Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent, embedded with the last combat brigade on their trip out of Iraq, and broadcast it live on the move during the Stryker convoy to Kuwait.

NBC was able to bring live video of this historic moment because of the “Bloom-mobile”, named after the late NBC foreign correspondent David Bloom. David passed away very tragically during the Iraq invasion in 2003. He suffered a pulmonary embolism caused by deep vein thrombosis, the culmination of cramped spaces with little body movement and insufficient hydration in a dessert climate.

No other TV news network has the technology to broadcast live video on the move. Check it out:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The technology was new in 2003, 7 years ago. It’s a satellite dish on a gyroscope that tracks a TV satellite in space and stays in constant contact with it as whatever the dish is mounted on moves. It works similarly to the GPS a lot of people have in their cars or as part of their smart phones today. The device on the ground tracks the satellite in space so the device can remain in communication with the satellite.

It surprises me that none of the other networks have invested in this technology since we’ve been at war for over 9 years in Afghanistan and 7.5 years in Iraq. There are other places where such technology could be deployed as well, like during natural disasters when news broadcasters must be able to move at a moment’s notice.

It may be the result that many news organizations are losing money. The number of foreign correspondents has dropped considerably over the past decade. With fewer foreign correspondents, it may have been decided that expensive equipment isn’t worth the cost if only a few correspondents will use it once in awhile.

But if the news is to continue to bring us live coverage of events in a global society, they need to have the technology to do it on the move.

Technorati Tags: David Bloom Late NBC Foreign Correspondent, Iraq war, Keith Olbermann, NBC Bloom-mobile, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Rachel Maddow, Richard Engel NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent, The Rachel Maddow Show

Check this video out. It’s a two-segment section with Rachel Maddow on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon after her bought with swine flu.

If you’re sick in bed, what do you do when you don’t have TV? Rachel reads non-fiction graphic novels, watches movies based on classic literature, oh and sleeps a lot. If you want titles, Rachel can hook you up. She posted the websites where you can find such graphic novels: Blame Joe Sacco: http://is.gd/2KEMO and AD: http://is.gd/2KF0t.

Rachel and Susan have a TV and cable (including internet) at their apartment in New York, but don’t have TV at their home in Massachusetts. Cable doesn’t reach to where they live, and they don’t want two satellite dishes on the house. They already have one for high speed internet access. Susan can watch Rachel’s show in the city, and they can watch Red Sox games when they can’t go to them in Boston. They don’t really watch TV when they have it.

Part of the reason they don’t get TV at the house is they want to get away from it all on the weekends (and they both have a TV phobia that they’ll become addicted if they watch it more than a few shows once in awhile). Getting away from TV for Rachel means getting away from work at MSNBC. Even if you don’t really watch TV, if you work in TV you watch some of it.

Getting away from TV gets you away from quite a lot, I have found. When our cable has been out after hurricanes for weeks until the company can fix it, life is very different. We spend a lot of time when the TV is out working around the house, talking, cooking, reading and watching DVDs. The peace and quiet, change in activities and interpersonal communication are so relaxing. Even turning on talk radio doesn’t glue you to the machine like TV does.

After such experiences, I have been tempted to turn off the cable TV service and just leave the cable internet service on. I had two packages removed from our digital plan last week because we really don’t watch much more than 6 channels, and only 2-3 most of the time.

I want a TV option where you choose only the channels you want to watch and don’t get any of the others. Would it be cheaper or more expensive? Probably more expensive. I can think of a bunch of equipment and computer stuff that would have to happen to bring such a service to us.

Anyway, being sick with the flu (Influenza A, strain H1N1 in this case) puts you in bed. You don’t get up except to eat and go to the bathroom. You have to drink lots of fluids or the fever will dehydrate you, but you have to do that in bed. Believe me, you aren’t well enough to be out of bed for long. Not being distracted from dozing off is probably a much faster way to get well than lying around like a lump watching TV.

I had pneumonia my senior year in high school and had to stay in my room where the vaporizers were to keep my lungs open. I didn’t have a TV in my room, so I read, did homework and slept a lot. I don’t know that I got well faster, but I got a lot of required reading done for English literature class. I was ahead when I got back to school and caught up on everything else. It’s amazing what you can get done without TV. No wonder we never watched it in college, even though every dorm had a huge TV in the lobby.

Tamiflu is a fantastic drug. I was on it the last time I caught the flu and I got well much faster. It shortened the illness from two weeks to 5-6 days, and after that time I was completely back to normal, not just dragging around like I would usually be after a bought with the flu. As you can see in the video, Rachel is back up to snuff after one week. She was well enough to do one show at the end of the week she was sick from a studio in Massachusetts close to home. She sounded horrible, but was nonetheless on TV hosting her show.

Get your flu shot. If you get the flu, go to the doctor early and get one of the flu antiviral drugs. You will get better much faster. Then have a White Lady after you get well to celebrate your recovery! Watch the video to learn how to make it.

Reference: rachel.msnbc.com

Technorati Tags: guns, H1N1 flu virus, health care reform, Jimmy Fallon, Late Night, NBC, Rachel Maddow, swine flu, White Lady cocktail

This will be a very short post, but it is worth it. Today happened to be the day where a time and the date contain the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 in order at:

12:34:56 07/08/09

(today) those 9 numerals appeared in ascending order.

Like other strange date or time days, this one won’t happen again until the same date and time in 3009. It will happen again once each millennium in the 9th year: 3009, 4009, 5009, etc.

Correction: this date and time will happen once each century, not once each millennium: 2109, 2209, 2309, etc. I forgot to drop the first two digits in the date.

Square Days

Other days of note are the “square” days where the day and month numbers are the same. This happens 9 times each century:

• 1/1/01 is 1 x 1 = 01
• 2/2/04 is 2 x 2 =04
• 3/3/09 is 3 x 3 = 09
• 4/4/16   you get the idea
• 5/5/25
• 6/6/36
• 7/7/49
• 8/8/64
• 9/9/81

Pi Days and Times

There is also pi day (~3.14):

• 3/14 or March 14 every year
• Albert Einstein’s birthday is also March 14
• pi is an infinite, non-repeating number, so it is an irrational number
• If you convert the first 8 significant figures (3.1415926) to a clock time, you can have a second of geek: 3:08:29.73 am each day

Anyone else out there have some common numbers that would make a great moment of geek? If so, please tell us about them in the comments.

Technorati Tags: 12:34:56 7/8/09, consecutive digit times and days, dork geek nerd fun with times of day, dork nerd geek fun calender dates, pi as hours minutes seconds, pi day, square days