Twas The Fight Before Christmas follows the story of a North Idaho neighborhood turned upside down by one man's obsession with bringing Christmas cheer to all, through the biggest community Christmas event America has ever seen. Christmas-loving lawyer Jeremy Morris' plan hits a snag when the home owners' association informs him that the event violates the rules of the neighborhood. A contentious fight over the festivities erupts and things snowball out of control. 

​SpaceX successfully launches secret satellite after weeks-long delay

​Elon Musk's SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a secret government payload into orbit Sunday night from Cape Canaveral, Fla. Few details have been released about the classified mission, known as Zuma, other than it includes a satellite built by Northrop Grumman Corp. NOC, +0.38% . The launch was originally scheduled for late November, but was repeatedly delayed. The reusable rocket landed about seven minutes after liftoff, SpaceX said.

SpaceX Launches Secret Zuma Mission for US Government, Lands Rocket

SpaceX lofted the super-secret Zuma spacecraft for the U.S. government tonight (Jan. 7), successfully executing a mission that also featured yet another landing by the first stage of the company's Falcon 9 rocket.

Here's What We Know About the Secret Zuma Payload SpaceX Is Launching

SpaceX plans to launch a secret payload known as Zuma on Thursday evening (Nov. 16), from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. 

And when I say secret, I mean secret; everybody involved with the mission is pretty tight-lipped about it. Here's a brief rundown of what we know. (Spoiler alert: It isn't much.)

Zuma is a U.S. government payload

Aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman has confirmed that it procured Zuma's launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the U.S. government. But it's unclear which agency is in charge of the Zuma project.

Such secrecy is atypical, even if Zuma happens to be a sensitive national-security satellite. (And we don't know that it is; Northrop Grumman has simply described Zuma as a "restricted payload.")

​Definition of secret
1 a : kept from knowledge or view : hidden
b : marked by the habit of discretion : closemouthed
c : working with hidden aims or methods : undercover a secret agent
d : not acknowledged : unavowed a secret bride
e : conducted in secret a secret trial
2 : remote from human frequentation or notice : secluded
3 : revealed only to the initiated : esoteric
4 : designed to elude observation or detection a secret panel
5 : containing information whose unauthorized disclosure could endanger national security — compare confidential, top secret

U.S. spy satellite believed destroyed after failing to reach orbit: officials

​WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. spy satellite that was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a SpaceX rocket on Sunday failed to reach orbit and is assumed to be a total loss, two U.S. officials briefed on the mission said on Monday.

The classified intelligence satellite, built by Northrop Grumman Corp, failed to separate from the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket and is assumed to have broken up or plunged into the sea, said the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Email

PCX Computers

True beauty is found in simplicity, not complexity.

System Powers 56K Modems To The Max

​Maybe you're one of the lucky few who have broadband Internet access. Well, good for you.

For the rest of us - an estimated 80 million home users - Internet access still involves using plain old analog modems. What's worse, many people can't connect at anywhere near 56-kilobit-per-second speeds, the theoretical maximum speed of the 56K modem, because of poor line conditions and other factors. 

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All In Good Fun

Just so you know I didn't make that up.

Tom Brady's Stolen Super Bowl jerseys found in possession of international media member

Tom Brady's stolen jersey from this year's Super Bowl has been recovered after being found in the possession of a member of the international media, according to the NFL.

​The league announced Monday that the New England Patriots quarterback's game-worn jersey from Super Bowl LI and another jersey, missing from Super Bowl XLIX, were retrieved after an investigation led by the FBI.

Tom Brady Speaks (via his agent)

​"I am happy my jerseys from SB 49 and SB 51 have been recovered, and I want to thank all of the law enforcement agencies involved. I know they worked hard on this case -- and it is very much appreciated. Hopefully when I get the jerseys back I can make something very positive come from this experience."

Seriously?

Your tax money well spent.

​Authorities went over approximately 20,000 credentials, and eventually settled on Ortega as a person of interest, leading to Monday's announcement.

click to enlarge

Because of 9-11, Agencies Finally Learn How to Work Together

"Through the cooperation of the NFL and New England Patriots' security teams, the FBI and other law enforcement authorities, the Super Bowl LI jersey worn last month by MVP Tom Brady has been recovered," the NFL said in its statement. "Also retrieved during the ongoing investigation was the jersey Brady wore in the Patriots' victory in Super Bowl XLIX against the Seattle Seahawks in 2015. (emphasis added)

The Fix Is In

​Professional sports in America: it's all about fair play and the goal of winning championships. At least that's the spin. But could it be a massive showbiz operation filled with greedy owners, crooked referees, and coddled players, all with the unstated goal of grabbing as much money as possible?

​Final proof man walked on Moon? NASA finds Apollo crash site on lunar surface

The US space agency has released the exact coordinates of the site which is on an area called Mare Insularum, about 160 miles southwest of the Copernicus Crater.

It has been hunting for the ihe [sic] Apollo 16 S-IVB impact site - following decades of uncertainty over its final resting place since the 1972 mission.
​
The discovery is a major blow for conspiracy theorists who have long claimed no one has ever landed on the moon and all the six manned lunar missions and pictures and video from them from 1969 to 1972 were faked by NASA to ensure the US won the space race against Russia.

An Express.co.uk poll has found 68% of readers believe the landings happened, 18% are convinced the pictures were faked, and 14% believe we will never know either way.

The new discovery is unlikely to silence die hard conspiracists it seems.

Even after news of the crash site emerged people continued to comment online that it was the world's biggest ever hoax.

​However, the discovery is unlikely tro [sic] silence die hard conspiracists.

​Found! Apollo 16 S-IVB Impact Crater

​A decades old mystery is now solved! After many attempts searching through Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) images, the Apollo 16 S-IVB rocket booster impact site has been identified. The site is on Mare Insularum about 260 km southwest of Copernicus Crater.

During the Apollo exploration of the Moon, beginning with Apollo 13, the massive, upper stage (known as the S-IVB stage) that helped propel astronauts to the Moon, were directed to impact the Moon. The energy from these impacts was measured by seismometers left on the surface (by previous Apollo astronauts) to understand the internal structure of the Moon. The locations of the impact craters, a total of 5, were estimated from tracking data of the booster collected just before impact. The LROC team found the other four craters early in the mission, however the Apollo 16 crater remained elusive.

In the case of Apollo 16, radio contact with the booster was lost before the impact and thus the impact location was only poorly known. Now, with high-resolution LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) images the impact site of the Apollo 16 S-IVB stage was precisely located (1.921°N, 335.377°E, -1104 m elevation).  In fact, the location differs by about 30 km from the Apollo-era tracking estimate. For comparison the other four S-IVB craters were all within 7 km of their estimated locations.

Maybe I'm looking at this all wrong, but when they show me this image, and tell me it's from Apollo 16, why should I believe them? What in this image is "proof" that it's from Apollo 16? Now, I'll go on the record and say I don't believe this is a photoshopped image. If someone had photoshopped this image they would have done a better job. It seems to be obvious that this is indeed a crash of some sort, but lots of things have crashed into to Moon, even intentionally.

​NASA set to crash on the moon -- twice

​NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite is scheduled to drop its Centaur upper-stage rocket on the lunar surface at 7:31 a.m. ET.

NASA hopes the impact will kick up enough dust to help the LCROSS probe find the presence of water in the moon's soil. Four minutes later, the LCROSS will follow through the debris plume, collecting and relaying data back to Earth before crashing into the Cabeus crater near the moon's south pole.

RIP LADEE: NASA Moon Probe Crashes Into Lunar Surface

NASA's newest moon probe met its end during a vaporizing crash into the lunar surface last night.

The space agency's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer spacecraft (LADEE for short) made its planned crash into the lunar surface between 12:30 a.m. EDT (0430 GMT) and 1:22 a.m. EDT (0522 GMT) on April 18, after orbiting the moon since October 2013. Scientists expected the impact, predicting that LADEE would hit the far side of the moon on or before April 21 because the probe was running out of fuel — as intended.

​NASA "Moon Bombing" a Hit, But LCROSS Impact Invisible?

"We Saw the Impact," NASA Says

Whether or not sky-watchers could see the LCROSS crashes, NASA insists they happened.

"I can certainly report that there was an impact," LCROSS principal investigator Anthony Colaprete said at a NASA press conference this morning. "We saw the impact and we saw the crater."

When the rocket crashed into the moon, though, cameras on LCROSS registered no discernable change in the crater—at least to the untrained eye.

"It was hard to tell what we saw there," said Michael Bicay, science director at NASA Ames Research Center in California, during live coverage on NASA TV.

​LCROSS Enthusiast: "Nothing Was Seen"

​For many amateur astronomers who got up early to watch the crashes through telescopes or on NASA TV, the crashes were a bit anticlimactic.

"We had telescopes [as wide as] 32 inches [81 centimeters], and nothing was seen," said Siegfried Jachmann, vice president of the Salt Lake Astronomical Society in Utah.

Weather conditions at Utah's Stansbury Park Observatory Complex were everything an astronomer could ask for this morning, Jachmann said.

"The moon is very high in the sky, right on the meridian," he said. "It's perfectly placed right above Orion ... If anyone would've had a shot of seeing it, it was us."

Despite the disappointment, he said just after impacts, "the mood is good."

International Space Station Infected With USB Stick Malware Carried on Board by Russian Astronauts

Russian security expert Eugene...Kaspersky revealed that Russian astronauts carried a removable device into space which infected systems on the space station. He did not elaborate on the impact of the infection on operations of the International Space Station (ISS).

Windows XP

..."dozens of laptops" used on board the space station had been using Windows XP, which is inherently more vulnerable to infection from malware than Linux.

According to Kaspersky the infections occurred on laptops used by scientists who used Windows as their main platform and carried USB sticks into space when visiting the ISS.

The ISS's control systems (known generally as SCADA systems) were already running various flavours of Linux prior to this switch for laptops last May.

According to a report on ExtremeTech, as far back as 2008 a Windows XP laptop was brought onto the ISS by a Russian astronaut infected with the W32.Gammima.AG worm, which quickly spread to other laptops on the station - all of which were running Windows XP. ​

The Question (Submitted June 30, 1997)

How is it possible for manned space flights to survive the effects of the Van Allen Radiation Belt?

The Answer

As you know, the Van Allen radiation belts are doughnut-shaped regions encircling Earth and containing high-energy electrons and ions trapped in the Earth's magnetic field. Explorer I, launched by NASA in 1958, discovered these two regions of intense radiation surrounding the Earth. They are referred to as the inner and outer Van Allen radiation belts, after James Van Allen who designed Explorer I. The inner region is centered at about 3000 km above Earth and has a thickness of about 5000 km. The outer region is centered at about 15,000 -- 20,000 km above the surface of the Earth and has a thickness of 6,000 -- 10,000 km. Typically, manned space flight (such as the Shuttle) stays well below the altitude of the van Allen radiation belts. Safe flight can occur below altitudes of 400 km or so.

SO ...what do we do when we have to fly through the radiation belts -- like when we went to the Moon or send probes to other planets?

In the 1960s, NASA asked Oak Ridge National Laboratory to predict how astronauts and other materials would be affected by exposure to both the Earth's Van Allen radiation belts and the Sun's radiation. Oak Ridge biologists sent bacteria and blood samples into space and exposed small animals to radiation. They concluded that proper shielding would be key to successful flight not only for living organisms, but for electronic instrumentation as well. To develop shielding for the Apollo crews, Oak Ridge researchers recycled the Lab's Tower Shielding Facility, which had hoisted shielding experiments aloft for the 1950's nuclear-plane project.

Regards,
Laura Whitlock
for Ask an Astrophysicist

Questions on this topic are no longer responded to by the "Ask an Astrophysicist" service. See http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/ask_an_astronomer.html for help on other astronomy Q&A services.

​LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites

​NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions’ lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon’s surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules’ locations evident.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site expected to be photographed in the coming weeks.

The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution.

NASA Spacecraft Images Offer Sharper Views of Apollo Landing Sites

​​NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface.

​This interactive shows two LRO images of the Apollo 17 landing site. Click and drag on the white slider bar to wipe from one to the other. The left image was released today; the right image is a zoom-in on an LRO image released in 2009. LRO was moved into a lower orbit to capture the new image. The images do not line up perfectly because of differences in lighting conditions, angle of the LRO Camera, and other variables. Image brightness and contrast have been altered to highlight surface details. (Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/ASU)

​Martian landscapes

​Since 2006, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been orbiting Mars, currently circling approximately 300 km (187 mi) above the Martian surface. On board the MRO is HiRISE, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, which has been photographing the planet for several years now at resolutions as fine as mere inches per pixel. Collected here is a group of images from HiRISE over the past few years, in either false color or grayscale, showing intricate details of landscapes both familiar and alien, from the surface of our neighboring planet, Mars. I invite you to take your time looking through these, imagining the settings – very cold, dry and distant, yet real. (35 photos total)

​Netflix Users Protest Proposed Price Increases With Social Media Firestorm

Netflix users stormed the streaming video and DVD rental services’ blog and Facebook page by the thousands on Tuesday to criticize a new pricing structure that will raise some users’ monthly bill by 60 percent.

Comment Highlights

• I like the split but I think charging full price for both is going to lose y’all a few customers. I love having the option for both streaming and DVD but I’m not willing to cough up $16 a month for it.
• A 60% price increase! Not many companies are bold enough to increase prices by 60% in these economic times. I hope the streaming selection gets a whole lot better. I’ve been buying a lot of videos from Amazon Instant Videos because Netflix doesn’t have them; maybe I need to switch to Amazon for my streaming, too.
• This price change wouldn’t be so bad if you put more movies on streaming. Right now the streaming option is loaded with stuff nobody would ever rent.
• This is a horrible deal for current customers. You’re going to be losing a lot of business with this decision.

The thousands of comments left on the Netflix Facebook page Tuesday struck similar themes.

​Dear Netflix, Thanks For The Customers! Signed, Redbox

…yesterday Netflix announced its new plans. Suddenly the cost to rent a DVD shot up, going from a nearly unnoticeable charge to almost double the cost. It didn’t make sense to keep the option and so I canceled it right away. Netflix’s own announcement email and blog post noted it’s easy to cancel, which, while honest, doesn’t inspire confidence in their pricing.

Instead, I believe I’ll be waiting in line up at Krogers to use Redbox’s DVD rental service the few times a year I need a particular DVD. I just wish I could see Netflix’s internal numbers. No doubt Netflix’s dedicated DVD customers will stick with them and continue to suck Netflix dry by renting countless DVDs every month. But I wasn’t costing Netflix any money; it was probably quite the opposite. Consumers like me — consumers who probably rented 2 DVDs last year — should have been valued by Netflix for paying for a service they rarely use. But instead they’ve drove us away. Oh well. Redbox is just as cheap and convenient and that’s all I care about anyway. (emphasis added)

Netflix announced a new pricing scheme yesterday that effectively raised the price of a popular subscription plan by 60%. Instead of costing $9.99 for streaming and DVD rental, Netflix separated the services and priced them each $7.99, which results in a combined cost of $16.

But it’s not the $6 people are ranting about. Most of us would spend half of that amount on one silly coffee drink every day if we weren’t lactose intolerant. It’s that Netflix raised the prices without adding any value. There simply isn’t any way of spinning this as a benefit to the consumer and backlash is the result. (emphasis added)

​Netflix Raises Prices, Garners Criticism

In my case, this change will result in about $5 in addition costs per month. Is it worth that? Yes, to me it is. But I understand where the additional cost will be problematic for many people. I also understand that Netflix likely expects many to simply drop the DVD part of their subscription. Which, when you think about it, was likely the plan all along. (emphasis added)

​Netflix’s 60% Price Hike: You’ve Gotta Be Kidding Me!

…Netflix kind of wants you to ditch the DVDs and start seeing the company as bleeding on the cutting edge of streaming video technology. So, what’s the problem?

Oh yeah, the problem is that Netflix’s streaming video service just can’t cut it.

Netflix’s streaming video service includes around 20,000 titles, the likes of which include such popular titles as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Reservoir Dogs. Other streaming video services, such as Hulu Plus, have fewer titles (Hulu Plus has about 400 current and classic TV shows), but they’re much more relevant–Hulu Plus boasts up-to-date episodes of House, Bones, and 30 Rock, while Netflix…doesn’t.

A choice between Netflix streaming and Hulu Plus streaming isn’t even a choice–Hulu Plus is absolutely better–but Netflix’s $2 unlimited DVD add on is what (had) saved the service for me. Admittedly, I don’t use the DVD service nearly as much as I use the streaming service, but I use it fairly often because Netflix’s streaming line-up is pretty pathetic.

The last videos I streamed from Netflix include such gems as Mega Python vs. Gateroid, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, and Egyptian Secrets of the Afterlife. Entertaining titles, to be sure, but you can rest assured they were not my first choice (the last DVDs I rented from Netflix were Avatar and The Sopranos: Season 6).

​Netflix streaming service hit by outage

Netflix’s streaming service was down and unavailable for much of last night but has since been restored.

In a tweet posted around midnight Pacific time by the official Netflixhelps account, the company acknowledged that the streaming issues reported early had been fixed and offered an apology to its customers. This followed an earlier tweet from the account and a posting on the Netflix Facebook page at around 10 p.m. PT yesterday in which the company said it was working on the issue.

The outage had been brought to light a few hours earlier by several sources, notably a slew of tweets from disgruntled customers. Capturing the tweets and other reports, the Web site Downrightnow.com recorded the outage starting at around 4 p.m. PT yesterday and lasting at least sporadically throughout most of the night.

There’s been no official word from Netflix yet on the cause of the outage. The company did not immediately return CNET’s request for further details.

​Reed Hastings Responds

This past Sunday, I penned an open letter to Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX ) . Writing with my tongue somewhat in cheek, I intended to capture the frustration some people felt, while keeping an even-tempered perspective on what this means for long-term subscribers and investors. But I never actually expected I’d get a reply.

A surprise response
Just before I went to bed Sunday night, an email arrived from Hastings himself, categorically addressing my concerns.

Taken on a larger level — as a message to all of the subscribers who have been irked by the rate hike — I think its contents are worth sharing here:

• Hastings started with an apology: I’m sorry you felt jammed by our message.
• He then responded to my plea to have the rate hike explained: We will take the increased revenue and mostly spend it on more streaming content … we want to be able to have stronger and stronger streaming.
• And he concluded by making a fair assessment of what Netflix has to offer right now: It is a big increase, I know, but we feel each of the $7.99 programs are a great deal on their own.

What this means
If you read my previous article, you know that I wasn’t suggesting selling my shares or cancelling my subscription. Basically, I just felt a little cold, based on how the rate hike was carried out. This response pretty well addresses my concerns.

In some ways, we’ve been spoiled with an $8.99 plan that sent us DVDs and allowed us unlimited streaming. That model probably isn’t sustainable.

Moving forward, I’m fairly certain that Netflix would eventually be willing to sacrifice its DVD business to the likes of Coinstar’s (Nasdaq: CSTR ) Redbox. I don’t doubt that most of us will be using streaming to watch our movies 10 years from now.