Brian Jepson’s Weblog

Universe
Today: “Astronomers from Case Western Reserve University have
created the deepest, wide-view image of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies,
which shows the faint web of starlight that connects the different
galaxies together.”

It’s a stunning picture. You can find more,
including an explanation of the why there are things that look like Kirby dots in there,
at the CWRU Astronomy
Department’s site. Be sure to check out the video on that site as
well.

Big Five Software, makers of my favorite platform game ever (Miner 2049er), released both Miner 2049er and Bounty Bob Strikes Back for free using a custom emulator:

“The design is completely object-oriented; there are objects for all of the Atari chips, RAM, ROM, CPU, bus, etc. I put great effort into writing code that could be well optimized by the compiler.

Miner or Bounty Bob never relied on any code from the Atari system ROM so it isn’t included in this program, It’s a fairly complete Atari Emulation system and would probably run other games if I were to try.”

It’s probably been there for ages, but it’s new to me. Their web site has a bunch of historical information about this great company, including a clip from their appearance on Good Morning America, that you must watch. Hard to believe these guys are only a few years older than me, considering I was just a kid when I was avoiding their radioactive mutants.

This is cool. I just noticed that binary versions of xu4 for Linux and
Mac OS X now include the game data files you need to play it. Not a big
deal, since they were easy to get, but awesome that Origin is permitting
it. xu4 Download:
“Ultima IV for DOS is now included in the Linux and Mac OS X binary
downloads. You still need it if you use Windows or compile from source.
Origin generously allows it to be freely distributed; it is mirrored
here.”

This won’t take long. If you need a quick Interactive Fiction fix,
try out Adam Cadre’s 9:05. It
runs right in your browser, and it ends really fast. This is a good way
to get a taste of IF, especially if it’s your first time.

I’m increasingly switching between my Mac and PC these days, and I like to keep everything in sync. I think I’ve come up with a pretty good solution, so I’m writing it down in case I do what I did yesterday (spent about six hours trying to get something pointless to work).

For files, it’s simple. I use unison to keep 4GB of database between my Mac and PC in sync. On my PC, I keep the synced files in a TrueCrypt repository that’s compressed with NTFS compression. If you use TrueCrypt with unison, make sure you format the TrueCrypt volume as NTFS–when I tried FAT32, unison couldn’t do fast checks.

For personal data, my Nokia 3650 is the sync point, even though I’m using a Pocket PC as my phone right now. I use iSync on the
Mac, and PC Suite for Nokia 3650 on the PC. I tried Missing Sync and PocketMac (with the idea that I could use my Pocket PC as the bridge between the Mac and the PC), in fact I’ve tried them many times, but something always goes
wrong. With the latest Missing Sync , it was a bonanza this weekend:

• One complete lockup of Mac OS X
• Uncountable times where Missing Sync wouldn’t even see the Pocket PC
• Duplicate events in my calendar
• Every event in the holiday calendar shifting by one day

I also tried the latest Pocket Mac Lite, but it wouldn’t recognize the Pocket PC. I love screwing around with computers and handhelds, but sometimes there’s something that I wish would just work.

So now, I use Outlook mainly as a backup of my calendars and contacts on my PC, do most of my data entry and maintenance on the Pocket PC, and occasionally sync the PC and Mac by way of the Nokia.

To think, this all started because I was reading the galley proofs of Retro Gaming Hacks and realized what I really needed in my pocket is a phone that can emulate an Atari 800!

Want to bring your browser to a grinding halt for anywhere between a few
seconds and a minute? If you do, be sure to click here. (On
my Mac, Opera is much faster than Firefox or Safari.) I
drew on a few sources of inspiration:

• JavaScript Graphics
  Development

• Various
  implementations of a Mandelbrot set generator

After editing Astronomy Hacks,
I knew I had to get a telescope. I got off to a very false start with
the 4.5
inch Orion Short Tube, a model that Bob warned me about. But I was in the
shop, it was cheap, and it was in stock. I made the purchase, and
thought it would end up working out.

Bob warned me about its poor mount and weak optics. And when I tried it
out, I knew it wasn’t going to work out. I probably could have lived
with the optics, but the mount was very bad. It was jerky and shaky. And
when I looked in the Orion catalog, I saw that indeed, the mount it came
with was their rock-bottom mount.

At Bob’s urging, I returned the scope. The folks at Birdwatcher’s Nature View
were fantastic, giving me 30 days to try the scope out before I made up
my mind. I ended up spending a bit more and getting the $359 Orion
SkyQuest XT8. Unfortunately, the optical tube assembly was damaged
in transit. My replacement came about a week ago, but because I was so
dang busy, I only got it assembled today. A wonderful thing about
buying locally was that I didn’t need to deal with the return: the great
folks at Birdwatcher’s Nature View took care of all that.

Joan and I got back late (10pm, late for me), but she encouraged me to
observe nonetheless. I didn’t have high expectations; the first
time I observed with my original scope, I’d been unable to find anything without the help of my
friend Daten, and the second time I went out, I found nothing. But I’ve
been training. In particular, Stellarium has helped me
get better oriented. I’ve also been using Cartes du Ciel for star
charts, so when I got home, I woke up my computer, fired up Cartes du
Ciel, and printed the default chart that appeared. I can only see a
sliver of sky from where I live, but that sliver coincided with the
chart, and turned out to give us a perfect view of Cygnus, Lyra, and
Draco’s head.

This scope is fantastic, although I do need to add a
Telrad finder, since the default finder is a little annoying. But
(pun intended), the two scopes are like night and day. The XT8 is
really easy to use. In an hour of observing, and with a copy of Nightwatch to complement the printed chart, we were able to
observe:

• The Ring Nebula
• The Dumbbell
  Nebula
• Beta
  Cygni, a lovely optical double
• Nu
  2 Draconis, a spooky binocular double