Tuesday Musings

            photo: NASA/JPL
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING: We started our morning by appreciating the Martian landscape thanks to a fantastic new "selfie' from Mars Science Laboratory.

Pictured here, "Curiosity" sits atop the "Mojave" site, where its drill collected the mission's second sample from Mount Sharp. If you go to a high resolution version of this photo (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/figures/PIA19142_fig1.jpg), you can see the drill holes right above the arrow and word "Mojave."

Naturally, the kids wondered how Curiosity took this photo, as you can't see it holding out a camera, even on a 'selfie stick.' The image is actually a composite of dozens of photos taken during January 2015 by MSL's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of the rover's robotic arm. The photos don't show MSL's "wrist" motions and turret rotations that were used on the arm allowing MAHLI to acquire the mosaic's images.

The arm was positioned out of the shot in the images, or portions of images, that were used in this mosaic.

In the image, you can see the Pahrump Hills outcrop surrounding the rover. The upper left corner of the shot has an upper portion of Mount Sharp (about the size of Washington's Mt. Rainier) visible.  

You can reads lots more about Curiosity via these NASA sites: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/.

PROPOSALS:  We have finished six weeks' worth of lectures and quizzes for the Magna Carta class we're taking.  The only thing left on the 'to do' list was the final assignment, and a daunting one, at that that. We were tasked with writing a clause for a modern-day Magna Carta "that addresses the pressing issues and defends the rights that matter to you, and a written motion to persuade others that your clause should be adopted. The total length of your submission should be 240-270 words ..."

Sounds straightforward enough, but aye, aye, aye ... proposing an amendment to the cornerstone of democracy? A little intimidating.

We mulled over potential topics for a few days. I ended up settling on wage equality (before Patricia Arquette's speech at the Oscars, might I note). CJ decided on Internet freedom, and Annabelle chose marriage equality.

We each spent 2-3 days re-reading the original Magna Carta, researching other human rights-related documents, and drafting proposals. Yesterday, CJ finished his. Here it is:

CLAUSE: All humans, regardless of gender, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation, shall have the right to use the Internet without fear of privacy violations or persecution. 

MOTION: The Internet is a borderless, invaluable avenue for advancing human knowledge. Therefore, no government should control, destroy or deny their citizens' access to the Internet.  Fundamental to Magna Carta is the tradition of preventing government from the unlawful seizure of property. This should include intellectual property, inclusive of thoughts and ideas shared via the Internet or World Wide Web. Every person accessing the Internet or World Wide Web is entitled to freedom of expression and distribution of information. Except for activity deemed illegal and detrimental to society by order of judicial officials elected by citizens, no human being should be arbitrarily stripped of their right to use the Internet and World Wide Web and no government should control a person's ability to browse the Internet and World Wide Web, or profit from a person's use of the Internet or World Wide Web. Because the Internet contains the free exchange of information and knowledge, no government owns content that has been submitted to the World Wide Web by a human being. The Internet and World Wide Web should not be used for surveillance of people's actions. An Internet freedom charter is necessary in today's society due to the fact that when the original Magna Carta was written in 1215, there was nothing remotely similar to the worldwide means of communicating or disseminating information today's Internet provides. 

Annabelle finished her suggestion this evening.

Clause: "Because humans have a birthright to freedom, dignity and equal rights, all consenting adults should be free to marry whom they choose, regardless of race, religion, nationality, gender or orientation." 

Motion: The 800th anniversary of Magna Carta is a time to reflect on our rights and liberties and the role Magna Carta has played in helping shape free societies around the globe.  History shows that equal rights ensured by law are indispensible in the on-going campaign to eliminate certain rights from being of benefit only to select groups, for instance, a nation's rulers or a cultural or political majority. Given this, a Magna Carta for today should champion freedom and equality in rights, including the institution of marriage.  The original Magna Carta addressed marriage in multiple clauses, which would indicate the importance of marriage in society's structure.  However, the original Magna Carta clauses addressing marriage are antiquated, pertaining to royal titles, dowries and customs of days long ago. Marriage was, and continues to be, an important part of society, but today's social order requires a different outlook, affirmation and protection under the law. With this in mind, any modern Magna Carta should maintain the rights of any human being to have freedom and equality in marriage, and this right should extend to all humans of any race, culture, nationality, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.  Those who are of consenting age and are acting of their own free will should be, by law, allowed to choose whom they marry. Basic human rights allow freedom of self-expression, which includes the right to love whom we love. 

They both worked hard on their proposals, and learned the value of a good thesaurus along the way. :) Our proposals are submitted and now, we have to wait until the peer review is over (about 10 days) to find out if they're up to snuff. 

GET WITH THE PROGRAM: Because we don't have quite enough on our plates, today we started *another* class: Beginning Game Programming with C#.  Twelve weeks long, it's offered through the University of Colorado via Coursera.

Per the course description, "The Beginning Game Programming with C# course is all about learning how to develop video games using the C# programming language. Why use C# instead of C++, Java, ActionScript, or some other programming language you may have heard of? First, using C# lets us use the Microsoft XNA and open-source MonoGame frameworks, which help us quickly develop games for Windows, Android, iOS, Mac OS, and others. Second, the Unity game engine is very popular with indie game developers, and C# is one of the programming languages you can use in the Unity environment. And finally, C# is a really good language for learning how to program."

Sounds good. ...

I poked around the course Web pages some last night and started feeling kind of afraid upon reading things about physics equations we'll need to know and use to complete the assignments. However, we watched the first two course videos today and we're feeling hopeful, if not downright excited. Our professor is Tim "Dr. T" Chamillard, an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.

Wish us luck. ...