|
30 June 2003 ::
|
Bye-bye empire, empire bye-bye
|
|
The new A Miracle of Science contains one metric ton of desperation.
permanent link
|
|
It ain't me, I ain't no senator's son...
These days, when a corporation or interest group wants support from a key member of Congress, it often hires a member of the lawmaker's family.An examination of lobbyist reports, financial disclosure forms, and dozens of other state and federal records reveals that at least 17 senators and 11 members of the House have family members who lobby or work as consultants on government relations, most in Washington and often for clients who rely on the related lawmakers' goodwill.
Perhaps the best-known example is Democratic Senate Leader Tom Daschle, whose wife, Linda, represents the aviation industry. She says she does not lobby the Senate. But her partners do, and her clients benefited from the airline bailout pushed by the Democratic leadership. In addition, Sen. Daschle's daughter-in-law, Jill Gimmel Daschle, registered as a federal lobbyist in May. She had planned to lobby the Senate but decided against it on Friday, an aide to the senator said.
Others include Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska, powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate's minority whip. Virtually every major interest group in their states pays lobbying, legal or consulting fees to their relatives or relatives' firms.
Read that last sentence again. Virtually every major interest group in their states pays lobbying, legal or consulting fees to their relatives or relatives' firms. That's statistically unlikely, unless of course these companies are deliberately hiring relatives in order to curry favor. While this may be legal, it is completely disgusting. I'd like to see it outlawed. Of course, I'm not in a position to outlaw it. (Until I sweep into the presidency on a wave of apathy, that is...)
permanent link
|
|
|
27 June 2003 ::
|
It's a poodle. Put it on delicate.
|
|
26 June 2003 ::
|
I want [an F-22] but I need to sell my F-18 first. Once 2004 factory incentives kick in, I am going to be one air dominant mofo.
|
|
25 June 2003 ::
|
And you don't seem the lying kind / A shame that I can read your mind
|
|
NASA will be performing an experiment to measure winds in the ionosphere and will be releasing burning streams of cloud into the upper atmosphere over the Atlantic as part of the experiment. The launch site has a page which gives detailed information on the progress of the launch. Last night's launch was scrubbed; another is scheduled for between 9:30 and 2:30 tonight (Eastern time). The clouds should be visible for many of the readers of this page (coastal VA, NC, and MD; DE, NJ, and eastern PA).
permanent link
|
|
|
Creating photographs with the chlorophyll in leaves.
permanent link
|
Matt Smith
|
|
I am frankly disgusted by the idea that a man can be arrested for holding a sign reading “No War for Oil” while awaiting the arrival of a sitting President at an airport. Especially when he was among a sea of others carrying signs supporting the President's positions. The man is Brett Bursey. The President is George W. Bush. The local US Attorney General prosecuting the case is Strom Thurmond, Junior. The item being set on fire is the Bill of Rights.
permanent link
|
Joe Foering
|
|
24 June 2003 ::
|
Dave, I'm going to need you to use vowels other than "y."
|
|
This restful little Java applet allows one to create swirls and starbursts with mouse clicks.
permanent link
|
|
Explore a little of the science of chocolate:
Tempering is a method of melting and cooling chocolate. It gives chocolate a shiny luster and that great "snap" you hear when you break the candy into bite-sized pieces.
Tempering chocolate not only produces some delicious results, it's also an opportunity to learn a little science. Temperature plays an important role in the candy-making process. Different fat groups in chocolate have different melting points. The tempering process stabilizes the cocoa butter (fat) crystals found in chocolate so that they become more uniform in size.
permanent link
|
|
|
23 June 2003 ::
|
Who wants to be a passive victim of nuclear war when, with a little effort, you can be an active participant?
|
|
20 June 2003 ::
|
Humanity would survive, but would be severely vowel-impaired
|
Although officially disparaging the astronomical theories of the day, the Catholic Church nonetheless engaged in astronomical observations in European cathedrals.
Over the centuries, Dr. Heilbron said, observatories were built in cathedrals and churches throughout Europe, including those in Rome, Paris, Milan, Florence, Bologna, Palermo, Brussels and Antwerp. Typically, the building, dark inside, needed only a small hole in the roof to allow a beam of sunlight to strike the floor below, producing a clear image of the solar disk. In effect, the church had been turned into a pinhole camera, in which light passes through a small hole into a darkened interior, forming an image on the opposite side.
On each sunny day, the solar image would sweep across the church floor and, exactly at noon, cross a long metal rod that was the observatory's most important and precise part. The noon crossings over the course of a year would reach the line's extremities -- which usually marked the summer and winter solstices, when the Sun is farthest north and south of the Equator. The circuit, among other things, could be used to measure the year's duration with great precision.
The path on the floor was known as a meridian line, like the north-south meridians of geographers. The rod, in keeping with its setting and duties, was often surrounded by rich tile inlays and zodiacal motifs.
The instruments lost much of their astronomical value around the middle of the 18th century as telescopes began to exceed them in power.
A picture explaining the geometry of the pinhole observatories is provided here.
permanent link
|
|
|
The secret test site of the Internet: example.com
permanent link
|
|
|
19 June 2003 ::
|
You are all hereby designated members of the Royal Swiss Navy, which is not royal, not Swiss, and does not float
|
|
Engine trouble and action heroes in A Miracle of Science.
permanent link
|
|
|
The story of Arago's Spot (also called Poisson's Spot) is almost certain to make you smile. Does the story interest you in the particle/wave nature of light? Dig into the details here.
permanent link
|
|
|
I stopped watching MSNBC when they put Michael Savage on the air. It turns out he's not acting like an ass to get ratings; he really is a pompous, homophobic, racist, brain-dead bully. Man, our country is going to the dogs if people like that get television shows.
permanent link
|
|
|
18 June 2003 ::
|
Today he was blasting bad techno and something I can only describe as goth polka
|
No less an authority than Lloyd's Register is unclear on the meaning of the Japanese naval suffix "maru."
The term maru originally seemed to act as a form of compliment when attached to certain personal names. For example, people seemed to be bestowing respect upon the eighth century poet Hitomaru Kikinomoto by attaching the term to his name. It could also be seen as a term of endearment rather like a diminutive, as in the juvenile name Ushiwakamaru, of the twelfth-century general Yoshitsune Minamoto.
Gradually the word was thrown to the dogs, literally, as people became accustomed to bestowing it upon their pet animals. Other names which received the maru blessing included a precious utensil used perhaps in some kind of tea ceremony or even the favoured tool of a deft craftsman. Another example of this maru phenomenon can be found in the mighty sword Mura-same-Maru; this famous blade of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was supposed to be so potent that whoever owned it, regardless of his own intent, was destined to kill somebody sooner or later.
permanent link
|
|
|
From attometers (a proton is 1600 attometers in diameter) to yottameters (the observable universe is 100 - 200 yottameters in radius), and everything in between. Courtesy of Erik Max Francis's physics pages.
permanent link
|
|
|
17 June 2003 ::
|
Well, don't sit there - help me decide how to destroy you
|
A perusal of British naval slang from Tudor times to today shows the vocabulary to be wide, deep, and sometimes quite amusing.
Rabbits: Naval slang name given to articles taken, or intended to be taken, ashore privately. Originally "rabbits" were things taken ashore improperly (i.e. theft or smuggling - the name arose from the ease with which tobacco, etc., could be concealed in the inside of a dead rabbit) but with the passage of time the application of the word has spread to anything taken ashore; an air of impropriety nevertheless still hangs over the use of the word, whether or not this is justified (it seldom is). Hence the phrase "Tuck its ears in", often said to an officer or rating seen going ashore with a parcel.
Quite a few terms in common use in American English originate in naval slang.
All fair and above board: A commonly used expression of nautical origin meaning "Utterly fair nothing hidden". Things "above board" were on or above the upper deck and so open for all to see.
permanent link
|
|
|
Explore the perils of being a cartoon person in Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Walter the Wallabee." It ends as do most of Gilliam's works - rather depressingly.
permanent link
|
|
|
16 June 2003 ::
|
Don't put your tongue in a socket. The taste of power is too refined for you.
|
|
13 June 2003 ::
|
On the whole, human beings want to be good - but not too good and not quite all the time
|
|
Apparently my idea of the Democrats running a giant laser-wielding death robot against Bush in 2004 is gaining momentum, with Mark saying it sounds like an ideal candidate and Ben asking if the robot needs someone to knock on doors for it. With that in mind, we flash-forward to the eventual presidential campaign:
Lehrer: "Hello, and welcome to the first of the 2004 Presidential Debates, sponsored by the National Organization for Women. I'm Jim Lehrer, and I will be moderating tonight's debate.
"To your right is the Republican candidate, George W. Bush, former governor of Texas, failed businessman, and the current president of the United States. To your left is the Democratic candidate, Murdertron 9000, a giant laser-wielding death robot, Nobel-winning economist, and author of the book Understanding Monetary Policy in a Changing World.
"My first question is for both candidates. 'Given the importance of energy to a modern economy, how do you intend to secure energy resources for the twenty-first century?' The first candidate to reply will be Mr. Nine Thousand."
Murdertron: "We can make a good start by requiring energy efficiency. Raising the mandated minimum MPG on automobiles, requiring a 7% increase in the efficiency of newly installed air conditioners, and the like, are all simple and inexpensive options that will cut our dependence on foreign oil by up to 60%. Moving forward, we should also be devoting more money to researching renewable, alternative resources such as fusion and solar. This will allow us to become completely self-sufficient in energy production, and will also protect our air and water from pollution."
Lehrer: "Next, President Bush will answer."
Bush: "I believify that the interests of the American businesspublic is best served by encouraging development of our own resources, such as drilling in Alaska and killing Democrats to render them down for their body fat. We am important to do this, by the grace of God."
Lehrer: "Um. Right. Well, the candidates have chosen in the interests of brevity to disallow counterarguments, so we'll move on to the next question. 'What do you believe is the appropriate response to world terrorism?' For this question, President Bush will have the option of replying first."
Bush: "I believe that we have built a powerful cloaca of the willing to combat terror and the world today. With nations such as Iran and North Korea at our sides, we cannot succeed in our crusade to save the world."
Lehrer: "I'm sorry, Mister President, but Karl Rove has concussed a cameraman in his haste to give me the 'cut him off' sign, so we'll have to go over to Murdertron 9000. Your reply, sir?"
Murdertron:: "I believe that any nation which threatens the United States with harm should be carpet bombed with high-yield thermobaric weapons until they surrender and allow us to install a friendly puppet government that whimpers whenever we look in their direction."
Bush: "...Is it too late for me to change my answer?"
permanent link
|
|
Reporters sometimes make up their stories. In a perfect world, all such reporters would be forced to actually work for a living for the rest of their lives, but - alas - the world is not perfect. Therefore we see different ways of dealing with journalistic misconduct.
We regret the error and the fact that this reporter attended the convention dressed as a Romulan vampire-unicorn.
permanent link
|
|
Microsoft. Love them or hate them, you have to admit that they're the laziest f---ers in computing. As proof, I offer Microsoft's standard answer for killing popups:
To resolve this behavior, contact the administrator for the Web site to determine if there is a way to prevent the pop-up windows from being opened.
permanent link
|
|
|
Hey, kids! There's no end to the fun you can create with a dremel and a bunch of CDs!
permanent link
|
|
|
12 June 2003 ::
|
If we could just get everyone to close their eyes and visualize world peace for an hour, imagine how serene and quiet it would be until the looting started
|
|
Never ask a naval captain too many questions. New A Miracle of Science!
permanent link
|
|
The site is apparently abandoned, and there are only about half a dozen scripts up, but I passed some amusing time reading the transcriptions of episodes of Stargate SG-1.
O'Neill: This is a top secret facility. Anonymity does not go over big here.
Carter: (serious) We cannot tell them we're from the future, sir. Even if it means--
She stops short as the cell door is unlocked, opening to admit two armed guards and one unarmed soldier. The unarmed one approaches Daniel, the closest one to the door.
Soldier: (speaking Russian) Translation: You Soviet spies? Daniel: Nyet. Translation: No. O'Neill: Daniel? Daniel: He just asked if we were Soviet spies. I just... He stops, realizing his error. O'Neill gives him a look, unable to believe this one.
Soldier: (to O'Neill) Come with me. O'Neill: Sure. (gets up) You bet. (walking out door, to himself) "Nyet?"
permanent link
|
|
|
A short while ago I referred to photonic crystals, an interesting material with some intriguing uses. A group at MIT has a site which goes into more detail on these photonic band-gap materials. I don't pretend to understand more than a portion of it, but what I do gather from it is fascinating.
permanent link
|
|
|
11 June 2003 ::
|
An appeal by scientists was thrown out for lack of evidence when the small courtroom could not physically accommodate a fully expressed representation of pi
|
|
From the The World Keeps Getting Stranger Department: The Disney Afternoon Tarot. (Hey, any artist who would cast Darkwing Duck as the incarnation of Justice gets a gold star in my book.)
permanent link
|
|
|
Turn on Java in your browser and go for a spin around the world with the Space Shuttle game. Attempt to dock with the International Space Station. (Perfect orbital mechanics not included.)
permanent link
|
|
|
10 June 2003 ::
|
When I regain my true form, I'm ordering my robot army to slap you upside the head!
|
|
9 June 2003 ::
|
Like many treasures, she was dug up out of a tomb and she's quite possibly cursed
|
|
There is a change of course, in more ways than one, in the new A Miracle of Science.
permanent link
|
|
This needs to be out here on the main page for those who don't read the discussion site:
Jessica Gothie: In other news, today was the the final opera for the 2002-2003 season at the Lyric in Baltimore. It was Madama Butterfly, the tale of a custody order set in Nagasaki in the early 1900's. I learned that everyone in Nagasaki at the turn of the century (including geishas and American sailors) spoke Italian. Opera is so educational!
Mark Sachs: Well, of course -- the great island of Japan was first colonized by expatriate Italians in 1801, after all. All of the colonists spoke Italian until the Japanese language was invented in 1956 during the period of nationalist fervor after Japan gained independence from the mother country. For more on this fascinating period in history please see the magisterial work From Gelato to Sashimi: One Patriot's Journey by Yoshinobu Pezzini.
permanent link
|
|
|
Far from being a new kind of sandwich or a tractor company that manufactures epic warriors, International Hero is one man's attempt to gather in one place information on every hero in science fiction and fantasy. Another magnificent obsession manifested on the Internet.
permanent link
|
|
|
6 June 2003 ::
|
Do not meddle in the affairs of vampires, for they are subtle and you just left your neck wide open again
|
I should like to correct some information Mike Ryan has been purveying about me to further his own ends. Viz:
"When I need to get someone to fall into line, I tell 'em I have a friend who's Italian, and his father's in construction, and I let them fill in the blanks themselves."
Mike's telling people I have Mafia connections! Let us correct this vicious slander. First off, I am only a quarter Italian. (Although I do have a very cool cousin named Rocky.) Secondly, my father is currently the construction supervisor for a monastery being renovated by the Catholic Church. He has, I am reliably informed, prayers being said for him in perpetuity by the Poor Claires (an order of nuns), much as was done for medieval lords who bequeathed money to the Church. And he's not Italian.
So. If you were worried by the fairy tales promulgated by Mr. Ryan, be of good cheer. I won't send out Guido and Antony to break your legs for him. Although, I could probably arrange for you to get seriously prayed at.
permanent link
|
|
|
The Internet provides many interesting toys, like the inverse symbolic calculator.
permanent link
|
|
|
If you aren't reading Commander Kitty, you're missing techniques for handling recalcitrant subordinates, a Doctor Seuss rhyme regarding not accidentally shooting your own men with your ship's main cannnon, failed prophetic haiku and the Holy Fresca, a working stargate made of Legos, the world's most embarrasing name, cyborgs, Star Trek inside gags, and popsicle gods.
permanent link
|
|
|
5 June 2003 ::
|
Um, should the sky have trees and houses and be rushing right towards us?
|
|
I slave over a word processor for a whole year, and Mark slaves over a piece of paper, and we get a new page of A Miracle of Science!
Note: The process of creating today's page of AMoS did not involve an entire year or actual slavery.
permanent link
|
|
Make your own bread without modern conveniences such as cultured yeast (but with such modern conveniences as the Internet).
Against the advice of experts, I decided to culture my own wild yeasts. To that end, I read up on different methods for culturing my own wild yeasts. I'm a geek, so it's normal for me to read about fifty different sets of instructions and then do my own damn thing based on what I've read. For this, though, I used the instructions found in my (revised edition) copy of The Joy of Cooking. I used these instructions because they were clear, easy to follow, and didn't use fifteen tons of flour. Wasting food, you see, is wrong... if I failed, I didn't want to have a pile of empty flour sacks reminding me of the wheat that died in vain while I chased after wild yeast. The culture instructions were for 1/4 cup of water and 1/2 cup of flour per feeding -- something I could live with tossing out if the whole thing went yicky or started to creep out of the bowl. The instructions didn't expect me to add any packaged yeast (again, I would find that sort of like cheating, you know?)
which is something a lot of internet instructions seemed to encourage. Also, the instructions promised about three days of twinking around until I could have something useable... unlike other recipes that expected me to wait two weeks or a month until I could start playing baker. I'm all for taking my time and being traditional and stuff as long as it doesn't take more than a week...
permanent link
|
Jessica Gothie
|
|
It won't let you use the power of your mind to escape from a Lucite prison, but tetrachromatism is a pretty interesting mutation nonetheless. Too bad it often causes color blindness in one's male descendants...
permanent link
|
Amanda Babcock
|
|
4 June 2003 ::
|
It's a list that will probably come in handy when Carl Sagan comes down from heaven in his Spaceship of the Imagination to separate the righteous from the wicked
|
The Tower Fechtbuch is the earliest surviving manual on swordsmanship, a 32-page illustrated book of combat with sword and buckler, probably written in the 1200s by German monks. All 32 pages are reproduced on the site in black-and-white, with an explanatory essay on the book, its provenance, the style of fighting depicted within its pages, and a discussion of possible reasons for the book's production by a monastic order.
The I.33 Fechtbuch shows a continuity to later German combat manuals, but unfortunately the next manuals that survives at present is not until Liechtenauer’s of 1389, leaving a large empty period between. The feel of the book suggest that the craft was enjoyable and pursued with a passion. The techniques suggest it was martial and earnest. It is important to realize the drawings are not static but showing techniques in motion. Assorted wards are named in relation to the action of both weapons, but no mention is made of footwork, though the fighters are clearly doing passes and stepping motions in conjunction with their strikes and counters. The text gives brief descriptions of the action and comments on good and bad actions in each situation. In typical German Fechtbuch style it depicts a very reasonable counter-striking style of fighting. The counter-ward adopted is called the obsession. A limited number of grappling and disarms are even included.
Three principles are stressed, speed, maneuvering, and a dominant initiative.
permanent link
|
|
|
Sea Launch is a commercial space launch company that launches from a platform floating in the ocean off South America.
permanent link
|
|
|
3 June 2003 ::
|
Threaten me with gloopgloopgloop, and all your toast-making dreams shall be torn asunder! --Fred Coppersmith
|
|
One year ago today, Mark and I unleashed A Miracle of Science on the world. INTERPOL is still looking for us. Don't tell 'em you saw us.
permanent link
|
|
|
Harrison Ford gives you the finger! No, it's not like you think.
permanent link
|
|
John Joannopoulos states he can shift the frequency of light using shock waves in photonic crystals.
Photonic crystals, which are made by sandwiching together layers of material that bend light in different ways, can be designed to reflect some frequencies while letting others through. They are used to steer light through circuits in the same way that electronic circuits direct electric current.
From computer simulations, the team found that shock waves passing through a crystal alter its properties as they compress it. For example, a crystal that normally allows red light through but reflects green light might become transparent to green light and reflect red light instead.
The researchers worked out that if a photonic crystal is designed in a certain way, incoming light can get trapped at the shock wave boundary, bouncing back and forth between the compressed part of the crystal and the uncompressed part, in a "hall of mirrors" effect.
Because the shock wave is moving through the crystal, the light gets Doppler shifted each time it bounces off it. If the shock wave is travelling in the opposite direction to the light, the light¹s frequency will get higher with each bounce, while if it travelling in the same direction, the frequency drops.
After 10,000 or so reflections, taking a total of around 0.1 nanoseconds, the light can shift dramatically in frequency from red up to blue, for example, or from visible light down to infrared. By changing the way the crystal is built up, it is possible to control exactly which frequencies can go into the crystal and which come out.
As if this weren't cool enough, Joannopoulos's team will be creating the shock waves for the early tests by shooting the crystals with a gun. Mad science at its best. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can see this being the basis for a nifty (fictional) laser gun.
permanent link
|
|
|
2 June 2003 ::
|
Haff three live chickens and a tub of cocoa butter sent up to my room! I v'ish to be depraved!
|
|
Yes, I really did write the phrase "a green coruscating beam of lambent force" in the script for this page of A Miracle of Science, but in my defense it was written as part of an homage. Or perhaps a pastiche. In any case, it looks as cool as all get out, huh?
permanent link
|
|
|
A small group of hackers caused mayhem in the multiplayer online game Shadowbane, creating undefeatable monsters and causing the game world's usually benign NPCs to go feral. Silly. Very silly. (And illegal.)
permanent link
|
|
|
Are you a forward-looking, go-getter type who just happens to need the ability to project forward airpower from a mobile, sea-based platform? Then the former HMS Vengeance, which is for sale, meets your specialized (and quite daft) needs!
permanent link
|
Ben Loukota
|
|
(The Side of the Angels)
Projects:
A Miracle of Science
Other Pins:
Project Apollo
Glenn's LiveJournal
Alyce Wilson's Portfolio
Teep
Blogfonte
G. Webber
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Biomechanoid
Radioactive Fanboys
Pinfeathers:
Occasional Fish
House of the Whispering Woods
Crummy
Maximum Verbosity
Spyderella
Features:
Permanent Links
|
