The highest natural point in Minneapolis, MN is a hill in Prospect Park. On that hill is a decommissioned water tower with an observation deck. That deck is open to the public one day a year. That day was today. The tower has a plaque that reads:

Prospect Park Water Tower

The Witch’s Hat Water Tower was designed by Norwegian architect Frederick William Cappelen and constructed by the city of Minneapolis in 1913. Occupying the highest natural land area in Minneapolis, the water tower was built to improve water pressure in the home of Prospect Park residents. The tower was decommissioned in 1952, but has been preserved as a significant part of this city’s history. The witch’s Hat Water Tower and Tower Hill Park are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

I, rather clumsily, stitched the above photo together from three separate photos. The view is still impressive.

(See also: Higher Resolution Version of the above photo.)
(See also: Wikipedia: Prospect Park, Minneapolis, MN)

Where there is water there tends to be life. It would rock our world to find life on another planet. The rovers approached Mars in much the same manner and were slowed by parachutes, but were delivered to the surface by bouncing along inside an inflated ball. This was the first successful Mars landing without airbags since Viking 2 in 1976.

The entire Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequence takes 7 minutes. Earth and Mars are so far apart that it takes over 10 minutes for a signal to get from the lander to Earth. This means that by the time they hear from the lander that EDL has started it will be over.

“We’ve passed the hardest part and we’re breathing again, but we still need to see that Phoenix has opened its solar arrays and begun generating power,” said JPL’s Barry Goldstein, the Phoenix project manager. If all goes well, engineers will learn the status of the solar arrays between 7 and 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time (10 and 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time) from a Phoenix transmission relayed via NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter.

Bravo team NASA.

MarsPhoenix I’m sitting on very flat surface here. Tiny rocks around my foot pads. The horizon is flat and looks perfect for digging!!!

I also enjoyed the first-person tweets on Twitter as MarsPhoenix kept us up to date at each stage. I look forward to future tweets as Phoenix begins to explore the landing site.

(Update: First pictures are up! May 25, 2008, 9:47PM CST)

(See also: NASA: Phoenix Spacecraft Lands at Martian Arctic Site, May 25, 2008)
(See also: NASA: Phoenix Spacecraft EDL video dramatization)
(See also: NASA: Phoenix Mars Lander)
(See also: Twitter: Mars Phoenix)

This is the most clever thing I’ve seen all day. As Joel said on Twitter, ‘I am totally going to do this sometime soon’.

(Update: NYTimes article, Link by Link – This is Funny Only if You Know Unix)

(See also: xkcd: 426)
(See also: Geocaching)

Have you seen this tool: EZ Manage™ SQL – Enterprise Edition?

In a multiple SQL Server environment, EZManage™ SQL stands out as the only solution for managing all SQL servers and their related jobs from a single central console. EZManage™ SQL is an intelligent, robust, yet simple to set-up and use tool for automating the maintenance, monitoring & alerts, backup and performance optimization of Microsoft SQL Server databases. It’s so simple, you’ll have it up and running in less than 2 hours – not including your own acceptance testing, of course.

An interesting collection of tools to ride herd over your SQL server farm. I’m working with a customer who has roughly 40 production SQL servers, though they do use several other tools we are trying to evaluate if this provides a significant advantage over the current toolset.

Might be worth a look.

(See also: EzManage SQL: Features)
(See also: EzManage SQL: Maintenance)
(See also: EzManage SQL: Alerts)

(See also: Microsoft SQL Server)

Designer Yves Behar discusses some of the iconic objects he’s created (the Herman Miller Leaf lamp, the Jawbone bluetooth headset). Then he turns to the objects he’s working on now — including the “$100 laptop.” It’s not about slapping skins on a technology, it’s really about designing the whole experience from the inside out. It is never done, never complete. Design is intense collaboration, a continual process.

“…advertising is the price companies pay for being unoriginal.” — unknown.

“[Behar] has the ability to strip something down to its basic functional logic and then apply a set of emotional and aesthetic considerations to create something unique. It’s an art.” — Chris Hacker, chief design officer at Johnson & Johnson

Design will be why you pick it up. Design will make the impossible possible, and the hard easy. Creating value while mindful of our own values, we can more than break the ice, we can tear down barriers. It is good to be alive.

(See also: TEDtalk: Yves Behar video)
(See also: TEDtalk: Yves Behar bio)