Durham Township Orchard
Kathleen Connally’s picture of an orchard in the springtime is particularly lovely now that we finally have some blossoming spring buds of our own here in Minnesota.
Kathleen Connally’s picture of an orchard in the springtime is particularly lovely now that we finally have some blossoming spring buds of our own here in Minnesota.
Kottke wrote a bit about the Pioneer probes this morning, and it got me reading about them elsewhere. A cursory introduction: the Pioneer space probes 10 and 11 are among the furthest man-made objects from Earth. They both exceeded their missions by spectacular degrees (staying in radio contact far longer than anticipated) and returned extraordinary amounts of information about our solar system in the process. For example, there is Pioneer 10, which was launched in 1972. And then, over 30 years later:
The last, very weak signal from Pioneer 10 was received on January 23, 2003, when it was 7.5 billion miles (12 billion kilometres) from Earth.
Traveling at the speed of light, that signal took over 11 hours to reach earth. What I thought was particularly neat was the decision to attach plaques about humans and Earth on these deep space probes. The idea is that, against spectacular odds, perhaps something will find these probes one day, and decipher what we have engraved on these plaques.
Check out the reactions to the Pioneer plaque, though:
According to astronomer Frank Drake, there were many negative reactions to the plaque due to the fact that the human beings were displayed naked. The Chicago Sun-Times retouched its image to hide the genitals of the man and woman. The Los Angeles Times received “angry letters” from readers that accused NASA of wasting taxpayer money to send “obscenities” into space.
Let that sink in for a moment.
I don’t want to come off as elitist here, but if that little quote isn’t a testament to limitless human stupidity, I don’t know what is. I mean, we’re talking about potential communication with extra terrestrial beings — there’s a good chance that this plaque will be the last remnant of human kind, still flying through space, when the Earth itself is gone. And we’ve got people complaining that humans are shown naked.
I’m feeling a bit pessimistic about humanity this morning.
This American Life tackles the sub-prime housing market. I’ve read economists writing about this crisis… and it’s rather difficult to understand. I mean, all this talk of AAA overrated paper, etc. — I got a vague idea of the topic, but I wanted something more. Soo, I read a glowing recommendation of This American Life’s coverage of the topic. A quick summary:
What does the housing crisis have to do with the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money.
I hope to give this one a listen soon.
There’s something about this video of panda babies that makes the little ones look animatronic or something. Don’t get me wrong, they’re astoundingly cute, but they look like youngsters in suits or something. It could be that their movements resemble toddlers so much that it looks odd.
There’s more information and tons of pictures here, including this:
Human pregnancies can be revealed by ultrasound, the telltale expanded belly, and home-pregnancy tests, but panda pregnancies are highly difficult to detect. None of these work for pandas. They won’t generally sit still for ultrasounds, their babies are born too small — the size of a stick of butter — to create any noticeable belly, and their pregnancy hormones remain a mystery.
And yes, you might want this picture of handlers corralling about seven baby pandas on your desktop.
In this lovely classic Sesame Street video, Kermit sings about how to tell if something is alive. The song is great and the concept is rather timeless, but I implore you to watch and see what the Sesame Street version of a cow looks like. For some reason I think it’s hilarious.
It’s a sad weekend at the movies when we’ve got the formulaic What Happens in Vegas (40 at Metacritic) and what is apparently the really shiny turd of Speed Racer (36 at Metacritic)… and not much else. I wouldn’t condemn either of these films before seeing them, but things are not looking up. For those looking to see a good film, here are some I’ve been hoping to catch (all on limited release):
Persepolis is the poignant story of a young girl in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It is through the eyes of the precocious and outspoken 9-year-old Marjane that we see a people’s hopes dashed as fundamentalists take power—forcing the veil on women and imprisoning thousands. Clever and fearless, Marjane outsmarts the “social guardians” and discovers punk, ABBA, and Iron Maiden. Yet when her uncle is senselessly executed and as bombs fall around Tehran in the Iran/Iraq war, the daily fear that permeates life in Iran is palpable.
The Savages is an irreverent look at family, love and mortality as seen through the lens of one of modern life’s most bewildering and challenging experiences: when adult siblings find themselves plucked from their everyday, self-centered lives to care for an estranged elderly parent.
In China, it is simply known as ‘The River.’ But the Yangtze—and all of the life that surrounds it—is undergoing an astonishing transformation wrought by the largest hydroelectric project in history, the Three Gorges Dam. Chinese-Canadian director Yung Chang returns to the gorgeous, now-disappearing landscape of his grandfather’s youth to trace the surreal life of a “farewell cruise” that traverses the gargantuan waterway.
Plus, there are some wide release movies on the horizon that could be good…
For $8, the Super Soaker Bottle Shot by Hasbro is one of the neatest toys I’ve seen in a while.
The Super Soaker Bottle Shot is a pump-action water blaster that allows you to choose how much ammo you want. Nearly any standard water or soft drink bottle attaches with a twist to the blaster!
If I purchase one of these, I’ll be sure to review it here at tumbledry, your summer fun source. Incidentally, during the summer of 2006 Dan and I picked up the Super Soaker Max Infusion, a gun which can shoot in one of two ways. You get the standard water stream, which is respectably thick. But then you get the truly ridiculous “Flash Flood” option which, at short range, absolutely drenches your opponent. I’ve still got mine, I’ll have to pull it out. I still remember the first time I tried the Flash Flood feature; I aimed the gun at the shower stall in Selby Hall (I was living there for the summer doing chemistry research… free housing woo!), and I pulled the lever. ABSOLUTE SOAKAGE. I mean the entire back wall of the shower was covered in water. Whoever thought of this feature was brilliant.
Anyhow, I can highly recommend the Max Infusion (oh glorious Flash Flood), and we’ll see about this Bottle Shot model.
Neo: “I can publish content to the internet.”
Morpheus: “Show me.”
This video of an insanely detailed replica of R2-D2 dancing with little kids makes me happy to be able to spread the joy of things like this over the internet. If you’d like to know more about this amazing remote-controlled R2, check out Chris James’ website, artoo-detoo.net.
In what is probably my favorite news story this year, we learn about The world’s first bionic sea creature: Winter. Early in life, this wild dolphin was injured in a crab trap and found floating with no tail. She healed up in captivity, but was in need of a prosthetic. So, after over a year of prosthetic fitting and work to restore functionality, she got a new tail!
In the creative parlance of headlines, here’s what I’ve come up with: Tursiops truncatus Treated to Technologically Terrific Tegumental Tail.
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