Watercooler Stories

NO DOWNSIZING FOR ASTRONAUTS

NASA attracts some of the most well-educated and highly motivated scientists, pilots and engineers in the country to become astronauts -- maybe too many.

The space agency has so many astronauts that more than half of them have never flown in space and it could take until 2010 before all of the current 116 astronauts get even one chance, the Los Angeles Times reports.

A report by the space agency's inspector general says 53 astronauts have been to space, leaving the rest to engineering jobs and other tasks that do not require the intensive training they receive at the Johnson Space Center

NASA is preparing to hire more astronauts next year, the Times says.

USING DONUT COUPONS AS A BRIBE

A Florida man allegedly offered a police officer, who arrested him on suspected drunk driving, Dunkin' Donuts coupons to get off.

Twenty-three-year-old Michael J. Matakaetis is charged with DUI and corruption by threat, police said.

He was released from the Martin County jail on $50,500 bond, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.

"I myself was offered lifetime podiatry care," says sheriff's spokeswoman Sgt. Jenell Atlas.

AN IPO FOR A MOVIE

In an innovative approach to film financing, a Los Angeles firm is selling shares in an upcoming movie for $8.75 each.

With some 900,000 shares on offer, Civilian Pictures hopes to raise more than $7 million for "Billy Dead," after paying financing fees and other costs for an initial public offering, the British Broadcasting Corp. reports.

Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke is lined up to the play the lead in "Billy Dead," which concerns "long pent-up secrets of violence and incest" in a Michigan family.

Small-budget films can hit the jackpot: "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," cost $5 million to make, but grossed $350 million worldwide.

WOODSTOCK OF THE GRID

Computer science might not be considered the most exciting profession by some, but it does have its moments.

One of those memorable episodes took place in December 1995 at a supercomputing conference in San Diego, according to The New York Times.

For three days, a prototype project, called I-Way, linked more than a dozen big computer centers in the United States to work as if a single machine on computationally daunting simulations.

There were glitches and bugs for what is known as grid computing.

"It was the Woodstock of the grid -- everyone not sleeping for three days, running around and engaged in a kind of scientific performance art," Dr. Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, tells The Times.