Month: August 2007
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Jupiterday Diatribe: Pluto is Still a Planet (Still)
Somehow in all the incredibly complex hubbub of getting this blog set up (ie. figuring out how to post), I completely missed the fact that August 24th was the one-year anniversary of that infamous day when a bunch of dimbulbs at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided to demote Pluto to non-planet status with an…
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Marsday Speculation: “the world being run by a futuristic computer geek”
So in case you haven’t heard yet, according to Dr. Nick Bostrom at Oxford University, chances are pretty good that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation. The professor puts our chances of living in a simulation at 20 percent, based on his gut feeling. I agree with the journalist, John Tierney, when he…
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Moonday Afternoon Adventuring Google Space
Google Earth: I can see my house from up here. It was a tremendous relief when Elizabeth City finally got scanned into Google Earth. Having this application installed on the Science Center’s computers, it was disheartening to zoom in on the center and find the satellite view blurry and indistinct. Even without Elizabeth City in…
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Science Fiction VS Fantasy
The ISS photographedfrom shuttle Discovery in 2006 Science Fiction kicks Fantasy’s ass. That’s the conclusion of this excruciatingly long, flippant, and ostentatious article. So if you are already aware of this fact, you can skip all that follows. If you are one of those elf-ear-wearing, sword-collecting, trilogy-reading, dipsy-doodle fantasy fanatics then please keep reading. As…