Joe Stehly's Week 13 2008 NFL Expert Picks

Last Week: 11-5
Season: 50-24 [68%]

Tennessee at Detroit
PICK: TENNESSEE

Seattle at Dallas
PICK: DALLAS

Arizona at Philadelphia
PICK: ARIZONA

San Francisco at Buffalo
PICK: BUFFALO

Baltimore at Cincinnatti
PICK: BALTIMORE

Carolina at Green Bay
PICK: GREEN BAY

Miami at St. Louis
PICK: MIAMI

Indy at Cleveland
PICK: INDY

New Orleans at Tampa Bay
PICK: TAMPA BAY

New York Giants at Washington
PICK: NEW YORK

Atlanta at San Diego
PICK: SAN DIEGO

Denver at New York Jets
PICK: NEW YORK JETS

Kansas City at Oakland
PICK: OAKLAND

Pittsburgh at New England
PICK: NEW ENGLAND

Chicago at Minnesota
PICK: CHICAGO

Jacksonville at Houston
PICK: JACKSONVILLE

Joe Stehly's NFL 2008 Week 12 Picks

Last Week: 10-6

Season: 39-19 [67.2%]

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh

PICK: Pittsburgh

Philadelphia at Baltimore

PICK: Baltimore

Houston at Cleveland

PICK: Cleveland

San Francisco at Dallas

PICK: Dallas

Tampa Bay at Detroit

PICK: Tampa Bay

Minnesota at Jacksonville

PICK: Minnesota

Buffalo at Kansas City

UPSET PICK: Kansas City

New England at Miami

PICK: New England

Chicago at St. Louis

PICK: Chicago

New York Jets at Tennessee

PICK: Tennessee

Oakland at Denver

PICK: Denver

Carolina at Atlanta

PICK: Carolina

New York Giants at Arizona

PICK: New York Giants

Washington at Seattle

PICK: Washington

Indy at San Diego

PICK: Indy

Green Bay at New Orleans

PICK: New Orleans

Top Ten List #1 - Nintendo Games

Top Ten Nintendo Entertainment System [8 bit] Games of All Time

[in Joe's opinion]

10. Jackal

9.  Contra

8. Tecmo Super Bowl

7. Super Mario Brothers 2

6.  Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

5.  Super Mario Brothers

4.  Dragon Warrior

3.  The Legend of Zelda

2.  Dragon Warrior 3

1.  Mike Tyson's Punch-out!!!

Now I realize that Super Mario Brothers 3 is considered the best game by most people.  I liked the game and recongnize is greatness, but I never was addicted to it.  Also, the MegaMan games were great, but I never quite got all that into them.

A Day in the Life - On Mars

I read the news today - oh boy - and NASA has officially announced that the Mars Phoenix Lander has completed its mission operations.

I thought it would be fun to summarize what a day in the life of an engineer working on the lander looked like.  Many friends and family have asked this question so here is my attempt at answering it-

Phoenix is a tactical and strategic mission.  We start everyday with a baseline science plan.  This is the strategic portion.  For example, we want to trench with the robotic arm, take x number of images of the trench location before the dig and x number of images after the dig, take pressure and temperature readings, etc....  All of this is known as "the plan."  Many more details are included in the plan, but they aren't the most exciting.

The tactical portion is where is gets fun.  We must react what happened the day before and make sure that everything from the strategic plan is still valid and worth commanding.

Now you need to know how all of this fits together.  To do this, we need to understand how Phoenix operates.  Details will be vague here to comply with international trade and arms regulations.  The lander wakes up in the morning and sleeps in the evening.  In the morning, it receives its commands so that it knows what to do during the day.  Then during the morning and into the afternoon, it carries out those science activities as defined in the commands that it was sent.  Finally, in the evening it sends its data back to earth.

In order for this to happen, the engineers and scientists must work during the middle of the Martian night.  The shift starts as Phoenix is sending its data home.  Then, we look at that data and the strategic "plan" to come up with a finalized plan for the next day's operations.  This plan is a hybrid of the initial science objectives for the day and also based on the state of the lander from the recently received data.  We work all [Mars] night and uplink the plan in command form early the next Martian morning.  Then we go home and sleep during the Martian day and do the whole thing over again once the shift starts back up again.

So it really is a simple model.  Now throw in the wrench that a Martian day [or sol, as we call it] is 24 hrs 39.5 minutes long.  This means that if we start our shift at 9 am on Monday, our shift starts at 9:40 am on Tuesday and 10:20 am on Wendesday, etc, etc, etc.  Our start time is the same with respect to the Mars clock, but different from the Earth's point of view by 40 minutes each day - this is known as "Mars time" in our Phoenix [and MER and MSL] worldview.

So that is basically the model we followed all summer long.  When you throw in all the surprises that Mars holds - both good and bad - it turns into a very unique experience.

Joe Stehly's NFL 2008 Week 11 Picks

Last Week: 12-2

Season: 29-13

New York Jets @ New England

PICK: New England

Denver @ Atlanta

PICK: Atlanta

Detroit @ Carolina

PICK: Carolina

Philadelphia @ Cincinnati

PICK: Philadelphia

New Orleans @ Kansas City

PICK: New Orleans

Baltimore @ New York Giants

PICK: New York

Minnesota @ Tampa Bay

PICK: Tampa Bay

Oakland @ Miami

PICK: Miami

Chicago@ Green Bay

PICK: Chicago

Houston @ Indy

PICK: Indy

St. Louis @ San Francisco

PICK: San Francisco

Arizona @ Seattle

PICK: Arizona

Tennessee @ Jacksonville

Upset PICK: Jacksonville

San Diego @ Pittsburgh

PICK: Pittsburgh

Dallas @ Washington

PICK: Washington

Cleveland @ Buffalo

PICK: Cleveland

Joe Stehly's NFL 2008 Week 10 Expert Picks

Last Week: 10-4

Season: 17-11

Denver at Cleveland

PICK: Denver

New Orleans at Atlanta

PICK: New Orleans

Tennessee at Chicago

UPSET PICK: Chicago

Jacksonville at Detroit

PICK: Jacksonville

Seattle at Miami

PICK: Miami

Green Bay at Minnesota

PICK: Minnesota

Buffalo at New England

PICK: New England

St. Louis at NY Jets

PICK: NY Jets

Baltimore at Houston

PICK: Baltimore

Carolina at Oakland

PICK: Carolina

Indianapolis at Pittsburgh

PICK: Indy

Kansas City at San Diego

PICK: San Diego

NY Giants at Philadelphia

PICK: NY Giants

San Francisco at Arizona

PICK: Arizona