A couple of quick links

For the next week I'll be in New Hampshire with Kyle, visiting his family and going to (yet another) wedding. We flew over on Virgin America, a slick new airline offering low prices for cross country travel. As we were waiting on the jetway, we noticed an eerie purple glow emanating from the open plane doors. As we got closer we realized that the purple lights were in fact the cabin lighting. It was as if a Euro disco designer had broken into Virgin headquarters and replaced all the standard cabin designs with the plans for her new ultra chic cocktail lounge. In the ensuing chaos the executives reverted the design back to its original form, except a few details such as the lighting and the clear purple plastic dividers separating the main cabin from rest of the plane, slipped through the cracks.

The novelty of the purple lighting was quickly replaced by wonder at the entertainment center located at the back of every seat. It had a fancy touch screen interface which allowed you to play movies, tv, music, games, chat with other passengers and order food or drinks. The armrest yielded a controller complete with a full keyboard and game control buttons. I watched a bit of TV, since it was free while the movies were not, and came across Boing Boing television. Boing Boing, a website whose tag line is "a directory of wonderful things", is a procrastination mecca focused on tech and science related internet content. Apparently they also make videos. They had an awesome report on the preparations astronauts took before the Hubble servicing mission, which I mentioned earlier. Check it out, it's pretty cool:


Also, there is a new rap coming out about particle physics (about Fermilab, not the LHC), this time from a certified hip hop artist. I can't wait for the video, but here is a quote from the piece:

“…rock stars of physics, particle business
smash matter, antimatter and witness
quarks, bottom to top they don’t stop
‘where the Higgs at?’ yo that’s their mark
‘where the Higgs at?’ ”

- Funky49, “Particle Business”