cycle the grass away!

exercise, a nice yard, and no ridiculously loud or wasteful motor.... brilliance!


unfortunately, the creator is unknown :(

simon's cat

as a cat person, i find this hilarious! i imagine it's pretty funny for non-cat people as well! meet simon's cat, created by tandem films:

periodic table - sodium

theres a brand new video series about each element in the periodic table up on youtube! the folks creating these entertaining and informative tidbits are located at my future academic affiliation: the university of nottingham!!

my favorite video so far is about sodium...



one guy in the science team can certainly be inducted into the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists!

vegan zombie

hahaha!

link to t-shirt.

jupiter by the moon - july 2008

here are a couple pictures of bright jupiter next to the moon tonight from my mom's porch in ohio!

cassini continues...

the cassini space craft that is floating around saturn has finished its 4 year mission. many fantastic images have come from this mission, and luckily for us, cassini started an extended 2-year mission on july 1, 2008!!

here are a couple anniversary shots recently released....


in this picture you can see the moon, mimas, in the top left and you can see the shadow of the moon, enceladus, on the surface of saturn.


in both images you can see the shadows of the rings on the northern hemisphere of the planet. over the next year, we will see less and less of the ring shadows, both from cassini and from earth, as the plane of the rings lines up with the sun. the ring shadows line up exactly with saturn's horizon during saturns vernal equinox on august 11, 2009! afterwards, the shadows will appear on the southern hemisphere of the planet.

you can still see saturn in the western horizon at sunset, with mars nearby!

jupiter in july

jupiter rises in the southest at sunset these days. it's the brightest thing in the night sky, other than the moon! this wednesday night, jupiter rises just to the upper leeft of the early-full moon, and remains close in the sky thursday night as well.

mercury's caloris basin

another cool image of mercury taken in january from the messenger space craft. this enhanced color image shows the caloris basin.


found at APOD.

blast to the past

i'm off to my old undergraduate institution today to give a talk for the physics department - all my old professors! i'm a little nervous about it because i have a vivid memory of them ripping apart the research of the only astronomer i remember visiting the department. its amazing how differently the details of the two fields are, even though all the phenomena are based on the same fundamental properties. it has been interesting to write this talk for a physics audience, since they don't have the astronomical intuition i have assumed in previous professional talks. but at the same time, i feel like they are a bunch of proud parents, so i'm not really that worried!

i'll try to track down a picture of myself during my undergrad physics days to share (i'll have to scan a picture because those were pre-digi-cam days!). i sort of satisfied the "hippy" stereotype: with super long hair, tie-dye t-shirts, listening to the grateful dead and lots of bluegrass, camping constantly, etc... i spent my days in the physics department working thru homework problems with a few of the guys in my class, and spent my evenings thinking about other things entirely. i'm curious to hear what impressions my old professors had of me at that time! should be interesting! i hope i remember my way around campus! haha.

the hoop is on fire

more skills from the soul fire tribe. here's lara rocking the fire flying hula hoop! the move near the end with her arm up and her head sideways under the hoop blows me away every time!



and here's ari spinning his fire staff! the way the music lines up with his moves in this video is pretty amazing!

tattoo possibility

i might very well get a tattoo (very) soon. i have a tentative plan, but i'm open for suggestions (i know, i hear my mother saying "but why?"). send ideas for... anything.

family cuteness overload 2008

mars and saturn

has anyone been able to see or get pictures of the mars, saturn, and moon alignment this weekend? hopefully the clouds will clear tonight so i can take my fantastic green laser pointer outside and show my nephew the big dipper!

my tiniest new friend, vivienne

sometimes it's so easy to fall in love.

soul fire tribe

here's my sister spinning her poi fire for the soul fire tribe in yellow springs, ohio! pretty crazy spectacle at night!



you'll also notice some cameos by my favorite big dipper, (nephew) keldan and my favorite little dipper, (niece) areya!

keyless in ohio

i moved out of my office, my apartment, and my life in austin. i sold my scooter, my bike and very nearly everything i own. yesterday i arrived in ohio, keyless. i'll have no keys for almost two months...!!

yesterday i met my best friend's tiny little 5.5 lb. baby girl. she's adorable, and poops way more than i thought a less-than-6-pound baby would!

tomorrow i'll see my nephew and niece for the first time since christmas. i've missed my favorite little dippers and cant wait to play!

i'm here for july enjoying my family and the flowers. i have a one-way ticket to england in august, and no place reserved to stay when i get there.... yet.

absolute craziness!

night sky july 2008

JUNE ENDS tonight with a very nice alignment of saturn, regulus, and mars as shown in the image below. the three will be pretty low on the western horizon and then continue to set, so you'll have to get out early to spot them.


the new moon is wednesday, JULY 2nd, so the skies will be nice a dark to view the planetary alignment!

on JULY 4th, the earth is at aphelion, the farthest distance from the sun all year! its about 152,105,000 km away from our burning star, or about 3.4% farther than at perihelion.

on JULY 5th, the crescent moon sweeps past the saturn-mars pairing, creating a wonderful photographic opportunity in the west around sunset!


JULY 8th-9th is when jupiter reaches opposition, and appears the brightest in our sky. the opposition position is when the sun, earth and jupiter line up with earth in the middle... constituting jupiter's closest approach to us on earth! jupiter rises in the east after sunset and will be the brightest thing in the night sky after the moon for the next few months. you should be able to see the galilean moons of jupiter with binoculars and a steady hand!

mars continues to catch up to saturn on the ecliptic, coming within one degree of each other on JULY 10th.

enjoy!!

euro cup 2008 finale

no, it wasnt a fantastically thrilling final match of the 2008 euro cup, but i was still entertained. disappointed that my team didn't win the whole thing, but their aggressive energy at the beginning of each half gradually wore out without them scoring an actual goal! on the other hand, i was thoroughly satisfied with the winning goal (video) put forth by fernando torres... the only goal of the game. as the scoring play unfolded, i thought there was no way torres was getting around lahm with enough time to hit the ball, so i nearly missed his quick flick to goal as i reached for my beer! so quick... so great! congrats espana!




i'm sure i will now enter a small period of soccer-watching withdrawal...

good thing i'll have ample family entertainment in ohio for the entirety of july, and a whole season to look forward to once i move to the UK in august! i havent kept up much with MLS lately. any thoughts on which team i should follow? i havent chosen one yet. the obvious choice would be the nottingham forest, since that'll be my new hometown team. but what about liverpool? arsenal? thoughts?

i love momentum

it took me a little while to get the xkcd reference (even though he gave it away in the title - i know)....


but then i got it in this nice video.

end of june sky 2008

starting tomorrow evening, look to the west after sunset to saturn, mars and the star regulus lining up near leo.


mars continues to creep closer to regulus, culminating in a near overlap of the two on sunday night! mars and regulus will be less than a degree apart in the sky. if you hold your arm out, pointing your finger to the sky, mars and regulus will be closer together than your index finger is wide! mars and saturn will be about 5 degrees apart in the sky on sunday!

euro cup 2008 goals

5best goals

of euro cup 2008 according to fliggo!

germany in the euro cup 2008 final

aside from the unfortunately dramatic power outages during the broadcast of the second half of the match, the germany-turkey bout yesterday was very exciting. i was pleased to see turkey attack early in the match. i lost count f how many shots they had on goal befre germany even had one! i was hoping for turkey to score early because if they didnt score and lost momentum, they would be tired and finished. also, a goal would produce a more exciting game! score they did and the game was off...!

germany ended up pulling thru... again... despite great playing by the turks.

the best quote i've read about the match comes from Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile: "Now the Mannschaft have reached the EURO 2008 final with a 3-2 win over an arguably better team, nodding heads are attributing their triumph to simply being German, a synonym for depressingly successful."

wish i was in germany celebrating now... and good luck sleeping, eva!

off to work early today so i can watch the spain-russia match today. russia looks good so this is a tough match to call. i think germany would be happier playing spain in the final. who know what will happen....

ein astronaut

it's been an astronaut kinda day for some reason.


retro-futurismus

phonographantasmascope

cool!


found at neatorama

our exploration of space

in response to some of the comments i received on my post about the discovery of water on mars, i've been reading about the global interest in exploring other worlds in our solar system, thru both manned and robotic missions.

the european space agency, ESA, recently put out an application call for aspiring astronauts and received nearly 8500 completed applications from many different countries! i couldnt find many specifics about their exploration plans other than this generic statement: "This campaign is ESA's first astronaut selection since 1992, providing the opportunity to be at the forefront of ESA’s human spaceflight programmes, including future missions to the ISS and beyond." while 10% of those applications came from the UK, it's no secret that the UK space program has suffered from some recent controversial funding issues.

china has twice sent manned vehicles into space. they plan a third mission to launch after the 2008 beijing olympics, but only have plans to explore the moon, as far as i could tell from the internets. russia hopes to meet the october 2009 launch window to reach mars with their phobos grunt project. the indian space research organization (ISRO) has stated plans to launch a vehicle to mars by 2013. they would also like to send a "gaganaut" within a decade after that, if plans go well.

the NY Times posted an interview in january 2008, asking several space-science-related people: "Is manned space exploration worth the cost? Why or why not?"

all six people interviewed claimed manned space missions is definitely the way to go! this is surprising to me considering most of the astronomers i've talked to about this issue are of the opinion that if we go far far away, we should send robots first. i'll let you read that article to get an idea of the arguments given from their biased selection of NASA-related people, and i'll also list some other opinions collected by fraser cain at universe today and the bad astronomer phil plait.


the argument against space exploration that bugs me the most is that if we have so many problems here at home, why spend money to send humans so far away. now i agree with the fact that i dont think we should send humans, and therefore save money, but i also think there are plenty of financial resources - specifically in the US - that are being poorly allocated. specifically, have another look at the death and taxes poster to see where US tax dollars are going this year and how their direction differs from last year. increase in department of defense yet a decrease in energy efficiency and renewables (even though bush promised otherwise in his last state of the union address).

also, here's a quote from keith cowing of NASAwatch.com:

“Right now, all of America’s human space flight programs cost around $7 billion a year. That’s pennies per person per day. In 2006, according to the USDA, Americans spent more than $154 billion on alcohol. We spend around $10 billion a month in Iraq. And so on.”

at this point, us earthlings have successfully blasted countless electronic explorers off into space, as well as placed many many satellites in orbit around our planet to help us with many technological endeavors that make our daily life a bit more "convenient." it's a pretty crazy reality to think about this accomplishment of ours. the arrival of phoenix to the surface of mars marks another huge accomplishment in our robotic exploration of our solar system, and the Universe at large. but are we ready... psychologically, economically, and politically to go that far ourselves?

i think there are clear benefits to space exploration, and i think the major problems us earthlings are facing is how we are treating each other, our children and our earth. those things should be evaluated, but not by putting on hold the one task that currently keeps us all together and reaching for the same goal.

by the way, NASA is also accepting astronaut applications until july 1st, 2008!

pictured above is astronaut karen nyberg on the recent discovery mission.

professional space travelers

english speakers call them astronauts, derived from a combination of the greek words for star, "astron," and sailor, "nautes." many languages use "astronaut" as the base of their word for space explorers with the exception of the countries who have sent, or who are considering sending, humans into space!

Russians labelled them cosmonauts (kosmonavt, космонавт) by combining "cosmos" and "nautes." ive seen chinese space explorers refered to as Taikonauts, which might mean something related to the word "space" in mandarin, but i have no idea how to interpret what wikipedia says: "yǔhángyuán" (宇航员) or "hángtiānyuán" (航天员).... anyone?

the coolest new word that i've found for astronaut is a sanskrit-derived name, gaganaut! according to the professional pakau, "gagan" refers to the vast sky above us and more generally, to everything beyond the earth. i like the sound of this word, but i also like his comment that gaganauts sounds more like 10^9 nauts!

any other clever names to distinguish professional space explorers from recreational soace explorers?

euro cup 2008 semi-final lineup

and so we have it...

SF1 (wed): turkey vs. germany
SF2 (thurs): russia vs. spain

i was half right on the semi-final match ups, but i still could get the right teams in the final! we'll see. i definitely think spain deserved to win today. italy finally showed the strength of their defense, but failed to attack consistently. maybe luca toni's mustache repelled the ball from coming to him, or maybe it was the missing play makers: pirlo and gattuso. my biggest hope is that this ref sits out the rest of the tournament!

i was glad to see germany step up in their QF match against portugal. i was pleased to see them score a fantastic goal that wasnt initiated from a set play. in the end, i think it was portugal's weak defense against germany's powerful set plays that cost them the game.

the croatia - turkey match started out sloppily, but they settled into a decent rhythm. unfortunate shoot outs for croatia, but what an unbelievable last few minutes of overtime play!

the netherlands started out slow against russia and played too conservatively to pose an offensive threat.

i'm still going for a spain against germany final.... but you never know what could happen in a given match in this sport!

a different kind of milky way?

link