Vikings Update: McNabb in Purple?

After yesterday's defeat in Green Bay and a possible injury to Adrian Peterson, this fan needed a ray of hope.

Leave it to ESPN's Tom Jackson to deliver. Or maybe it was Greg Coleman on the postgame show. Well, someone said it: Donovan McNabb might be a Minnesota Viking next year!

The Vikings haven't hurt this bad at QB since the triumvirate of Wilson, Gannon, and Salisbury. McNabb would make an instant impact. An offensive nucleus of McNabb, Peterson, and Rice could be a core that the team could build around for quite some time.

More info here and here.

Amazing Picture

When I get a chance to, I try to spot the International Space Station as it traverses the night sky. It's really cool- just a fast moving dot that zips from horizon to horizon within seconds.

Today, I found a picture on spaceweather.com taken by Freiderich Deters in North Carolina. He was able to take a snapshot of the ISS as it flew overhead. Better yet, it was taken as the space shuttle Discovery was undocking!

Taken with an 11-inch telescope. More info here.

If you are ever interested in catching the ISS as it flies overhead, click here.

Amazing!

True 3G in Minneapolis?

I woke up this morning to a pleasant surprise. It appears AT&T/Cingular has finally rolled out their UMTS data network in Minneapolis!

The Twin Cities has been awaiting a true wireless high speed data network for quite awhile now. Up until now, all of those flashy features promised in commercials were out of reach for us. Especially those iPhone commercials - just a cruel tease for AT&T/Cingular folks in the Twin Cities. GSM/GPRS around here has been dial-up speed at best - often slower than that.

Lo and behold, I glanced at my PDA today, and noticed something odd. The little "G" icon on my screen representing the GPRS signal is now a "U" for UMTS.

Sensing higher speeds in my future, I popped open IE and went to slate.com, drudgereport, etc. Much faster!

I confirmed my suspicions through some old contacts at AT&T, and it's true! Speeds are now 1.8Mbps, about the average speed of DSL around these parts.

For a nice comparison, here is an example:

Old "G" Icon

New "U" Icon

Almost seven years since it was first discussed, Minneapolis AT&T customers finally have true 3G! Huzzah!