theMediaman.com

A bad pun I had to create a posting for just to use it.

The company Syl’s working for, Dynacon, is putting a Micro-satellite into orbit with help from the CSA. Very cool. I’ve never worked for a company Slashdot-worthy.

I kind of pictured a “Micro-satellite” as something that looks like the Hubble Space Telescope but about the size of my thumbnail… like a scale model or something that got caught in a shrink ray.

Instead, ‘NEOSSat will be the size of a large suitcase‘. Com’on! This thing tracks killer asteroids! Get more imaginative! At least put some bumper stickers on it.

Either way, it’s pretty cool whenever something you’ve worked on gets applied to the real world space.

Edit July 2, 2008: Updated to correct nomenclature and past/future tense.

During Nuit Blanche, the McLaughlin Planetarium seemed darker than ever while there were crowds of people and activities in the middle of the night throughout Toronto.  Sure it closed 12 years ago, but it just seemed more depressing in such an environment.

So, I’m looking at the possibility of opening it up again, even if it’s for only one night next year at Nuit Blanche.  I’ve been brainstorming some ideas for Physics-as-art. Astronomy has seen many changes in the last 12 years since the Planetarium closed, and is almost unrecognizable. The Perimeter Institute has shown that a public arena for Theoretical Physics is feasible. The Ontario Science Centre is too far away from the Toronto Core to be considered “accessible”, and the new proposed area on the waterfront is unlikely to happen any time soon (and certainly not without better transit).

So here’s the question… who wants to help?