Tao’s Blog

Installed Perl 5.8, the newest version on my Pavilion PC. Takes a little while to get everything right.

Read some chapters of Computers of Spaceflight: The NASA Experience, very interesting reading.

Restored my Palm III, lost power yesterday.

Not very lucky in this sunny, chilling morning. A bolt in the scaffold cut an inch-long slit. Feel bad about it.

I used my online forum as some sort of online notebook, quite handy.

Began seriously review Perl. Hope it would be helpful to my job hunting.

Mars Express failed to detect signals from Beagle 2, depressing news for the Mars exploration. However, MER Spirit’s success would be a consolation.

Safari is the default Web Browser in Mac OS X. It is better than IE, IMHO.

It is better at display Chinese characters, better speed, better interface design. Although IE is a decent browser for Mac, Safari is definitely better.

Watched Spirited Away, interesting animated movie.

Mars Express will arrive the Mars orbit soon. It is hoped that it will establish contact with the uncanny silent Beagle 2 Mars lander. Currently there are two orbiters around Mars: Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) and Mars Odyssey.

Onboard MGS there are Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC), Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), and Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). Onboard Mars Odyssey there are high resolution Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS).

Currently the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Spirit landed successfuly in Gusev Crater. The MER Opportunity is due on January 24 in Terra Meridiani.

Now we are expecting the Mars Express orbiter to establish contact with Beagle 2, wish it good luck.

Heard that the Mars Rover Spirit has landed safely in the Gusev Crater. Good news! I hope the other rover will have the same good fortune.

Read this article. I don’t share his bad fortune. I think his problem is bad design, and don’t understand the hardware and software he is using. All software have bugs, the problem is to identify the bugs, if possible, fix them, if not, find a way to live with them. There is always a way to find peace with even buggy software. To constantly spend a lot of time to fix software problems is preposterous.

Heard that the Mars Rover Spirit has landed safely in the Gusev Crater. Good news! I hope the other rover will have the same good fortune.

Read this article. I don’t share his bad fortune. I think his problem is bad design, and don’t understand the hardware and software he is using. All software have bugs, the problem is to identify the bugs, if possible, fix them, if not, find a way to live with them. There is always a way to find peace with even buggy software. To constantly spend a lot of time to fix software problems is preposterous.

Some friends visited us today. Had a good time. All enjoy the wonderful Mario Kart 64, a classical Nintendo 64 game.

Watched the DVD SWAT, good noisy action film. Expecting good news from the red planet.

We haven’t heard from Beagle 2. So presumably it was lost. On January 4, NASA’s twin rovers will land on the red planet. I hope they will have better luck. PBS will have a special program on this landing. Let us cross our fingers for this daring endeavor.

Just battled with my dial-up connections. Something went wrong, and mysteriously it went back to life. Sometimes it is hard to explain, sometimes we will never know what went wrong. Just like the case of Mars Polar Lander.

Watching the ball falling from Times Square. Always some crazy people standing in the cold wind for a whole day for the last moment. That experience was shamelessly romanticized, idolized. For me, watching the TV is quite enough.

Reorganizing my home. Going well, for now.

Happy new year!