Going Up?

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So the latest buzz is that Bush is about to announce a return to space. (Isn’t that the funniest possible photo to accompany that headline?) I was just reading a Wired article on NASA emergency escape systems, which mentions on page 2 that the Apollo spacecraft computers ran on “just 5,000 integrated circuits and … a feeble 74 KB of hard-wired memory and 4 KB of what might be called pre-RAM.”

Hey, if we got to the moon on slide rules and scotch tape (of course I exaggerate), I think we could try and shoot someone to Mars on what we have today. Except human astronauts might not bounce so well.

Over on Transterrestrial Musings (a mostly-astro weblog which I must add to my link list), Rand Simberg has some sobering thoughts.

Set Boundaries

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Childcare with Wyclif. Beautiful. I can’t remember where I first read that you should never “negotiate” with kids, but it’s good advice: you can give the child choices, you can train the child towards freedom, but don’t give the child the idea that he has bargaining power over you. (Of course, I say this never having been a parent myself. Things could be different in the future, when I’m desperately trying to juggle screaming toddler triplets on a crowded subway train while everyone stares.)

Future Friendly Design

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Peter Merholz on the National Park Service’s brochure design. I’m currently working on an NPS-related project, and was a bit annoyed at a recent redesign which broke a bunch of URLs. Now I see why the new look came about: to match consistency with their excellent print work. Living just steps away from NPS jurisdiction, those brochures catch my attention pretty often, and I was surprised to find that they’ve been using the same design system since 1977. They certainly look newer than that — or perhaps retro trends in modern design are just now harking back to that time. In any case, it’s a great example of versatile, strategic, forward-looking design. I brim with envy.

MacWhat?

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Wyclif wonders why I had nothing to say about Apple’s latest Macworld keynote. It was a non-event for me because nothing was presented that was of value to my life. New iPod? My life doesn’t need a soundtrack running through it all day, especially not at >$249. Anyway, should the mood strike, my handheld already plays MP3s, with a 32MB SD expansion card serving up just enough music for the train ride to work. New Mac Office? I never touch the stuff; OpenOffice and Appleworks have met my needs well enough. New music app? I’m no musician anyway, and what little audio work I do is done in ProTools Free.

I haven’t even upgraded to OS X Panther yet, and I feel little need to do so until this boatload of projects is off the to-do list and my finances improve. For now I’m chugging along with what I have, simplifying as I go, and struggling not to love things of the world.

(More Keynote notes: Wyclif, Daring Fireball, Haughey, MeFi, Slashdot.)