gregladen | December 22, 2011
I'm thinking there's another explanation. But it does point out something people need to know about penguins ... wherever they hang out, it tends to smell bad.
gregladen | December 22, 2011Photographer Scott Rowed has penned an excellent essay on his experience making the switch to Linux, and he's agreed to place it here as a guest post. Please read it and pass it on to people, school districts, small island nations, and others who may benefit. This is a repost from about two years ago:
Switching to Linux
by Scott Rowed
Changing operating systems is not a task to be taken lightly. I generally follow the philosophy "if it ain't broke don't fix it." A year ago, however, the family notebook was broken, hopelessly crippled by a nasty virus or worm. I'd been regularly updating the…
gregladen | December 21, 2011
This image, one of the first obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft in its low altitude mapping orbit, shows an area within the Rheasilvia basin in the south polar area of the giant asteroid Vesta. Image credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ UCLA/ MPS/ DLR/ IDA
NASA's Dawn spacecraft has sent back the first images of the giant asteroid Vesta from its low-altitude mapping orbit. The images, obtained by the framing camera, show the stippled and lumpy surface in detail never seen before, piquing the curiosity of scientists who are studying Vesta for clues about the solar system's early history.
At this…
gregladen | December 21, 2011March is the snowiest month. We get lots of snow in December. Sometimes it is too cold to snow. When I was a kid (whenever that was) there were more snow storms, the total snow cover was much, much deeper, and when it snowed...it snowed, by golly!
Such are a few of the things people say about the weather. Of special interest to me is the idea that "these days" have less snow than "those days"...according to every one of every age of every region that gets snow.
Have you ever thought this? Have you ever heard this said? If you live in a region that gets snow in a regular basis, and this does…
gregladen | December 20, 2011The famous bird, birding and birder blog, 10,000 birds, has reached the 4,000 post mark. So, if there are 10,000 birds and 4,000 posts .....
But seriously, it's true, it did!
Did you know that I blog there once a month? No? Then you have some catching up to do! I appear to have done nine of them so far. Here's a list:
class="post">
href='http://10000birds.com/why-robin-red-breast.htm' title='Why is the Robin’s Breast Red?'>Why is the Robin’s Breast Red?
By
href="http://10000birds.com/author/greg" title="Posts by Greg" rel="author">Greg
color="#FBB917">• December 15, 2011…
gregladen | December 20, 2011First, there were big-giant planets discovered orbiting other stars. Then, more recently, a planet in the star's Goldilocks Zone ... where water would be at least sometimes liquid, were it present. But that was a big planet that may or may not have been truly "class M" in having a surface, atmosphere, etc.
Now, NASA reports planets the size of the earth beyond our solar system. Unfortuntely, they are not in the zone. But still, this is cool.
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. The planets, called Kepler-20e…
gregladen | December 20, 2011Or even not at home!
(I'm talking about the part with the dummy that is not a dummy.)
gregladen | December 19, 2011I just saw something on TV about people running around with "Made in America" tee-shirts trying to talk everyone else into buying Christmas presents that were made in America, and naturally, my cynical self wondered which East or Southeast Asian Sweat Shops the tee-shirts were made in.
So I looked and it turns out that at least some of these shirts are actually made in America! So that's cool.
So, it got me thinking, what other cool last second gifts are there that are Made in America that an American Citizen might want to buy for their Uncle they forgot to get a present for. And there…
gregladen | December 19, 2011As you know, I've shifted some of the topics I have discussed on this blog over to The X Blog. However, some topics can very reasonably go on both. One of these is how we communicate, and argue, and sometimes make progress in this crazy, zany place we call The Blogsophere. Also, as an Anthropologist, I see topics related to gender, sexism, feminism and related topics as fully at home here, as well as at The X Blog. So, I just completed a series of posts over there which I'm sure will be of interest to those of you who tend to hand out here and might not otherwise notice. I hope you visit…
gregladen | December 19, 2011Remember that! Why? This is why!
Brilliant. Now you have pictures and pithy sayings to remember all these important science facts.
gregladen | December 19, 2011It has come to my attention that there are people in the US who think Reindeer are fictional animals. That make sense because they are associated in may people's minds [SPOILER ALERT] with a fictional character known as ....
...Santa Claus. Others may know that Caribou exist but think that Reindeer are fictional.
It turns out that Reindeer and Caribou are different words for the same beast, which lives in a circum-Arctic distribution in colder climates. As I mention here tangentially, and in relation to birds, Caribou is one of those species that has head gear (in this case, antler) on…
gregladen | December 19, 2011YA Animated News Story:
Related: Ode to Rocky and Attack of the Hound of Malembi. Or, "Whose are these people, anyway?"
gregladen | December 18, 2011... As reported in the Washington Post. Kim Jong Il took power in 1994 on the death of his father, Kim Il Sung. Now, Kim Jong Il's son, Kim Jong Un will become dictator of North Korea.
gregladen | December 17, 2011It is done. The very last US Troops1 left Iraq a few moments ago, according to reports. And when I say "wheels up" I speak metaphorically, because I think they may have driven over into Kuwait.
____________
1Except the ones that I assume are still there somewhere.
gregladen | December 17, 2011Sheril Kirshenbaum has a few comments about a piece in Science addressing innate differences between boys and girls in math. I have to say, it may be hard to accept the scientific truth sometimes, but the research really does consistently say the same thing again and again. In this latest study, the science ...
[doesn't] rule out the existence of very small biological difference, but, by comparing test scores across cultures, [does] indict local social factors as the likely primary culprit. Gender gaps vary from place to place, showing that cultural factors swamp biological ones.
Read about…
gregladen | December 17, 2011Sunday Morning: "The Knowledge of Good and Evil"
Listen to Glenn Kleier on Atheists Talk #146, Sunday, December 18, 2011.
Glenn Kleier will join Atheists Talk this Sunday to discuss his rousing new suspense thriller, The Knowledge of Good and Evil. Kleier has a background in advertising, marketing and communication. In 1998 he published his first book, The Last Day, which received international acclaim from reviewers. His works of fiction are known for their suspense and controversial interplay of religion and politics in our modern global society.
In The Knowledge of Good and Evil, Kleier…