Quids In!

What a story!




On their website Travelex say

Foreign exchange specialist Travelex today unveiled a unit of currency that has been created for use in space. It is the first currency of its kind in the universe and has been developed in partnership with a team of scientists from the National Space Centre and the University of Leicester.

I want one. They don't tell me where to get one.

I'll never get to spend it in space,
I just want one.

Competition for "The Goddard"

As you know since I first wrote about Jeff Bezos' plans to enter the space race, code named Blue Origin, the Hill is still visited daily by eager users of Google who come in search of further information.

"Gradatim Ferociter" is still the most popular search term that brings me readers, closely followed by "blog evaluation", "Internet inequality" and "panopticon".
Sometimes I fear that my interest in visitor stats is just a little panoptic!

However, aware of the nature and interests of my readers, may I offer this link to the story of Top Gear in Space.
Readers from the USA should not miss this opportunity to see how we have progressed in the space race on this side of the Atlantic.

Read the production notes or watch the biggest non commercial rocket launch in Europe.
Its a longish clip but so worth watching.
They don't make the comparison, but to my eye the Robin rises higher than The Goddard!

Jeff Bezos has better look out, the Brits are coming!

Apollo Revisited.

Regular readers will be aware of my childhood interest in space exploration.

During the Apollo programme, the astronauts took many photographs. Some of these were in the form of panoramic sequences, which have now, some thirty plus years later, have been digitally scanned and stitched together into 360 degree quicktime panoramas. The source of the newly scanned images is here at the Apollo Image Gallery.

The resulting panoramic views (with sound), of the surface of the moon are breathtakingly beautiful. (via kottke)

I do hope we go back to the moon, soon.

"Gradatim Ferociter" the search goes on

Well, my blog stats are now back to normal, interest in the Blue Origin project seems to have died away.

Analysis of my statistics shows that for every 100 visits On The Hill received from Americans searching for information about "gradatim ferociter" we received 10 from the UK.
I'm no statistician, those figures could indicate more interest in private space flight in the USA than in the UK, or they could mean that there are more internet users in the USA. Its hard to tell.

I read somewhere that Jeff Bezos posted the test flight video to assist in the recruitment of staff. That makes sense.
I wonder how recruitment is going?

Their standards are high.

"Our hiring bar is unabashedly extreme, and we insist on keeping our team size small. This means the person occupying each and every spot must be among the most technically gifted in his or her field. Other hiring criteria include:

1. You must have a genuine passion for space. Without passion, you will find what we're trying to do too difficult. There are much easier jobs.
2. You must want to work in a small company.
3. We are building real hardware. This must excite you. You must be a builder."


That means these guys from Texas must be in with a shout.

Update 23/02/07 Competition for 'Goddard'

In Search of "Gradatim Ferociter"

Exactly one week ago while browsing the net I came across news of the Goddard's first flight. I wrote about it here on my fledgling blog. I made a far too obvious link between Bezos and Richard Branson, linked to a star wars video on youtube and using long forgotten schoolboy latin tried to translate Blue Origin's motto.

News of the test flight spread, some newspapers picked up the story, the BBC ran it, and many more bloggers commented.

Just about everyone has had a stab at translating Gradatim Ferociter. I thought that step by step with ferocity came close, but a quick browse through Google produced the following :-

bit by bit ferociously,
step by step courageously,
step by step fiercely,
step by step boldly,
step by step arrogantly,
step by step with spirit,
by degrees fiercely,
step by step by degrees and fiercely,
step by step courageously,
to step fiercely,
slowly but fiercely,
patiently and step by step,
plod ferociously,
small measured steps taken boldly,
step by step bravely,
measured ferocity.

I wonder which of these was Blue Origin's intended motto?

Then to my astonishment (and pride), by Wednesday last the number of daily hits received by this little bit of cyberspace increased five fold. Exploring Google Analytics I discovered that my choice of post title had prompted this increase in visitors.

These visitors did not really penetrate the blog. A few went to read Lost in Space, a few read about the Panopticon and one enterprising cyberscholar read the chocolate posting, most came in on the Gradatim Ferociter page and bounced from it!

How disappointed you must all have been coming here to discover more about the Blue Origin project; only to find that I know very little. But because I used that motto as a title, searchers for information came looking and as Hassenpfeffer notes the more you came, the higher I rose in Google.
As I write my blog lies fifth on the Gradatim Ferociter page.

I find this highly motivating. Should I pay more attention to this blog, write more carefully, start to seek links, sign up for pay per click adverts etc. etc.
Perhaps I should have thought more carefully about my profile, filled up my sidebar with interesting links, posted more photos to Flickr.


Now I'm not stupid. I know that I've been lucky with the hits, already things are returning to normal, The story has moved out of the public eye, less searches are being undertaken. I've had my brief moment of fame. But there are observations to be made........

70% of referrals came from Google, 10% from blogger, the rest from newsgator, techorati and directly from earlier links I have made. Some bloggers obviously research who links to or lurks on their blog.

During the last week, 60% of visitors to this site came from the USA, 23% from the UK, the others were scattered around the globe mainly in Europe.
Are more Americans interested in space exploration than Brits, or are there just more of you?

The range of words searched for is also of interest; these are referred to in Google Analytics as Keywords (I think). My visitors arrived here by using the following (in order of use) :-

gradatim ferociter,
ferociter,
gradatim ferociter!,
"gradatim ferociter",
gradatim ferociter latin,
ferociter,
gradatim, latin gradatim ferociter.

As part of my studies of blogs, as well as running Google Analytics I'm running a free hit counter on my blog. This shows me in a little more detail who has been running their eyes over my blogging; the geeks among you it will know that it uses reverse DNS to give me the domain name of my visitors.
It tells me where they come from; and makes for interesting reading.

Here are some of the domains that I recognised:-

amazon.com
caltech.com
boeing.com
nasa.gov
wa.gov

Someone at one of those domains knows what Gradatim Ferociter means.
The others must just be curious.

Update 25/01/07 Gradatim Ferociter, the Search Goes On
Update 23/02/07 Competition for 'The Goddard'

'Gradatim Ferociter"

Now this is an interesting story.

Jeff Bezos the founder of Amazon has an interesting hobby codenamed Blue Origin.
He and his team have been :-

"working, patiently and step-by-step, to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system. Accomplishing this mission will take a long time, and we’re working on it methodically. We believe in incremental improvement and in keeping investments at a pace that's sustainable. Slow and steady is the way to achieve results, and we do not kid ourselves into thinking this will get easier as we go along. Smaller, more frequent steps drive a faster rate of learning, help us maintain focus, and give each of us an opportunity to see our latest work fly sooner.

Our first objective is developing New Shepard, a vertical take-off, vertical-landing vehicle designed to take a small number of astronauts on a sub-orbital journey into space."

His small frequent steps have achieved an outcome, a test flight!
Back in November last year the Goddard flew. Well it lifted, rose vertically to a height of 285ft, and landed safely.
Rather grainy video footage can be seen at Blue Origin.

On the strength of that test flight Bezos is looking to expand his team and is recruiting and offering internships for suitable American citizens.

My latin is pretty poor but I guess that Gradatim Ferociter translates something like step by step with ferocity?
So now NASA and Richard Branson have competition.

Who will you be flying with?

On a slightly lighter note boingboing pointed at this galaxy far, far away.
May the force be with you.

Update 12/1/07 In Search of Gradatim Ferociter
Update 25/1/07 Gradatim Ferociter the Search Goes On
Update 23/2/07 Competition for 'The Goddard'

Lost in Space!

Seeing a link to this magnificent photograph reminded me of my childhood.

Many of my generation spent many hours following the exploits of NASA's men in space. Our teenage years were spent devising ways of following the space race whilst allegedly studying in school.

As a radio enthusiast, I followed our progress in space with the aid of what was at the time the worlds smallest radio, manufactured and sold by Clive Sinclair, (of ZX81 and Spectrum fame); which could be used during lessons to listen in to the radio transmissions between earth and the Apollo spacecraft as they travelled towards, around and eventually to the moon. To make absolutely certain that teachers didn't find my radio I secreted it inside a hollowed out text book. Its nice to read that such books still have some use for the owners of iPods!

It's all quite different now, the wonder of space is just a mouse click away, I have over the last couple of days spent hours watching the live transmissions from the ISS courtesy of NASA TV. No need to hide my radio earpiece, the streaming video has been permanently on view on my laptop.

I can't but help wonder:-

• Do today's digital youth spend hours watching astronauts as I did?
• Does anyone?

Or were my generation the real digital natives?

Thinking about space has led me to explore cyberspace. Enjoy the view.

• A blog, from space.
• A collection of Spaceships.
• Really lost in space.
• A photo from work!
• Google in space too!
• A Christmas list from closer to home!