Category: News

I just read that Don Herbert, TV’s ‘Mr. Wizard’ passed away today at the age of 89. Mr. Wizard was and shall remain a remarkable man in that he introduced thousands of kids to the idea that science can be fun. His TV program started in 1951 and ran for 14 years and was revived in 1970 and then again from 1983-90. I remember watching the revival of his program on Nickelodeon in the mid 80’s and being amazed at how well he could explain the concepts of science to kid. His legacy lives on in the countless number of scientists and teachers that credit him for their early interest in science. I can only hope that there is someone out there that is inspiring the youth of today to be the scientists of tomorrow.

[via boingboing]
Don Herbert, 89; TV’s ‘Mr. Wizard’ taught science to young baby boomers – Los Angeles Times
The Official Website of Mr. Wizard Studios

I’d like to apologize for the recent weird goings on with TeamDroid. I don’t know why (yet) but the MySQL database that is hosted on the iPowerseb server has been corrupted. After repeated reloads, repairs, resets, and just about anything else I can think of, it’s back to a somewhat normal mode. IPower provides the Vdeck management console for conducting maintenance and repair of all aspects of the site and it seems to have it’s limitations. So far it has removed entire tables from the database when a repair was done, failed to restore my most recent backups and reported false a status when a DB check was done. It’s been an annoying day to say the least. I’m hoping that my latest fixes will hold.

I’d like to introduce the latest contributor to TeamDroid, Alexandria. She is just starting out in the blogging world so some of her posts might be a little rough around the edges but should improve with age. So be on the look out for new topics and views in the near future.
-John

I’m sure that by now people living in the United States know about the US Mint 50 State Quarter program by now. For those who haven’t used cash in a while I’ll fill you in on the rough details. The US Mints decided to add a little much needed variety to our currency. So, after having a nice long think about just how well the Sacajawea dollar coin did (it didn’t, it’s been universally declared a flop) they decided that celebrating each of the 50 US states would be a good thing. So far it’s working out rather well. People love them and are even collecting them. The program started in 1999 and the quarters are issued in 10 week cycles in order that the state joined the country. There is a lengthy process to decide the actual design of the coin but towards the end the states can put the finalists to a vote. The Arizona quarter is slated to be minted in mid 2008 and the five finalists are up for the popular vote. I figure that as everyone in America will be using them I don’t see why non-Arizonians shouldn’t be able to have a voice in selection. So have at it and see if your choice ends up in your pocket.

Arizona State Quarter