Two birds, or maybe one bird who didn't learn his lesson, attempted to visit our office recently. Unsuccessfully, as it turns out. But they left their mark...

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I remember seeing 2001 twice in the Boston Cinerama theater. The first time there was a jerk and his girlfriend behind me. Through the whole thing they were complaining... "Where are the monsters?" "I want to see the monsters!" and so on. The second time there was a pretty lady beside me, and, her kids plus most of her neighborhood's kids, or so it seemed. All single digit age kids, from what I could tell, so they weren't getting it at all, and needed a lot of calming, snacks, explanations, etc. But I still liked the movie.

These days, Alexa and Google are the ones listening...

A fascinating history. My wife lived in Salem for a few years before we got married, and never knew this much detail about the Danvers connection, etc. Thanks.

Mary Spender and Josh Turner also produced a great cover of the same tune:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcVJrul4sOA

Calendarpedia for templates to make your own.

I read that the Starlink constellation is messing up ground based astronomy, appearing as the brightest object streaking through time exposures.

OK, we've had the new format here for long enough to evaluate it. So, what are your thoughts? Improvement? Annoying? Don't care?

I dislike it, a lot. There were a couple sections I would always look at, and then just sort of scan the others for interesting titles. Now we have to either wade through all the messages, or filter for one section at a time.

Admins: How about an option to use the old format?

How often does the movie good guy take a short barrel handgun and hit a precision target over 100 yards away, with one shot. Yeah, that's real.

If you are anywhere near Foxborough check out the Mass Cruisers cruise nights at Bass Pro Shop (at Gillette stadium). Every other Thursday night, depending on stadium events. It's on this week. Hundreds of cars of every imaginable flavor.

Also, before each flight, a good pilot will give his airplane a comprehensive inspection, more than some states do to our cars every year. A light out? A tire a bit soft? A drop of oil where there shouldn't be one? Something not right about how a control feels? Fuel sample doesn't look right? Nope, not going anywhere until that's sorted out.

Pilots making mistakes, getting outside their personal envelope of capabilities, or the capabilities of their aircraft, either accidentally or deliberately, will always happen. Happens with drivers on the freeway every morning, too.

While waiting for a particularly long system test to end at work the other day, I noticed a collection of our used "windows" laying on the bench. These window protect our pricey laser optics from stuff that might be blasted up from the laser's target. Transmission efficiency of our entire optical path is of paramount importance, so there is a selftest built into our system. We mark up the windows with fine point Sharpies to confirm that the selftest is detecting and reporting loss of efficiency.

I used my 2x2x2 light tent to illuminate the back of a translucent sheet and shot these from overhead.

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It didn't just block his access to the pedals, it got into the works blocking the pedals from moving. The investigators found dents in the side of the Ipad. Since the controls are interconnected between pilot and copilot, they were out of luck. See Juan Brown's youtube channel, Blancolirio.

My son's HS jazz band (King Philip, Wrentham, MA) had the honor of being invited to this event many years back. Best band trip ever, he said. One of his friends made his college connection through a member of the Lincoln center Jazz band, and is now a professional musician. And, Mark, one of Chamorro's bands "attended" the year they did it all video because of Covid.

I don't see any armed guards so are you sure that isn't one of the many replicas?