Sharepoint and Apollo 11

I grew up in that period after the moon landings where enthusiasm for the whole venture was drilled into you. Everyone was still really impressed during that time, and I have to say I've still got it bad. Hearing recordings of chatter between CAPCOM and The Astronauts still gives me goosebumps. So imagine my excitement recently as the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing comes around. The media coverage, special programmes, and websites like http://wechoosethemoon.org/ are just heavenly!

From an IT geek point of view I also rather enjoyed the publication of some of the Apollo 11 computer source code, which you can find here:

http://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/source/browse/trunk/Comanche055/CM_BODY_ATTITUDE.s?r=258 

 Then I heard about a new collectable book coming out in a few days from Taschen: Norman Mailer, MoonFire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11 . Great author, great photos, then to cap it all I find out there'll only be 1969 copies printed, and each one will come with a signed photo of Buzz Aldrin!! Obviously, I dashed over to the Taschen website immediately. https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/artists_editions/all/05093/facts.norman_mailer_moonfire_the_epic_journey_of_apollo_11.htm

Now I have to say that $1000 / £650 for a book is pretty damn steep. Then I noticed that the Taschen website is a Sharepoint site. It all fell into place - heck Sharepoint Consultants are hard to come by ;) . They have to recoup the development cost from somewhere! Anyway, that was my Sharepoint link, stop reading now if you're not an Apollo nut like me.

 The Apollo frenzy is such at the moment that I was poised to push the buy button, even at so cosmic a price. It's worth it for the Buzz Aldrin autograph alone I told myself. Buzz Aldrin authographs sell on eBay for more money than that! Then I decided to sanity check the purchase, and visited the decidedly non-Sharepoint site over at Amazon.com. Lo and behold they're selling the very same tome for 20% less over there.

So, I really did press the buy button this time. I couldn't help myself. (If the wife is reading, this purchase is paid for by all the overtime I've been working on my current project!! )

Feel free to call me mad for buying such an expensive book, but I have to say it feels like owning a little piece of Apollo history. The Buzz Aldrin autograph just swings it.  

You should check it out too, with only 1969 copies in total being printed they won't last for long. I'm not the only Apollo nut in the world!