A list of 1 insane things to do on a boat

Ian Hutson

isslivefeed

  1. Sit with a laptop on your knees and watch a live-feed of video of the planet Earth, streamed directly from the International Space Station.

That’s it.

As I inferred with the “1” in the title of this blog post, it’s a one-item list.

I have been sat sittting sittingly on my boat, bobbing up and down on water (as a lot of boats do) and looking back at Earth twirling around in space. Is that deliciously insane, or what?

You can sit somewhere else and watch the same show. I would say at this point – do give the video feed a chance; sometimes it’s off for a few seconds (probably as aliens fly by) and sometimes they change cameras (as aliens fly past in the other direction). Sometimes, about fifteen times a day, the ruddy ISS is just on the “dark side” of the planet, but it works, it is there and it’s a sight that no other generation of people has been able to see. I really recommend that you go and take a gander, have a peek, point your beadies and blink at least twice. Please feel free to dribble in awe.

Hah! Take that, you damned Spanish Inquisition, the Earth is an oblate spheroid spinning in space, and I don’t care even if you come at me with the wholly unexpected comfy cushion tortures.

Here’s the link to the video stream. I’ll leave it “messy” so that you can see that you’re headed for a NASA site. What you should see looks like the header image here – except that it’s real-time, live and utterly fantastic.

https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ESRS/HDEV/

Here is yet another toy in case you just want to check where the ISS is orbiting at any moment – this is live data too.

http://www.isstracker.com/

This is the sort of thing you’ll see from the second link, it updates as the ISS moves in its orbit (so you can know when to stand outside, point to the sky and say “ooh”):

isslatlong

Now, is this not truly beautiful? Is it not infinitely (and intrinsically) better in any and all ways than inventing sky fairies and then killing each other over whose god is biggest, bestest or baddest?

A hint – they’re all shit. Pardon my French, ils sont tous merde.

Science, and the REALITY that it shows is the only thing worth bothering about.

Seriously.

Now, hop to it. Get those mouse-wheels turning.

Teckology can be a wunderphul thing, eh?

Chin-chin.

Ian H.

18 Comments

  1. I often watch the stunning images of the ISS, and I often wish to be up there. I have this dream since my childhood days, when the first “Mercury”-Astronaut Alan Shepard has made his short journey into space…

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    1. To travel out there would be a fantastic thing, I’d love to do it. Maybe one day, if they’re quick with the technology! 😉

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    1. It is, as you say, hypnotic – not bad for a load of red-bottomed apes dropped down from the trees! Sometimes, just sometimes, we do nice things. 😉

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  5. There must be a twit page too but the silly man in charge of America is there so I don’t want to join in. Sleep tight me duck.

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  6. And what is the best thing of all is the multitude of surprises we are learning every day! It makes life worth living just to see what will we find out next.

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    1. It is amazing – we are a diverse and unpredictable species. I’m not certain that we are nice enough for me to like, not yet – but I’ll stay execution for a while longer! 😉

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    1. Bill Paxton who invented the printing press? I think he’s dead, but I couldn’t say whether ISIS killed him or not. It seems likely though. I thought his initials were just “B”? What did the “R.I.P.” stand for?

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  8. I have been doing that very thing for quite some time! I love to see it above me, knowing that there are real humans up there doing amazing things. You can sign up for email updates when the ISS will fly over you, I always get excited when they start up again. A true bit of modern magic.

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    1. I would love to go into space. Most of the people I know would love to be able to send me into space. The difference is that I wouldn’t mind returning, they’d all like it to be a one-way trip! 😉 Seriously though… what a ride it would be.

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      1. I am not sure about going into space myself but I am very interested in what is going on up there. Do you follow NASA on Facebook? They keep me updated on so many projects.

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