M. Thomas Apple's Blog, page 48
March 16, 2020
March 15, 2020
Just in time for COVID-19 self-isolation and quarantine: A whole lot of online books for (15th to 19th century) kids
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Includes such favorites as “pyke notte thyne errys nothyr thy nostrellys” and “spette not ovyr thy tabylle.”
Oh, and there’s some stuff by Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, i.e., Alice in Wonderland) and Axel Scheffler (The Gruffalo), among many others.
March 14, 2020
I Only Wanted to See You Under the Iron Rain…
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Wasp-76b, as it’s known, orbits so close in to its host star, its dayside temperatures exceed 2,400C – hot enough to vaporise metals.
Hmm….this reminds me of…let me think for a minute…wait, I got it…
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Yeah, that’s the one. I think.
(Seriously, check it out. Not even the Jedi could possibly handle an actual “inferno” planet.)
March 9, 2020
Max von Sydow, Legend
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Another classic actor, gone.
I still remember my favorite line, from The Greatest Story Ever Told:
“Don’t vory, Mary.”
Ah, classic Swedish Jesus.
And the scifi-fantasy list…
Flash Gordon
Conan the Barbarian
Dune
Minority Report
Game of Thrones
What’s your favorite Max von Sydow movie/TV series?
March 8, 2020
Nasa’s 2020 rover: Can we finally answer the big question about Mars?
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“So, let’s bring the samples back. So if those extraordinary claims are made, they can be verified.”
One likely extraterrestrial form of life might resemble a terrestrial form: the stromatolite.
They basically look like big rocks. I visited one site in Western Australia in 2003 with a group of Japanese students who were told by a local guide that the stromatolites were “3.5 billion years old.” (They’re not, but they do look like what life might have looked like at that point.”
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So NASA is sending another rover to see if they can find evidence of a similar life form.
Sorry. No Slurm (yet?).
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— Read on www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-51544476
March 1, 2020
Read Adams’ Stepsons for FREE until March 7
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Stuck at home all week (or month?) dealing with world-wide panic from a cold virus?
Stock up on discounted and/or free ebooks at Smashwords!
Why not start with Adams’ Stepsons – for FREE??
Destiny in the Future is also HALF OFF until March 7th (all proceeds donated to the American Cancer Society)
February 28, 2020
Five reasons why NASA is sending a Dragonfly to Titan
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It’s the only moon in the solar system with a thick atmosphere.
This atmosphere is more similar to Earth’s (especially ancient Earth’s) than any other atmosphere in the solar system.
Chemistry, baby. Microbes, maybe.
Labs take too long. Experiments on Titan would be short.
The terrain is pretty wild.
Check out the link below for more detailed explanations and a neat video.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1184/why-is-nasa-sending-dragonfly-to-titan-here-are-five-reasons/
February 27, 2020
New mini-moon! — well, at least until we kick it out of orbit
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He added that the mini-moon appears to have been orbiting our planet since it was first captured by Earth’s gravity three years ago. Early observations also suggest it is small enough to fit in just about any garage or shed, with an estimated diameter between 2 and 3.5 meters (about 6 – 11 feet).
The photo obviously doesn’t match the actual size of this “mini-moon” but you get the idea.
There was another one a few years ago, by the way. It stayed a few months and then got booted out of orbit.
February 18, 2020
The Eagle has landed. Um. Again. Sort of.
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‘As far as audio recordings, we previously had only 48 minutes of off-air audio of the BBC coverage from another source. Now thanks to you we have over eight hours!’
It’s been 50 years since The Eagle landed. There are plenty of existing video and audio recordings from US media sources (like this one on YouTube, clocking in at over 3 hours).
It’s been considerably less time since news recordings of Apollo 11 from *outside* the US were discovered. Just over half a year. Audio only. Bummer. But at least you get a different perspective (always a good thing when it comes to news).
Check it out (and download it, if you like), thanks to Steve Hurley at explainingscience.org/2020/02/17/british-coverage-of-apollo-11/
February 15, 2020
Jules Verne – most translated science fantasy writer ever?
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When I was a kid, I devoured books by Jules Verne, in the Classics Illustrated series vocabulary- and grammar-controlled for younger readers.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Voyage to the Center of the Earth
From the Earth to the Moon
Around the World in Eighty Days
Until I was in college, I didn’t even know that he wrote them in French.
Until a few days ago, I didn’t know they were part of a 54-volume set, complete with 4,000 hand-drawn illustrations that are now available online for free.
How’s that for enduring literary influence?
Check out the link below for more details…
http://www.openculture.com/2020/02/jules-vernes-voyages-extraordinaires.html
