The moon and the planet Jupiter will be in a very close conjunction on Monday night and should be visible from anywhere in the Bay Area. The sky is expected to be clear. Just look to the south and you’ll see the waxing gibbous moon and bright Jupiter very close together high in the sky. The Moon and Jupiter won’t appear this close again until 2026.
If you can’t make it outside, slooh.com will be showing the view live online through their telescopes.
Here’s the view from a slightly foggy night here in Silicon Cali:
The Moon and Jupiter Conjunction as seen from Silicon Valley, California on January 21, 2013. This was a slightly foggy night in Silicon Valley. The fog left a faint halo around the moon, but not so much as to obscure the craters peaking out into the daylight from the dark side of the moon. Shot using a Nikon D5100 with a 300mm lens (450mm 35mm equiv) at f/5.6 for 1/200 sec. ISO-100 at 21:09 Pacific Time.
As a system administrator or general tech person at your company, there will be times when you’ll need to find out if the Windows computer you’re working on is running a 32-bit or 64-bit operating system. You’ll need this information so you know which version of software to install on your system, or to see what will be compatible with your system architecture in the future.
There are two easy ways to find out if you are running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows.
The first way is through the computer properties information window. To get there, left click on the Windows start button.
Right click on “Computer” in the Windows option menu.
And move your cursor down to “Properties” at the bottom of the menu list and left click.
This will bring up the Windows system information window which will show what system type you are running:
The second way to determine if your system is 32-bit or 64-bit in the Windows operating system is through the dos command line. Click on the Windows start button and type “cmd” in the run box.
If you’ve run the dos command prompt on this system before you should see the “cmd” icon in your recently run programs.
Then in your dos command terminal window type:
systeminfo | more
Note: You don’t actually need spaces between the pipe symbol “|” and the rest of the command, they were just added for clarity. You can run a “systeminfo|more” command with no spaces.
And the computer’s system information tool runs gathering a heap of data about your computer. Just look for the “System Type” line in the output. If it says “x64” you have a 64-bit system, if it says x86 you’re running a 32-bit system.
So Happy Friday Silicon Valley! Now get out and enjoy that Northern California sunny and mild winter weather that you all pay so much to enjoy here!
Silicon Valley and the Bay Area of California has hit lows of the winter season with some lows expected to be in 20’s and teens in the area. Is this global cooling?
Five Guys, famous for their burgers and fries, just opened a new location in San Jose, California at the Westlake Shopping Center on Prospect Avenue. This brings the total Silicon Valley area Five Guy’s locations to 9 with locations in Sunnyvale, Fremont, Belmont, Redwood City and multiple locations within the sprawling borders of the city of San Jose.
Les Misérables first thought: The suffering that could have ended with one swipe of Wolverine’s claws…
Second thought: Best musical movie in the “looks like it was filmed entirely with GoPro cameras” category that I’ve ever seen.
And again Comcast high speed internet service and cable is out in parts of Santa Clara. How are we supposed to know when the zombie apocalypse starts with no connectivity?
Update: As of 0100 December 20, 2012, Comcast internet and TV is still out in Silicon Valley. Hard to believe that the home of tech has such bad internet service but it does.
Verizon 4G seems to be still working.
Anyone still keep DSL as a backup internet connection?
Update: San Jose and Santa Clara Comcast networks are out of service as of 0230 December 20, 2012.
Usually an internet network outage isn’t too much of a problem, but I just happened to be in the middle of signing important documents through the Authentisign.com service when the plug was pulled on the interwebs. But as with many things in the tech world, there are many different ways to keep things running. In this case the Android smart phone comes to the rescue again.
Sadly, as of November 14th 2012, Airship Ventures ceased operations. No more will their giant airship Eureka be seen floating over SiliconCali and the Bay Area.
Due to the nature of Zeppelin travel, a slow moving airship with a large cross section that gets pushed around by the wind, weather conditions can cancel a planned trip at any time. This probably didn’t help the profitability of the company as people that book flights don’t realize the fickle nature of lighter than air vessels. And they never managed to secure a full time financial sponsor.
Airship Ventures Zeppelin Eureka
#saveeureka
Airship Ventures press release:
AIRSHIP VENTURES CEASES OPERATIONS
Airship Ventures Ceases Operations
Lacking Sponsorship, World’s Largest Passenger Airship Grounded as of Today
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif., November 14, 2012 – Airship Ventures, operators of the world’s largest passenger airship, the Zeppelin Eureka, have announced today that despite history-making successes and a stellar performance and safety record, they will be ceasing operations immediately.
“Operating this unique aircraft has been an inspiring experience and it is with a very heavy heart that we’ve come to this point requiring us to cease operations and ground Eureka,” commented Airship Ventures CEO Brian Hall. “Our team is the best at what they do and their dedication to Eureka, our passengers and our dream of flying a Zeppelin in the USA has been remarkable. I’m beyond sad to disband their talents and leave Moffett Field, our friends and fans without an active airship.”
Blending the romance of the “golden age of aviation” with the latest in high-technology, Airship Ventures, founded in 2007, brought a Zeppelin NT (“New Technology”) airship to the USA for flightseeing, science missions, media and advertising operations.
Passenger flights began in 2008 in the Bay Area (Silicon Valley, Oakland and San Francisco) and Long Beach, and most recently expanded to California’s beautiful wine country. 2012 saw the addition of behind-the-scenes educational ground tours of the airship. In addition to passenger flights and advertising, the Eureka had performed a wide variety of special missions for government, science and research groups, including recent expansion into airship design, research and development.
Since its founding, the company had faced challenges including the economic recession that impacted regular passenger numbers and demanded the need for a regular sponsorship partner for the company to remain viable. Adding to this, a world helium shortage increased the company’s operating costs and pressure for a long-term sponsor that had not materialized.
However, even in the face of these challenges, Airship Ventures marked more than a few distinguished milestones:
• Created the first large scale passenger airship operation in the US since the 1930s.
• Welcomed the 20,000th passenger during a flightseeing tour over San Francisco in 2012.
• Celebrated four years of passenger operations in 2012.
• Completed a history-making, six-month coast to coast cross country tour in 2011.
• Covered 459.3 miles and broke the standing Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) airship distance record in 2010.
• Provided aerial coverage for the Rose Bowl Game, ESPN’s College Game Day, the Farmer’s Insurance Open, Zurich Classic, US Open of Surfing, Dew Tour, and Red Bull Flugtag
• Partnered with NASA and SETI on meteorite seeking missions over Sacramento and Sonoma, California, and with SETI on the study of extremophiles in the bay area salt ponds.
• Acted as a training vessel for the U.S. Air Force’s test pilots.
• Hired and trained both the first female Zeppelin pilot and first American female Zeppelin pilot
• Certified and demonstrated the use of Raymarine Radar and FLIR Systems infrared systems for use in the roles of Maritime Patrol and Search and Rescue with the airship.
• Did the first skydive over downtown Los Angeles from an airship in support of a major media event, and the first wingsuit jump from an airship over downtown San Francisco during a major technology conference
• Launched a social media campaign displaying the world’s largest Twitter hashtag as a decal on the airship.
Though the scenario was likely faked for entertainment value, Top Gear’s infamous flying caravan zeppelin troubles demonstrate the problems with trying to fly in a particular direction in a lighter than air craft. And it was built from a hot air balloon, so technically it wasn’t a zeppelin.
ThinkGeek’s limited edition T-shirt this weekend dresses up Pi, as in 3.14159265359 Pi, as Magnum P.I. portrayed by Tom Selleck in the classic 80’s TV show. I remember watching Magnum P.I. in my youth as he “privately investigated” all over the Hawaiian islands. Higgins, the British caretaker of the estate that Magnum P.I. squatted in, would try to keep Magnum in line. ThinkGeek has no word yet on a “Higgins” Boson T-shirt as Hugh Ziegler commented on ThinkGeek’s product page.
Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV and Jonathan Quayle Higgins III in Magnum P.I.
Are you ready for Hawaiian Pi? With a mustache?
If you’re old enough to remember watching Magnum P.I. you’ll totally get this shirt, if not stick with Gundam Style.
