This news has been kicking around for a few days, but recent observations have narrowed down the time it might occur fairly tightly now: At 06:35:42.45 UTC, Wednesday August 5th, the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket (SpaceX) will impact the moon, just barely into the visible side. While this might present a visible flash, it is more likely to
Category: Science & Evolution
Too cool, part 54
Wow, it’s been better than two years since the last ‘Too Cool’ post – at least, the last with that in the title, though as a category, there’s definitely been a few since then. This one comes courtesy of Astronomy Picture of the Day, though I’m a little lax, since this was yesterday’s.
Taken by John
Numbers don’t lie. Do they?
I realize my posting has been pretty thin of late – still tackling home projects, still stalling on another video. And then I go off on these tangents that don’t help at all, but I want to put them down while they’re still fresh, so here we are.
While working on the post about Ultrafinitism,
Where will it end?
I’ve had a topic sitting in my ‘Other Ideas’ file for a while now, waiting for me to tackle it, and in the meantime, an article popped up that, well, tackled it. Again, actually, because within my file were two links to different articles. They’re all related to a standpoint I fostered in a much earlier post, to wit: ‘Infinity’ is a pointless concept.
Now, the
Oh, just go
This isn’t one that lends itself to an easy description, or a slick way of introducing it, so I’m struggling here. But I’m on the mailing list for The Oatmeal, which is either a webcomic or the nom de plume of the guy who writes and illustrates them, maybe both. If you’re not familiar with the site, you should
Can confirm
On Monday, we had clear enough skies for me to go out and check on the condition of the sun, or more specifically, the sunspots thereon. I could not actually make any out in the viewfinder, nor on the monitor when I had unloaded the card.
I considered myself a victim of bad timing, since we’ve been having so much activity in this form for the past couple of years, and the reason
Not dead? Then it’s working
Once again, we find ourselves (that’s the royal “we,” not [necessarily] including you) on Darwin Day, without anything prepared to show for it. I have long maintained that we should be celebrating the scientist on some other day than his birthday, since the dead of winter is a hard time to find topical content. The fictional readers that I insist are real shoot back that I’m
Ahhh, that’s better!
Did the rounds tonight, counting how many juvenile Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) I could find, and actually reached fifty this time, in fact, fifty-one. That one is shown below, doing its best to avoid being counted:
While certainly not an overriding, driving desire, I felt compelled not only to break the previous record, but to reach the nice round number of fifty –
Thinking like that
Because I’m a supporter of George Hrab’s Geologic podcast, I receive his weekly newsletter, and the one from July 5th [yes, this sat in editing limbo for a bit] contained an article on superstition that he’d written for the James Randi Educational Foundation back in 2008. I’d done a post myself
Errors of omission
Recently, I came across a link to an article on Aeon, which may be titled either “Incredible testimonies” or “The short, dramatic history of alien abductions in the US,” depending on whether you go with the title in the opening graphic or in the meta tag for the page