The Ole filter makes another pass...

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has made it off the ground!  "The MRO was carried into space on an Atlas V rocket and is now on a nearly seven-month journey to Mars. The launch had been delayed 24 hours after engineers saw an anomalous reading in the hydrogen propellant loading system on the Atlas V. There was insufficient time in the launch window to fully investigate the reading."  Excellent. 

DigitalCameraInfo has a great story about the 40,000 x 20,000 pixel camera on board the MRO.  That's almost the resolution of the ScanScope instruments made by my company Aperio.  (We can go up to 120,000 x 80,000 pixels, but we use a line-scan camera, so it is a different process altogether.)  [ via Engadget ] 

SpaceX hits a rough patch: SpaceX Private Rocket Shifts to Island Launch.  "After spending an estimated $7 million on its Vandenberg Air Force Base facilities, the private rocket company is being told to get out of its Complex 3 West launch site [at Vandenberg AFB]."  There are two sides to every story, but it is hard to imagine what the other side of this story could be.  Anyway never bet against Elon Musk. 

Ever wonder what happens to all those white doves that are released on "peaceful" occasions?  Slate explains.  I didn't know doves were pigeons, and I didn't know cooked pigeons were squab.  I love squabs - medium rare, with a nice red wine reduction sauce. 

Der Spigel: the World in the iPod.  "The microchip that runs Apple's popular music player is made in India, Taiwan, China and Silicon Valley.  Is this an example of how globalization works to everyone's benefit -- or a sign that the world economy is about to roll over America?"  The former, of course, dummy!  

Don't worry about America's competitiveness because of lower labor costs elsewhere, worry about it because of liability and patent costs here at home...

Speaking of the iPod, Andrew Grumet compares the iPod Mini to the Creative Zen Micro.  "Overall: iPod wins."  What I found interesting is that on features and everything else it was a push, yet Andrew clearly liked the iPod better.  Yes, Virginia, design is important. 

Oh and by the way, Doom has been ported to the iPod.  Thank goodness.  It isn't a real computer until it runs Doom :)