Fuse

Baltimore comedian Mike E. Winfield just scored a gig hosting a new weekly show on Fuse. Winfield, an actor with a most-voluptuous Afro who last year had a recurring role on "The Office," will be the face of "Off Beat," a show that will highlight the week's funniest music-related videos. It premiers at 10 p.m. Sept. 14. There are 12 episodes of the show planned, which should take Winfield's primetime run through November. Winfield, who now lives in Sacramento, made his television debut on "Late Show with David Letterman" in 2010.

Baltimore comedian Mike E. Winfield just scored a gig hosting a new weekly show on Fuse. Winfield, an actor with a most-voluptuous Afro who last year had a recurring role on "The Office," will be the face of "Off Beat," a show that will highlight the week's funniest music-related videos. It premiers at 10 p.m. Sept. 14. There are 12 episodes of the show planned, which should take Winfield's primetime run through November. Winfield, who now lives in Sacramento, made his television debut on "Late Show with David Letterman" in 2010.

At dawn over Guadalcanal 50 years ago, two Japanese dive bombers plunged toward the cruiser USS Helena and ran smack into the future of warfare.Until that January morning, ships without air cover were sitting ducks. Anti-aircraft fire was frustratingly inaccurate. With ammunition that exploded on impact, even the best gunners had to fire about 2,500 rounds on average to score a hit. Timed fuses that exploded a set number of seconds after firing worked a little better, but not much."Almost no one ever hit an airplane with the old-fashioned fuses," recalled Dr. James A. Van Allen, the discoverer of the Earth's radiation belt, who worked on fuses at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University during the war. "It would be just a sheer stroke of luck to hit anything."

From the opening electronic tickertape messages, relaying birthday greetings and instructions on audience behavior, to the deliriously multisensory finale, the Blue Man Group show at the Hippodrome Theatre packs a wallop. It's a big, loud, funny, silly, visually arresting production. There's no point in trying to classify what these performers, with their trademark blue faces and bald, earless heads, do onstage for the better part of 90 minutes. It's much easier to go with the flow — and duck down in your seat when those guys start roaming the aisles.

A blown fuse knocked out power and phone service yesterday at the Annapolis headquarters for Anne Arundel County government, leaving 300 county employees with no place to work for nearly five hours.At the start of the day there was no power. The offices of the county executive, the state's attorney, the county budget and finance department and U.S. Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest were all darkened. Workers were able to accomplish little as they waited for it to be restored.At 11 a.m., employees were told they could "take a long lunch," according to Andrew C. Carpenter, a county spokesman.

The mirrors on NASA's $108 million FUSE telescope won't stay put, and that is delaying astronomers' plans to study chemical clues to the origin, evolution and fate of the universe.Two of the four mirrors aboard the Hopkins-built Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer satellite keep drifting out of alignment, apparently in response to temperature changes, mission leaders say.It's only a tiny movement; the starlight reflected by the mirror drifts by barely the width of a human hair.But it is forcing ground controllers to stop and re-align the mirrors for each new observation, and it has postponed work on a final focusing of the telescope.

WASHINGTON -- They have $200 million and five years of work riding on a single rocket. But scientists at the Johns Hopkins University say they're confident about the coming launch of their FUSE orbiting observatory -- now less than two weeks away."

A crowd at the Johns Hopkins University erupted in applause yesterday as a satellite that Homewood scientists spent 17 years dreaming about and five years building finally flew.More than 400 people jammed the Bloomberg Center auditorium to watch, by television hookup, as a slender Delta II rocket fired its engines and pierced a cloud above Cape Canaveral, Fla. The rocket carried a $200 million telescope developed and built by Hopkins astronomers, with the help of more than 600 people in three countries.

A power outage at a Highlandtown transformer shut off traffic lights in parts of Southeast Baltimore yesterday afternoon, snarling rush-hour traffic for about an hour, police said.Traffic signals affected included those in the Eastern Avenue corridor from the city line to Broadway; the Route 40 corridor between Broadway and Ellwood Avenue; and the Fleet Street corridor, said Sgt. Robert Wehner of the Southeastern District."It happened so fast, so unexpectedly," Wehner said of the outage, which occurred about 4: 30 p.m. "It couldn't have happened at a worse time, with everyone trying to go home on a Friday afternoon."

WASHINGTON - Scientists say they have found new evidence that spiral galaxies such as our own Milky Way are surrounded by halos of hot gas fed by bubbles and fountains of exhaust from stellar explosions. Over millions of years, the gas cools and rains back down into the galaxy, providing the raw material for the next cycle of star birth. The findings, reported this week to the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society, were based on data gathered by the orbiting Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer telescope, known as FUSE, built and operated for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University.

"It all traces back to my grandfather," said the brilliant jazz guitarist and composer Pat Metheny. "He had a player piano in the basement, and I fell in love with it when I was a kid. " That early fascination with mechanical instruments led decades later to the development of "Orchestrion," Metheny's remarkable project that turns him into the ultimate one-man band. The title comes from a concoction designed to imitate the sounds of an orchestra. It first appeared in the late 1700s and, in various refinements, enjoyed a measure of popularity into the early 20th century.

Dorothy Height, the grande dame of the civil rights movement, died recently in Washington after a long illness. She was 98. Mrs. Height, as everyone called her, was a force in the black civil rights movement for 60 years, 40 of them as the president of National Council of Negro Women. In life and in death, she has been called the matriarch and the queen of the movement. President Barack Obama called her its "godmother." The titles are reverential. She was a tall, stately woman, always perfectly dressed, her voice moderated and mannered.

Donald Reid didn't join the Baltimore Police Department in 1973 to make a political or social statement in the lingering aftermath of the race riots of 1968. The young African-American cop simply wanted to "fight crime and save lives." And so at the age of 23, he didn't hesitate when his sergeant handed him a "blue card" - which was used to record information on stops of blacks who dared venture up Park Heights Avenue above Northern Parkway, the traditional dividing line between black and white in Northwest Baltimore.

First, Chris Jericho wanted to "save us," and then his mantra became "save me." Now, he is playing a role in helping 11 female singers who are seeking redemption. Jericho is the host of Fuse TV's Redemption Song, a reality competition show in which down-on-their-luck singers with troubled pasts vie for their last chance at musical stardom. The show debuted Wednesday night. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/ringposts)

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military mistakenly shipped parts from a Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile to Taiwan, Pentagon officials announced yesterday. Top Pentagon officials said the material sent to Taiwan consisted of four electrical fuses for the ICBM nose cone. The fuses, used to trigger nuclear weapons, do not contain nuclear material. But experts on nuclear security said the mistaken transfer showed a serious deterioration in the safeguards and controls that the U.S. military has over its nuclear warheads.

I am planning on buying a new computer but want to know how I transfer everything from the old computer to the new computer. This would include programs such as Norton Anti-Virus and Microsoft Word as well as pictures and other things I have stored on my old computer. How is this done and is it difficult to do? - R. Stricker Instead of transferring your programs, you'll need to install them on the new computer using the original installation CDs. While I have seen software that promises to move programs from one computer to another, I strongly recommend that you simply install the programs.

Maybe it's anathema to talk about Christmas decorating before the pumpkins are gone. But while the weather's still mild and your fingers aren't yet freezing, you can do some preliminary work on your outdoor holiday decorating that will make the job easier once the season is in high gear. You'll save yourself some running around by making a plan first. Create a rough drawing of your house and yard, and highlight the features you'd like to decorate with lights, evergreen roping, wreaths, figures and so on. Then make a list of the things you'll need to buy or make.

Euthanizing an old and crippled satellite isn't as simple as flipping a switch or pulling a plug. In fact, scientists and engineers at the Johns Hopkins University worked unexpectely late into the afternoon yesterday, trying to drain the stubborn batteries of NASA's orbiting FUSE observatory and putting to rest an eight-year mission that tested their ingenuity and patience to the very end. For one astronomer, it was a particularly melancholy moment....

Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks will sponsor a fused-glass class for those ages 55 and older from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Aug. 7 at Glenwood Community Center, 2400 Route 97, Cooksville. Participants will work with pieces of colored glass fused together in a kiln to create jewelry -- pendants, pins and earrings. Participants are to pick up the finished pieces at the Bain Center, 5470 Ruth Keeton Way, Columbia, after they have been fused in the kiln. The cost is $40, including equipment and basic materials.