For reasons involving transnational calls, scheduling conflicts, and one very pissed off chipmunk, my brain is taking the rest of the day off. Here’s a pretty picture:)
Posts Tagged ‘awesome’
Ooh, Pretty!
Posted in Likes, tagged awesome, brains, chipmunks, inspiration, photos, pretty, US Interior, work on July 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Guess What I Did Today…
Posted in Other, tagged awesome, Canadian citizenship, citizenship, home, o canada, yay on July 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »
That’s right, Canadian citizenship! It’s officially official. Break out the poutine!
Planning Ahead: Propane Edition
Posted in Food and..., Science!, tagged America's Test Kitchen, awesome, BBQ, Canada Day, clever, cooking, independence day, parties, tips on June 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »
I like to cook. I like science. I extra like it when the two come together. Since Canada Day is coming up on July 1st and Independence Day is on the 4th, I thought I’d bring you this easy (and kinda science-y) way to tell if you have enough propane in your BBQ tank to make it through the festivities.
Thank you, America’s Test Kitchen:)
Animated London
Posted in Likes, tagged awesome, cartography, cities, geography, history, infrastructure, London, maps, spatial analysis on June 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Because my father is touching down in the UK today, here’s a delightful look at the growth of London over the past two thousand years:
Edge of Tomorrow
Posted in Entertainment, Likes, tagged awesome, Doug Liman, Emily Blunt, entertainment, genre fiction, Hiroshi Sakurazaka, movies, science fiction, sff, speculative fiction, Tom Cruise on June 8, 2014| 1 Comment »
So, remember when I had a hard time finding a movie theatre showing Edge of Tomorrow in 2D? I know, that was, like, hours ago, you may have forgotten. I bring it up now to say that I did find a theatre, and I did go see the film, and it was Totally Worth It, people! No spoilers, but the acting and directing and editing and… well, just about everything was top notch. Really, really enjoyed it.
Definitely recommended.
Now I’m off to find the book it’s based on, All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Because speculative fiction well done is a delight.
If E.T. Does Phone, Then What?
Posted in Likes, Science!, tagged anthropology, archaeology, awesome, e book, extraterrestrial intelligence, extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrials, inspiration, money well spent, NASA, science, science fiction, SETI, sff, space on May 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »
In today’s installment of awesome, NASA has released a book on how to communicate with extraterrestrials. Unlike the Pentagon’s zombie apocalypse scenario, Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication is not meant as an implausible training exercise. With chapters by more than a dozen scholars, this book uses analogues (or at least clues) from archaeology and anthropology in an effort to think about how to communicate with radically different life forms.
As editor Douglas A. Vakoch explains,
The evolutionary path followed by extraterrestrial intelligence will no doubt diverge in significant ways from the one traveled by humans over the course of our history… Like archaeologists who reconstruct temporally distant civilizations from fragmentary evidence, SETI researchers will be expected to reconstruct distant civilizations separated from us by vast expanses of space as well as time. And like anthropologists, who attempt to understand other cultures despite differences in language and social customs, as we attempt to decode and interpret extraterrestrial messages, we will be required to comprehend the mindset of a species that is radically Other.
Also, and let me just put this out there, science fiction might be helpful in this regard as well:)
P.S. The NASA in Your Life site is a fun read as well. NASA’s research and technology spinoffs have played influential roles in moving innovation from Rockets to Racecars and more…
Nebula Awards Announced
Posted in Entertainment, Writing, tagged Ann Leckie, awesome, books, creativity, entertainment, Fiction, genre fiction, Nebula Awards, science fiction, sff, SFWA, short stories, Writers, writing on May 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »
In case you missed it over the weekend, the SFWA has announced the winners of this year’s Nebula Awards. (You may remember the winner for best novel from an earlier post here at this site.) Congratulations to all!
Novel
Winner: Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Nominees:
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review)
Fire with Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Hild, Nicola Griffith (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Red: First Light, Linda Nagata (Mythic Island)
A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer)
The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)
Novella
Winner: ‘‘The Weight of the Sunrise,’’ Vylar Kaftan (Asimov’s 2/13)
Nominees:
‘‘Wakulla Springs,’’ Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages (Tor.com 10/2/13)
‘‘Annabel Lee,’’ Nancy Kress (New Under the Sun)
‘‘Burning Girls,’’ Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com 6/19/13)
‘‘Trial of the Century,’’ Lawrence M. Schoen (www.lawrencemschoen.com; World Jumping)
Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)
Novelette
Winner: ‘‘The Waiting Stars,’’ Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky)
Nominees:
‘‘Paranormal Romance,’’ Christopher Barzak (Lightspeed 6/13)
‘‘They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass,’’ Alaya Dawn Johnson (Asimov’s 1/13)
‘‘Pearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters,’’ Henry Lien (Asimov’s 12/13)
‘‘The Litigation Master and the Monkey King,’’ Ken Liu (Lightspeed 8/13)
‘‘In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind,’’ Sarah Pinsker (Strange Horizons 7/1 – 7/8/13)
Short Story
Winner: ‘‘If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love,’’ Rachel Swirsky (Apex 3/13)
Nominees:
‘‘The Sounds of Old Earth,’’ Matthew Kressel (Lightspeed 1/13)
‘‘Selkie Stories Are for Losers,’’ Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons 1/7/13)
‘‘Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer,’’ Kenneth Schneyer (Clockwork Phoenix 4)
‘‘Alive, Alive Oh,’’ Sylvia Spruck Wrigley (Lightspeed 6/13)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Winner: Gravity
Nominees:
Doctor Who: ‘‘The Day of the Doctor’’
Europa Report
Her
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Pacific Rim
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book
Winner: Sister Mine, Nalo Hopkinson (Grand Central)
Nominees:
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Indigo)
When We Wake, Karen Healey (Allen & Unwin; Little, Brown)
The Summer Prince, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
Hero, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
September Girls, Bennett Madison (Harper Teen)
A Corner of White, Jaclyn Moriarty (Levine)
Kevin O’Donnell Jr. Service to SFWA Award: Michael Armstrong
2013 Damon Knight Grand Master Award: Samuel R. Delany
2013 Special Honoree: Frank M. Robinson
Who Are We to Close Doors?
Posted in Other, tagged aliens, awesome, funny, good to know, Pope Francis, space, Thoughts on May 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Pope Francis Says He Would Definitely Baptize Aliens If They Asked Him To
If – for example – tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here… Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them… And one says, ‘But I want to be baptized!’ … Who are we to close doors?
So in addition to focusing on the issues of poverty, inequality and other related topics, the Pope is open-minded enough to include aliens in his view of the future. Nice.
Live Streaming Planet Earth
Posted in Likes, Science!, tagged 92 minutes, awesome, Chris Hadfield, Earth, home, inspiration, ISS, NASA, orbital sunrise, orbital sunset, space, space exploration, yay on May 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »
ISS HD Live Streaming Earth
Sometimes the cameras are off, but when they aren’t… wow.
Black Image = International Space Station (ISS) is on the night side of the Earth.
Gray Image = Switching between cameras, or communications with the ISS is not available.
No Audio = Normal. There is no audio on purpose. Add your own soundtrack.
For a display of the real time ISS location plus the HDEV imagery, visit here: http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ForFun/HDEV/
On watching orbital sunrise, from NPR:
Circling Earth at 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour) every 92 minutes, the crew members aboard the International Space Station “experience 15 or 16 sunrises and sunsets every day,” NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) Project Office describes.
“The whole station glows with the light of dawn,” Canadian astronaut and former ISS commander Chris Hadfield told NPR in a recent interview. “You can see the dawn come across the world towards you.”
“Then you go back to work and wait another 92 minutes, and it happens again. It’s not to be missed, and I tried to watch as many sunrises and sunsets as the work would allow,” he said.
-
Recent Posts
She Said, He Said
-
-
Favorite Posts
Archives
Categories
It’s All So Random
What I’m Reading
J.R. Johnson 
You must be logged in to post a comment.