Symphony of Science

Not only has Carl Sagan already done all of the most amazing things that it is possible to do,

but he has also been re-mixed:

That was by Symphony of Science, and you should check out the rest of their videos here.

Slow and steady wins the race

I've been thinking a lot recently about time scales, how quickly and/or slowly things happen, and how we humans perceive that.

Look at how slowly this mudslide happens!!!! Way more slowly than I thought mudslides would ever happen. This is from southern italy, where 200 residents were evacuated to avoid this really slow mud.



According to howstuffworks.com, mudslides can sometimes reach speeds of up to 60 miles per hour. The speed of the mudslide increases as the soil contains more water or the slope is more steep. So, just based on what we can see visually from this video, the mud looks a lot like dirt, meaning there is not much water, and the slope is not that steep, so it makes sense that this mudslide is relatively slow. It also makes sense that the slower a mudslide is, the more likely it is to be caught on video, which might be one reason that this is the only mudslide video i can find on the internet. EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE!!!!!!!

Rain, electricity, ding-a-ling

Okay, this might get weird, but here goes. The other night I was biking to a friend's house, wearing full rain-gear.

Even with all this gear on I was getting pretty soaked:

Krakatoa

This is what the volcano Krakatoa looked like before it exploded in August 1883:

This is what it looks like now, the three islands forming what used to be the perimeter of the pre-1883 volcano:

GAIA

The first day or so, we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day, we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.

Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi Arabian astronaut

quote found in the book "Billions & Billions" by Carl Sagan

the Universe, by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, probably my favorite author, wrote this:

"To all my friends and relatives in Alcoholics Anonymous," I began, "I say that they were right to become intoxicated. Life without moments of intoxication is not worth 'a pitcher of spit,' as the felicitous saying goes. They simply chose what was for them a deadly poison on which to get drunk.

"Good examples of harmless toots are some of the things children do. They get smashed for hours on some strictly limited aspect of the Great Big Everything, the Universe, such as water or snow or mud or colors or rocks (throwing little ones, looking under big ones), or echoes or funny sounds from the voicebox or banging on a drum and so on. Only two people are involved: the child and the Universe. The child does a little something to the Universe, and the Great Big Everything does something funny or beautiful or sometimes disappointing or scary or even painful in return. The child teaches the Universe how to be a good playmate, to be nice instead of mean.

From "Fates Worse than Death" and "Bluebeard"

Tie tie tie dye dye dye

My girlfriend threw a tie-dye party recently, which by all accounts was a much larger success than the tie-dye party I threw a year or two ago. My party mainly involved me alone in my kitchen, tie-dying my socks and underwear with cheap Rit dye that I bought from the grocery store. Here is what my socks ended up looking like (notice all the bleeding that occurred):

My gf's party differed from mine in three crucial ways: 1-other people were present; 2-she printed off patterns so we knew how to make those awesome spirals and stuff; 3-she used expensive "fiber-reactive dyes" that tend not to bleed or fade. Here is how some of our best items turned out (notice the white whites, and vibrant colors):