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Posted by: Stu May 25 2008, 10:15 AM

Okay. So we have half a day to go. All our bookmarks are saved, our peanuts are ready to open, but the clock is ticking slower and slower... what do we do until things start happening? How are we going to kill these last remaining hours..?

I know Doug will be watching the Grand Prix, and Rui will be mourning Portugal's failure to win Eurovision last night (good effort Rui, but the Latvian pirates were better! ) but what about the rest of us?

Well, if you've any ideas for vid clips your fellow UMSFers might like to watch, articles they might like to read, sites they might like to visit, go ahead and share them here.

I'll start. Go watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbb5CYC6JTs&feature=related. It's a work of genius, but probably only if you're a Star Wars fan.

Hey, it's a start...!

Posted by: Stu May 25 2008, 10:24 AM

... and how about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daiUW_O6gOM

Posted by: ugordan May 25 2008, 10:38 AM

There's also the excellent documentary, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ3EP6W6W9Y (split into 4 parts on Youtube) if you're into reminiscing mood.

Posted by: Zvezdichko May 25 2008, 10:38 AM

I'll be playing OpenArena, but anyway, time is ticking painfully slow.

Posted by: edstrick May 25 2008, 10:58 AM

.....finish off another roll of Tums.....

Posted by: imipak May 25 2008, 11:43 AM

Watching the clock! Speaking of which --
> Phoenix is: 11 hours, 56:37 from EDL interface (spacecraft event time)
Less than 12h to go before EDL interface, s/c time....

Less thrillingly... we had, and passed, our ISO audit at work at last. Great! Now I can make a start on the backlog of work that built up over the last month whilst I was reviewing five million biz-babble-jargon-speak documents. Or... hmmm, perhaps I could just add one more little feature to the script...

Posted by: climber May 25 2008, 11:59 AM

Well, as I said before, I've switched my sleeping time so I'm going to bed rigth now and will be up in another 8 hours.
Keep the show runing guys...

Posted by: BrianL May 25 2008, 04:01 PM

I was hoping to spend the day brewing a commemorative Phoenix Pilsner. The yeast would be pitched at the official Mars landing time (giving me time to setup in front of the TV and computer with my peanuts to await the signal's arrival), and it would ferment and lager through the primary mission period, to be enjoyed upon the successful completion of that mission phase. Alas, I had too many other things to get done yesterday and ran out of time to prepare for brew day.

I wonder if that means anything beyond the fact that I am a poor planner.

Brian

Posted by: The Singing Badger May 25 2008, 04:09 PM

There's always LOLcats. Everybody likes LOLcats.

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

Posted by: Stu May 25 2008, 04:24 PM

Quick reminder for any UK UMSFers: while you're waiting for Phoenix to land, remember to step outside at 00.15 and look to the west to catch the International Space Station rising... at its brightest, around 00.20, it will be over 45 deg high and around mag -2.2, VERY bright.

(non-UK members, go to http://www.heavens-above.com to get your own ISS visibility predictions...)

Posted by: Rakhir May 25 2008, 05:09 PM

For me, -2.4 at 22:34, alt 80°... but the weather is cloudy.
Not a good time killer.

Posted by: dvandorn May 25 2008, 05:14 PM

I'll be killing time waiting for this evening by, among other things, participating in a great American Memorial Day tradition and watching the Indianapolis 500 motorcar race.

Which just started.

-the other Doug

Posted by: SFJCody May 25 2008, 05:16 PM

QUOTE (The Singing Badger @ May 25 2008, 05:09 PM)

Posted by: MahFL May 25 2008, 05:21 PM

I am housecleaning, lol.

Posted by: mhoward May 25 2008, 05:21 PM

It's true, not everyone loves LOLcats. I do, though.

Posted by: nprev May 25 2008, 05:23 PM

Speaking of archives, I became hopelessly addicted to this comic strip ever since (I think) Tglotch turned me on to it:

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php

Have fun!

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 25 2008, 05:47 PM

QUOTE (Stu @ May 25 2008, 02:15 AM)

I'll start. Go watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbb5CYC6JTs&feature=related. It's a work of genius, but probably only if you're a Star Wars fan.

Hey, it's a start...!

Posted by: Juramike May 25 2008, 05:51 PM

Well, we can start getting ready for the surface soil science activities by asking the question: Will it blend? :

http://www.willitblend.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnonj_84Ju4

Posted by: Roby72 May 25 2008, 06:03 PM

This is my favorite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjiGH9QNiU0



Go, Phoenix, Go !

Robert

Posted by: nprev May 25 2008, 06:06 PM

...Mike, that was wrong more than anything has been wrong before!!! Now I'll have to ask The Question when considering ANY material object for the rest of my life...

Posted by: Ant103 May 25 2008, 06:10 PM

There is also this game
http://wickedpissahgames.com/?page_id=3

Actually, it's a good approach to understood how gravity probes are influence (good word?).

Posted by: imipak May 25 2008, 06:13 PM

Not for those of a sensitive disposition:
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2008-05-20/index.html

And let's not forget the essential http://xkcd.org -- after all:

Posted by: DFinfrock May 25 2008, 06:26 PM

I have spent the morning waiting, and digging weeds out of my lawn. While sweating in the Texas heat, I was contemplating the upcoming landing. And I started thinking about how impressive the engineers and space scientists of the 60's and 70's were.

With very low resolution landing imagery, much poorer materials science and engineering, and with incredibly limited (by our standards) computing power, they not only landed manned and unmanned probes and rovers on the moon, they also created the incredible successes of the Viking landers on Mars, and the Venera landers on Venus. To this day we haven't duplicated a Venusian landing. And attempts at powered rocket descent landings on Mars have failed (although the novel bouncing airbag approach has been an unmitigated success). Let's hope that Phoenix can follow in Viking's footsteps.

They really did have the "right stuff" back then. Not just at NASA but in the Soviet Union, too.

Posted by: imipak May 25 2008, 06:31 PM

The Selsey crew are live now at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mars-live

all via dodgy DSL and a little glitchy...

Posted by: dvandorn May 25 2008, 06:41 PM

And as for my fave YouTube offering:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sclj-ifIPQ

from which comes the line we definitely do NOT want to hear today:

"How many feet in a kilometer? HOW MANY FEET IN A KILOMETER???!!!"



-the other Doug

Posted by: SFJCody May 25 2008, 07:04 PM

If only someone had made a *good* film about , that would eat up some time. Hopefully James Cameron will get round to it one day.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 25 2008, 10:18 PM

The http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=5157 is now open, let's all go over there.

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=5157