Steve

I now no longer remember how I stumbled upon this, but here it is; the first part of a series of YouTube clips showing the entirety of the landmark 1978 TV series Connections, the show that broke the concept of the interrelatedness of scientific and technological discoveries to the public in spectacular fashion. The show holds up fairly well even today, though the inevitable Seventies "we're all gonna die" meme does crop up now and again.

You should be able to link through the entire series with the "related video" links, or you can find them on on the host's profile page. Well worth watching, and I'm sorely tempted to shell out the $150 for the DVD set this low-res hosting is intended to promote.

-- Steve did get a chill down his spine when he realised that the entire first segment discussing the vulnerability of technological society to disruption was filmed in the courtyard, elevators, and observation deck of 1 World Trade Centre.

A little video called "Fun Theory", that has a great deal to do with Jane's theory on using ludology to solve real-world problems like getting folks to use the stairs instead of queuing for the escalator.

-- Steve found it fascinating. And a hoot to watch.

From various sources about the Interwebs, the news comes that water is, well, plentiful isn't the right word, present and extractable from the Lunar soil. Estimates say there's about 1 litre per metric ton of regolith, so the Moon is far from being "wet"; indeed, it's vastly drier than even the heart of the Sahara Desert here on Earth. But the presence of hydroxyl ions bound in the soil means that water will be much less of a concern for Lunar exploration, settlement, and industry that previously thought.

-- Steve'll also note that the word is not yet in on whether the Moon has ice present in the shadows of deep polar craters... so the Moon may even be "wetter" than the above.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/08/10/tweeteor-shower/

Tomorrow night is the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower. If you can, find a dark spot and take in the show; it's very pretty.

-- Steve's pretty sure he'll miss it, as he's still in Montreal and there are too many lights on at night here.

This post would be more cogent, maybe even themed, but last night the trees had surprise-sex with my face and so I'm a tad groggy. Part of the reason I'm posting this is to jump-start my stalled-out wits in a very dead office... it's hard to focus on monthly paperwork when you're half-way to shuffling around with outstretched arms and moaning "braaaaains...."

Thanks to Ozy and Ubersaurus I picked up Red Dawn and the first season set for Babylon 5 out of the bargain bin over the weekend. I've watched the first two discs of B5 and will probably devour the third tonight after work. (Haven't touched the Wolverines yet... I'm saving that for next weekend, when I can have ample beer and popcorn to-hand.) I'm pondering doing an episodic review of the series after I get the nostalgia out of my system; I was a huge fan of the series in first-run, when I could get it, and rather active in its Usenet fandom at the time until catastrophic job loss made it impossible. I will say that the cleaned-up audio in the DVD set is nice but the sound design seems a tad dated now, and that computer graphics and set design have come a long way in the past fifteen years... I seem to be less critical of the actors now than I was back then, too. But more later, when I can put my critic hat on and leave my fan hat aside.

James Nicoll was pondering if there was a term for "idea that strikes in the shower", and I too would be interested... physics wonks please speak up about this "i.t.s.i.t.s."; is there a way to tell the difference between "dark matter in our universe" and "gravitational attraction due to gravitons coming from other branes?" The whole concept of dark matter post-dates my unsuccessful delve into astrophysics and seriously croggles me. (Please keep mathematics down to brain-damaged hamster level; what little numeracy I had back then has atrophied horrifically in the intervening decades.)

I wonder when spring will truly arrive here? The weather's been so weirdly cool for the season, I'm still wearing my leather jacket to handle evening chills when in other years I've retired it to the back of the closet for at least a month at this point.

Well, break's almost over. Back to the telephone mines.

-- Steve's marginally more alert than before, but maybe some more OJ would be handy.

Tool use by corvids is old news, but now they've been observed making tools. Well, in the lab anyway... but the ability is there, so likely the behaviour is there too and we just haven't seen it in the wild yet.

-- Steve'd better keep potential lockpicking materials off his balcony, or the ravens in the woodlot'll be raiding his fridge some day.

Discovery is at T-00:09:00 and holding on its scheduled hold, looks to be launching ten or eleven minutes after I post this. If your local cable company doesn't cover the launch, NASA is streaming a live feed:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Enjoy!

-- Steve's hoping for a picture-perfect launch.

I’ll fix your feet til you can’t walk
I’ll lock your jaw til you can’t talk
I’ll close your eyes so you can’t see
This very hour, come and go with me
I’m death I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold
To draw up the flesh off of the frame
Dirt and worm both have a claim

The above lyrics come from a song about tetanus. It doesn't have the same resonance as it once did, because we can vaccinate against it... well, maybe, if we can convince people not to panic and throw out two hundred years of medical advancements over a foolish panic.

The linked article is by Jim Macdonald, and it is a lengthy one discussing many of the diseases which once claimed children in the millions. I can say "once" because we now vaccinate for all of them. I can't say "never again", alas.

-- Steve encourages people to read this article, and the comments below, to see what that quack Wakefield has put at risk; and why running this quack out on a rail is discouraged only because it is too petty to be a satisfying vengeance for the children his quackery emperils.

seen via matociquala

Before I forget, here's a quick post honouring Charles Darwin's bicentennial birthday. A bit more than fifty years later, he revolutionised (some say, created) the science of biology with his astonishing insights into how modern species came to be as they are in his landmark book, The Origin of Species.

My hat is doffed, sir.

-- Steve's trying to imagine that many candles on a cake.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-serious-need-for-play&print=true

Scientific American covers a study started over 40 years ago into the importance of play in child development... and notes that a common factor among convicted murders is a combination of parental abuse and the lack (or prevention) of unstructured play in childhood. At a guess, the lack of such role playing hinders development of empathy or the ability to recognise alternate perspectives... confining the imagination's growth to a narrower, more selfish channel. It also probably limits exposure to social cues and cuts out practice of other social roles.

Stuff that in your pipes and smoke it, ya Jack Chick wannabes.

-- Steve's certainly glad he had the chance to explore his mental vistas.

-- Steve'd do it in a heartbeat if there was the slightest hope of success.

I just finished reading an article linked by HBO's news page. It discusses some of the planetary science and physics implicit in the Halo video game series. Interesting stuff.

-- Steve called the brown dwarf conclusion three years ago, though (much to his chagrin) he blew the scaling.