one you have to pet menacingly when the annoying pseudo-hero tries to put you on their overhyped vlogshow yet again. Cue the LED-throwie lined alligator pit.

* I am extremely proud to brag that I have this (from the MAKE Jamming Guide) in my purse at all times.

The Vampire Cafe.
Yes, it’s another list, and leaves much to be desired in the way of detail, but it’s way too fun not to show you. Yesterday the Guardian UK quickly posted then buried the great list, Tokyo’s theme restaurants based on the just-released Michelin list of quirkiest restaurants. Personally, I’d rearrange the list with the Vampire Cafe at the top — complete with coffin dining, bloody cocktails and full-on Dracula’s lair detail. Next being the prison restaurant which is nearly a Kink.com experience — but weirder. At Alcatraz ER Restaurant (which I managed to find this mini-gallery, OMG the atmosphere!), because of my unique obsessiveness gifts, you get a choice of seemingly nonconsensual dining tortures. Guardian writes,

The setting is a “medical prison”. You are the patient. The waitresses are dressed as the type of nurses that exist only in Benny Hill re-runs. They handcuff you, pretend to inject a giant needle into your rear, and then lock you in a cell. There, you can order such dishes as Dead Chicken (in which two chicken feet are clasped together in peaceful repose), Penis Sausage (in which a sausage is carved to resemble a severed penis) and Intestine (another sausage, and sort of odd considering that you can order actual intestine in any of Tokyo’s zillion yakitori restaurants). Try the cocktails: the false teeth in a jar has particular bite. Occasionally, the staff will “accidentally” open your cell door and it’s your mission to go screaming around the restaurant in a wheelchair evading the outstretched hands of other prisoners. (… read more, guardian.co.uk)

See also: Alcatraz ER images on Flickr; a few Vampire Cafe images are also on Flickr.

Image via Ubuweb of Henri Chopin’s Sol Air (1964). Goodnight Henri.
A week into the new year, I’ve finally whittled away at the nostalgia and the prophecy of the year-end lists. Beginning by adding to the downpour of CES coverage, I turn your attention to Earth2tech’s Green Guide to CES. While the tech-nodes are being stimulated, tickle the ears with Disquiet’s rundown of Ubuweb’s first “featured resources” of 2008. Rekindle the visual cortex with 2007′s best photographers and stretch your brain around last year’s top ten new organisms. In case you missed it Hell did freeze over last year and the micronation movement is gaining momentum. Timetravel was made possible thanks to eBay and geek power. On that note, let us not forget all the people who died in 2007. To those we never knew who changed our lives forever, goodnight.

The title pretty much says it all. National Geographic, Afarensis and Science (who will be publishing the research) are reporting on the new discovery. Adding to the joy is the fact that the entire thing has been captured in amber, in situ, so to speak;

The fossil fungi used hyphal rings as trapping devices and are preserved together with their prey, small nematodes.

I feel touched by His noodly appendage just thinking about it.
That said, the yearly onslaught of Best-of lists is upon us, so everyone take shelter. If you really need a fix, stick to things like the top Bigfoot stories of 2007 or the anticipatory Disquiet’s Best of 1996-2006 (is the net really that old?). You can also prepare your ears for the coming year with a free 12K sampler, if you’re a fan of such anachronistic mediums as the compact disc.

This wonderful, painstakingly compiled list of the Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time by Snarkerati reads like a list of my favorite, most inspiring and influential films — with a few I really want to see. They even updated the post with ones they regret they left out! Snip:

Massive dehumanization, totalitarian government, rampant disease, post-apocalyptic terrains, cyber-genetic technologies, societal chaos and widespread urban violence are some of the common themes in dystopian films which bravely examine the ominous shadow cast by future.
A dystopia is a fictional society that is the antithesis or complete opposite of a utopia, an ideal world with a perfect social, political and technological infrastructure. A world without chaos, strife or hunger. A world where the individual potential and freedom is celebrated and brought to the forefront.
In contrast, the dystopian world is undesirable with poverty and unequal domination by specific individuals over others. Dystopian films often construct a fictional universe and set it in a background which features scenarios such as dehumanizing technological advancements, man-made disasters or class-based revolutions.
Ranking the List
We thought it would be interesting if we could coagulate the most commonly cited dystopian movies and rank them not to preference, but to an average score made up of both Rotten Tomatoes (RT) and IMDB ratings. (…)
We’ve taken both ratings, added them together and found an average score for each film. Each of the films are then ranked according to this average score. We’ve also included links to the IMDB and RT profile for each movie so you can learn more about the movie.

Link (thanks, Jason!)
Also: I selected the Blade Runner image (#5) so I could point out that the Battlestar Galactica series has borrowed “skin jobs” as the derogatory term for cylons/replicants — and to also mention that (for those following the series) in season 3 they’re looking for the “final five” — while in the premise of Blade Runner, five replicants escaped and fled to Earth, including a blonde pleasure model. Just sayin’.

This is the question currently being asked in the tech section over at the Guardian — and my personal answer is going to be, “any film with cybersex in it.” (Hello, Lawnmower Man, anyone?) But the question comes as a response to this interesting snip over at New Scientist:

WHY does NASA show the movie Armageddon as part of its management training programmes? We’re talking about the thriller in which Bruce Willis saves the Earth by nuking an asteroid the size of Texas into dust just moments before it wipes out the home planet. If your first thought was that they’re training NASA managers to put the proper PR spin on any doomsday asteroid, the door to the paranoid ward is on your right.
In reality, the screenings are just a game for NASA’s space geeks: who can find the highest number of impossible things in the movie? The record, Feedback is told, stands at 168.

Link.

The details on compilation are based on a paper published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health and summarized in “Elvis to Eminem: quantifying the price of fame through early mortality of European and North American rock and pop stars” (pre-print PDF). A bit more info at at the Ecomonist (image via).