bookofjoe

'Why you should make useless things' — Simone Giertz

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Sees Solar Eclipse on Mars

From Kottke:

NASA just released a video shot by the Mars Perseverance rover of a solar eclipse caused by the moon Phobos.

The video description calls it "the most zoomed-in, highest frame-rate observation of a Phobos solar eclipse ever taken from the Martian surface."

According to this article from JPL, the video of the eclipse is played in realtime; it only lasted about 40 seconds.

Captured with Perseverance's next-generation Mastcam-Z camera on April 2, the 397th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, the eclipse lasted a little over 40 seconds — much shorter than a typical solar eclipse involving Earth's Moon. (Phobos is about 157 times smaller than Earth's Moon. Mars' other moon, Deimos, is even smaller.)

Rao's Penne Alla Vodka

I took a flutter on this microwave dish when I happened to notice it in the Kroger freezer.

Turned out to be a big step up in quality, and opened my eyes to the great world outside Stouffer's, my go-to frozen comestibles since forever.

Rao's flavors and appearance and textures and smells seem sharper, more appealing, closer to fresh.

Still, after 3 minutes you have to take it out and stir it and then nuke it for another 3 minutes — not quite my perfect idea of a microwave item, which should only require one maneuver: putting it in the machine and pressing a minutes button.

More from Rao's, please.

'White Wonder'

Her real name is Sodashi, and she's the best pure white horse to have ever raced, at least in modern times.

When I saw the picture above in yesterday's New York Times, I instantly flashed back to the mesmerizing opening/intro for Season 1 of "Westworld" (below), though to be fair those beautiful sequences were accompanied by haunting music.

Wrote Victor Mather in the Times, "The sight of the snow-white Sodashi dashing through the field had a cinematic quality. The impression was amplified by the jockey Hayato Yoshida's unusual all-white bridle."

Above, Sodashi, whose nickname is "The White Wonder," takes the Victoria Mile with a closing rally last Sunday at Tokyo Racecourse.

3D Playing Cards

From the website:

If you've ever wanted to be a master magician — or just sweep the whole pot in poker — 3D Magic Eye Playing Cards are just the trick you need.

The deck seems like a standard set of 52 cards in 4 suits, but they hold a secret hiding in plain sight: each card back has a camouflaged autostereogram image that only becomes visible when you focus beyond the plane of the card.

Once you see the image, you'll know the suit and rank of the card.

With a simple squint or cross of the eyes, your mind will be able to scan and focus on the illusionary image on the back of the card.

So go ahead and shuffle away before you ask a friend to "Pick a card, any card."

Features and Details:

Determined not to pull the trigger (for once), but sorely tempted?

Watch

the video.

$12.99.