So, I just finished my second pass through Metal Gear Solid 4. I have to say that the game is very well presented, wraps up the series nicely, and manages to take one of my favorite characters and actually make him a better character. MGS4 also manages to make MGS2 make sense. The second pass through was to try to beat the game without killing any enemies. I my first pass, I only killed 7. Six of those were during a scene in which I thought that I was required to kill a set of "armored soldiers". I didn't realize that I could simply ignore them and the game would progress past them. I'm not sure where the other kill came from. I know it happened during act 4, but it could have been anywhere.

Beating the game with zero kills unlocks the bandana. If you've played any of the other metal gear games, you know that this item gives infinite ammo.

In an unrelated, but related note, MGS4 may have the best flashback of any video game that I've ever played. There is a dream sequence in which Snake flashes back to his memory of Shadow Moses Island. During this flashback, you play through the first screen of metal gear solid one, in all of its PSX glory. This, in my mind, means that the original game, in its highly pixelated form is canon. I suppose this means that their universe, sometime during the last decade and a half, underwent a massive shift in existence which caused people, places, and things to spontaneously develop additional polygons, bump mapping and the like.

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Successful seperation and deployment of the solar arrays makes for a good prize early in the morning.

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So, OSTM has launched. It is currently coasting after second stage cutoff and will be for about the next ~40 minutes. After that, the satellite will seperate from the launch vehicle and the real fun will begin.

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For those of you who were unaware, I've been working at JPL for about a year. During this time, I have been work almost exclusively on writing various pieces of software for use on the ground for OSTM. Today, however, is the big day. A little bit before 1 am PST tonight, OSTM will launch. If you're interested in seeing the launch, it will be telecast on NASA TV. Some other briefings will be starting at 1pm PST today.

Since I expect that none of you actually know what OSTM does, I'll summarize breifly. Basically, OSTM is the third satellite in a series which have been measuring sea surface height since 1992. OSTM will be continuing that mission to keep building the long-term sea surface height data record once Jason-1 (the most immediate predecessor) fails. Based on the most recent data that I've seen, the sea levels were rising at about 1.5 mm/year when Topex was launched back in 1992. Now, about six years into Jason-1, sea surface height is rising at about 3 mm/year. OSTM will help us determine if this increase in sea level is a long term trend or something else by continuing to build the dataset.

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I just got back to my apartment. I spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday back in Indiana. Primarily, I was visiting home to go to my brother's high school graduation. I also took the opportunity to visit the Theta Xi house and fetch my paddle. I was very disappointed with the number of people there (one active(?): Phil; one alumni: Stanfield). I was also somewhat suprised to see what a mess the house was in. I told Phil to relay my disappointment in both cases to the actives.

At home, I went to my brother's graduation. It was pretty standard--very similar to my own 5 years ago. I was, as always, sad to see the state of the class. Of the approximately 400 students who entered with my brother's class, only 220 or so were walking (you walk as long as you have <= 2 credits remaining). Also, less than 1/5 of the students bothered to go through the Academic Honors Diploma program which is a slightly (very slightly) more rigorous degree than the standard degree. Also, I was more than a bit annoyed by the overtly religious speech given by the principle during the graduation. It was the sort of thing that tiptoes right up to the edge of what is allowable at a public school (short version "You need to have faith in something other than yourself. I happen to have it in god. You could pick your friends. What? That wasn't an endorsement of religion. See, I defined faith broadly to encompass almost anything, but I really only mean that first one. Wink-wink nudge-nudge say no more.").

I also did the standard visit family thing. I found out that I am apparently my grandmother's attorney-in-fact. Who knew?

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OSTM launches in 14 days, 0 hours, 50 minutes.



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