XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World: 04/19/11

Tuesday, 19 April 2011

Look Up: Spectacular Space Station Flybys This Week - will outshine everything in the evening sky except the moon -

The International Space Station will make several flybys over Europe and North America this week. The flybys will be brief, lasting about five minutes at most. But while it’s overhead, the space station will outshine everything in the evening sky except the moon.

While the ISS constantly circles Earth, it’s only visible just after sunset or just before sunrise; at other times of day it’s outshone by the sun, or cloaked by Earth’s shadow. Thanks to orbital coincidences, this week’s flybys will be exceptionally bright.

To find out when to look up, check Spaceweather.com’s prediction page, NASA’s Space Station Sightingpage, or Heavens Above. You can also have alerts sent directly to your smartphone.

In honor of tax day - 20 Tax fact that will BLOW YOUR MIND -

In honor of tax day, Business Insider put together a slide show on the 20 tax facts that will “make your head explode.” Here’s a sample:

1. The IRS has more employees than there are people in Flint, Michigan (106K vs 102K).

2. Americans spend $28 billion and 8 billion hours each year doing their taxes.

3. The number of pages in the tax code has increased 16,775% in the past century.

4. You could fill Dallas with the number of accountants Americans hire to help with taxes each year (over a million).

You can read the rest here.

FAA Suspends Two for Movie Watching While on Duty -

An air traffic controller has been suspended for watching a movie when he was supposed to be monitoring aircraft, deepening the Federal Aviation Administration's embarrassment following at least five cases of controllers sleeping on the job.
In the latest incident, the controller was watching a movie on a DVD player early Sunday morning while on duty at a regional radar center near Cleveland, Ohio that handles high-altitude air traffic, the FAA said in a statement Monday.
The controller's microphone was inadvertently activated, transmitting the soundtrack of the movie -- the 2007 crime thriller "Cleaner," starring Samuel L. Jackson -- for more than three minutes to all the planes in the airspace that the controller was supposed to be monitoring, the agency said.
The controller's microphone became stuck in the transmit position, preventing him from hearing incoming radio calls or issuing instructions to planes during the incident, the agency said.
The controller was alerted to the mishap when he was contacted by a military pilot.

Besides the controller, the FAA also has suspended a manager at the Oberlin center.
In all now, the FAA has suspended eight controllers and supervisors since late March.
In five of the cases the controllers allegedly fell asleep. In another case, the FAA is investigating why two controllers in Texas were unresponsive to radio calls.
Nearly all the incidents occurred during overnight shifts when traffic is light and people naturally have trouble staying awake.
The incidents have shaken FAA officials, made air traffic controllers the butt of late night comedians and raised public jitters about the safety of air travel.
FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said early Monday, before the agency had disclosed the incident near Cleveland, that he was "infuriated" that air traffic controllers have been caught snoozing on the job.
"None of us in this business can ... tolerate any of this," Babbitt said. "It absolutely has to stop."
Babbitt was at a regional radar center near Atlanta with Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union that represents controllers. The pair met with about 50 controllers and other FAA employees as they kicked off a nationwide tour of air traffic facilities aimed at sending a message as much to the public as to controllers that unprofessional behavior won't be tolerated.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood underscored the same message in a series of television interviews over the past several days. Even President Barack Obama joined the chorus, telling ABC News last week: "We've got it under control."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/18/faa-suspends-2-movie-watching-duty/#ixzz1JxmBBQNJ