daily doses of whats on my mind :: from sites i like to view :: to viewable sites :: local news that alters my heart rate and international news that might alter yours ...
visual gadgets of the future ... a television sewn into your shirtsleeve. a dashboard screen to monitor the kids in the backseat. a 3d computer monitor sharp enough to make a hardcore gamer's heart stop -- or help a surgeon start one ... the gizmo-packed exhibition hall at the society for information display's international symposium offers a tantalizing vision of what's to come. This week's meeting was all about extremes -- monitors that are very big or very small, very thin, very light and very, very high-resolution. [from wired news ...]
1. press the 'roll' button to get started. 2. enter how many petals you think are around the rose. 3. press the 'check' button to check your answer. 4. repeat steps 1-3 until you can get it right every time! 5. once you have figured it out, don't spoil the fun for others ... let them figure it out for themselves!
on june 8, venus will cross in front of the sun for the first time since 1882, and backyard skywatchers can see the spectacle ... the best view will be from europe, but parts of america and most of asia and africa can witness the historic passage, weather permitting ...
:: dying star sculpts rungs of gas and dust:: ... astronomers may not have observed the fabled "stairway to heaven", but they have photographed something almost as intriguing: ladder-like structures surrounding a dying star ... a new image, taken with nasa's "hubble space telescope", reveals startling new details of one of the most unusual nebulae known in our milky way. cataloged as HD 44179, this nebula is more commonly called the red rectangle because of its unique shape and color as seen with ground-based telescopes ...
