On This Day In Space Exploration History

On 22 October 1975 Russia's Venera 9 landed on Venus...

image from rst.gsfc.nasa.gov

Venera 9 was the first human spacecraft to land on another planet. It operated for 53 minutes before the temperature (860 degrees F) and pressure (93 times that of Earth) overwhelmed it. Before it died the lander returned several images.  Not such a pleasant place, Venus.

Gunner the Yellow Labrador

We had a fine time watching Gunner chase pheasants during the season opener here in Minnesota last weekend...

As most of the birds he found were hens we didn't get any shots, but a good time was had by all, especially Gunner.  "Hunt 'em up!"

The Economic Argument Against New Age Woo

XKCD "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language," knocks another one out of the park...

This work is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License

Note: “Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).”

In other words XKCD comics is not always "safe for work."