I've made several hundred jumps myself. When asked to explain it, I refer to Charles Lindbergh who put it into words better than I ever could:

"...when I decided that I too must pass through the experience of a parachute jump, life rose to a higher level, to a sort of exhilarated calmness. The thought of crawling out onto the struts and wires hundreds of feet above the earth, and then giving up even that tenuous hold of safety and of substance, left me a feeling of anticipation mixed with dread, of confidence restrained by caution, of courage salted through with fear. How tightly should one hold onto life? How loosely give it rein? What gain was there for such a risk? I would have to pay in money for hurling my body into space. There would be no crowd to watch and applaud my landing. Nor was there any scientific objective to be gained. No, there was deeper reason for wanting to jump, a desire I could not explain.

It was that quality that led me into aviation in the first place — it was a love of the air and sky and flying, the lure of adventure, the appreciation of beauty. It lay beyond the descriptive words of man — where immortality is touched through danger, where life meets death on equal plane; where man is more than man, and existence both supreme and valueless at the same instant."
Charles A. Lindbergh, 'The Spirit of St Louis,' 1953

Rabid fans and the curious may enjoy this (very fictional) film about Ada's life: Conceiving Ada (1997)

If these laws had been applied in another era, two well known scientists would have been jailed for cheating at roulette . (Those would be Edward Thorp and Claude Shannon)

In some situations I find myself asking "What would Richard Feynman do?" I don't always follow what the answer would be, but it invariably lightens up the moment!

Indeed. As they get more gain out of this antenna, it has to be pointed with more precision. Being inflatable, if the antenna has any kind of wobble after movement... well that's just one more aggravating detail.

The NSA/CIA/FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms want to suppress Pastafarianism because the colanders work just like tin foil hats! As an aside, we nerds can determine the wavelength of the brain control waves by measuring the size of the colander holes.

If this project is real, where are the rocket designs? Where are the hundreds of engineers and scientists working on the project? In fact there is NOT A SINGLE ONE! Not one person with scientific, engineering or technical knowledge has been identified as working on this. There are no want ads to hire those hundreds of engineers either.

I second the motion. Can't wait to see Kerbal Interstellar Program.
Devs: Holler if you need help.
OTOH, OpenRelativity is open source. Can an API to KSP be worked out to work with OpenRelativity? We'll take care of the rest.

I saw a preview of what the artist has done with the volcano on the TV series "Sculpture Diaries". BTW, I don't know why they are calling this an "observatory". It really is an art piece (depending on you view of what is art).

I'd visit it if I could.

It is fitting that you posted as an anonymous COWARD! Otherwise we might want to take a look at how much of your time is wasted. Given how much you are paid to teach future engineers and you can't get them to solve a triangle in 2 minutes, i suspect you are a poor excuse for a teacher at a state university. Since the state's residents taxes are paying your salary, i suggest they take a close look at how many weekends, holidays, and other downtime that you get paid for.

There is at least one board game that was computer designed: Yavalath. Yavalath was designed algorithmically by Cameron Browne, as described in his PhD thesis "Automatic Generation and Evaluation of Recombination Games". See his publications here:

http://www.cameronius.com/

You are reminding me of Blondie24. Please publish, or provide a link or something. Would love to read up on your work.

I can't straighten out this young person's life in view of the excessive charges being brought against her, or even get her back in school (though I think she has been ill served by the one she is in).

So, I humbly propose May 1st to be known as the Kiera Wilmot Science Day. On this day, I encourage teachers, scientists and adult volunteers of all stripes to perform a science experiment for the next generation. Invite them to see a chemical reaction, look through a telescope, search for fossils, or hell, just watch a gyroscope and think about what keeps it from falling over. Ask the kids what they think happened, how they would prove what they think happened, design the next experiment, etc etc.

Since the school system cannot do it, it is up to individuals to instill curiosity and wonder to the younger set.

I'd be inclined to buy a magazine or two (Wired, Ham Radio stuff, science fiction and the like, or even Bitch magazine) if there was a bookstore near me where I could browse the rack. Sadly, all the bookstores are gone now.

They are right here. They are hardly a regulatory body, they can't enforce anything.