Galaxy Zoo!

If you're into astronomy, and I'm guessing that you are if you enjoy science fiction and/or EVE, then you may be interested in this. Oxford University is looking for help from the internet-using public (that's you) in sorting out a million or so pictures of galaxies. They need to identify the type of galaxy (spiral, elliptical, etc.) and record them into a huge database. Apparently to do this by computer would take ages and error-prone. I think this is very cool and signed up for it already. You can check it out at www.galaxyzoo.org .

Not much happening the the world of EVE at the moment. I'm still looking for some decent 0.5 space to park in for a while. In the mean time I've kicked off a 6 day skill training to bring my Industry level to 5. This sets me up to start training for the ability to fly mining barges with the idea of buying a Retriever once my skills are there. One night I made a long jump to some other 0.6 system to pick up some medium hybrid ammo I had purchased. Usually when I visit a new area I spend some time checking out the asteroid belts in case there some wrecks to salvage and pirates to fight. So I decided to do the same in this system (I forget the name now) which had about 6 belts. There wasn't much going on until I hit the second last belt where I encounter 3 Serpentis (NPC pirates) Guards. I easily took them out in my Thorax and newly purchased medium antimatter rounds. The first ship I looted had something called a 'Low Grade Epsilon Implant'. I never heard of it before so I looked it up on the market. Buyers were paying $40 million ISK for this! So I finished the belts, headed back to my home station, sold the implant and made a nice tidy sum of $40 mil. That was almost like winning the lottery in RL. I hope this happens more often but according to the fine in-game Chat People, these drops are rare at best.

There is a new podcast available called Warp Drive Active. There's only two episodes so far and they are very well done. I've talked to the creators in-game and on their podcast page encouraging them to keep it up. EVE is lacking in recent podcast content and WDA is a welcome addition to the community.

As for WoW, I dinged level 49 last night. I'm in an area called Feralas which has good XP creatures to fight. I'm calling it home for a while and it's a short flight (gryphons this time, not cruisers) to Tanaris where I have many quests yet to do. The plan is for me and Kanuc (my fellow guild member) to finish some 'green' quests in Uldamon and Scarlet Monastery instances and then continue in the Tanaris area for a bit. I can't wait to hit level 50 which I'm hoping happens by the end of this weekend.