Christopher McKitterick's Blog, page 44

Cosmo-Porn of the Day: Scale of the Universe

The clearest and most cleverly designed look at scale - from the smallest to the largest - that I've ever seen. It's also great technical communication: clear, interesting, novel, unique, useful... you name it. Click the image and check out Cary and Michael Huang's "Interactive Scale of the Universe Tool" (takes just a few seconds to load on a high-speed connection):


Click the image to see the website.

It's interesting that the site's creators speculate that the universe is many times larger than the observable universe. I also love watching the scale of things explode as we fall in and in and in toward the smallest structures.

Cool beans!
Chris

How will Humankind will meet its end? And a poll!

I'm in the midst of planning for my spring "Science, Technology, & Society: Examining the Future Through a Science Fiction Lens" course, and was researching a bit for interesting material. Here's some of what I found.

Are you the very model of a singularitarian?



Speaking of transcendental or catastrophic change, this book on Armageddon Science looks interesting. Here's an interesting interview with the author, discussing various end-of-humankind scenarios.

View Poll: End of the world!
Later: How do we avoid such scenarios?

In related news, have you seen the Google Ngram Viewer? Interesting tool for seeing word usage in the books that Google has scanned. Note how "natural philosophy" reaches peak usage in the early 1800s, while "fuck" saw its peak usage from the late 1600s to the early 1700s, appearing almost not at all from the early 1800s through the 1960 or so. "Extinction" doesn't see much regular use until the late 1700s, becoming more popular ever since. What can we learn from these trends? Just sayin'.

Singularitarianly yours,
Chris

Astro-Porn of the Day: Partial Lunar Eclipse Tonight!

Don't forget! If you live somewhere that isn't clouded over - or if the clouds clear up later tonight - be sure to watch the total lunar eclipse! Everyone in North America will be able to watch the totality.


Click the image to see the APOD story and larger versions of these photos by Jerry Lodriguss.

Times:
Start:
1:33am Eastern
12:33am Central
10:33pm Pacific

End:
2:41am Eastern
1:41am Central
11:41pm Pacific

Lasts for 72 minutes. Here's the photo from above with text overlays showing where to look in the sky:


Click the image to see the APOD story and larger versions of these photos by Jerry Lodriguss.

NASA says, "If you're planning to dash out for only one quick look -­ it is December, after all -­ choose this moment: 03:17 am EST (17 minutes past midnight PST). That's when the Moon will be in deepest shadow, displaying the most fantastic shades of coppery red."

Enjoy!
Chris

bye-bye military segregation

...and with that an archaic, hateful law is off our books!

‎"Don't ask, don't tell" is repealed in historic vote.

Soldiers discharged due to the rule (18,000 since Clinton) can now re-join the military. Eight Republicans even voted for dropping it. The times, they are a-changin'.

Chris

Astro-Porn of the Day: Global Solar Storm

This awesome movie taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows an entire hemisphere of the Sun erupting. Magnetic filaments snapped and exploded as shock waves raced across the stellar surface and billion-ton clouds of hot plasma billowed into space. This event shattered astronomers' ideas about solar activity.

"The August 1st event really opened our eyes," says Karel Schrijver. "We see... solar storms... playing out on scales we scarcely imagined before."


Click to play the Solar Dynamics Observatory's extreme ultraviolet movie of the global solar eruption. Different colors represent different plasma temperatures in the range 1.0 to 2.2 million Kelvin.

Dig it. Hooray for the Sun heading back toward peak activity!
Chris

Astro-Porn of the Day: Geminid meteor shower!

Tomorrow night (Dec. 13 - 14) is the peak of the Geminids, the most intense meteor shower of the year. It's already begun (people in very dark areas see as many as 30 meteors/hour tonight), is rich in fireballs (those huge, fiery, lasting streaks), and is visible from almost anywhere on Earth. Here's a sample of a fireball from last year's show:


Click the image to see NASA's page on the Geminids.

One fascinating fact about the Geminids is that it's not made up of dust particles from a spewing comet like other showers but instead comes from the Earth's atmosphere tearing through the rocky debris-trail of a Sun-grazing asteroid that whips around the Sun and back out to the Asteroid Belt every 1.4 years. So not only is it dramatic to watch, it's mysterious to consider. Blasted asteroid? Huge core of a former comet? Interstellar-war relic?

Monday night (US time), people watching from dark places could see as many as 120 meteors/hour! The best time to look is between midnight (your time) and sunrise on Tuesday, Dec. 14 (that'd be late Monday night), when the Moon is setting and the constellation Gemini rises overhead.

Enjoy!
Chris

Paleo eating & exercise for the win!

Just finished my mid-day workout and thought I'd drop in to LJ for a moment before resuming grading.

Haven't done a health post in a while, so a quick update:

Off sugar and corn syrup since April (with a slip during the CSSF Writers Workshops).
Eating mostly paleo since then, too, more as time goes on, but not strictly. That is, once a week, I'll have a slice of pizza or such, just no refined sugar.
For example, today for breakfast I had broccoli soup (thanks to chernobylred ) with sasuage and cheese, and a glass of half-water, quarter each of apple cider and orange juice - oh, and a banana; for lunch a custom concoction of chorizo, spinach, chicken, and almonds with spicy cheese. Also a half-cup of kefir for digestive health. Dinner will likely be a big salad out with the guys, and if we're out late, possibly a slice of pizza. Other meals include fish, lots of veggies, nuts, and so forth.
Down to 168 pounds (from a high last winter of 195, and an all-time high of well over 200 [wasn't weighing back then], eek).
Today I did my first full-on, go-until-failure workout (rather than maintenance exercise) in weeks and found I haven't lost strength despite being buried in work. Even added a couple of new movements to my routine. Hurray!
Musculature shows better than in my last photos (and starting to get some ab definition!). (I'll post pics again next time, in the middle of grading now.) Apparently I had fat on my arms and shoulders, too. Huh.
Overall: Feeling much healthier, with fewer blood-sugar drops, more stamina, no joint pain (except the shoulder, natch) and all-around more vim and vigor.
Downsides:
Had to get rid of MOST of my long-sleeved shirts, and probably ought to ditch the old short-sleeves, too.
Ditto old pants. Which fit like clown pants. (Sorry, weaselmom , The Pants had to go; I was swimming in them.)
An aside: I know what you're thinking: "Boo hoo, you lost weight and had to buy new clothes." Well, still, it's something to weigh (ar ar): cost of new clothes vs. cost of lots of crap food, health problems, self-esteem, and so forth.
Can't eat any pre-packaged food.
Most fancy receptions have nothing to eat that isn't half sugar.
If I were really strict, almost nothing in a restaurant would fit my diet.
Anyone else out there eating differently and seeing positive results? Got a new exercise routine?

Maybe not yet, but you're feeling like shedding poundage, looking better, and feeling healthier? Well, if I can give up sugar, anyone can! Just ask any of my long-time friends and you'll likely hear that I was the worst chocoholic around and used to suffer all kinds of sore joints and blood-sugar instability. However, like any addiction, it's a habit that anyone with a little willpower (and support) can kick. It just took me two weeks of staying off sugar to lose my taste for the stuff.

Geez, I'm starting to sound like an infomercial. Anyhow: Paleo and exercise FTW!

Chris

Library Journal review and How to Save the World.

A couple of posts I made over the weekend that I don't want you to miss!

How to Save the World, with a great video from Jeremy Rifkin and an essay by me about empathy and how we must exercise our empathy or lose our humanity. It's the most important thing I can write about.

Library Journal wrote a review of Transcendence - a very nice one!

Now back to grading.

Best,
Chris

Google eBookseller: Don't be evil.

Today, the Google eBookstore makes its bow. They're working with 9000 publishers big and small, and they let publishers choose the price - starting at $9.99/book.

Here's a good analysis of what Google's up to.

They use a cloud-computing model, so you don't need to store your books on your device. Their books will run on every e-device except the Kindle, which I find interesting: Is this Amazon fighting Google or Google trying to crush Amazon?

Google comes into bookselling with a few huge advantages: They own massive mountains of data about everyone who uses the internet, and they have been scanning and sharing books for years now in a way that looks very much like piracy, but they have the money to successfully fight legal challenges. So they own massive mountains of ebooks ready to give you for free. Clearly they've been preparing for this for years, despite their denials during the legal challenges to their book-scanning efforts.

The NPR commentator this morning says that ebooks will be 85% of all book sales in 10 years. Google wants a piece of that pie!

Chris

Library Journal review!

My editor, ericreynolds , just tipped me off to Library Journal's review of my novel, Transcendence . They really seem to get what I was doing, and end with this nice recommendation:

VERDICT: Readers who enjoyed the cyberpunk feel of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash as well as the cosmic fiction of James Blish's Cities in Flight should welcome the author's full-length SF debut.

Woohoo!

They also gave a nice review to another Hadley Rille Books author, Terri-Lynne DeFino ( bogwitch64 ), for her book Finder . Nice day for HRB!

Now I'm heading out to celebrate with some friends at Henry's!

Best,
Chris