I love backyard astronomy. Ever since I got my first telescope -- a rather unwieldy 15" Dobsonian-mounted monster that's taller than me, but delivers absolutely spectacular views of deep sky objects -- I've loved to take a star chart, the red flashlight, and head out into a dark location to see what's up.
I have the Petersen's guide, the Rough Guide to the Universe , H.A. Rey's really wonderful The Stars: A New Way to See Them, and a few virtual planetariums that I use to plan an evening's viewing, like Stellarium and KStars.
While I rarely drag the huge telescope out of the garage any more (it's just too big to really be practical) I frequently take a blanket out back, a pair of binoculars, and play "find that Messier object."
If you're into this sort of thing like I am, you may be as excited as I was to read about a Free ebook offered for download called What's Up?
If you like the weekly “What’s Up this Week” column in Universe Today, you’ll love this. The entire viewing schedule for 2007 is available as a free, 410+ downloadable ebook. You can download the whole book, turn to the page for tonight’s suggestions - print off the page and head outside.
It's 24MB, and it's in .pdf format, so you can easily print it out or view it in a variety of readers. It offers different celestial destinations and observations for every night, along with historical and scientific information about the stars and planets, but it's much, much more than just a guide. It's beautifully written (Look at January 3rd, for an example) and educates as it challenges the reader. If you're looking to get your kids excited about astronomy, review a day's entry, then take them out that night and tell them, as they look at the Full Wolf Moon:
In Europe it was referred to as the Moon after Yule and 387 years ago on this night, Galileo Galilei changed the face of astronomy when he observed it. Pointing his newly developed telescope at our nearest celestial neighbor, his observation of mountains and craters on the surface opened the world’s eyes to what lay just beyond the range of human sight. Said Galileo, “It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the Moon."
As you can probably tell, I love astronomy, I love history, and I love science, so it was only natural that I'd love this book, and I'm delighted that the author is offering it for free. If you're the type of person who likes to support this sort of thing, you can also buy a copy of the book in dead tree format for $25.
Clear skies, everyone!
Yakety Sax + A Christmas Story = Comedy Gold.
I honestly think there are just 10 kinds of people in the world: those who crack up at the yakety sax, and those who don't. I know it's silly (and maybe even a little stupid) but it just kills me every single time.
(via TotalFark)
Congrats - TIME Magazine voted you "Person of the Year"! What's your acceptance speech?
"This is a transparent attempt at linkbaiting, and it would be offensive if it wasn't so laughable. There are a lot of people around the world this year who made significant differences in people's lives, in ways that are way more important than putting a bunch of stupid shit on the Internets (and I say that as a person who currently makes his living putting a bunch of hopefully-not-stupid shit on the Internets.)
"This is yet another example of Old Media trying so hard to be hip and cool and relevant to New Media that it fails to to what it's always done so well.
"This award is bullshit. I don't deserve it, 'YOU' don't deserve it, and TIME Magazine should be ashamed for wasting their 'Person of the Year' on such a painfully obvious publicity attempt."
Oh, and I give this speech while dressed like Jim Morrison.
My poker evening:
- Win a SNG.
- Take a nice profit out of a cash game while waiting for another SNG to fill up.
- Win that SNG.
- Feeling pretty good about poker skills, sit into another limit cash game.
- Proceed to run into cooler after cooler, and two suckouts, one of them a three outer.
- Lose winnings from both SNGs.
- End evening stuck.
- Punch self in junk.
Just when I thought I couldn't loathe George Bush any more, he goes and surprises me.
The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments.
A preliminary staff review released by the EPA this week acknowledged the possibility of dropping the health standards for lead air pollution. The agency says revoking those standards might be justified "given the significantly changed circumstances since lead was listed in 1976" as an air pollutant.
The EPA says concentrations of lead in the air have dropped more than 90 percent in the past 2 1/2 decades.
Hey, stupids? The fucking lead in the air has been reduced because the EPA took lead out of gasoline!
What the hell is wrong with these idiots? Do they want to poison people and destroy the planet? I mean, is making more fucking money really that important to them? The billions the goddamn industry has raked in under Bush and Cheney isn't enough for them?
Hey, how about approving DDT for crops again, guys! I hear that DDT on vegetables has dropped 100% since it was banned for fucking killing things. Surely it's time to bring it back, right?
God, I hate these people.
I have a new TNG episode review up at TV Squad today. This time, I did Justice:
After dropping some human colonists off in the Strnad solar system, the Enterprise notices a rather nice Class M planet in the nearby Rubicun system, called Rubicun III. Picard sends an away team down to the surface to find out if it's a good place for some shore leave, and they return with some very good news: it's clean, it's beautiful, it's populated with friendly humanoids . . . and they really like to do the nasty.
"At the drop of a hat," according to Geordi.
"Any hat," Tasha says, knowingly.
Picard sends a second, larger team down to the planet to see exactly how many hats they're going to need. Because every responsible Starfleet parent would want to send their children down to the galaxy's longest running planetary orgy, he orders Wesley Crusher to see if the planet is a good place for kids to hang out.
After beaming down to the planet, the away team quickly learn three important facts:
The Edo's leaders jog up and meet the away team, greeting them in the traditional Edo manner: lingering glances and inappropriately long hugs. Troi says, "I'm sensing a lot of boners, Commander."
- The planet's inhabitants, called the Edo, like to jog everywhere.
- They are all beautiful blond models, possibly descended from some sort of Maxim/FHM breeding program in the late 22nd century.
- The entire planet is clothed in about 6 yards of fabric.
I
was really surprised with this episode, which wasn't as horrible as I
thought it was. It has its share of problems -- which I discuss at TV
Squad -- but it was entertaining, and one of the more well-paced shows
we did toward the beginning, especially when you compare it to The Last Outpost or Lonely Among Us.
Show us a fortune from a fortune cookie.
Submitted by AdamB.
I couldn't sleep last night, and since I don't own TiVo, and there was no Futurama on, I ended up skipping around the thousands of channels that never seem to have anything on them I really want to see.
I stopped at Open Water, something I've always wondered about, primarily wondering, "Hey, could they actually make a movie -- inspired by a tragic true story, no less -- about to people floating out in the open ocean, and keep it interesting and compelling?"
I came into the movie about 30 minutes late (thank god) and I can answer with a definitive NO.
The actors do their best with a one-note script, and though they behave the way I think real people would in that situation, the story is just too thin and boring to be worth your time. So, to save you all the pain of wondering where the last 90 minutes of your life (which actually felt more like 8 hours) went, here is a shorter Open Water:
Man - Hey, let's go diving.
Lady - Okay.
L - Oh shit, the boat left without us. Maybe we should swim to that other boat.
M - No, let's drift and let someone find us.
L - Okay. How about we swim to that boat?
M - No, let's drift and let someone find us.
L - Okay. How about that other boat?
M - No, let's drift and let someone find us.
L&M - AH! SHARK!
L&M - Let's talk about stuff.
L&M - AH! SHARK!
L&M - Let's talk some more.
L - Ouch! Jellyfish!
L&M - Let's argue.
L&M - AH SHARK!
L&M - Let's argue some more.
L - AH! SHARK BIT ME!
M - Let's talk.
L - AH! THE SHARK CAME BACK!
M - Okay, there's a buoy. Let's hope the current takes us there.
L (and audience) - Shouldn't we swim there?
M - Nah, let's just hope the current takes us -- AH! SHARK! IT BIT ME AGAIN AND IT REALLY HURTS!
M - Okay, I'm going to die now.
L - Don't die!
M - No, I really think I'm going to die.
L - Dude, don't die!
M - Too late. I'm going to die.
L - Are you dead? Well, I guess I'm a little upset about that, but not too much. I'm going to cut you loose, and let myself sink to the bottom now.
THE END. HA! HA! FUCK YOU STUPID AUDIENCE! WE GOT YOUR MONEY!!!1 -xo, Lion's Gate Films.
Think of this as an early holiday gift from me to you: I just saved you either eight bucks, a slot in your Netflix queue, or at least 90 minutes of your life that you could spend punching yourself in the junk.
Warren Ellis says the thing he hates the most about Thanksgiving:
Is that everyone sends around that goddamn William Burroughs Thanksgiving prayer that everyone else has all seen a million fucking times.
Why can’t you people just pass smallpox-infected blankets among yourselves for Thanksgiving, as your ancestors intended?
I've always wondered where Warren Ellis ends and Spider Jerusalem begins. When he writes things like this, it does nothing to clear up the mystery.
