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):

the moon dude, the moon

Unfortunately right now the moon is waning (each night less area visible from earth is illuminated by the sun).

But once the moon comes back in all its glory, you should go outside and stare at it for a while. I am serious. You should try do this as much as possible, it can be kind of like meditation, which might improve your health.

Forty years ago the first chunks of living, conscious earth matter purposefully moved themselves from their home of the past 4.6 billion years to personally investigate and witness the earth's long-time companion, the moon.  The little astronauts and their little ship, which you can think of as little tiny particles of the earths' crust--earth particles, traveled over 200,000 miles! In absolute vacuum!! What were those earth particles thinking???!!! So dangerous! (p.s. I'm mega jealous). Now, in case you didn't go outside and stare at it yet, here is a high-quality picture of the moon (click for bigger picture):

9/11 conspiracy theory, thermite

I was thinking about buying some flares off this guy at a yard sale. He was wearing a hat that looked like this:

I wondered aloud about what the flares were made of. The ensuing conversation went something like this:

Guy: "They're made of thermite. Same thing they used to bring down the twin towers."

Me: "Oh yeah?"

Guy: "Totally dude. They found molten iron at ground zero. Molten iron, I shit you not. That stuff melts at 1500 degrees Celsius."

Me: "Well, that makes sense, a plane full of jet fuel crashed into the building."

Guy: "No, it doesn't make sense man. Jet fuel burns at 1000 degrees Celsius. It couldn't possibly have melted the iron. Thermite, that's what did it."

Me: "Hhhhmmmm. I'm sorry, but I don't think jet fuel burns at any specific temperature. I believe it depends on the rate it burns and how fast the heat is carried away."

Guy: "No way man, you should look it up."

Me: "Okay."

on the importance of being earnest about oxygen

Last year in lab, this guy got burnt semi-badly when his oil bath caught fire (actually this story has the odd quirk that I never saw the guy, so i don't know how badly he was hurt, but I can promise you he exists). Actually oil bath fires are not so dangerous, but how you extinguish them can be really dangerous. The molecule that explains why this is so is oxygen. Before I explain, watch this video to see how bad oil fires can get: