It’s probably not good for my intellectual well-being, but I subscribe to a couple of right-wing mailing lists just to keep track. Sometimes it’s difficult, like this weekend’s “Worldview Weekend” news. If you’re not familiar with them they’re conservative, “fundamentalist” Christian organization run by a guy who is a strict Biblical literalist, especially the parts about how awesome capitalism is.
The United Astronomy Clubs of New Jersey have an incredible, commanding view that stretches about as far as any I’ve seen in the state.
“I showed it to a male colleague, and his response was, ‘Nothing’s changed in 40,000 years.’” –University of Tübingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard
Tomorrow is the 200th birthday of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. If you stretch it out to last week you can add Felix Mendelssohn. The three of them within a week and a half. Does that strike you as a lot of “household name” people to be born in such a short period of time?
“good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you – all of you on the good Earth.” — Frank Borman aboard Apollo 8, December 24, 1968
I’d never heard of him before — few had, he had only been identified by his initials to protect his privacy — but his obituary made the front page of Friday’s paper.
Get yourself out this evening about an hour before sunset and look to the southwest horizon for a wonderful conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and a new crescent Moon. We spotted an early version of this (before the moon was in position) and thought they were a couple of airplanes, they were so bright.
This is outrageously cool.
The HST took this visible-light photo of an extrasolar planet — the first ever — orbiting the star Fomalhaut.
3 a.m. found me lying on my back on a tennis court, watching the northern sky for the Perseids meteor shower. We saw a handful, and it was good. But it’s also why I’m not writing a longer post.
And why not? When my kids were old enough to collect plush toys they learned the names of all the Beanie Babies. And what’s that going to do for them when they work on their PhD in physics at Berkeley? Nowhere, that’s where.
Here’s an amazing gallery of photos of the volcano during a thunderstorm. 
Cosmic Variance talks about Influence, and what grad students can do to best position themselves for future success. But this blog post, while on the surface about physics PhD candidates and post-docs, strikes me in the same way as “The Inner Game Of Tennis,” in which you can easily play out the metaphor to whatever [...]
+surrounding+the+star+Fomalhaut+and+the+planet+(inset)+that+orbits+the+star+every+872+years+and+sculpts+the+inner+edge+of+the+belt.+Credit%3A+Paul+Kalas%2FUC+Berkeley%3B+STScI){kind=link}
Recent Comments
On If this is Friday, then my Comcast internet connection must be down (6)
On CubeCart Sucks (4)
On Why Getting Rid of the Filibuster is a Bad Idea (1)
On Too Late (1)
On The Great Swamp, Winter (2)
On The Future of the Health Care Bill (1)