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gregladen | September 20, 2011Check this out. This is an animation made by the same company that made the famous Tiger Woods animation (you know the one). In this case the purpose of the animation was to reconstruct an unusual crime scene so people could see it on the news, relate better to it, and report anything they may have seen in the area that was suspicious.
This may not be work safe, depending on where you work:
gregladen | September 19, 2011You'll remember that a few days ago I asked people to contribute to the Climate Scientists Defense Fun. They needed money to stop denialists from personally harassing scientists. The needed funds were obtained from your donations and all is well!!!!
However, the people who organized this have decided to try to generate a standing fund for this purpose, and have asked us bloggers who discuss these issues to let people know about. It is still being developed, but you can learn more about it here.
Thanks for all your help and generosity!
gregladen | September 19, 2011I'm going to take the unusual move and post, below, and almost complete cut and paste of a piece of corporate informational mail from Netflix. If you are Netflix user, you've already got this in your email box, most likely. Before I do this, I want to explain why.
I'm not shy about critiquing corporations on this blog, but there are three things that compel me to be supportive of Netflix at this moment. I will add a bad thing or two about Netflix as well for those of you who hate kittens.
The first thing is that Netflix is not Blockbuster; Netflix is not obnoxious and evile like…
pharyngula | September 19, 2011The New York Times has a very nice profile of Richard Dawkins titled A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy — an an excellent choice of a title, too.
(Also on FtB)
gregladen | September 19, 2011... that probably ruins the whole thing. I have not yet read The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, so I could be wrong, but if you have a copy check it out and tell me if I've got it right.
Breifly, the book says: " it's a meticulously documented argument about how much violence has declined from our hunter-gatherer days ten millennia ago through medieval times to the modern day. " [from WEIT Website]
Here's the thing. The data Pinker (and others) have been using over the last few years for "hunter-gatherers" includes mostly, or at least in large number, groups that…
gregladen | September 18, 2011So, the other day, I was trying to find some links to podcasts that I'd done to put on my media page, so I did something that I would never otherwise had thought to do; I entered my own name in the search box at Apple's iTunes store. Everybody has entered their own name in the Google Search box, right? But who thinks of searching for themselves on iTunes unless you are a musician.
Or, looking for your podcasts. Which I found, by the way, so that was good. But there was also a thing called The Ballad of Greg Laden.
So my brain started ticking away and it pretty much figured out that…
stoat | September 17, 2011Stung by some rather odd language on wikipedia at [[Two New Sciences#Infinite sets]], I'm reading the bits about infinity in "Two New Sciences" (Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences aka Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, intorno à due nuove scienze, 1638) via the translation available at http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/tns_draft/tns_001to061.html. If you look at the oldid of the wiki article, you'll see the familiar problems: that all Galileo's ideas have been translated into the language of modern (set) theory that he likely would not…
stoat | September 17, 2011Its a book, in fact. I remember browsing it in the good old days when I used to climb. But today I was browsing Rock Athlete which is Ron Fawcett's book, and contains the following memorable story, which I will share with you because I liked it so much:
In the old days, a pair of his friends were climbing Malham Cove. They were aid climbing the extensive overhangs in in very bad weather in winter, and were benighted. Not realising they were close to the top, they chose to ab off in darkness. The rope became tangled, and in the cold the first was unable to untangle it, and forced to cut it; he…
gregladen | September 17, 2011Our own Eleanor Mondale has died, at the age of 51, of brain cancer.
She was the daughter of Vice President Walter Mondale, and a fellow citizen of Minneapolis.
From the Strib:
Her brain cancer was diagnosed in June 2005, after she suffered a seizure that May. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester found two tumors in her brain. With radiation, chemotherapy and surgery, her cancer was twice diminished. But a routine checkup in January 2008 found another tumor. In September 2010, she said that a new form of chemotherapy appeared to be shrinking the tumor, but that she knew nothing was…
gregladen | September 17, 2011Software Freedom Day is Today. So, go to your computer and see if there is any software in there you can let out.
Find out more here.
gregladen | September 16, 2011The Minnesota Atheist book project deadline is September 30th. "This is a chance to tell your story while becoming a published author, and to support Minnesota Atheists' mission of promoting positive atheism. This is an entirely volunteer effort, with all proceeds going towards Minnesota Atheists. The book, tentatatively titled Atheist Voices of Minnesota, will be a collection of writings by Atheists in or from Minnesota. For more information visit http://mnatheists.org/content/view/602/199/ , or email mnatheistbook@gmail.com."
For Everybody who pretends to be in the zipcode is 55433:
Sunday…
krandall | September 15, 2011By Dr. Franck Marchis, SETI Institute
Kepler-16 is another great discovery coming from the Kepler telescope, the 10th NASA Discovery mission which is devoted to finding Earth-size exoplanets by monitoring variations of brightness due to transit. Today the Kepler team found a circumbinary exoplanet, an exoplanet orbiting a binary star system. Did they find Tatooine?
Artistic view of the Kepler-16(AB)b exoplanet (a saturn-like exoplanet) in orbit around its 2 stars in the background.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
In the large 105 deg2 field of view of the Kepler spacecraft, ~156,000…
stoat | September 15, 2011 Just some random jottings, none of which amount to much. I'm making quince jelly. Last Sunday was the first anniversary of my half-marathon running career, which I celebrated at Grunty Fen. Next Sunday will see me sculling the Boston marathon for the first time, after being in the ladies VIII last year. We've been painting the club blades recently; Amy has some nice pix.
Arctic sea ice may have hit its minimum this year and be on the way up. Neven certainly thinks so. I think it is likely; a few more days will make it clear. Its quite early, though, for a minimum, but probably not…
krandall | September 15, 2011By Dr. Laurance Doyle, an astrophysicist at the SETI Institute, and lead author of a paper that will appear in the journal Science on September 15, 2011.
For the first time, astronomers with the NASA Kepler spacecraft mission have discovered a planet orbiting two stars. This is a fundamentally different kind of planetary system than has ever been discovered before. The new system is known as "Kepler-16" and consists of two stars -- one about 69% the mass of the Sun, and the other only 20% the mass of the Sun, which circle each other every 41 days. Around both of these circles the Saturn-mass…
gregladen | September 15, 2011My latest contribution to 10,000 Birds blog is a write up of some very interesting research that addresses the evolutionary history of the Penguin Tuxedo. Check it out. This post also has a handy-dandy downloadable PDF version of itself suitable for use in the classoom.
Also, if you haven't read this yet, please check it out: Could you sustain the energy level required to be a teacher?
gregladen | September 14, 2011Over the next few weeks, in the Northern Hemisphere, the mice will start moving in to your house.
There are many strategies to manage this, and there are many factors in play (including exactly what sort of "mouse" is moving into your house). But many individuals will want to live trap the critters. If you do, please don't move them to a distant location. It is a bad idea to do that with any animals.
Regardless of what you plan to do with the little furries once you've got them alive, you need to capture them first. Thus, the following timely repost:
Sheril has asked for suggestion…
gregladen | September 14, 2011There is now a fish that has evolved immunity to PCB's. PCB is a substance designed to use as an insulator in high-heat electrical equipment (like the transformers used in the electrical grid, or household radios and such). It is very bad for the environment, was taken out of use years ago, but the thing is, because it was designed to stand up to very tough conditions, it does not break down naturally. I grew up not far from where most of them seem to have been made, and was actually involved in some of the cleanup.
So, today, it is interesting to read about this fish:
Bottom-feeding fish…
tlambert | September 14, 2011The Climate Reality Project is doing a live broadcast at 7pm in every time zone. If I got the embed correct, you can watch it below.
target="_blank">Free desktop streaming application by Ustream
gregladen | September 14, 2011Despite multibillion-dollar investments in cybersecurity, one of its root problems has been largely ignored: who are the people who write malicious code? Underworld investigator Misha Glenny profiles several convicted coders from around the world and reaches a startling conclusion.
Is he using the word "hackers" correctly? And, for those who do write malicious code like that stuff that ruins your computer, isn't firm punishment or waterboarding or something more appropriate than giving them a reward?
gregladen | September 14, 2011Artist Raghava KK demos his new children's book for iPad with a fun feature: when you shake it, the story -- and your perspective -- changes. In this charming short talk, he invites all of us to shake up our perspective a little bit.