Since I was just talking about scale and space in the comments, I thought I should also pop in this little number I saw today on the site of absolutely-damn-great SF writer Walter Jon Williams.
(If it were me, I would have worked O Fortuna into the soundtrack–but then, if it were me it wouldn’t look [...]
Posted in One-and-done, Science and Technology | No Comments »
What you’re looking at there is something called The Local Cavity–although in this case “local” takes on a meaning somewhat larger than in typical conversation. It’s essentially a 300-light-year in diameter hole in space. Maybe ‘hole’ is stretching it a bit, since it’s not so much that it’s empty, as that it’s WAY less full [...]
Posted in Science and Technology | 2 Comments »
That’s an image from the “Blood Falls”, a five-story, blood-red waterfall that pours very slowly–the falls are frozen, and so flow slowy–out of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys. That multi-coloured bump in the lower left is a tent, if that helps you get an idea of scale
The falls were first observed around [...]
Posted in Science and Technology | No Comments »
Very busy this week on birthday-related activities. Regular schedule to resume soon. In the meantime, here are a couple of cool simulations to play with, since that seems to be something I’m interested in this week. First, a physics tool to simulate cloth as a grid of constrained points. Second, a quite cool fire simulation–I especially like making words and images out of wood and then setting them ablaze.
(0 Comments)What you’re looking at there is the sad and beautiful story of the death of two stars, and the casting of two other survivors into the darkness.
I’ve been sitting here playing with the My Solar System gravity simulator since reading about it in Discovery–it’s a cool educational toy for modelling interaction of bodies under gravity. [...]
Posted in Science and Technology | No Comments »
OK, my open tab situation has got to the point where I was forced to research new Firefox plugins. I might talk about that soon, since that old “favourite plugins” post is waaaay out of date, and due for an updating. Right now, though, I want to run through a bunch of these things, attaching [...]
Posted in Linkapalooza | 3 Comments »
And the professor is back to lead us through the second in our series of posts looking at real, actual, modern science stories that illustrate the “we’re living in science fiction” notion. Last time we focused primarily on medicine, and specifically on different kinds of regeneration. We’re still working our way through modern mad medical [...]
Posted in Science and Technology | No Comments »
I am dragging the Professor out of the archives to headline a series of link posts I’m going to be doing about medical “we live in science fiction now” stories (and maybe some medical “mad science”) pieces as well. I’ve been gathering these stories for quite some time–each one alone is a bit shocking or [...]
Posted in Science and Technology | 1 Comment »
It’s weird–or maybe not so weird, really–but reading certain news items my reactions are almost entirely filtered through my years of training as a science fiction reader. Sometimes I read the story and suddenly see all kinds of comparisons between some real world event and things I’ve read–either direct connections, or analogies. Sometimes I read [...]
Posted in Food and Drink, Science and Technology | 1 Comment »
You may recall that I was pretty seriously geeked a while back by the implications of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.
Well, they’ve taken a new image, using infrared light this time, which lets them see even deeper.
There is information, images, videos, and more about the newly release survey at the Hubble site.
Posted in Science and Technology | No Comments »
You know the punchline: “I don’t make the rules, I just enjoy them.” I pull this out every now and then when Dr. Wife points out to me some way in which our society is constructed to make things better for men, while giving women the less pleasant end of the stick.
I’m sure I’ll get [...]
Posted in Science and Technology | 2 Comments »
Watch this. Just watch it.
Posted in Science and Technology | 4 Comments »
If I had been moving back to the KW area at the end of September, rather than the end of November, I certainly would have been hitting some of the events at the Quantum To Cosmos conference. I hope some of my pals in the area are planning to check it out.
I’ll be able [...]
Posted in Books, Science and Technology | No Comments »
What you’re looking at there is an attempt to visualize the results (so far) of a workshop run last year in Stockholm that attempted to define the boundaries of a “safe operating space” in which the ecosystem of the planet can operate without veering towards catastrophe.
The 28 scientists worked out nine categories that they were [...]
Posted in General, Science and Technology | 1 Comment »
I am grown man of 36 years, and yet when I see a story entitled Cosmic-Ray Concentrations Highest in Half a Century all that comes into my head is a debate about whether it would be cooler to be stretchy or to be able to fly around and shoot fire. I was broken by my childhood.
(0 Comments)
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