Random Science Crap in my Tabs

Phil Plait has a cool animated gif of Io passing in front of Ganymede, taken by an amateur astronomer. The title of the post is a Star Trek: Next Generation reference, one that actually made me chuckle. Plus, Phil makes a great defense of science at the end:

In my line of work (y’know, truth promotion) I hear from people who think science is all guesswork. “Yeah, but how do you know?” they ask. The answer is: math. And physics. And chemistry and optics and engineering and Kepler and Newton and Einstein. We know because we test our assumptions, and if they don’t hold up they’re gone. We keep the good stuff, the stuff that’s proven itself. And eventually we get models that are so good they can predict when and where two objects hundreds of millions of kilometers away pass in front of each other.

Greg Laden’s covering this latest batch of tornado activity and ties it in with global warming and the fact that science ignorance is exploitable by the cynical and profit-motivated.

The Baby Boomers are apparently still getting high, though the Obama Administration is not considering legalization of marijuana as a potential revenue source / reduction of justice system overhead. That’s sad. No options should be taken off the table in this economic crisis, not the least of which being one in which an entire class of people become criminals for smoking the wrong leaf. Or having the wrong kind of sex, for that matter.

It’s well known (among people who know me in meatspace anyway) that I have no navigational skills whatsoever. At least I’m not alone. Strangely, I can navigate perfectly well when there’s a mini-map on the screen in video games, but when I’m in real life, even with a GPS Nav system of some sort, I still get a little panicky when I don’t know where I am or where I’m going. My father was always the same way. Vacation car trips were always tense.

And for the geeks out there, here’s a walkthrough on how to build your own Apple 1 replica. My only issue with this is that it uses a pre-printed circuit board and has all the chips and connectors in a kit. That’s not nearly “from scratch” like the article claims. Then again, “to make an apple pie from scratch, you have to first create the universe”, so… yeah.

I think it’s about time I make an official Random Crap in my Tabs category!

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Random Science Crap in my Tabs
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5 thoughts on “Random Science Crap in my Tabs

  1. 1

    Not a fan of football, but Greek mythology reference FTW. 🙂

    If you’d like, you can absolutely syndicate my linking posts. I guarantee you that it’ll happen more than just once a week though. I have far too many tabs open constantly, and this is my way of recording that I’ve read them for posterity even if I can’t put together a cogent post of my own on the topic.

    (I’d use my History for that, but I have my Firefox set up to auto-clear cookies, cache and history on close. I only carry my tab session from one launch to the next. This is a work laptop, y’see.)

  2. 2

    I was trying to figure out what to do about Fridays. I have had some featues in the past, such as Friday Atheist, Friday 419, etc. I kind of got bored with them after a while and the 419’s I get are all looking the same.

    Since you do the great blogospheric stuff so frequently (and having read this articles myself and highly recommend them all) I am considering doing the lazy thing and making a “Friday Jason and the Argo-Links” post. I’m not making any assumptions on your favorite CFL team, I just like the pun.

  3. 4

    can’t…resist…geekbait…..

    From scratch = requiring skills that one either already has (or must develop in the course of the work), and entails risk of damage to the project, the participant(s), and nearby property, if not done properly.

    Can’t get much “scratchier” than a kit from parts + PCB without needing a whole bunch of expensive equipment – once you need a PCB and IC fab, you might as well create the universe (and maybe get it right this time).

  4. 5

    Haha, true enough, though you’re certainly not getting The Full Woz Experience. Nor do I advocate someone actually put together a walkthrough on how to build an Apple I the way that he did… I mean, damn. The man is a wizard.

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