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grrlscientist | October 11, 2009
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
When you go hiking or sailing or stargazing, why not consider writing about your experience of nature and sharing it with the world? Or maybe you are watching an ant's nest in the crack of a sidewalk, walking down the beach, flipping rocks to see what's underneath, or sitting in your kitchen, watching birds eating seeds at your birdfeeders? Your experiences could be interesting to others if these activities provide you with questions that you decide to investigate…
grrlscientist | October 10, 2009
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Instead of passively watching football games this weekend, why not write about the physics of football so everyone can enjoy the games alongside you? The Blog Carnival, Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is seeking blog essays about physics, biophysics and kinematics, too, so we would love to include clearly written submissions that are targeted to the public explaining the science that underlies sports.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is…
gregladen | October 9, 2009I just love my Linux "calendar" command. It's an old Unix trick. *nix (Linux, Unix) systems have these special files on them where dated information is stored, for the user, the system, or just because it's there. If you have a Linux computer, you have several such files already installed. If you go to a command prompt and type "calendar" (and hit enter) you get, typically, today and tomorrow's entries by default, which include a bunch of historical entries. To wit:
A Repost
Oct 06 First GPSS manual published, 1961
Oct 06 Antioch College is the first public school to admit men and…
gregladen | October 9, 2009NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered a new ring around Saturn. This ring is very different from those previously known. In some ways, this ring resembles the "accretionary disk" found around some stars more than it resembles the thin, orderly rings that Saturn is famous for.
Read about it here.
grrlscientist | October 9, 2009
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) was just published recently. This edition is entitled Scientia Pro Publica 13: Nobel Prize Edition.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a traveling blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days.
The host for the upcoming 19 October edition will be Luke at Genetic…
gregladen | October 9, 2009... there was a speech and a plan ...
Posted here on Collective Imagination.
gregladen | October 9, 2009The big machines are going to whack into the moon in a few minutes.
They just said "Ten minutes to impact. Fight, are you go?" (go) "Payload, are you go?" (go) "Command, are you go?" (go) "Somebodyelse I can't remember are you go?" (go).
We are seeing images being beamed back from the moon.
There is a problem with the transmission rate of the data which will force them to make a last minute adjustment of the resolution of some of the images the space craft will be sending back.
A critical instrument has been checked out and it seems to work: This is an instrument that will observe the…
gregladen | October 8, 2009So after watching what will surely go down as one of the most epic games in Twins, and even all of baseball, history, it seems a little anticlimactic to sit down and write about the 200-mile high club, but what the hey, it's for science.
Adults only, please
gregladen | October 8, 2009Joey: "Hey, Greg. You're a regular Walking Encyclopedia!"
Greg: "Thanks, Joey. I like to learn lots of stuff."
Joey: "Mugrphhhmmmft."
(Mugrphhhmmmft is the sound Joey's fist makes giving Greg a bloody nose.)
Read more.
mspringer | October 8, 2009ScienceBlogs' Razib is back from the Singularity Summit, with summaries of a good portion of the proceedings and some interesting links. Relatively recently I've written about why the Singularity very well may not happen (at least not the wilder version) - roughly, the growth curve of technology may be logistic rather than exponential thanks to the limiting effect of physical laws.
Probably the most passionate proponent of the Singularity is Ray Kurtzweil, and according to a piece Razib links, he disagrees. (The piece itself is somewhat old, but apparently he presented an updated version at…
gregladen | October 8, 2009It's not Linux, that's for sure...
Lest we forget: Windows 7 is just like Vista, folks. "Windows 7" is Microsoft's attempt to re-brand the damaged "Windows" name after the extremely poor "Windows Vista" release. I love that you can still buy systems with Windows XP "downgrade" because Windows Vista still isn't trusted 3 years after it was released....
Check out this commentary by Linux in Exile.
awild | October 8, 2009Smugmug, the host for my image gallery alexanderwild.com, has been down all morning. The problem is apparently serious and resolution may take a while.
I apologize for the inconvenience. If there was a particular image you were looking for this morning and now you can't get to it, email me.
*update 12:15pm; we're online again!
gregladen | October 7, 2009Yes, Laelaps on Scienceblogs Dot Com is two years old today! Can you believe it?
What? You never heard of Laelaps? Inconceivable!!!!
Start here and read everything. It's really great.
gregladen | October 7, 2009OK, you can go back to lower ground now. The warning has been canceled.
From the BBC:
A tsunami warning has been issued for 11 nations in the south-west Pacific, including Papua New Guinea, after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake off Vanuatu.
The epicentre was 295km (180 miles) north-northwest of Vanuatu's largest island, Santo, at a depth of 35km (21.7 miles), the US Geological Survey said.
Here is the USGS data for the earthquake:
Magnitude
7.8
Date-Time
Wednesday, October 07, 2009 at 22:03:15 UTC
Thursday, October 08, 2009 at 09:03:15 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time…
gregladen | October 7, 2009... Collectively. By visiting the new Scienceblogs.com blog "Collective Imagination."
Collective imagination pairs an individual science blogger with an individual scientist or engineer type person from G.E. to discuss stuff. Currently, the science blogger in the Collective Imagination Steel Cage is Yours Truly, and the GE Engineer is my Arch Nemesis Peter Tu.
Go over to Collective Imagination and watch as Peter and I wrestle around in the mud and try to choke each other, metaphorically, over issues of Security and Technology.
gregladen | October 7, 2009When I hear the words "We are a Microsoft shop" I cringe. And I usually look at the person who just said it funny. Here is one reason why.