NASA emailed a wrench to space

While I think the story is pretty cool itself, I was a bit perturbed that a technology publication didn’t capitalize each letter in NASA – as in National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) .

But after a bit of research, I noticed this was posted on the UK version of the magazine, and a lot of times in those publications they don’t capitalize each letter in an acronym.  As for a reason why, the best I could find was something on The Straight Dope message board in which someone emailed the BBC about their practice of not capitalizing each letter in an acronym and this was their response, “Where acronyms are concerned News Online’s editorial style is to use upper and lower case letters for those that are pronounceable eg Nasa, Aids etc. We capitalise those that are not pronounceable such as BBC, RSPCA etc.”

NASAtitleWiredCapture

 

When International Space Station commander Barry Wilmore needed a wrench, Nasa knew just what to do. They “emailed” him one. This is the first time an object has been designed on Earth and then transmitted to space for manufacture.

Made In Space, the California company that designed the 3D printer aboard the ISS, overheard Wilmore mentioning the need for a ratcheting socket wrench and decided to create one. Previously, if an astronaut needed a specific tool it would have to be flown up on the next mission to the ISS, which could take months.

www.wired.co.uk

Posted in Interesting | 2 Comments

Bag of Randomness

B5Kh_PmCEAAPg0M

  • Even though the part wasn’t demanding, DaughterGeeding was a great Mary in her Christmas play.  We arrived to her school early to get good seats and I was asked if I was the professional videographer.  That stuff happens all the time to us folks of Asian descent, and I didn’t even have a tripod.  The preschool director said she opted to not hire a videographer this year so all the mothers then appointed me the official one and asked that I share the recording with them.  So if you are interested in the ten-minute play, you can watch it here.  As for what I used to record it, it was just my Canon digital camera that I use for most of my pictures.  And I got a kick that Mary was a quarter-Asian married to a black Joseph.
  • Nothing was really on TV last night but I caught an episode of TLC’s ‘Santa Sent Me to the ER’, a show about accidents during the Christmas season which of course caused an ER visit.  The best line from the show came from a doctor, “As a medical professional and or anyone with just common sense, I would advise against blind jumping down a chimney.”
  • I know most chimneys aren’t made large enough for any human to fit through and there are urban legends galore, but I distinctly remember a local story in the 80’s with Clarice Tensely reporting it.  A father went missing for days and was found later in a Santa suit stuck in a chimney after the body started to smell.  Unbeknown  to the wife and kids, he was trying to surprise to them and no one knew of his plan.
  • A couple of days ago, LiberallyLean.com mentioned that Fox4 use to be CBS station KDFW 4 but couldn’t quite remember the reason why and he got the timeframe a bit off, or something like that.  It’s easy for me to remember  because I was in my first year of college (1994-95) and that was when CBS lost the NFL to Fox.  The Cowboys were a hot ticket at the time and KDFW was long known as the primary station for the Cowboys as they mainly aired NFC games.  In my mind, KDFW didn’t want to lose any rating numbers connected to the Cowboys and decided to switch stations, though I know that’s not exactly correct.
  • I’m guessing the price of a barrel of oil does not include the actual barrel.
  • I’m not sure how the current administration can say (though not officially) that North Korea is behind the Sony hack.  I’ve read a few reports from hackers saying that with North Korea’s current online infrastructure it would be impossible when you consider the amount of data that had to be moved over the time period involved.  They went on to say that it could have been done in China by North Korean hackers or a hired hand, or a scenario similar to Russians using Korean code to mask their efforts.
  • I didn’t have any plans on watching The Interview and was easily annoyed by their commercial in which James Franco says “whaaaaat” annoyingly, but I’m peeved it got pulled from theaters.  But I’m more peeved that Paramount has pulled Team America from theaters.
  • I knew the U.S. was able to have the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba because of a treaty, but I didn’t know that the land is actually leased for “the annual lease payment of USD$2,000 in U.S. gold coin“.  Gizmo provides a different number and states the checks have never been cashed – The U.S. pays Cuba about $4,085 every year for lease of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. But the country refuses to accept it. 
  • 9 questions about Cuba you were too embarrassed to ask
  • For you fans of the ‘Serial’ podcast, you might like this Funny or Die skit.
  • ‘Jesus is the reason for the season,’ politician says. At a menorah lighting ceremony for Hanukkah.
  • Amazon ‘suppresses’ book with too many hyphens – Graeme Reynolds’s novel High Moor 2: Moonstruck was withdrawn when the site decided 100 hyphenated words in 90,000 ‘impacted the readability’ of the book
  • Chicago cabbies get racy for second-ever Taxi Calendar
  • Toyota wants to get rid of gas and replace it with hydrogen
  • I’ve noticed a lot of newsmen and television hosts sporting the three-piece suit as of late.
  • I thought Craig Ferguson did a stand up thing last night by starting the show off by talking to the man behind Geoff The Robot and all the other voices on his show.  That actor is much better than Frank Caliendo, just check out this Morgan Freeman impersonation that wowed the actor himself.
  • I thought ‘The Daily Show’ didn’t end with their traditional Moment of Zen last night, but it actually aired at the end of ‘The Colbert Report’.
  • For Colbert’s last show, he had a plethora of guests sing a song that stretched the celebrity spectrum like none before – actors, musicians, authors, politicians, scientists, athletes, service men and women, Muppets, columnists, and on and on and on.  It really was impressive to see who his folks were able to get for a quick bit.  I never thought I’d see a mix of Toby Keith, Kareem, Henry Kissinger, George Lucas, Bryan Cranston, James Franco, current Chief of Staff of the Army U.S. Army General Ray Odierno, Big Bird, Alice Cooper, and Ken Burns in my entire live.  And that was just scratching the surface.
  • I don’t think anything is more ‘MURICA than the ‘Colbert Report’ open.  It opens and ends with a star-spangled bald eagle, case closed.
  • Today’s dose of ‘MURICA!
Posted in Personal | 5 Comments