Space Shuttle Discovery Flies to Smithsonian

April 19 2012 by KSN in North America |Comments Off on Space Shuttle Discovery Flies to Smithsonian

Discovery Space Shuttle flying piggyback

America’s Space Shuttle Discovery flew over the nation’s capital on April 17, to retire to its final resting place at the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum and research complex. Its final “flight” (piggy-backed) is dwarfed by its flight mileage in space: according to one source, it flew 148 million miles, more than the distance from the earth to the sun.

Its thirty-nine missions, from 1984 to 2011, is more flights than any other spacecraft in history has achieved.

Space Shuttle Discovery over the nation's capital

Piggy-backed flyover of Washington, D.C., on April 17, 2012

Smithsonian Museums

The Smithsonian Institution has over 136 million museum items. According to Wikipedia, it is the largest museum complex in the world, with enough rooms and exhibits to captivate a tourist for many days, if not weeks.

Ropen Controversy

A Smithsonian blog post portrayed the ropen of Papua New Guinea as a “myth.” This caused many responses on other blog posts, early in 2011, critical of the reasoning of the writer, Brian Switek. Apparently, the Smithsonian has not responded to those comments. The ropen is reported, by some cryptozoologists, to be a modern living Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur with intrinsic bioluminescence.

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Wikipedia off by 42 Million

January 23 2012 by KSN in Uncategorized |1 Comment

Apparently not all mistakes on Wikipedia are minor. The allegorical novel The Alchemist, by the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, has sold twenty-three million copies worldwide, not sixty-five million, as was recently proclaimed on Wikipedia. It exaggerated by forty-two million.

The Alchemist

. . . much of the story is about a shepherd boy’s travels far from his homeland; he returns to find his purpose fulfilled in his own country. In the nonfiction book Live Pterosaurs in America, by Jonathan Whitcomb, only a little is about the author’s travel to Papua New Guinea; he returns to find a possibility that his purpose may be fulfilled in his own country.

Book Applause Review of The Alchemist

The great majority of reviewers on Amazon.com give The Alchemist five out of five stars. Before quoting parts of some of the most favorable and unfavorable ones, I’ll relate my own experience. I did not feel transported into another world, which is what I enjoy about fantasies, but this allegorical novel by Paulo Coelho is meant to help transport readers along the journey of life in the real world, when they are not reading anything. Judging by the worldwide popularity of The Alchemist, I believe that it is succeeding.

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North Korea Leader Dies

December 19 2011 by KSN in Asia |1 Comment

This past weekend Kim Jong Il, known in his country as “dear leader” and strict ruler of communist North Korea, died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-nine. One of his sons appears to be in place to succeed him.

CNN

Kim Jong Il had led North Korea since 1994, when his father — the nation’s founder, Kim Il Sung — died at age 82. During his 17 years in power, the country suffered a devastating famine even as it built up its million-strong army, expanded its arsenal of ballistic missiles and became the world’s eighth declared nuclear power.

The news of his death spurred South Korea, which remains technically at war with the North more than five decades after their 1950-53 conflict, to put its military on high alert. But across one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told his citizens “to go about their lives” in the meantime.

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Tracking Pterodactyls

November 28 2011 by KSN in North America, Pacific |Comments Off on Tracking Pterodactyls

From an Orange County Weekly blog post:

Author Tracks Pterodactyls Among Us

“Jonathan Whitcomb is actually based in Long Beach, where as a cryptozoology author he offers an explanation of the mystery lights of Marfa, Texas, and Papua New Guinea. Human inhabitants in both places have observed in the sky balls of light that seem to split into two, fly away from each other and then turn around and fly back together.

“Such sights have produced legends about dancing devils or ghosts and scientific explanations involving lightning or earthlights. Whitcomb has a far different explanation: bioluminescent predators flying together until they notice an increased presence of insects.

“The pterodactyls–which are actually known as pterosaurs–then split up because their meal of choice–big brown bats–feed on insects. When the brown bats, known as Eptesicus fuscus, start feeding on the insects, the pterosaurses bear down on the bats from opposite sides. With tummies full, they return to flying together again.

“Hey, it’s a theory, one that Whitcomb is sticking to based on eyewitness accounts from the American Southwest and the southwest Pacific. He’s even written a book about it, Live Pterosaurs in America . . .”

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Cover Your Debit Card PIN

July 14 2011 by KSN in North America |Comments Off on Cover Your Debit Card PIN

Watch out for the person who may be watching you enter you PIN code when you swipe your debit card. If the PIN pad (card reader) has been tampered with, all a crook needs is your PIN code to swipe the money out of your bank account.

But the PIN pad need not be watched by a live human, for some of them might have a small camera watching for your code entry. The safest thing to do is cover the pad while you enter the numbers, a difficult thing to do without practice, but apparently becoming more necessary now that debit card fraud is becoming much more common.

Michaels Craft Store Frauds

The U.S. Secret Service [had been] investigating a debit card fraud case that started in Illinois [around early 2011] and has now spread to twenty states. Investigators say crooks tampered with PIN pads in the Michaels checkout lanes, allowing them to capture customers’ debit card and PIN numbers. Michaels now confirms that it found . . . ninety compromised PIN pads in eighty of its stores.

Here’s advice for keeping your bank account safe:

  1. “Re-PIN your debit card several times a year.” Perhaps that is the least effective way to protect your money, for a crook can get into your bank account within hours of when you swiped your card at a bad PIN-pad card reader; check the next suggestion:
  2. Use a credit card instead of a debit card. Well, that would solve the problem, but some people use a debit card for good reasons.
  3. Keep an eye out at gas stations and at ATM’s. That includes covering the PIN pad with one hand while you enter the numbers with the other hand. That may be the best protection.
  4. For after-the-fact protection, check your account information regularly, looking for any suspicious withdrawal, and notify your bank immediately when you see fraud.
  5. Don’t use your debit card too often. The safest place may be your bank ATM machine, especially if it is inside the bank itself.

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Child Care Long Beach

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