4.10.2010

Science Shocker of the Space Age!! (sic)

An astronaut is miniaturized when he lands on an asteroid that his spaceship is forced to land on.

link: The Phantom Planet - Hulu

Don't stop! I need more!


4.09.2010

The numbers game

With less than two months to go before high school commencements, more than 4,100 seniors across Massachusetts have not met a new state graduation requirement: passing an MCAS science exam....

The predicament is sounding alarms among some education advocates, who say that persistent failure could cause many of these students to give up on receiving a diploma, a potential setback as the state tries to boost its graduation rate. Last year, 81.5 percent of 12th-graders graduated four years after entering high school.

link: Science MCAS bedevils seniors - The Boston Globe


Getting there

Although if you consider 50º chilly, we're back to chilly here. And wet.


Video shows 24 hours of world air traffic


4.08.2010

What you shoot is what you eat...no, wait: What you eat is...oh, never mind

Keeping a photographic food diary is a growing phenomenon with everything from truffle-stuffed suckling pig to humble bowls of Cheerios being captured and offered for public consumption. Indeed, the number of pictures tagged “food” on the photo-sharing Web site Flickr has increased tenfold to more than six million in the last two years, according to Tara Kirchner, the company’s marketing director. One of the largest and most active Flickr groups, called “I Ate This,” includes more than 300,000 photos that have been contributed by more than 19,000 members.

link: People Who Photograph Food and Display the Pictures Online - NYTimes.com


Everybody's doing it


File under Games for the Bunker

While it’s clear from the cyberwar news that we are living in a war zone when we turn on our computers, we at Wired.com refuse to surrender — even at the risk of taking an e-bullet in the name of Freedom.

So strap on your iFlak jackets and use this Wired.com CyberWar bingo card the next time you go to read a Cyberwar story....

link: It’s Cyberwar! Let’s Play Bingo! | Threat Level | Wired.com


4.07.2010

Let's ease up on the whole spinny wobbly thing here, OK?

Yet again, though, the Cardinal could not force a westward tilt of a sport that has spun decidedly eastward on its axis, losing, 53-47. The all-American center Jayne Appel, hobbled by a gimpy right ankle, missed all 12 of her shots. Without her reliability in the middle, Stanford wobbled out of its accustomed orbit.

link: On Basketball - VanDerveer and Stanford Push but Can’t Upend UConn - NYTimes.com


Talk about yer really, really good masks...

$4.3 Billion Loss at G.M. Masks Progress Since Bailout

link: G.M. Report Shows Loss, but Also Optimism - NYTimes.com


4.06.2010

It's raining again but...

...progress is being made, as you can see.

(An iPhone pic.)


4.05.2010

Lost in a good book

Actually, two: John Grisham's "The Partner" and "Innocents Abroad," by Mark Twain. I've done just about nothing else since Saturday. The laundry is piling up. To hell with it, I say.

"Innocents" is a lot of fun to read - a tale of tourism in Europe and the Middle East enlivened by Samuel Clemens's inimitable wit - and has the further advantage of being episodic by design, which makes it an easy book to leave for a while and then come back to later. Both it and "The Partner" will wind up on the books list soon.

And tomorrow I'm planning to get organized, but it may be Wednesday before the laundry gets done.

And BTW go Butler, although I'm guessing the smart money is on Duke. The smart money Tuesday night is on UCONN, so what else is new?