from an interview with Christopher Nolan by his brother
via In Contention
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Galileo's Moon Drawings
Not clear whether he sketched them, or whether they were just illustrations he included in a folio of his other astronomical work.
"In either case, it is rather beautiful. But it didn’t seem that way to many people at the time. It was a shock and an affront to suggest that God’s heavenly objects were not perfect but pocked and roughened with craters and protuberances like some ordinary rock of the earthly realm. This would all come to a head when Galileo visited the pope in 1616 …"
via Tom Christensen
Monday, December 20, 2010
Winter Solstice Eclipse tonight
The full moon will pass through Earth's shadow, changing from gray to a rusty, red color.
Why red? NASA describes it this way:
A quick trip to the Moon provides the answer: Imagine yourself standing on a dusty lunar plain looking up at the sky. Overhead hangs Earth, nightside down, completely hiding the sun behind it. The eclipse is underway. You might expect Earth seen in this way to be utterly dark, but it's not. The rim of the planet is on fire! As you scan your eye around Earth's circumference, you're seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once. This incredible light beams into the heart of Earth's shadow, filling it with a coppery glow and transforming the Moon into a great red orb.
If you're not much for staring at the sky, at least glance up once: early Tuesday morning at 12:17 a.m. That's when the eclipse will be most striking, according to astronomers.
Why red? NASA describes it this way:
A quick trip to the Moon provides the answer: Imagine yourself standing on a dusty lunar plain looking up at the sky. Overhead hangs Earth, nightside down, completely hiding the sun behind it. The eclipse is underway. You might expect Earth seen in this way to be utterly dark, but it's not. The rim of the planet is on fire! As you scan your eye around Earth's circumference, you're seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once. This incredible light beams into the heart of Earth's shadow, filling it with a coppery glow and transforming the Moon into a great red orb.
If you're not much for staring at the sky, at least glance up once: early Tuesday morning at 12:17 a.m. That's when the eclipse will be most striking, according to astronomers.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
Prevention may not be a good way to reduce overall health care costs
Paper's conclusion: Although effective obesity prevention leads to a decrease in costs of obesity-related diseases, this decrease is offset by cost increases due to diseases unrelated to obesity in life-years gained. Obesity prevention may be an important and cost-effective way of improving public health, but it is not a cure for increasing health expenditures.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
15 year old Tells Establishment to Stick-it.
I like this because it reminds me how articulate young people can be, and resets the bar where it should be.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Letter from Gandhi to Hitler
While the letter itself is very moving, I'm more interested in the comment that "this particular letter never reaches Hitler due to an intervention by the British government."
via Letters of Note
via Letters of Note
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Friedman Op-Ed
Interesting column from Thomas Friedman about the loss of American leverage due to our reliance on foreign oil and the ownership of our debt by China.
Friday, December 3, 2010
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