Space Shuttle Rolls Into History

A quiet night landing of the space shuttle Atlantis, returning from the STS-135 mission, marked the end of the US space shuttle programme.





NASA's Constellation Program, which was projected to develop a replacement rocket for the space shuttle, was cancelled last year.

While the government is not currently working on a shuttle replacement, potential private sector candidates include the Falcon 9-Dragon vehicle from SpaceX, which has been successful in test launches so far, but is still in early development.

Thus for the foreseeable future the USA will no longer have any human-rated launch vehicle.

Without manned spacecraft, US astronauts will now have to rely solely on the Russian Soyuz to access the International Space Station.


Would you like to know more?

About the past future of spaceship design:
- Counterintuitive Science: Fast Speed, Fat Shape

Goodbye To Tanjong Pagar!

Here's my video of the last train service to leave Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, taken from a pedestrian bridge.




Apparently there was an additional 11:00pm train driven by the Sultan of Johor himself.

I didn't catch that but somebody else did; please check out his video.

So... I only managed to film the penultimate train.

I love that word.


Would you like to know more?
- Video of last train out of Tanjong Pagar, driven by the Sultan of Johor
- Video of last afternoon train

Snapshots of Malaysia

Here is a video and some photos I took on my travels in Malaysia over the past year.

For this video, I took fairly short clips because my previous computer had less than 10 Gb free space to store all my media files, but this is no longer a limitation. In future videos, longer segments will be more common.



As for the photos, I picked those with striking colours and patterns... plus some with a touch of curious.

I try not to feature photos of regular touristy attractions - because, as you know, they have been photographed millions of times.












Public hand wash (May 2010) - Johor Bahru












Motorcycle park (May 2010) - Johor Bahru












Sculpture (May 2010) - Johor Bahru












Bus number 666 (Jun 2010) - Larkin












Gazebo (Jun 2010) - Kota Tinggi












Raw latex (Jun 2010) - Kota Tinggi












Street football (Jun 2010) - Kota Tinggi












Melaka Sentral (Jun 2010) - Melaka












V formation (Jun 2010) - Melaka












Viaduct (Jun 2010) - Melaka












Menara Taming Sari (Jun 2010) - Melaka












Colourful trishaws (Jun 2010) - Melaka












Old propeller (Jun 2010) - Melaka












Rusty musket (Jun 2010) - Melaka












Ornate bridge (Jun 2010) - Melaka












Jonker Walk (Jun 2010) - Melaka












Use Malaysian rubber (Jun 2010) - Melaka












Berjaya Times Square (Jul 2010) - Kuala Lumpur












Maybank (Jul 2010) - Kuala Lumpur












Muzium Negara (Jul 2010) - Kuala Lumpur












Sultanate of Malacca (Jul 2010) - Kuala Lumpur












Communist hat (Jul 2010) - Kuala Lumpur












Demolishing Pudu Prison (Jul 2010) - Kuala Lumpur












Petaling Street (Jul 2010) - Kuala Lumpur












Petronas Twin Towers (Jul 2010) - Kuala Lumpur












Parit Waterfall (Aug 2010) - Cameron Highlands












Giant vegetables (Aug 2010) - Cameron Highlands












Double helix (Aug 2010) - Cameron Highlands












Strawberry (Aug 2010) - Cameron Highlands

Unlike in my previous photo galleries, I've decided not to mention the brand and model of the cameras used for these pictures, since it doesn't really matter.

Suffice to say that they were not SLRs and no tripods were used for any of the above shots. That's right, they were all handheld.

Please tune in next time for a media-rich, day-by-day account of my recent journey to Japan!

Planes And Trains

I've been travelling a bit in the past year, and thus I have accumulated so many hundreds of photos and videos that I'm not sure where to start.

Stay tuned for a more substantial series of blog entries soon, but for now, here are some videos about the transportation I took during a short trip to Kuala Lumpur a couple of months ago.

Enjoy!

Flying from Singapore to KL



Taking the KLIA Ekspres



Taking the Aerotrain at KLIA



Return flight to Singapore

Steamshovel Harry

Everything is better with Auto-Tune.






You won't get it unless you play the game first...

Steamshovel Harry Song
----------
by Brad Sucks

Lyrics:

Watch out for that gravity, watch out, watch out.
Gravity, watch out... watch out for that gravity.

Science times mass equals gravity.

Gravity is gonna kill you, Harry.
Gravity is gonna kill you... gravity.

It's time to learn about astronomy.
It's time to learn about astronomy.
It's time to learn about astronomy. Hey...

Steamshovel Harry, Steamshovel Harry.
Steamshovel Harry, Steamshovel Harry.

Asteroids are smaller than planets.
Asteroids are smaller, wo oh wo oh.

Asteroids are larger than meteorites.
I meant to say meteroids then, wo oh wo oh wo oh wo oh.

Steamshovel Harry, Steamshovel Harry.
Steamshovel Harry, Steamshovel Harry.

That meteor is gonna kill you, Harry.

Physics are gonna kill you, Harry.

Physics are gonna kill you, Harry!
Physics are gonna kill you, Harry!

It's gonna kill you and make you dead.

Physics gonna pull out a gun.
Shoot you right in the head.
BLAM oh no, look out now! Hey...

Physics.

Oh yeah. Oh...

Oh...

I can't wait to make love... to physics.

Gonna love her all night long.
Making physics love, singing the physics song.
Throw another downwards to double jump.
Or throw it up to not jump as high.

Do it Harry, do it to win.

Punch that missile right in the face.
Punch that missile all over the place.
One two three four, punch that missile!

When we open the door...

Steamshovel Harry, Steamshovel Harry.
Steamshovel Harry, Steamshovel Harry.
Steamshovel Harry, Steamshovel Harry.
Steamshovel Harry, Steamshovel Harry.

Physics are gonna hunt you down and kill you in the middle of the night.
Physics are gonna hunt you down and make everything all right.


Would you like to know more?

About the Steamshovel Harry game:
- Steamshovel Harry flash game
- Steamshovel Harry music

What the hell is going on!?!!:
- Metagames: Games About Games