Christopher McKitterick's Blog, page 41
February 10, 2011
RIP USA PATRIOT Act! (or not...)
Did you know that the US Congress quietly let the USA PATRIOT Act expire last night?
Click the image to see the full description of the USA PATRIOT Act.
Freedom, it is on the spread across the whole world right now!
Now is when we dance.
Chris
Click the image to see the full description of the USA PATRIOT Act.
Freedom, it is on the spread across the whole world right now!
Now is when we dance.
Chris
No, colder than that.
That Weather.com forecast I posted last night? Well, they got the windchill forecast right at -18°F but were way off on pre-windchill temps: Between 2am and 6am, actual temperatures hovered at -12°F here in Lawrence, KS.
How in the frozen hells did the native tribes and especially early pioneers survive the winters here, thousands of miles from stores where they might purchase Duraflame™ logs to warm their sod huts?
Oh, yeah, they often didn't.
BRRR,
Chris
How in the frozen hells did the native tribes and especially early pioneers survive the winters here, thousands of miles from stores where they might purchase Duraflame™ logs to warm their sod huts?
Oh, yeah, they often didn't.
BRRR,
Chris
February 9, 2011
You want cold? I gotcher cold right here.
Like NEGATIVE-BAZILLION degrees cold, is what!
Click the image to see the Lawrence, KS, forecast courtesy of Weather.com.
(That's in Fahrenheit, folks.)
I was wondering why the furnace kept running and running tonight. Now I know. I'm not happier possessing this knowledge. In weather like this, don't forget to open your under-sink cupboard doors to ensure that the pipes don't freeze. Same goes for any pipes near outer walls: Expose 'em to inside air! This morning, my walk-in attic (where I store extra wine and soda-pop) was 32°F, and the very edge of the attic (where the roofline meets the front-porch ceiling) was just over 20°F. Yes, I have one of those nifty laser temperature sensors, why do you ask?
Brrrr. Going to bed now.
Chris
Click the image to see the Lawrence, KS, forecast courtesy of Weather.com.
(That's in Fahrenheit, folks.)
I was wondering why the furnace kept running and running tonight. Now I know. I'm not happier possessing this knowledge. In weather like this, don't forget to open your under-sink cupboard doors to ensure that the pipes don't freeze. Same goes for any pipes near outer walls: Expose 'em to inside air! This morning, my walk-in attic (where I store extra wine and soda-pop) was 32°F, and the very edge of the attic (where the roofline meets the front-porch ceiling) was just over 20°F. Yes, I have one of those nifty laser temperature sensors, why do you ask?
Brrrr. Going to bed now.
Chris
Astro-Porn of the Day: Zeta Ophiuchi, Destroyer of Peaceful Dust Lanes.
This NASA photo shows Zeta Ophiuchi, a star astronomers used to think was a red giant, blasting through the galactic dust-lanes:
Click the image to see the NASA source site.
I can't say it any better than this: "Astronomers theorize that this stellar juggernaut was likely once part of a binary star system with an even more massive partner. It's believed that when the partner exploded as a supernova, blasting away most of its mass, Zeta Ophiuchi was suddenly freed from its partner's pull and shot away like a bullet moving 24 kilometers per second (54,000 miles per hour). Zeta Ophiuchi is about 20 times more massive and 65,000 times more luminous than the sun. If it weren't surrounded by so much dust, it would be one of the brightest stars in the sky and appear blue to the eye. Like all stars with this kind of extreme mass and power, it subscribes to the 'live fast, die young' motto. It's already about halfway through its very short 8-million-year lifespan. In comparison, the sun is roughly halfway through its 10-billion-year lifespan. While the sun will eventually become a quiet white dwarf, Zeta Ophiuchi, like its ex-partner, will ultimately die in a massive explosion called a supernova.
"Perhaps the most interesting features in this image are related to the interstellar gas and dust that surrounds Zeta Ophiuchi. Off to the sides of the image and in the background are relatively calm clouds of dust, appearing green and wispy, slightly reminiscent of the northern lights. Near Zeta Ophiuchi, these clouds look quite different. The cloud in all directions around the star is brighter and redder, because the extreme amounts of ultraviolet radiation emitted by the star are heating the cloud, causing it to glow more brightly in the infrared than usual.
"Even more striking, however, is the bright yellow curved feature directly above Zeta Ophiuchi. This is a magnificent example of a bow shock. In this image, the runaway star is flying from the lower right towards the upper left. As it does so, its very powerful stellar wind is pushing the gas and dust out of its way (the stellar wind extends far beyond the visible portion of the star, creating an invisible 'bubble' all around it). And directly in front of the star's path the wind is compressing the gas together so much that it is glowing extremely brightly (in the infrared), creating a bow shock. It is akin to the effect you might see when a boat pushes a wave in front it as it moves through the water. This feature is completely hidden in visible light. Infrared images like this one from WISE shed an entirely new light on the region."
It's for discoveries like this that I bought my first computer with a video card, and why I paid extra for (at the time) high-speed internet. I mean, damn! Astronomers could only dream of images like this just a decade or two ago, and now we can all enjoy them.
Chris
Click the image to see the NASA source site.
I can't say it any better than this: "Astronomers theorize that this stellar juggernaut was likely once part of a binary star system with an even more massive partner. It's believed that when the partner exploded as a supernova, blasting away most of its mass, Zeta Ophiuchi was suddenly freed from its partner's pull and shot away like a bullet moving 24 kilometers per second (54,000 miles per hour). Zeta Ophiuchi is about 20 times more massive and 65,000 times more luminous than the sun. If it weren't surrounded by so much dust, it would be one of the brightest stars in the sky and appear blue to the eye. Like all stars with this kind of extreme mass and power, it subscribes to the 'live fast, die young' motto. It's already about halfway through its very short 8-million-year lifespan. In comparison, the sun is roughly halfway through its 10-billion-year lifespan. While the sun will eventually become a quiet white dwarf, Zeta Ophiuchi, like its ex-partner, will ultimately die in a massive explosion called a supernova.
"Perhaps the most interesting features in this image are related to the interstellar gas and dust that surrounds Zeta Ophiuchi. Off to the sides of the image and in the background are relatively calm clouds of dust, appearing green and wispy, slightly reminiscent of the northern lights. Near Zeta Ophiuchi, these clouds look quite different. The cloud in all directions around the star is brighter and redder, because the extreme amounts of ultraviolet radiation emitted by the star are heating the cloud, causing it to glow more brightly in the infrared than usual.
"Even more striking, however, is the bright yellow curved feature directly above Zeta Ophiuchi. This is a magnificent example of a bow shock. In this image, the runaway star is flying from the lower right towards the upper left. As it does so, its very powerful stellar wind is pushing the gas and dust out of its way (the stellar wind extends far beyond the visible portion of the star, creating an invisible 'bubble' all around it). And directly in front of the star's path the wind is compressing the gas together so much that it is glowing extremely brightly (in the infrared), creating a bow shock. It is akin to the effect you might see when a boat pushes a wave in front it as it moves through the water. This feature is completely hidden in visible light. Infrared images like this one from WISE shed an entirely new light on the region."
It's for discoveries like this that I bought my first computer with a video card, and why I paid extra for (at the time) high-speed internet. I mean, damn! Astronomers could only dream of images like this just a decade or two ago, and now we can all enjoy them.
Chris
February 8, 2011
Happy Birthday, Jules Verne!
Today is Jules Verne's birthday. If this master of
voyages extraordinaires
were still alive, he'd be 183 years old.
Google honors him thus:
Click the image to go play with Google's Nautilus toy.
Check it out; it's a bunch of fun to explore the depths in a virtual Nautilus.
Chris
Google honors him thus:
Click the image to go play with Google's Nautilus toy.
Check it out; it's a bunch of fun to explore the depths in a virtual Nautilus.
Chris
February 7, 2011
Astro-Porn of the Day: Online Orrery
I have always been fascinated with orreries, those mechanical models of the Solar System (and sometimes beyond). My first personal experience with one was the Grand Orrery housed at Harvard's Museum of the History of Science. I had slipped off during a lull in my step-brother's graduation activities years ago. This beauty was built by Joseph Pope with castings by Paul Revere:
Click the image to see the Museum's description.
Click the image to see the Museum's description.
Pope, a Boston clockmaker, started work in 1776 and finished in 1787. Here's a view of its gearwork with the covers removed. The planets visible include Mars, Venus, Saturn, and the Earth and Moon (the Sun and Mercury have been removed, and Pope had already been building it for years when Neptune was discovered, so he left it out entirely):
Click the image to see the Museum's description.
But you no longer need to be wealthy enough to buy one of these priceless objects nor do you need to talented enough to spend 12 years building one. Here's a screenshot of a really cool and useful orrery that's accessible to everyone online, free!
Click the image to go to the the online orrery application.
Okay, it's not gorgeous brass and wood driven by a hand-crank, but it's far more accurate and accessible. Enjoy!
Best,
Chris
Click the image to see the Museum's description.
Click the image to see the Museum's description.
Pope, a Boston clockmaker, started work in 1776 and finished in 1787. Here's a view of its gearwork with the covers removed. The planets visible include Mars, Venus, Saturn, and the Earth and Moon (the Sun and Mercury have been removed, and Pope had already been building it for years when Neptune was discovered, so he left it out entirely):
Click the image to see the Museum's description.
But you no longer need to be wealthy enough to buy one of these priceless objects nor do you need to talented enough to spend 12 years building one. Here's a screenshot of a really cool and useful orrery that's accessible to everyone online, free!
Click the image to go to the the online orrery application.
Okay, it's not gorgeous brass and wood driven by a hand-crank, but it's far more accurate and accessible. Enjoy!
Best,
Chris
February 3, 2011
Astro-Porn of the Day: Kepler discovers more than 1200 planets! Many like Earth!
NASA's Kepler mission has now discovered more than 1200 Earthlike planets. Of those, Kepler scientists have confirmed many Earth-size planets, including those in the habitable zone, where liquid water can exist on a planet's surface.
Kepler is surveying 100,000 stars in our neighborhood of the Milky Way Galaxy (in the Cygnus and Lyra constellations) in to discover Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone. Most of these stars will be somewhere between 500 and 3,000 light years from the Solar System.
Click the image to see more about Kepler's discoveries.
One discovery was six confirmed planets orbiting a Sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our Solar System.
"In one generation we have gone from extraterrestrial planets being a mainstay of science fiction, to the present, where Kepler has helped turn science fiction into today's reality," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "These discoveries underscore the importance of NASA's science missions, which consistently increase understanding of our place in the cosmos."
The discoveries are part of hundreds of new planet candidates identified in new Kepler mission science data, released yesterday. The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to date to 1,235. Of these, 68 are approximately Earth-size, 288 are super-Earth-size, 662 are Neptune-size, 165 are Jupiter-size, and 19 are larger than Jupiter. Of the 54 new planet confirmed candidates found in the habitable zone, 5 are Earth-sized. The remaining 49 habitable zone candidates range from twice the size of Earth to larger than Jupiter.
Click the image to see more about the Sea Strider on the exoplanet Darwin IV, by Wayne Barlow.
The findings are based on the results of observations conducted May 12 to Sept. 17, 2009, of more than 156,000 stars in Kepler's field of view, which covers approximately 1/400 of the sky.
"The fact that we've found so many planet candidates in such a tiny fraction of the sky suggests there are countless planets orbiting sun-like stars in our galaxy," said William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., the mission's science principal investigator. "We went from zero to 68 Earth-sized planet candidates and zero to 54 candidates in the habitable zone, some of which could have moons with liquid water."
So, basically, what we can glean from this is that:
Planets are common in our part of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Earth-like planets are not uncommon.
Many Earth-like planets in our region orbit their stars in the habitable zone.
ZOMG! ALIENZ ARE EVERYWHEREZ!
Ahem. Anyway, exciting stuff!
Chris
Kepler is surveying 100,000 stars in our neighborhood of the Milky Way Galaxy (in the Cygnus and Lyra constellations) in to discover Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone. Most of these stars will be somewhere between 500 and 3,000 light years from the Solar System.
Click the image to see more about Kepler's discoveries.
One discovery was six confirmed planets orbiting a Sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our Solar System.
"In one generation we have gone from extraterrestrial planets being a mainstay of science fiction, to the present, where Kepler has helped turn science fiction into today's reality," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "These discoveries underscore the importance of NASA's science missions, which consistently increase understanding of our place in the cosmos."
The discoveries are part of hundreds of new planet candidates identified in new Kepler mission science data, released yesterday. The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to date to 1,235. Of these, 68 are approximately Earth-size, 288 are super-Earth-size, 662 are Neptune-size, 165 are Jupiter-size, and 19 are larger than Jupiter. Of the 54 new planet confirmed candidates found in the habitable zone, 5 are Earth-sized. The remaining 49 habitable zone candidates range from twice the size of Earth to larger than Jupiter.
Click the image to see more about the Sea Strider on the exoplanet Darwin IV, by Wayne Barlow.
The findings are based on the results of observations conducted May 12 to Sept. 17, 2009, of more than 156,000 stars in Kepler's field of view, which covers approximately 1/400 of the sky.
"The fact that we've found so many planet candidates in such a tiny fraction of the sky suggests there are countless planets orbiting sun-like stars in our galaxy," said William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., the mission's science principal investigator. "We went from zero to 68 Earth-sized planet candidates and zero to 54 candidates in the habitable zone, some of which could have moons with liquid water."
So, basically, what we can glean from this is that:
Planets are common in our part of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Earth-like planets are not uncommon.
Many Earth-like planets in our region orbit their stars in the habitable zone.
ZOMG! ALIENZ ARE EVERYWHEREZ!
Ahem. Anyway, exciting stuff!
Chris
Maru and the Boxes.
Just in time for Superbowl weekend:
Maru must choose between boxes!
On the surface, this appears to be yet another cute-cat video superimposed upon a gaming metaphor. However, when we dig a little deeper, we see that this brilliant and incisive piece lampoons the choices we must make at every stage in life, about every aspect: Do you choose the plain-looking but comfortable box or the pretty but impractical box? Ultimately, we must choose a box, and by deliberately not choosing a box, we are still living a life defined by boxes.
Or it might just be about a cute cat choosing between boxes.
Chris
Maru must choose between boxes!
On the surface, this appears to be yet another cute-cat video superimposed upon a gaming metaphor. However, when we dig a little deeper, we see that this brilliant and incisive piece lampoons the choices we must make at every stage in life, about every aspect: Do you choose the plain-looking but comfortable box or the pretty but impractical box? Ultimately, we must choose a box, and by deliberately not choosing a box, we are still living a life defined by boxes.
Or it might just be about a cute cat choosing between boxes.
Chris
February 1, 2011
Snow Miser!
The University of Kansas is closed tomorrow. I'm caught up with grading. Snow is drifting up around the house. And I'm fully stocked with movies, music, games, and booze. This is the PERFECT time for a party, but no one could make it over here safely.
DAMN YOU MR. SNOW MISER!
This was brought to you by Trips to GenX Childhoods™ . To see more memories from my youth, please visit YouTube.
Thank you, and enjoy.
Chris
DAMN YOU MR. SNOW MISER!
This was brought to you by Trips to GenX Childhoods™ . To see more memories from my youth, please visit YouTube.
Thank you, and enjoy.
Chris
Astro-Porn of the Day: Snowpocalypse 2011!
If you've been listening to the news, you know that meteorologists are barely able to contain themselves over the glory of the storm currently pummeling most of the US. Here's what it looks like from space:
Click the image to see the WIRED story.
Meteorologists predict that the storm will bury snowfall records across the Midwest. In the East, it's expected to deliver ice storms that could cause $1 billion in damage. It's the latest in a string of storms fitting a pattern predicted by climate scientists. As the world warms up, the air can hold more moisture, loading storm systems with more water that's ultimately dumped back onto the Earth.
Yes, global warming = more dramatic winter weather! It's a wild, wild world. And exciting! SNOWPOCALYPSE FOR ALL!
Chris
Click the image to see the WIRED story.
Meteorologists predict that the storm will bury snowfall records across the Midwest. In the East, it's expected to deliver ice storms that could cause $1 billion in damage. It's the latest in a string of storms fitting a pattern predicted by climate scientists. As the world warms up, the air can hold more moisture, loading storm systems with more water that's ultimately dumped back onto the Earth.
Yes, global warming = more dramatic winter weather! It's a wild, wild world. And exciting! SNOWPOCALYPSE FOR ALL!
Chris
Christopher McKitterick's Blog
This is my long-lived LiveJournal blog (http://mckitterick.livejournal.com), but if you really want to stay in touch, check out my Tumblr and Facebook pages.
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