Very Cool - Heat Shield, Meet Mars Rover

This sequence of images shows the heat shield from NASA's Mars Science Laboratory hitting the ground on Mars and raising a cloud of dust. The images were taken by the Mars Descent Imager on the mission's Curiosity rover while the rover was still suspended on a parachute, after the spacecraft had jettisoned the heat shield.

A dark spot, the shadow of the heat shield, enters the scene from lower left, moving toward the center. The bright heat shield itself is also apparent just before the shadow and hardware meet in the impact on the surface. The area of ground visible in the images is about six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) across. The frames shown here are cropped portions of full-frame images from the Mars Descent Imager.

The sequence includes 25 frames, repeated in five run-throughs for this presentation. The action is full speed in the first, fourth and fifth run-throughs. It is one-half and one-eighth speeds in the second and third run-throughs.

Static Pixels Brings Your Instagram Images Offline

From the birthplace of singer-songwriters like Leonard Cohen and William Shatner (Montreal!), Static Pixels wants to bring digital photos "out of your devices and into the physical world". They're kicking off their mission with what they're calling DeepSquare prints: four-packs of your favorite Instagram pics thrown onto 5"x5" pieces of cardboard, proving once and for all that cardboard is indeed the most hipster of paper products. What's that? More details? OK, fine, here:

Show 'em off on a wall using their built-in mounts, or stand 'em upright thanks to swing-out stands, which is no longer just the most boring swing dance move ever

Like balls on a bull, each one is hand-examined for quality

The UV inks they use are fade resistant, so don't expect to find 'em Rollin' With Kid 'n Play

Sign up and you can directly Tweet them photos to print

They're made entirely from post-consumer, FSC-certified products, so whenever you tire of your photos of kittens whimsically playing with plastic bags, take a cue from Shatner's spoken-word work and recycle

Read more: http://www.thrillist.com/home-gadgets/nation/static-pixels_art_online-shops_custom#ixzz20t2iZ89A

Pictures from the 2012 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships - Vault

I'm covering the 2012 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships this weekend at the Gwinnett Arena in Duluth, GA.

Thursday was an open practice and the media ws allowed access to all the events as the teams practiced.  We could get up close with the bars, and the beam, sit right behind the vault and just about stand on the mats for the floor exercise.

The vault amazes me.  Gymnasts runs at record speeds down a runway and either cartwheel or fling themselves off a vault into the air and then try to stick a landing.  There are so many moving body parts here it is hard to believe they don't get injured every time they make an attempt.

Here are some pics from different positions arounf the vault.

They concentrate and prepare for the run up to the vault

Moving at fast speeds

Good luck!

Julianne Hough on the Cover of Prestige

It's never a bad thing when Julianne Hough is on the cover of a magazine. 

She's on the cover of the December 2011 edition of Prestige and there are more photos and an interview inside the magazine.

Here's a link: 

http://www.prestigehongkong.com/celebrities/011211.html

Final Word on The Band Perry in Marietta

Forgot to post this last week.  My Yahoo review of the standing room only appearance of The Band Perry at the North Georgia State Fair in Marietta, GA.

http://news.yahoo.com/band-perry-stops-north-georgia-way-superstardom-133000815.html

Also a few more pics: