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Paging L.M.: GIF fodder here.
Two most excellent science shows available on the web, Cosmos and Your Inner Fish.
Cosmos takes on both science and the history of science, and covers a very broad scope. It's a reboot of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. An amazing amount of new science has been developed since that time. (And some cool stuff has already come out since the program was produced. Such is the march of science these days.) Cosmos is unafraid to directly confront established religion where it undermines the rational thought necessary for scientific progress. Sometimes the "woah, dude!" tone, which is also in the original Cosmos, bugs me. But, that's just a style issue. Dealing with the "billions and billions" it's hard not to get a little gushy at times.
It's on a commercial network, so there are commercials in the internet version. Protip: start it, let it run muted for a long time while you do something else, then pause. Now go back to the beginning and watch without the commercial breaks that were previously passed during your "preview." Don't let the preview go too long, or it will fall off the end of the program and start another video clip. Be warned the the episodes will start to expire soon, and won't be available on the web. It's available on a TV channel and a cable channel in addition to the internet.
Your Inner Fish is a shorter series (three episodes), and has a much more narrow focus. It's about the evolution of tretrapods (including the bipedal naked ape) from uppity fish. It has a much more matter of fact tone than Cosmos. It does dip into the 19th century with some frequency to illustrate the origin of some of the concepts of current biology. But the focus seems to be more on current biology rather than the history of biology. The host is a working paleontologist and anatomist who was a key member of the team that unearthed the Tiktaalik fossil in the Canadian Arctic.
It's a PBS show. Episode one has aired already. It's on the web and your local member station.
Warning for the squeamish: There is some footage of cadaver disection (that's what the host teaches as a day job), but it's respectfully done. It's done in pursuit of comparative anatomy to highlight the homologies between humans and other tetrapods. There's also illustration of some experimentation on the embryos of chickens, etc. to demonstrate the function of the sonic hedgehog gene on their forelimb buds. Yes, there's a gene called sonic hedgehog. (In elementary school, we tracked the development of chicken embryos with two dozen fertile eggs. I didn't eat eggs for a while after that. I eat chicken eggs all the time now, just not the fertile ones.)
Both shows are some of the best science television I've seen. Both are clearly designed with younger audiences in mind, but are certainly not dumbed down. The concepts are simplified to an introductory level, and much effort is taken to explain concepts visually in both productions.
Don't like 'em as a child, try 'em as an adult
somehow i missed out on spy magazine in its heyday. (its not like i was reading the new yorker all that much either.) looks like google books has them all available to see what all the fuss was about.
via kottke
Plywood rocking chair ... http://www.garmanfurniture.com/
the simplest explanation for the missing plane
driftwood forts of the Oregon coast
free movies for apple users on United.
NJ to TESLA: Drop Dead
Glib Girl Gemma rides Barraco Barner Blunder to the Top of the Twittersphere
We had a thread somewhere about DIY-ish audio setups, but I can't find it. Just wanted to note that there is now a $33 expansion board for the Raspberry Pi that will give you, amoung other I/O goodness, SPDIF audio out from the Pi: the Wolfson Audio Card.
And reading about that led me to another add on card that accomplishes the same, at about the same price: the HiFiBerry Digi.
So while either of these will double the price of the Pi, it's still pretty cheap in the whole scheme of things. Would love to have the time to play around with this. Someday.
not sure im ready for it to be light until 7pm but its one less hour to wait for the true detective finale tomorrow.
"Shayne Dizzon"
linda, did you throw a birthday party for john kerry? i think you forgot the purel.
In the starting your day off with a bang department (could have been the safe driving thread, but…) Shortly after dawn yesterday, as I was entering Calvert Vaux Park along the Belt Parkway at Bay 44th St, a car came skidding over a rise in the Parkway, smashed through the guardrail, rolled over a few times, and came to rest on the grass strip between the highway and the service road, no more than fifteen yards from me. There were flames coming from under the hood, and I immediately dialed 911. As I was calling, the driver popped out and ran clear as the fire spread. Before I could explain everything to the 911 operator, an emergency vehicle was on the scene, followed quickly by a couple of police cars; they questioned the driver, who indicated that no one was trapped in the car, which was now entirely engulfed in fire. I moved on, but judging by the duration of the column of smoke, the fire was quickly extinguished. When I passed the spot on the way home there was little evidence beyond the crumpled guardrail, a few pieces of debris, and a small charred spot on the grass. In protest of the cultural trend towards substituting documentation for experience, I did not take any photos.