the annual holiday shopocalypse is nigh upon us.
i refuse to go to malls because i have no patience for them and they put me in a bad mood. and i strongly dislike commercial consumerism, in general, but i do enjoy giving gifts to my family and friends to remind them that i love them. i think that gifts created by your very own hands are always the most cherished! but for the busiest among us.... i've compiled a quick list of good places to shop that benefit real life human artisans from all over the world:
ten thousand villages
a greater gift
home grown market
sweat free online consumer guide
co-op america
global exchange
stars and infinite darkness
there might be a trailer for the movie "what would jesus buy" posted below, but if not: view it here
Thursday, November 22, 2007
still expanding comet holmes
wow!!! has anyone else seen comet holmes look the way Peter von Bagh saw it in this photo? i'm not sure how long he exposed this image for, but he didnt use a telescope....
APOD also has a nice picture today taken with the big 3.6-meter canada-france-hawaii telescope on mauna kea in hawaii. it's neat how you can see far away stars thru the envelop of dust and gas that has formed and expanded around the nucleus of the comet. this envelop is called a "coma."
speaking of expanding gas... astronomers in hawaii have shown that the volume puffy gas ball that is now comet holmes, is bigger than the sun!!! they report that since the initial explosion seen from comet holmes on october 24 (for reasons we still don't fully understand), the gas has continued to expand and push outwards at a steady pace of 0.5 km/sec (1100 mph)! that's some quick moving gas! now the gas extends in space with a diameter of 1.4 million kilometers (0.9 million miles) as of november 9, 2007, making it the single largest object in our solar system. holy crap!!! that was unexpected! you can see and image of saturn next to the sun for some scale, and also consider that you can fit 100 earths next to each other across the image of the sun!
thats a big comet!
APOD also has a nice picture today taken with the big 3.6-meter canada-france-hawaii telescope on mauna kea in hawaii. it's neat how you can see far away stars thru the envelop of dust and gas that has formed and expanded around the nucleus of the comet. this envelop is called a "coma."
speaking of expanding gas... astronomers in hawaii have shown that the volume puffy gas ball that is now comet holmes, is bigger than the sun!!! they report that since the initial explosion seen from comet holmes on october 24 (for reasons we still don't fully understand), the gas has continued to expand and push outwards at a steady pace of 0.5 km/sec (1100 mph)! that's some quick moving gas! now the gas extends in space with a diameter of 1.4 million kilometers (0.9 million miles) as of november 9, 2007, making it the single largest object in our solar system. holy crap!!! that was unexpected! you can see and image of saturn next to the sun for some scale, and also consider that you can fit 100 earths next to each other across the image of the sun!
thats a big comet!
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
nice nearness
this friday night, there will be a nice nearness between the nearly full moon and the pleaides star cluster (see star map here). some people in the northern part of the world will see the moon pass right in from of the pleiades, occulting the tiny little dipper!
unnecessary *things*
most of the "things" that we buy with our hard-earned money, are absolutely not necessary. we buy them just to buy them. we consume beyond our needs. why is that?
when i returned to the US, i unpacked all the stuff i had in storage, that i hadnt used or even thought about in an entire year. these were the items i felt worthy to save for the year i was gone... things that i thought i would really need when i got back.
and then i found the mold. nearly everything that i saved was covered in a fine blue-green powdery mold that grew in my absence (i now recognize the benefit of climate-controlled storage facilities)! after a couple weeks of fighting back against the mold, i gave up and just started throwing things away.
i worked very hard to clean and save childhood mementos, photo albums, and all the journals i started keeping in 3rd grade. certain things i'm having to replace, like camping equipment and some clothes, but i have ultimately felt liberated by getting rid of so much stuff!
part of the problem is the endless advertising to which we are subjected. a person living in a modern city sees 5,000 ad messages a DAY! absolute sensory overload as our eyes meet potential products to buy instead of earth's natural beauty.
thats why i'm very excited to learn about the anti-advertising agency! this agency and Packard Jennings took a poll of residents around the oakland area to find out "what advertising tactics they found most bothersome in their neighborhoods." in response, they created clever anti-advertising artwork for bus stop benches! brilliant!!
fine print: i say all this as my blog flashes google ads along the side. i recognize this hypocrisy, and i'm thinking about it....
when i returned to the US, i unpacked all the stuff i had in storage, that i hadnt used or even thought about in an entire year. these were the items i felt worthy to save for the year i was gone... things that i thought i would really need when i got back.
and then i found the mold. nearly everything that i saved was covered in a fine blue-green powdery mold that grew in my absence (i now recognize the benefit of climate-controlled storage facilities)! after a couple weeks of fighting back against the mold, i gave up and just started throwing things away.
i worked very hard to clean and save childhood mementos, photo albums, and all the journals i started keeping in 3rd grade. certain things i'm having to replace, like camping equipment and some clothes, but i have ultimately felt liberated by getting rid of so much stuff!
part of the problem is the endless advertising to which we are subjected. a person living in a modern city sees 5,000 ad messages a DAY! absolute sensory overload as our eyes meet potential products to buy instead of earth's natural beauty.
thats why i'm very excited to learn about the anti-advertising agency! this agency and Packard Jennings took a poll of residents around the oakland area to find out "what advertising tactics they found most bothersome in their neighborhoods." in response, they created clever anti-advertising artwork for bus stop benches! brilliant!!
fine print: i say all this as my blog flashes google ads along the side. i recognize this hypocrisy, and i'm thinking about it....
conversations with astrophysicists
phd comics hoy dia:
the first row mini-comic-within-a-comic is oh so true. i'll also add that if i really want to impress someone with the intention of continuing the conversation, i throw out that "i'm an astrophysicist." although i've learned that this can backfire if too many alcoholic beverages are consumed because there's the potential to say "i'm an astro-phythithistht."
interesting how this comic mentions the concept of a theory of everything, and the astrophysics grad student character, katie, remains more enthusiastic about the possibility than i do!
the first row mini-comic-within-a-comic is oh so true. i'll also add that if i really want to impress someone with the intention of continuing the conversation, i throw out that "i'm an astrophysicist." although i've learned that this can backfire if too many alcoholic beverages are consumed because there's the potential to say "i'm an astro-phythithistht."
interesting how this comic mentions the concept of a theory of everything, and the astrophysics grad student character, katie, remains more enthusiastic about the possibility than i do!
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
writers not on strike
hillary clinton should give a bonus to which ever of her speech writers came up with this gem that made me laugh out loud today:
"It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush."
maybe she came up with this line herself, i dont know... but i think its funny no matter where your opinions may lie along the political spectrum.
"It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush."
maybe she came up with this line herself, i dont know... but i think its funny no matter where your opinions may lie along the political spectrum.
its beautiful all the way down
today's phd comic:
good summary of observing: "you spend night after night in isolation, not wasting one minute, checking on the equipment as photons from stars billions of miles away and millions of years old impinge upon your calibrated CCD sensors, hoping they carry data good enough for a thesis."
as it turns out, i've spent over 4 months worth of nights at telescopes during my grad school tenure and very few of the photons i collected will appear in my final dissertation! haha (more of an sad/evil laugh, really)! thats ok though, i loved nearly every minute and gained a lot of knowledge during those long, cold nights on mountain tops.
good summary of observing: "you spend night after night in isolation, not wasting one minute, checking on the equipment as photons from stars billions of miles away and millions of years old impinge upon your calibrated CCD sensors, hoping they carry data good enough for a thesis."
as it turns out, i've spent over 4 months worth of nights at telescopes during my grad school tenure and very few of the photons i collected will appear in my final dissertation! haha (more of an sad/evil laugh, really)! thats ok though, i loved nearly every minute and gained a lot of knowledge during those long, cold nights on mountain tops.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
another theory of everything
according to the surfer physicist, Garrett Lisi, 42 is not the answer to life, the universe, and everything. dud. but he has just submitted a theory for peer review with the deceivingly light title, "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything."
its exciting that someone with such a non-traditional physics career is getting so much attention for what seems to be a very interesting theory! but i have a small problem with calling something a "theory of everything" when only a small handful of highly educated human beings can understand it well enough to discuss it. i know life and the universe are both very complicated and should probably require a complicated theory to explain them... but it's a telling sign when a leading theoretical cosmologist, stated that he wont even bother reading and trying to fully understand this paper... just yet.
a worthy attempt to explain how this new theory fits into the current standard model of particle physics can be found at the backreaction blog. i admit that i dont understand the finer points, but i think the visualization of E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points - is beautifully fascinating! view e8rotation here.
i hope that gives you enough references to go read about this theory, if you want.
its exciting that someone with such a non-traditional physics career is getting so much attention for what seems to be a very interesting theory! but i have a small problem with calling something a "theory of everything" when only a small handful of highly educated human beings can understand it well enough to discuss it. i know life and the universe are both very complicated and should probably require a complicated theory to explain them... but it's a telling sign when a leading theoretical cosmologist, stated that he wont even bother reading and trying to fully understand this paper... just yet.
a worthy attempt to explain how this new theory fits into the current standard model of particle physics can be found at the backreaction blog. i admit that i dont understand the finer points, but i think the visualization of E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points - is beautifully fascinating! view e8rotation here.
i hope that gives you enough references to go read about this theory, if you want.
Friday, November 16, 2007
exploring lava tubes
today is my last day in hawaii :( i leave this afternoon to head back to austin, where i arrive tomorrow! long travel day/night. it's been a productive trip... and a lot of fun too!
monday was a holiday, so some of the astronomers here took me on an adventure hiking thru some remote lava tubes! we walked about 2 miles across lava fields, found a tiny hidden entrance to the caves, and then hiked in for about a mile... it's hard to judge distance underground, so who knows how far we went!
most of the lava inside the caves had a sparkly, silver tone, but sometimes there were flows of bright orange or red! cool stuff!
many parts of the cave were split into 2 levels. here you can see a huge fallen chunk of lava! that sort of sight kept me constantly looking for big cracks or potential lava flows from the end of the cave!!
cave poop....
there were a couple rooms in the cave with ceilings covered by these crazy lava stalactite things! they didnt hang straight down either, but rather at distinct, yet uniform angles!
monday was a holiday, so some of the astronomers here took me on an adventure hiking thru some remote lava tubes! we walked about 2 miles across lava fields, found a tiny hidden entrance to the caves, and then hiked in for about a mile... it's hard to judge distance underground, so who knows how far we went!
most of the lava inside the caves had a sparkly, silver tone, but sometimes there were flows of bright orange or red! cool stuff!
many parts of the cave were split into 2 levels. here you can see a huge fallen chunk of lava! that sort of sight kept me constantly looking for big cracks or potential lava flows from the end of the cave!!
cave poop....
there were a couple rooms in the cave with ceilings covered by these crazy lava stalactite things! they didnt hang straight down either, but rather at distinct, yet uniform angles!
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