The naming of the 10th planet - X - has finally been resolved. It’s a bummer that they didn’t keep the names Xena and Gabriel as the planet/moon pair but that was a long shot anyway. At least they did sneak in a reference to the TV show Xena in the naming of the moon.

Here’s an excerpt from the Wikipedia page for the new 10th planet Eris:

The discovery team proposed Eris on 6 September 2006. On 13 September 2006 it was accepted as the official name by the IAU.^[21][18] The name in part reflects the discord in the astronomical community caused by the debate over the object’s (and Pluto’s) nature, while the name of its moon, Dysnomia (”lawlessness”), retains an oblique reference to the dwarf planet’s old informal name Xena, portrayed on TV by Lucy Lawless.

I must admit, I’m pretty addicted to the TravelerIQ Facebook widget. I can’t get past level 10. I think I need to spend more time on Google Earth.

Get some gas and a few Christmas presents at the same time. What could be better? Well, not needing to get gas would be nice and you could afford a few more Christmas presents would be better but that’s hardly an option for most of us.

The BBC documentary Planet Earth is an example of how good a documentary can be. There have been hundreds, thousands, of documentaries about our planet. Think of everything National Geographic has done, PBS, Discovery Channel, et al. Planet Earth is among the very best of them.

Since this was done by the BBC I’m pretty sure that it was filmed in High Def. I’m really looking forward to buying this on HD-DVD as soon as it’s available. Of course I first need to get a HD-DVD player and all but that’s coming soon.

The narration was done by the icon David Attenborough. Need I say more?

There are a few scenes that really dropped my jaw. The film footage they have of the Great White shark hunting an otter pretty much sold me on the fact that I must own this someday. They also have the best footage of the Himalayan Snow Leopard ever caught on film. I can say this with certainty since it’s the only footage of this animal ever made.

This is one of those documentaries that is great to sit down and watch once through, maybe twice. But it’s the sort of thing that is great to have on in the background when you’re futzing about the house. Especially if you have an HDTV.

Kill the Queen
An Alien queen can lay 2.5 eggs per minute. You have 13 soldiers in your platoon. On average, a soldier will kill 4.2 face huggers before one lands on his face. How much time do you have to get to the egg room and destroy the eggs before your entire platoon is impregnated?

Death Star
You are in an X-wing fighter going full speed. You must release your photon-torpedo and hit an exaust port that is only 2 meters wide while dodging TIE fighers. At what distance from the port must you release your photon torpedo?

Boxcar
Lets say that there is a box car that is 60 feet long. One third of it is across the switch. Okay? And now another train is coming. How far do you have to move the box car off the track so that the other train doesn’t smash it? Quickly, there are thousands of lives at stake.

Replicants
Which of the following is a replicant?
A. A man who dreams of unicorns.
B. A girl who can play the piano without ever having a lesson.
C. A man who makes origami unicorns.

Answers:

Kill the Queen
If each soldier kills 4.2 face huggers before getting an Alien Facial and you have 13 soldiers then simply multiply 4.2 X 13 = 54.6. But this isn’t the final answer because you must have one soldier to survive to take on the Alien Queen. So there can be no more than 53 eggs in that room when your soldiers arrive. That being the case you have 53 eggs divided by 2.5 eggs/minute which is 21.2 minutes to get to the egg room.

Death Star
It’s a trick question. It can’t be done without using The Force

Boxcar
20 feet. Unless you want to see a crash then don’t move the boxcar at all.

Replicants
Both A and B. Reason: Person C knows that person A dreams of unicorns. How? Because person C knows that A is a replicant and all replicants of that type dream of unicorns. Obviously a person who can play the piano without ever having lessons is a replicant because her memories come from another person.

Here’s a cool quiz if you’re a FireFly fan: QuizFarm.com - FireFly
These are my results:

What would happen if the Empire took on the Federation? Check out these fan flicks to see.

Battlestar Galactica Vs Star Wars Vs Star Trek Vs Babylon 5

Star Wars Battlestar Galactica Video

You know that scene in 2010 when Floyd asks Chandra to reprogram HAL to return to Earth early because of the new “feature” they discovered on Jupiter? Think back to Chandra’s reaction. He’s calm and responds, “Well, I just finished programing HAL for a 1000 day return trip back to Earth and now you want me to scrap all that and reprogram HAL for …

Nope, Chandra would have reacted more like this, “Are you fraking kidding me? Do you know how hard it is to program a holistic computer? I’ve had to hack my code so many times because of your screw ups that it’s become a house of cards in there. No wonder HAL went nuts. You’ve got code telling to do all sorts of contradictory things.”

Fifteen minutes later he would be sitting at a console, sipping an espresso, and mumbling to himself, “Okay, I’ll just comment this code out and then make this class dynamic . . . I think this is going to work. . . ”

Yeah, nothing like this has never happened to me.

Here’s an interesting list of the best space ships in SciFi.

For me the hardest part of making my own list is separating the ship from the show. But here’s what I’ve come up with:

1 - USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)
Picking my favorite Enterprise is tough but I’m going with D for two reasons: first, it has the most history as far as episode time. It was really like a cast member and not just a prop. Secondly, and this is what pushes it over the top, in the alternate future in the series finally All Good Things… it was the bad-ass of all Enterprises. Who can forget it cutting up those Birds of Prey like yesterday’s turkey?

2 - Millennium Falcon
I originally had this one first on the list and then I asked myself this question: if I could be the captain of either the Enterprise D, or the Falcon which would I choose. Got to go with the Enterprise. It just has too much to offer.

3 - USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
It wasn’t the first and it wasn’t the last but it is the Enterprise.

4 - Battlestar Galactica
Any ship that can take a direct blast from a nuclear weapon has to be tough.

5 - Sulaco
We barely spend any time with it but something about it just sings.

6 - Heart of Gold
It’s the fastest of the bunch since it can go anywhere in the Universe in an instant. That alone puts it high on the list.

7 - Discovery One
Simply here because it’s the most realistic. Thanks AC.

8 - USS Defiant
Can’t leave this tough little ship off the list.

9 - Serenity
This is really isn’t a great ship but the crew more than makes up for it. Now if I asked myself the question, “Which ship would I most want to be the captain of?” and Serenity came with Kaylee as the ship’s mechanic then I might just put this one at the top of the list.
10 - to be added at a later date.

I would have put a Bird of Prey on the list but I hear the smell is horrible. As for the Imperial Star Destroyers: I can’t really put one on the list because they don’t have any character to them, no matter how big they are. They’re just triangles in space until then.

I could keep adding to this list and changing the order but I’m just going to go with this. What would be on your list?

Here’s a link to Category:Fictional spacecraft at wikipedia.org to help you think about it.

Weekend mornings seem to be the perfect time to frak around with Photoshop. If you like these I have saved them in the standard desktop sizes for you to download. Have fun.

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