WillLybrand.com

In theory, my phone is connected to my blog.

Check out this amazing picture that amateur astronomer Thierry Legault took with his telescope. This picture looks like it is straight of an awesome science fiction movie.

This is the second time that I have shared a photo from space with you, my loyal reader. Get used to it. Pictures of space are like, totally awesome.

On to more personal matters, I’m scheduled to take a trip to Bangkok and Singapore in a matter of weeks. I’ll be spending several days in each city, as well as a 4 day train trip in between the two on the Orient Express. I’m starting to get pretty excited as our planning for the trip ramps up.

This weekend I bought a tiny little Dell Mini 10″ laptop so that we can both store photos and if need be, keep in touch with the rest of the world. Of course, we’ll be staying on point and avoid keeping in touch with the rest of the world like the plague… because we’ll be in the middle of Malaysia on the Orient Express! Expect some photos and travel posts!

• New post on my site – Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-24 http://ping.fm/3YDiM http://tumblr.com/xla1utcq8 #
• I am genuinely frustrated, even disappointed, with how much trouble I am having with an Ubuntu virtual. Nothing is working like it should. #
• A&E is upping the ante with its new show Obsessed, which is just as eroding to the human spirit as Intervention, if not more so. #
• What a wonderful surprise… my new laptop is already built and being shipped 8 days ahead of schedule! #
• @Samwar Portable workstation! HP HDX 16t. I went big with some of the specs and someday I’ll get dock it to use like a desktop workstation. #

• Ladies and Gentlemen, Will Ferrell is on Saturday Night Live tonight. That is all. #
• New post on my site – Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-17 http://ping.fm/PRNoa http://tumblr.com/xla1suv11 #
• Not only was that a 5.0, it was a loooonngggg 5.0. #
• @moye Yeah but I told you about it AS IT WAS HAPPENING! So it’s almost like you felt it. The epicenter was 5 miles from us! in reply to moye #
• @twoHatfields Cherry Sidecar, I’m all over it. I’ll do my best to restrain Moye from eating off others’ plates. Congrats on the new space! in reply to twoHatfields #
• @jared68 Thnx, Feedly is great… but it doesn’t feel as good as GReader yet. Obviously a better way to browse, but hard to see what’s what. in reply to jared68 #
• @twoHatfields Oh wow! Is this wonderful delicious looking dish on the menu tomorrow night? It looks fantastic. in reply to twoHatfields #
• #FollowFriday Henceforth I will recommend one follow on Friday, and explain why, instead of just listing out people in a list. Thanks TWiT. #
• #FollowFriday @Hatfields, they take pictures of upcoming dishes, share exciting menu items, and are a premier and delicious LA restaurant #
• #FollowFriday @TwoHatfields, they take pictures of upcoming dishes, share exciting menu items, and are a premier and delicious LA restaurant #

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, its time I talk to you about the most essential of things in life. Wolves. And in particular, wolves on clothing, particularly shirts.

Backstory: Sometime around the early 70’s, as best historians can guess, an individual from Chickasha, Oklahoma first transposed a beautiful painted image of a wolf on to a  simple but stained over-garment. After a cross country trip to Los Angeles in the back of a Winnebago, the Oklahomans shirt caught the eye of Belgian fashion designer Rudegar von Balzonia. Balzonia struck gold as Wolf shirts took the country, nay the world, by storm.

If what I’m talking about sounds… insane, then your feast you eyes on THIS. Please gaze into the fabric, the wolves’ eyes, the glare of the moonlight beaming down upon you.

And then, read the comments.

Unfortunately I already had this exact picture tattooed on my chest, but this shirt is very useful in colder weather.

I accidentally spilled a glass of Tuscan Whole Milk down the front of this shirt, and my soul was torn from my body and thrown into heaven by a jealous God.

There is one thing, though, and that is that whenever I wear the wolf shirt I have a lot less issues with involuntary urination. I have not studied it long enough, however, to establish a cause/effect relationship.

I totally used to have this shirt but then I had to put it in a chest and bury it on a deserted isle because it was leaking radiation, causing a nuclear facility near me to be mistakenly shut down.

I think that reviews of wolf shirst should become the next Chuck Norris.

The artist I mentioned the other day, Lawrence Yang, recently uploaded a video to YouTube. Here’s a link to his blog.

Look at this. In Saturn’s Shadow – the Pale Blue Dot (NASA Cassini Saturn Mission Images). This is one of the best space images I have ever seen. I hope you like it as much as I did. Yeah, I know it’s old, but somehow I missed this. Or maybe I forgot how awesome it was.

The interesting thing about this photo, as if Saturn in all it’s glory, photographed from a small man made spacecraft wasn’t enough, is that the Earth is visible. Of course, Earth is only a couple of pixels big and could just as well be a spec on the lens. But that’s not what it is… that’s us.

I always feel a little bit uncomfortable about these images because of how they are created. I get the feeling that the majority of people that see these images must think that the spacecraft has a sweet digital camera on board that can just snap shots like this… when in fact practically every image we see from NASA is a composite, color adjusted, photoshopped image. I don’t really care though.  I know that at the core of it all, this is the image that the data can and did produce.

Insert funny joke here, humanizing Saturn by noting it’s disdain for marriage due to a build-up of unnecessary rings.

• I’m genuinely upset at the black-out on this Ducks game. Come on Ducks! #
• I’m now following @jtimberlake. Seems like a cool guy, does a lot of different things, successful, funny. Maybe he’ll have good tweets. #
• @moye Jeez Moye. I’m sorry I’m not there yet just hold your horses. j/k where are you guys going? in reply to moye #
• @codypo So true. You can’t predict when software will go live, you can only aim at a moving target. It’s only live after it’s in production. in reply to codypo #
• @codypo Good luck sir. I hope the judges don’t screw you over like they did last year! in reply to codypo #
• @Samwar How was it? 140 character review? in reply to Samwar #
• Carmen and I went to Angels & Demons on a whim… WOW it was horrible. I don’t even know where to start. Maybe with the anti-matter bomb? #
• Watching Terminator with someone who has never seen it before… in preparation for Salvation. I find myself doing this sort of thing a lot. #
• What’s everybody’s most favorite virtualization software for Windows? Virtual Box? Virtual PC? #

Hey let’s talk about art!

Many moons ago a good friend of mind curated an art exhibit called Crazians at the World of Wonder in Hollywood. It was a really cool show with lots of interesting art, the likes of which I hadn’t seen much of before. In particular there was one painting that caught my eye, and after running things over with my wife we decided to purchase it. Now I’m not a regular purveyor of art, so I was really entering some new territory with this experience. Fortunately, when you know the curator, it’s a snap.

The guy responsible for the painting we liked is Lawrence Yang. After doing some great-googling-moogley I found that he has quite the online presence going. You can see a lot of his work at his website. The piece we got was called ‘blue triptych’ and it’s hanging on our living room wall next to the entertainment center. It’s quite nice, and a bit alternative, which is a good mix for our place. It looks considerably different than the photo up on his website though, I think he must’ve made some changes or taken the picture as a work in progress. Here’s a snapshot – strike a pose!

Why ever would you make the peace sign in a photo like this?

Here we are… about to make our big purchase. The first piece of art we bought together! Let me be honest with you though, there’s two things wrong in this photo. I can’t explain my wife’s actions. Nor my smugness.

You can see that Lawrence Yang is still kicking out some awesome art at his blog too. He also makes these GelaSkins for various devices that are pretty cool. It’s weird, I was just looking at those things last week, and now I find out that I own a piece by one of the artists!

My favorite author is Robert J. Sawyer. He writes hard science fiction, which is basically science fiction that is based on as much fact as possible. His stories are often set in present day, but he then throws in a big science fiction twist. His ideas are though provoking, his characters are interesting, and his books are pretty fast paced while still taking plenty of time to get into the science of it.

I just finished reading his book WWW:Wake, the first in a trilogy of books about a blind girl and an internet-based AI. As usual, he delivered the goods. If you are an Audible subscriber, I would encourage you to check out the audio book. Audible went all out and has 3 different people reading it, and the woman that reads for the young girl protagonist is spot on. Anyways, you should definitely get this book, audio or not!

If you read his blog like I do, you would’ve known months and months ago that one of his best books, Flashforward, is about to debut on ABC. They’ve been working on it for quite awhile, and I have been waiting with baited breath to see this show actually show up on TV. Here is a little sneak preview of it. Apparently they’ve been airing these during Lost, but I’ve been skipping the commercials.