Christopher McKitterick's Blog, page 43

Venus highest in the sky this coming morning!

Oh, dang, I've been negligent! Tomorrow (Saturday) morning, just before sunrise, Venus will be at its greatest elongation from the Sun until next year. She stands 47° from the Sun - way up in the sky, with Mercury only about 10° lower! She's absolutely the brightest object, so you won't miss it if you look east about 1/2 hour before sunrise. Heck, you can still see Venus even in the lightening dawn, but she's much more dramatic standing in a black sky. Here's where to look:


Click the image to see the Astronomy Magazine article.

And Mercury is at its highest, too, a day later.

When it's dark out and there are no streetlights, Venus can cast a shadow. She rises well before dawn, so you might see Venus-shadows over the next few days or weeks.

Interestingly, Venus isn't brightest at full phase but at crescent when it's 25% illuminated and 75% in shadow. This time-lapse shot over the course of a year provides a good visual:


Click the image to see more of Dave Eagle's astrophotos.

After today, she'll grow fuller but also move farther away, growing dimmer. Even so, Venus is usually the brightest celestial object besides the Sun and Moon.

Enjoy!
Chris

a quick break from writing

Click the image to see Cracked's Image Macro thread.

That is all. I now return you to your regularly scheduled work. Unless you go visit Cracked's Image Macro thread, of course. Then you're doomed.

Chris

Astro-Porn of the Day: In the Shadow of the Moon

Have you ever seen a solar eclipse? I bet you've never seen one from this perspective!


Click the image to see the APOD page.

This photo shows an eclipsed Earth, taken by the Mir 27 crew on August 11, 1999 - the last eclipse Mir cosmonauts ever got to see, since the station was de-orbited (crashed into the atmopshere) in 2001. The recent lunar eclipse made this photo even more spectacular to consider.

Speaking of shadows and the Moon, have you seen In the Shadow of the Moon ? It's a great documentary and (to use the producer's language) "an intimate epic, which vividly communicates the daring and the danger, the pride and the passion, of this extraordinary era in American history." One of my favorite films ever. If listening to the Apollo astronauts tell their tales while watching amazing footage of the Moon up close, you must see this show. Handily, it's all up on YouTube now! Here's part 1 (of 10):



It's pretty low-res, but you can also buy the DVD and the Blu-Ray disks if you want to watch it in high quality. Considering ordering it myself now that I'm thinking about it....

Oh, and more space-stuff: I was up before 8:00am today (physical therapy, Round Two) and saw an incredibly bright light in the sky. Venus is up! If you're awake before sunrise (and that doesn't mean too-stupid-early this time of year), look into the east. Venus is the object you can't miss. Check it out!

Best,
Chris

Rodent brilliance.

You've probably heard about rats and other rodents being clever. Well, here's your proof.

First up, watch as Clever Hamster runs through a seriously challenging maze (thanks, jeanineers !). The dramatic musical score really makes this one:



Now, behold! The world's smartest mouse displays incredible navigational aptitude:



Best,
Chris

Happy New Year!

I hope your 2011 is full of joy and love and discovery. Also monkeys.

Chris

Happy car!

My lovely 1994 Saab 900S convertible...



...has needed a bunch of TLC this year. In the spring, I had a local shop give it a head job - necessary because it blew a head gasket on the way home from teaching in Kansas City. They messed up a few things that I had to deal with (loose coolant hoses, misrouted cables, misaligned hood, etc.), and I fixed those after the CSSF summer program wound down. When cold weather arrived this fall, I decided to takle a few poor-running issues, because the cold weather exacerbated them. Heck, the computer dropped the engine into "limp-home mode," so it wouldn't drive above 20mph. Also the stink of raw gasoline - though sexy in some circumstances - was getting to me.

First up was replacing the oxygen sensor, which (the shop told me) was why the CHECK ENGINE light was always lit. I ordered a universal replacement unit via eBay, saving more than a hundred smackeroos. Splicing it into the wiring harness and snaking it into place was not nearly as challenging as removing the old one, which required backing the Saab up my driveway, placing ramps in front of the front wheels, then driving onto said ramps simply to be able to get enough leverage beneath the thing. (Note to my friends who win the lottery: Golly-gee, but I would LOVE a car lift.) Long story short: Giving a wrench a few dozen whacks with a hammer will loosen even the most-stubborn bolt.

After grafting the new part into place, I reconnected the battery and started the car. The unhappy CHECK ENGINE light came back on shortly after restart, indicating yet another issue. Oh, and it still ran for crap. Back to the drawing board. A little research in the shop manual suggested that the mass-airflow sensor could be the culprit. A test with a multimeter proved little, but suggested an issue. My friend Matt monkeyed with the unit while I started and revved the engine per the manual's instructions, and indeed it displayed all signs of being dead. The internets told me that the Saab unit costs about $500. Ahem. So I returned to the golden fields known as eBayland and discovered a used version of said part for about $40. A week or two later, and viola! The engine ran correctly, and in its quietitude the CHECK ENGINE light concurred! Victory!

Next up: the difficult-to-pin-down fuel leak under the Saab's hood. As I type, I just got inside from dealing with this. Pretty straightforward: The fuel-return line (between fuel regulator and fuel rail) was all cracked and leaky. Installed a new length of fuel line and the gas leak is gone - no more worries about spontaneously bursting into flame while driving. Woohoo! Also made several other tweaks and adjustments underhood.

Next issue: Figure out how to get the remote-lock working again. I removed the alarm horn when the remote stopped working, so at least I can unlock the car without everyone thinking I'm stealing the thing, but I need to track down this tedious little gremlin.

But before I deal with that, I'm getting the hot rod Newport up and running! I finally got the pushrod-length measuring tool necessary to find out what parts I need to assemble the valvetrain. When the custom pushrods arrive, it's all just reassembly (he says, optimistically). Then: Zoom!

Chris

Writing progress!

Last night I was up crazy-late. Know why? Because I wrote 4000 words on my young-adult science fiction series! Not only figured out how to get there from here re: a number of plot-holes in Book One, but also realized what Book Two and Book Three are all about and even wrote up their general plot structures! Woohoo!

I credit my "Aha!" moment to The Phantom Tollbooth , by Norton Juster. Thanks, chernobylred , for reading it to me! What a wonderful and lovely book. The revelation arose from thinking a lot about a couple of plot-forms, the quest and coming-of-age story, and suddenly I understood how they work. Also going through my mind as I was listening and thinking about the meta-story was The Lord of the Rings and the original Star Wars movies. Like every other spec-fic writer, of course I've been pondering for years about what makes LotR so great, analyzing the story and characters and so forth; same for Star Wars, among other things. But The Phantom Tollbooth was the key that unlocked the door to understanding this story form. Woohoo!

Those of you who've helped me brainstorm (or just patiently listened to me talk about) this book will be pleased to know that I not only found a love interest for the female protagonist, but he's also 100% biological human yet still every bit as interesting as the hybrid brother and sister heroes. And he's necessary to the story, helping them learn how to disappear and survive on their own while on the run. I'm so excited about this project! Hope to have three sample chapters complete by the end of winter break here at KU.

Oh, yeah, turned in grades on Monday, which is why I'm able to focus on writing like this ;-)

PS: I really need to come up with a decent working title for this. My Dad was an Alien doesn't really work, and YASF Series lacks a certain je ne se qua. Hm....

Best,
Chris

Twitter usability question

Do you use Twitter? I'd like to know why. Seriously - I'm not being a smart-ass!

I mean, I check in every week or two to read Conan O'Brien's posts, see what the Onion has to say, and so forth, but even after years of being on the service, I have yet to uncover its utility as a communication tool.

For example, I could see it being useful if users got emails notifying us that someone responded to a post (or @ed at me), but as-is, the only way to have meaningful conversation on Twitter is to leave it on constantly and not "follow" very many people. Also, there's no threading, so how does someone know a conversation is going on unless they're following everyone who's a part of every conversation? And how does one figure out WTF is going on when visiting, say, a friend's Twitter page and seeing a bunch of random @thises and @thats?

Facebook feels like it actually does what Twitter was intended to do, in that you make short comments or post photos or links and people can respond to them right there in context. Took me a while to find FB's utility and warm to it, but now I see how it's a very handy tool - especially in how it simplifies communication to many and enables users to do things that would be challenging if they don't know HTML and don't want to mess around with technical stuff. On the other hand, FB limits posts to 420 characters, so posts are by definition not very complex - and Twitter only allows 120. Barely enough to write a complete sentence.

So Twitter consists of a cacophony of lonely little shouts - tweets, as from a bird sitting on a telephone wire hoping to get someone's attention, hoping usually in vain to find someone to sit on the wire with them and tweet in unison at the uncaring world around them.

Am I missing something, or is Twitter just a site for people to peep randomly into the lonely and vast Webiverse?

Thanks,
Chris

Chupacabra!

Just in time for Christmas: Man kills rare cryptid and local news reports on it!
I dunno, if it's real, this story makes me sad. I mean, chupacabras are nearly extinct! Back when I was a boy, they were thick on the ground, gobbling up all the local fauna, but then the white man came and hunted them nearly to extinction. Now only kill-first-research-later rednecks enjoy the opportunity to witness the rare creature... before shooting it dead. *sigh*


Click the image to see more about this strange beast.
Chris

A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais

Here's an insightful and hilarious essay on faith, atheism, and being a good person from the award-winning British comedy star. A wonderful curative for the Christmas season (archived here to avoid annoying-as-hell animated flipping story thing while reading):

Ricky Gervais is the writer and star of HBO's "Ricky Gervais Out of England 2: The Stand-Up Special." To go to his website click here.

Why don't you believe in God? I get that question all the time. I always try to give a sensitive, reasoned answer. This is usually awkward, time consuming and pointless. People who believe in God don't need proof of his existence, and they certainly don't want evidence to the contrary. They are happy with their belief. They even say things like "it's true to me" and "it's faith." I still give my logical answer because I feel that not being honest would be patronizing and impolite. It is ironic therefore that "I don't believe in God because there is absolutely no scientific evidence for his existence and from what I've heard the very definition is a logical impossibility in this known universe," comes across as both patronizing and impolite.

[UPDATE: For more from Gervais, go to Does God Exist? Ricky Gervais Takes Your Questions.]

Arrogance is another accusation. Which seems particularly unfair. Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better or worse it finds things out. Science is humble. It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn't know. It bases its conclusions and beliefs on hard evidence -­ evidence that is constantly updated and upgraded. It doesn't get offended when new facts come along. It embraces the body of knowledge. It doesn't hold on to medieval practices because they are tradition. If it did, you wouldn't get a shot of penicillin, you'd pop a leach down your trousers and pray. Whatever you "believe," this is not as effective as medicine. Again you can say, "It works for me," but so do placebos. My point being, I'm saying God doesn't exist. I'm not saying faith doesn't exist. I know faith exists. I see it all the time. But believing in something doesn't make it true. Hoping that something is true doesn't make it true. The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn't. It's not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can't have your own facts.

[image error] Why don't I believe in God? No, no no, why do YOU believe in God? Surely the burden of proof is on the believer. You started all this. If I came up to you and said, "Why don't you believe I can fly?" You'd say, "Why would I?" I'd reply, "Because it's a matter of faith." If I then said, "Prove I can't fly. Prove I can't fly see, see, you can't prove it can you?" You'd probably either walk away, call security or throw me out of the window and shout, ''F—ing fly then you lunatic."

This, is of course a spirituality issue, religion is a different matter. As an atheist, I see nothing "wrong" in believing in a god. I don't think there is a god, but belief in him does no harm. If it helps you in any way, then that's fine with me. It's when belief starts infringing on other people's rights when it worries me. I would never deny your right to believe in a god. I would just rather you didn't kill people who believe in a different god, say. Or stone someone to death because your rulebook says their sexuality is immoral. It's strange that anyone who believes that an all-powerful all-knowing, omniscient power responsible for everything that happens, would also want to judge and punish people for what they are. From what I can gather, pretty much the worst type of person you can be is an atheist. The first four commandments hammer this point home. There is a god, I'm him, no one else is, you're not as good and don't forget it. (Don't murder anyone, doesn't get a mention till number 6.)

When confronted with anyone who holds my lack of religious faith in such contempt, I say, "It's the way God made me."

But what are atheists really being accused of?

The dictionary definition of God is "a supernatural creator and overseer of the universe." Included in this definition are all deities, goddesses and supernatural beings. Since the beginning of recorded history, which is defined by the invention of writing by the Sumerians around 6,000 years ago, historians have cataloged over 3700 supernatural beings, of which 2870 can be considered deities.

So next time someone tells me they believe in God, I'll say "Oh which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?..." If they say "Just God. I only believe in the one God," I'll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don't believe in 2870 gods, and they don't believe in 2869.

I used to believe in God. The Christian one that is.

I loved Jesus. He was my hero. More than pop stars. More than footballers. More than God. God was by definition omnipotent and perfect. Jesus was a man. He had to work at it. He had temptation but defeated sin. He had integrity and courage. But He was my hero because He was kind. And He was kind to everyone. He didn't bow to peer pressure or tyranny or cruelty. He didn't care who you were. He loved you. What a guy. I wanted to be just like Him.

One day when I was about 8 years old, I was drawing the crucifixion as part of my Bible studies homework. I loved art too. And nature. I loved how God made all the animals. They were also perfect. Unconditionally beautiful. It was an amazing world.

I lived in a very poor, working-class estate in an urban sprawl called Reading, about 40 miles west of London. My father was a laborer and my mother was a housewife. I was never ashamed of poverty. It was almost noble. Also, everyone I knew was in the same situation, and I had everything I needed. School was free. My clothes were cheap and always clean and ironed. And mum was always cooking. She was cooking the day I was drawing on the cross.

I was sitting at the kitchen table when my brother came home. He was 11 years older than me, so he would have been 19. He was as smart as anyone I knew, but he was too cheeky. He would answer back and get into trouble. I was a good boy. I went to church and believed in God -– what a relief for a working-class mother. You see, growing up where I did, mums didn't hope as high as their kids growing up to be doctors; they just hoped their kids didn't go to jail. So bring them up believing in God and they'll be good and law abiding. It's a perfect system. Well, nearly. 75 percent of Americans are God-­‐fearing Christians; 75 percent of prisoners are God-­‐fearing Christians. 10 percent of Americans are atheists; 0.2 percent of prisoners are atheists.

But anyway, there I was happily drawing my hero when my big brother Bob asked, "Why do you believe in God?" Just a simple question. But my mum panicked. "Bob," she said in a tone that I knew meant, "Shut up." Why was that a bad thing to ask? If there was a God and my faith was strong it didn't matter what people said.

Oh…hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions, and within an hour, I was an atheist.

Wow. No God. If mum had lied to me about God, had she also lied to me about Santa? Yes, of course, but who cares? The gifts kept coming. And so did the gifts of my new found atheism. The gifts of truth, science, nature. The real beauty of this world. I learned of evolution - a theory so simple that only England's greatest genius could have come up with it. Evolution of plants, animals and us - with imagination, free will, love, humor. I no longer needed a reason for my existence, just a reason to live. And imagination, free will, love, humor, fun, music, sports, beer and pizza are all good enough reasons for living.

But living an honest life - for that you need the truth. That's the other thing I learned that day, that the truth, however shocking or uncomfortable, in the end leads to liberation and dignity.

So what does the question "Why don't you believe in God?" really mean. I think when someone asks that they are really questioning their own belief. In a way they are asking "what makes you so special? "How come you weren't brainwashed with the rest of us?" "How dare you say I'm a fool and I'm not going to heaven, f— you!" Let's be honest, if one person believed in God he would be considered pretty strange. But because it's a very popular view it's accepted. And why is it such a popular view? That's obvious. It's an attractive proposition. Believe in me and live forever. Again if it was just a case of spirituality this would be fine.

"Do unto others..." is a good rule of thumb. I live by that. Forgiveness is probably the greatest virtue there is. But that's exactly what it is - a virtue. Not just a Christian virtue. No one owns being good. I'm good. I just don't believe I'll be rewarded for it in heaven. My reward is here and now. It's knowing that I try to do the right thing. That I lived a good life. And that's where spirituality really lost its way. When it became a stick to beat people with. "Do this or you'll burn in hell."

You won't burn in hell. But be nice anyway.

A lovely sentiment for this particular god's officially recognized holiday! Thanks, Ricky Gervais. You're awesome!

Here's wishing that Zeus, or whatever other god(s) you worship/ pray to/perform ritual sacrifices for/fear/love/whatever smile upon you/smite your enemies/provide you with magical powers/or so forth for this official 3-day weekend!

Full disclosure: I consider myself an Anti-Religionist Agnostic Deist who believes that the entire universe and everything within it - stars, planets, single-cell organisms, sentient beings - are "god," and that we all have a responsibility to seek to understand the greater thing we are all a part of, to do our best not to fuck it up, and to improve everything about it - including ourselves! - in every way we can.

Love,
Chris