Odds and Ends, Mostly Ends

1. Ten years ago, Douglas Adams passed away. The author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was only 49 years old when he passed away. How many great stories were left undone by his early death? He also wrote the Dirk Gently Detective series and did scripts for Doctor Who. He credited the bands Pink Floyd and Procul Harum as influences in his writing, and he was heavily involved in the computer game versions of his books.  He had epic bouts of writer's block, saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." My favorite quote - "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."  




Time to read the whole series again.    



2. It is with great dismay that I learned of the demise of the Food Network's best show, Good Eats. Alton Brown, host and writer, announced abruptly that the show was closing up shop after 12 years on the air. The pilot for Good Eats first aired on our own PBS channel, WTTW Chicago, in July of 1998 and was picked up by the Food Network in 1999. It continued to air new shows until last week. The smartest food show on TV, Good Eats won a Peabody Award in 2006 and was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award in 2000. Alton Brown mixed science with cooking, often using weird made-up contraptions to illustrate his points. From Episode 1: Steak Your Claim to Episode 249: Use Your Noodle, I learned a lot about cooking from Alton Brown. Brown has promised to stay involved with the Food Network - he is a significant part of Iron Chef America and we can hope for something new from him in the future.   


3. This morning the space shuttle Endeavor had its final launch, mission STS - 134.  Endeavor was built in the late 80's to replace Challenger, which exploded shortly after launch during Mission STS - 51. It is named for British explorer James Cook's first sailing ship. Cook's voyage on the Endeavor established the usefulness of sending scientists on voyages of exploration. While sailing with Cook, naturalists James Banks and Carl Solander collected many new families and species of plants, and encountered numerous new species of animals.  This is Endeavor's 25th space flight. Launch was spectacular at 7:56 AM CDT this morning and Endeavor is expected to return to Earth June 1st. Many of the mission objectives involve stocking the space station with spare parts in anticipation of the end of the Space Shuttle missions.  The final Space Shuttle launch, involving Atlantis, is scheduled for June 28th. It would be nice to be there to see the end of an amazing era in space exploration. 


From the webcomic XKCD:   

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space - each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision." 

Here's hoping we stay irrational.