…things I LOVED! Week March 12th through March 18th
Image Credit: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory
‘Oh look. The sun has a little happy face.’
These were the words tweeted this week by Jason Major of Lights In The Dark in reference to this image. Quite honestly, I don’t see the little happy face, but I’ve got to admire anyone who does! Jason is also the man who in a post last month titled Sun, Moon and Spots in reference to a video of the Feb 21, 2012 Solar transit by the Moon from the perspective of SDO remarked…’I think the sun looks a little surprised.’ I’m not much into applying human characteristics and expressions to cute little kittens and squirrels, however I have to admit to finding it clever when applied to Astronomical objects. I also have to admit to agreeing with Jason in the case of that particular video….the sun does appear to be ‘surprised’. But don’t take my word for it, go there and check it out for yourself. While there also check out Jason’s March 14th post, Is This Comet SWAN’s Swan Song. Very cool!!
Also in the Cool Science Department this week A Frank Angle got me all weepy-eyed with his post On The Universe featuring videos of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot in comparison to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s, now quite viral, The Most Astounding Fact. After reading Frank’s post followed by stepping outside for a look at the Venus and Jupiter conjunction…it was quite an emotional evening for me. Speaking of Neil deGrasse Tyson, who’s Space Chronicles I FINALLY got my hands on…and it’s AWESOME, Kyle Hill at Science-Based Life also compares deGrasse Tyson to Sagan in a March 12th post titled…Neil deGrasse Tyson is the New Carl Sagan and featuring deGrasse Tyson’s Why We Stopped Dreaming video….completely inspiring, and completely important.
AND….before I move on from space, I absolutely HAVE to mention Galicia Futura‘s March 17th post titled Las estrellas vistas desde la Estación Espacial Internacional featuring The Stars as Viewed from the International Space Station, edited by Alex Rivest using Adobe Lightroom. A-MA-ZING!!
After a week of much star-gazing it was nice to have St. Patrick’s Day on Saturday as an excuse to lift a glass or two. I was kept fully up to date on the approaching event, as I am with ALL my news, by the informative, straight-talking, and hard hitting tag-team of Smaktakula and Tardsie D. Bagg over at Promethean Times. The guys got us in the spirit early in the week with a March 12th introduction to the Emerald Isle titled Ireland The PT Way!. On March 15th the boys reminded us that March is not only about St Paddy with their timely post titled Bewaring The Ides Of March (Among Other Things). They then finished up on Saturday with an all-out St Patrick’s expose titled St. Paddy’s Day! These are just small samples of the top-notch journalism to be found at Promethean Times, not just this week, but every week. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before the folks over at Pulitzer are forced to recognize Smak and Tardsie …even if at gun-point. (Warning: Prolonged exposure to Promethean Times may cause the following side effects including temporary eyelid droop and nausea, gas with oily spotting, loose stools, and more frequent stools that may be hard to control. Babies born to mothers who have read Promethean Times in the latter half of pregnancy have reported complications, including floppiness, stiffness, irritability or constant crying. Even moderate exposure may result in sleepwalking, and eating or driving while not fully awake, with amnesia following the event. Consult your healthcare practitioner before reading Promethean Times. …things I LOVE, Alex Autin is in no way responsible for any ill-effects experienced before, during, or after viewing Promethean Times.)
Another blog I’ve been following closely this past week is artist J.E. Lattimer’s Uncharted Revelations. J.E. demonstrated his extremely interesting and innovative experimental art this week in posts with such compelling titles such as Surveillance and Censorship, Iniquitous Manifestations, and Harmonic Frequencies. Fascinated by his work, knowing I’d want to write about it, and wanting to properly categorize it, I earlier in the week questioned J.E. as to the process involved in the creation of his art….
J.E. – Well, I usually don’t tell anyone how I create my artwork / photographs, but okay, here goes… You know how some people can bend spoons using only their minds? It’s kind of like that: I take a roll of unused / undeveloped film into a completely dark room where I sit cross-legged and meditate with the film held tightly in my hand. While meditating I visualize each image as clearly as possible, then, when I go to develop the roll… Voila! No, that’s mean, only kidding… Seriously though, the truth is that these images are only possible because I’m one of the five people on earth who have been given a prototype of the new quantum computer… Only kidding again… The truth is that I’ve developed most of the techniques for over a decade now and they’re fairly top secret– Only shared with those that I know very well and have known for a long time……
Cleverness combined with brilliance and talent….and highly recommenced.
Rounding out the week with music, Marilia from World Music took me on a week-long tour of Portugal. Starting in Porto with X-Wife and their haunting song Across The Water , then the beautiful music of Os Azeitonas and their song Anda Comigo ver os Aviões. Marilia then invited us to her home region of Alentejo to close out the week with a song from Virgem Suta titled Linhas Cruzadas. Such beautiful music and such a beautiful country! Obrigada Marilia, danke Xandi and everyone at World Music!
Cheers and enjoy your week!
…things I LOVED! Week Feb 27th through Mar 4th
This image was ‘borrowed’ from Google Images, but it was ‘borrowed’ with love, so yeah…
Silly ‘love’ images aside, including the one attached above, here are some of the posts which I loved most during the week of February 27th through March 4th. It was a VERY busy week for me. After my run-in with the flu the previous week, this past week had me returning to work as well as trying to play catch-up with my email in-box. There are many posts from last week which I still haven’t managed to get to even despite spending the better part of yesterday in an attempt to do so. There are some people, such as Brian Westbye, who’s work I refuse to rush through.
Having posted an ‘Award’ post last week I’ve already mentioned some of the bloggers I enjoy most…this does not mean I won’t mention them again! I also would like to once again thank the ever gracious George Weaver for having nominated me for this award. I do, at some point this week, have to respond to another award mention…so everyone out there who I read…be afraid, be very, very afraid!
One of the absolutely most beautiful images I was privileged to view all week, and in quite some time actually, was an image of ‘Bob’. Bob appeared in a post titled AND THERE WAS MAGIC and posted by the incredible photographer Suzanne J. Rogers on her awindowintothewoods blog. If Bob doesn’t completely steal your heart, you simply may no longer be among the living.
In music, the ever likable Xandi at World Music posted my favorite music video of the week. The song is titled ‘Levels’, by the Swedish DJ and re-mixer Avicii. The music is entirely infectious and the video is just plain weird…and I like weird! Thanks for posting Xandi!
In the Science is Cool area, Kyle Hill at Science-Based Life, in addition to posting the very amazing Scale of the Universe 2, which I shamelessly indulged in yesterday (and I hope you did too!), also posted last week a very clever and quite hilarious The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense. This is a well warranted double mention for Kyle because his blog, and science, are both so damn interesting.
Never having enough of science in general and the awe of astronomy in particular, I was once again blown away by a post presented this week on Jason Major’s Lights In The Dark. The post is titled How Many Stars Can Astronauts See, and as Jason explains; The short answer: a lot. The long answer: a real lot! And…he has some video evidence captured from the ISS to back this up! Completely amazing!
Though admittedly I didn’t have nearly as much time this week as I’d like to catch up on reading some of my favorite writers here on wordpress, I was fortunate to find some time to visit The Last Song I Heard and was completely melted early on in the week by a post titled Take On Me – A-ha. The writing is good, very good. The subject is honest, very honest. And this just happens to be one of my most loved songs. It is indeed no better to be safe than sorry.
There was much adventure to be found this week, as there usually is!, at Eric Murtaugh’s blog. Eric ran a series of excellent posts this week all designed to get us off our collective butts and into some much needed adventure. He kicked the week off on Feb 27 with Thrill seeking: crazy, or a transcendental pursuit? He followed this up on Feb 28 with his post featuring NatGeo’s Adventurers of the Year, Sano Babu Sunuwar and Lakpa Tsheri Sherpa. Loved this one Eric! By the way, all these awesomely adventurous guys did to earn this title was to climb Mount Everest, para-glide down, then kayak the Ganges River all the way to the Indian Ocean…I mean, who hasn’t done this!? But Eric wasn’t quite done for the week, on March 1st he challenged his readers by asking What prevents you from having more adventures…..and on March 2nd he posted the results in a posting titled Adventure poll results show $$$ holds us back the most. But no Eric, it’s not a lack of money….it’s the lack of a bad-ass adventure hat!
Cheers and enjoy your week!
The Scale of the Universe 2
Earlier this week while making one of my habitual visits to Kyle Hill’s Science-Based Life blog I came across this completely amazing, completely fun, interactive Scale of the Universe ….which can be found here.
After playing around with it for just a bit, and being entirely blown away, I knew I wanted to share it. I asked Kyle for his permission to do so and loved his response….‘Absolutely, spread the science!’.
The scale is entirely interactive, not only can you slide along the various scales of the Universe…from the ‘I can’t wrap my head around it’ tiniest, to the ‘wow, are you shitting me’ largest …but you can also click on the various images to get very cleverly written information on each. I could easily kill several days with this, and never stop being amazed. Also… I fully agree with Kyle in that you should turn the volume WAY up to get a full immersing effect! Enjoy!!!
Fun with scale!
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