My desk

This one's for my friend Ben Zackheim, who wanted to see the results of the office overhaul I did at the beginning of the year.

Here's a little tour for those of you who are also interested:

Mac: After five-plus years, it was time to upgrade my desktop computer. I'd had such a great experience with my iPhone that I upgraded to this iMac. I do believe I have purchased my last PC.

Laptop: I'd already upgraded my laptop to this HP. Nice machine, great for watching movies, okay for traveling on assignment. Too bad it runs Windows Vista, the worst operating system I've used since Windows 3.1. It's counter-intuitive, locks me out of essential settings by default, required uninstalling a raft of craplets, and until I could figure out how to stop it, interrupted my work constantly to install endless updates and automatically reboot. I've had my Mac for probably a quarter of the time (a month and a half), and already I'm using it with much greater facility. And I've been a dedicated PC user since the days of DOS.

Office phone: Two lines, one for home, the other for Skype--which I use as a portable office line--keep the middle-of-the-night calls from antigravity researchers in Taiwan from waking up my family. I'm not joking. Skype interfaces with the phone through a converter box behind the video phone.

Video phone: This Ojo video phone displays full motion video with sync sound and requires no computer. Currently my little girl's grandparents are the only people I know with the same unit, so they're the only ones we can call on it. Looks like from its website that the company that makes it is going down in flames, so even that limited usage is coming to an end, making this a $300 paperweight.

Inspiration: The Alex Ross print of mild-manned Clark Kent pulling off the impossible transformation into Superman keeps me going through difficult deadlines. A cover for one of my PopSci stories, blown up and framed, features the enticing headline above the magazine title, "How Cannibalistic Spider Sex Can Make You a Genius," reminding me to keep my sense of humor.

Current reading: Michael J. Neufeld bills his 2007 biography of rocket pioneer Werhner von Braun as the most comprehensive treatment of his topic ever. He may just be right. More on that in an upcoming post.

My PopSci story on a hypersonic airliner

Check out the February Popular Science for my cover story on a European concept for a hypersonic (that is, faster than five times the speed of sound) airliner.

If you're like me and live in a town that doesn't carry PopSci in any of its stores (gripe, grumble), you can also click over to the website and read the full story there.

Interestingly, even though the editors specifically wanted me to pitch the airline as the ultimate in environmentally friendly transport, the A2's designers don't see it that way at all.

Yes, the jet runs on hydrogen, giving it an environmentally benign water-vapor exhaust, but the A2's chief designer, Richard Varvill of UK-based Reaction Engines, is quick to point out that there is presently no economically viable means of producing that hydrogen without releasing greenhouse gases.

This tendency toward optimism is something I really like about Popular Science. To be sure, many of our problems here on Earth are of our own creation, but, says the magazine each month, we're also smart enough to develop the means of our own salvation.

On Canada AM

On Wednesday I discussed commercial spaceflight with Seamus O'Regan on Canada AM, CTV's national morning news show.

Check out the interview here. It runs four minutes.

At the Perimeter Institute

Whodathunkit. The little town of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada hosts a world-class research institute attracting physicists from around the world to probe the mysteries of the universe.

I've just returned from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, where I got the royal treatment--my own private office, limo rides to a fro, continuous access to an open food bar, and an audience of hundreds for my talk on private space travel.

As John Matlock, public relations director and my host at the institute put it, the place is competing with similar facilities in such renown tourist destinations as Paris and New York for brain power so they pull out all the stops in making researchers and other guests welcome.

The building itself is a marvel of glass and steel, filled with light, somehow providing the quiet and privacy needed to think big thoughts while conveying a sense of openness that allows conversations in public areas to flow naturally into secluded alcoves complete with fireplaces and leather armchairs.

My favorite feature is the blackboards seemingly on every available wall, most, like this one in the Black Hole Bistro on the fourth floor, filled with equations jotted by wandering physicists. The effect is to transform abstract thought into exquisite works of art, well-lit and prominently displayed, as in an art gallery.

Next time your travels take you to Toronto, build in enough time for the hour-and-a-half drive to Waterloo for one of the Institute's public events. It'll be an experience you won't soon forget.

Meanwhile, I'll link to the video of my own talk when it's posted on the Institute's website.