Dr. Flandro is scary smart. Not only did he plot the Voyager missions back in the 30's or whenever they were, but he is teaching us trajectories essentially from knowledge, with only very basic notes. Also, he knows to expect us to be completely worthless. He had asked us to figure out where a ball bearing dropped from 1000m above the earth would land (taking into account the Coriolis acceleration), but he didn't actually expect anyone to have had it done. Low expectations are always appreciated. (By the way, the answer is 55cm east of the drop point.) I've been doing a fair amount of brown-nosing in the class, but come on, this is the guy who plotted out the Voyager trajectory. If there's one guy to impress, it's this guy.
After class was lunch and my flavorless BBQ sandwich. I don't quite have my sense of taste back yet, though I am usually able to breathe now. This cold needs to go away.
The afternoon included working with a PASCAL program that Dr. Flandro had written for trajectory calculations. We're converting it to MATLAB for use, but his version is in a computer language older than FORTRAN, and I think he wrote it recently. Also, did I mention scary smart?
Heroes was good tonight, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip keeps on doing whatever it is that it's doing. I like the show, as a poor-man's West Wing, but it needs some type of purpose. Heroes went from "save the cheerleader" to "stop guy from blowing up in the middle of New York City." Studio 60 has thus far done nothing to even try to hold onto the Heroes audience.
* Yes, I suggested through the use of the asterisk that I would be explaining "Scruffy" from this post's title. Actually, I won't be. More tomorrow.
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3 comments:
I didn't know Star Trek had been around since the 30s. That means Shattner is like a hundred years old. KAHHHNNNNNNNNN! (The only Star Trek quote I know.)
No, Star Trek is much older than the 30s. It was science fiction, imagining space travel. Actually making it into space hasn't even occurred yet.
Explain the asterisk, you cant just blindly go throwing those around like they were candies. What happens if they start spreading out of control, like tribble*s. OH GOD THERES ONE NOW!
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