Archive for January, 2008
Planetary convergence in my eyeballs
Posted by Grg in Science/Geek on Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Not that I’m skeptical of the NASA article on the topic, but they take an interesting tack on explaining why it is so neat that Jupiter and Venus will converge: because our eyes evolved to take notice.
From the article:
It’s worth the effort because Venus and Jupiter will be less than 1o apart, like twin headlights piercing the rosy glow of sunrise. It’s a beautiful scene. In fact, you may not be able to take your eyes off of it. Venus and Jupiter are literally spellbinding.
There is a physiological basis for this phenomenon. When two planets appear so close together, they grab an extra share of your brain’s attention. Consider the following:
“Your eye is like a digital camera,” explains Dr. Stuart Hiroyasu, O.D., of Bishop, California. “There’s a lens in front to focus the light, and a photo-array behind the lens to capture the image. The photo-array in your eye is called the retina. It’s made of rods and cones, the fleshy organic equivalent of electronic pixels.”
Near the center of the retina lies the fovea, a patch of tissue 1.5 millimeters wide where cones are extra-densely packed. “Whatever you see with the fovea, you see in high-definition,” he says. The fovea is critical to reading, driving, watching television. The fovea has the brain’s attention.
The field of view of the fovea is only about five degrees wide. On Friday morning, Venus and Jupiter will fit together inside that narrow angle, signaling to the brain, “this is worth watching!”
Interesting. Does it really make something more visually compelling, or is the NASA flack who wrote this article just reaching a bit? I dunno, just asking.
According to Wikipedia, the fovea…
…is less than 1% of the retina but takes up over 50% of the visual cortex in the brain. The fovea sees only the central two degrees of the visual field, which is roughly equivalent to twice the width of your thumbnail at arm’s length.
Curiously, since the fovea lacks rods, it can’t really make out dim objects, which is why you can only make out some stars by looking out of the side of your eye. Weird.
The Uninformed Critic Presents: Battle of The MST3K Stars
Posted by Grg in General stuff, Grg's Reference, Rant/Rave, Uninformed Critic on Tuesday, January 29, 2008
RiffTrax vs. Cinematic Titanic…Mike vs. Joel…
RiffTrax
Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett
Audio tracks to be played while viewing DVDs
Advantage: New and dying-to-be-mocked films, Fred Willard, a library of over 50 flicks (including the Star Wars Christmas Special) and the completely necessary battle of the state quarters.
Cinematic Titanic
Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, J. Elvis Weinstein , Mary Jo Pehl and Frank Conniff
MST3K-style DVD of bad Movie
Advantage: J. Elvis frickin’ Weinstein, visual gags
Winner (without actually sampling product): RiffTrax is strong, with 50 shows for easy download. However, if Cinematic Titanic can produce more than one video, they are the hands-down winners.
Since our home DVD player is also our home CD player, I cannot listen to any of the RiffTrax without expending effort (that’s haaard…waaah…and don’t get me started about watching on my computer). Then again, if Cinematic Titanic doesn’t appear on Netflix, there’s little chance I’ll see it anytime soon.
Take Home Message: Why can’t Mike and Joel just get along?
Note to Nelson: Write another novel. I loved Death Rat.
LEGO obsession
Posted by Grg in General stuff on Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Anyway, yesterday was officially the 50th anniversary of LEGOs. I didn’t mention anything because I hate piling on with me-tos. I was going to link to a good roundup from a site I’ve been ogling for the past two weeks, Brothers-Brick.com, but their last week’s worth of posts just disappeared. Instead, I’ll link to this Gizmodo post on the best LEGO sets in history.
This recent Christmas, my daughter received her first DUPLO blocks. She’s a bit unclear on the concept…after building pixel-y representations of most of Yo Gabba Gabba’s cast, she refused to allow anyone to make anything else of the blocks. We’ll have to get more.
I do have visions of a creating a basement LEGOland for the Julia and her soon-to-be-named brother. I’ll work the space monorail.
Test
Posted by Grg in General stuff on Tuesday, January 29, 2008
From this guy, I hope he doesn’t mind
He went Boom!
You can listen to some of Boom, from Ceann’s latest CD, Rave, Rant, Lose Pants, here!
The lighter side of mass murder.
Mwwwwhahahahahahahah…
Posted by Grg in Dumb thoughts, Science/Geek on Friday, January 25, 2008
For good old-fashioned mad science, nothing beats creating life.
Ok, the Venter Institute didn’t create a new bacteria, it is the “second step” on their way to creating a bacterium with synthetic DNA. Of course, the press release/Science Daily article is a little fuzzy on the “first step” and my eyes began to hurt after a while…
Venter and his crew didn’t entirely synthesize their own bacteria, but they are reproducing the smallest known bacteria, m. genitalium Their version will be called m. laboratorium. It would be unfair to say that they’re building a better venereal disease, but that’s the headline you’ll see when they’re done.
They’re not actually building a bacteria from scratch, either, but “merely” synthesizing an existing genome. The idea, I’d gather, is that if you can do that, then you can start fiddling with the genome to get the engineered bacteria to do what you want.
I like the idea of growing bacteria as colonies of little factories to produce biofuels or suck CO2 out of the air. Has Crichton written the book where man-made bacteria go out of control? I’ve lost track.
Ceci n’est pas un canard
Posted by Grg in General stuff on Friday, January 25, 2008
Space Policy is a Harsh Mistress
Posted by Grg in Dumb thoughts, Grg's Reference, Science/Geek on Thursday, January 24, 2008
“Having a U.S. presence on the moon at least gives us the chance to keep an eye on the standard of conduct,” Walker says. “And that’s pretty damned important.” In military terms, the moon can be seen as the ultimate high ground. A nation could set up hard-to-defeat microwave or laser weapons platforms aimed at in-orbit satellites or, in the best sci-fi tradition, to launch large rocks at the Earth with “mass drivers.” (These were the weapon of choice for Robert Heinlein’s revolutionary protagonists in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.)
Not that we should see China’s ambitions as a threat necessarily, but it might be good just keep a close watch for sake of stability.
Also, I want my LEGO-style moonbase. We all have our priorities.
A quick thought about Sciencedaily.com
Posted by Grg in General stuff on Tuesday, January 22, 2008