Random Stuff
esiegel | April 2, 2009Most of you know that different fonts and typefaces can give your documents a certain feel, a certain flair, or a certain artistic element that you wouldn't get using the same old font for everything. So, I was reading an article about a relatively famous typographer, Eric Gill, the developer of a number of typefaces.
The interview is interesting, the history of typefaces is interesting, and getting a perspective on the world 100 years ago is also interesting. But the very last thing that he said, about artistry, beauty, and making something that's valuable, is really what stuck with me:
I…
esiegel | May 23, 2008Brought to you by Max Cannon, creator of Red Meat and also the dude who helps run the awesome independent Loft Cinema here in Tucson:
Hilarious...
Also, if you haven't caught it yet, don't forget to check out this week's Carnival of Space, where we have an entry about actually seeing a supernova go off.
esiegel | May 17, 2008Sometimes, you find weird stuff on the internet. But sometimes you find even weirder stuff in scientific journals. To what do I refer? A paper in the Journal of Mathematical Geology back in 2000 entitled Godzilla from a Zoological Perspective, by Per Christiansen.
This was written as a critique of the "new Godzilla" movie, arguing that it is not more biologically plausible than the "old Godzilla" of 1954.
However, calculations show that his limbs and limb muscles must have been severely undersized to move his huge bulk around at even a leisurely pace, and most other biological problems with…
esiegel | May 10, 2008I'm not someone who gets as excited about science-fiction space shows as many other science bloggers, but I am a fan of the current Battlestar Galactica and, especially, of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But there's one man who stands out as the hero of Star Trek: TNG, and it's the seasoned, savvy, courageous and confident Captain Picard:
Now Patrick Stewart is one cool guy, but he's nothing compared to the starship captain he played. Back in 2001, a band named Dark Materia made a techno song about Captain Picard called The Picard Song, and for me, the combination of bad techno, sound bites…
esiegel | May 2, 2008Clearly, neither the man nor the bull below is headed for anything good in their attempt to walk on water,
and for that matter, neither is this poor, bristling cat,
but what about this reptile?
Unbelievably, this lizard actually can walk on water! And without using any surface tension tricks like insects do, either. No, whereas a human puts his foot into the water and sinks, this lizard has a very low mass and a very large surface area on his feet, allowing him to "run" on water as long as he moves quickly enough. For this lizard, that's about 10 miles-per-hour. As opposed to a human, who…
esiegel | April 26, 2008Stop wastin' my time.
You know what I want.
You know what I need,
or maybe you don't.
Do I have to come right flat out and tell you everything?
Gimme some money!
My fellow Americans, are you impatient about getting your "stimulus package" from the government? First off, a lot of people are going to be getting $300 instead of $600; and I gotta now right now! So go here to have the IRS calculate how much money you're getting first.
Then, you'll probably want to know when you're going to get your money! This is important stuff, people; we rarely get benefits just for being working Americans,…
esiegel | April 19, 2008Sometimes, gravity and motion has the power to mesmerize me. I found this online game called "compulse" which was so much fun, that I spent about 90 minutes this week just playing this game until I had beaten every level on the "pro" setting. Yikes. (My score is 104 under par, 8 under pro.)
And so, in the interest of bringing it to you, I've tried to embed it into my website. Have fun playing if it works in your browser (I told you to use firefox or safari), and if you enjoy playing with the mechanics of motion as much as I do, maybe you, too, have the interest it takes to be a physicist!…
esiegel | April 12, 2008Nothing to do with astronomy or physics (except for the perils of gravity), but this TV show is hilarious: Ninja Warrior. I don't get the channel G4 here in Tucson with expanded cable, but this is basically the Japanese version of the American Gladiators event: The Eliminator! If you have some time to waste, watch it sometime. The contestants and the annoucers are hilarious...
esiegel | April 4, 2008Take a look at this picture, and tell me where the brightest parts and dimmest parts are:
Well, obviously, just to the left of the color gradient, it gets darker than anywhere else. Also, just to the right, it gets lighter than anywhere else. And that's the way it is, isn't it?
Or is this an optical illusion; a trick of your eyes? Let's chop the image up into three parts and find out:
Well damn, there isn't a "darker band" or a "lighter band" there at all, this is just your inability to see properly! This effect of your eyes is known as a Mach band. (Maybe that will be the new title of the…
esiegel | March 28, 2008I remember being a kid and taking karate lessons. How cool was it to go somewhere for the purpose of learning how to kick ass? It was fun, of course, and one of the things you learned how to do was to attack (strike, kick, and punch) with your entire body, not just with your limbs.
Maybe the coolest parlor trick we learned was how to break a wooden board with our bare hands. (I remember surprising the hell out of Leon Hodge years later in High School by doing it in a history class one day; Hi Leon!) We also heard the story that the way this worked was that you compressed air molecules so much…
esiegel | March 14, 2008Happy Pi Day! Even the BBC has a nice article on this one. Maybe someday, the US will, too.
And yes, it's nerdy, I know, but what's frightening is that I actually have the first line of that image memorized somehow...
esiegel | March 7, 2008Sometimes I wonder if I'm going to need to learn video editing to make this outreach thing work. I might do well to follow the lead of this guy, who's a Norwegian named Lasse Gjertsen, and who's posted a video of him "playing drums and piano."
Well, playing drums and piano kinda. But damn, I would love to have those editing skills...
esiegel | March 2, 2008Well, it's not technically a weekend diversion, but something awesome happened in the wake of my recent Awards-show posting of the Carnival of Space. David Livingston, a blogger over at Space Cynics and a radio host of The Space Show, has invited me to be his guest on his April 8th broadcast of his show!
So get ready to listen up, because this is going to be available worldwide for download! I'll definitely have an entry for you after the recording to let you know how it goes and what we talked about, but I hope to get to talk about all the things that excite me about doing this, including…
esiegel | February 23, 2008As someone who's spent a lot of time in a University setting, one of the thing that often shocks me is the number of vegans that are out there. Why is it shocking? Because you need meat for proper nutrition. Now, I thought this was common knowledge, that humans are omnivores and that eating other animal products was the best way to get many of the essential nutrients your body needs. Plus, meat is delicious, and when I've gone a long time without eating it, my body physically feels better when I finally have some again.
But apparently, it isn't common knowledge, because a vegan couple…
esiegel | February 19, 2008What? Is this a joke, Ethan? Have you been watching Jurassic Park again, drinking Dino DNA or something? No, I got an interesting question from startswithabang.com reader and ichthyophobe Lucas:
Over the years a few intact, frozen woolly mammoth have been found and procured by different scientists and governments, most recently Japan. What are they doing with these ancient popsicles? Cloning? Could a frozen woolly mammoth be effectively cloned?
Aaah, the woolly mammoth, something we think of as ancient, but really it only went extinct an estimated 3,700 years ago, with the last mammoths dying…
esiegel | February 17, 2008Alright, folks, so last week I got this letter from a very good magician and television producer Anthony Owen from Objective Productions, the company partnered with Discovery Channel to make Dangerman in London:
Thank you for your recent email application for Dangerman.
If you are still interested in being considered for this role weâd like you to make a short video of yourself (no longer than 3 minutes). Tell us, on camera, why you would be the perfect Dangerman (or Woman) and explain the science behind a dangerous stunt in an entertaining way which would make sense to a non science-…
esiegel | February 16, 2008So I am preparing an audition video to be Dangerman this weekend, which will go up on youtube and get posted here next week. In the meantime, as promised for the weekend, I have a new weekend diversion for you: the archer fish, a.k.a. toxotes jaculatrix (hee hee). But what makes it so cool? Oh, I don't know, how about this slow-motion video:
Did you see that?? It's a fish that hunts insects by shooting them with water, and then eating them when they fall into the water, often catching them before they ever leave the air! What's really amazing about this is that the fish needs to be able to "…
esiegel | February 14, 2008
Three awesome things are going on today for you, and I invite you to check them all out:
The latest Carnival of Space is live, where you have your choice of 23 different astronomical topics to choose from. Of course, my post this week on galaxies and how they're made is on there, too!
Pamela L. Gay, cohost of Astronomy Cast, blogger of Star Stryder and all-around great person, saw a press release this week about whether we need dark matter and dark energy. The answer, of course, is yes, but since I'm an expert on that stuff, she came to me and asked me to give my analysis of the…
esiegel | February 9, 2008Starts With A Bang! is off to a great start; each the past three days we have topped the 100 visitor mark, bringing our total number of unique visitors up to 1,413! I'm going to attempt to start a new tradition here of making a weekend post on a topic that I just find neat, and share it with you. This first Weekend Diversion is an optical illusion about color. Take a look at the image below:
Looks like a cube with a bunch of different colors on it. Now do the following:
Look at the top face of the cube, and tell me what color the tile in the middle of that face is.
Look at the near face,…
esiegel | January 17, 2008In preparation for the launch of startswithabang.com, I am attempting to embed a video I had found on youtube, of the slow-motion ignition of a lighter.
How does this work? The video demonstrates that to make something very simple happen (to get a sustained, controlled flame out of a compact piece of equipment), a lot of thought needs to go into how it's made, and what each step is going to accomplish. A lighter works by the following:
Flint and steel rub together (that's turning the wheel) to create very high temperatures along the metal shavings, which fly off in many directions.
The…