Steven S. Holland

My friend Bill Whirity (see link to his website on the side) is making a movie (look for his other movie Broke on netflix!…I was supposed to be Eddie Beats but had my wisdom teeth out right before shooting…I digress) called The Misadventures of Milo Weatherby.  From what I have seen of it, it will be awesome.  It is about these two kids and their, well, misadventures with science. They just finished shooting it, so no idea when it will be out.  Here is a great video from it:

http://billwhirity.com/milo/videos/microwave_implosion.mov

Images of the earth and moon from 31 million miles away.

“A NASA spacecraft designed to look for comets turned its cameras homeward, capturing a unique view of the moonEarth as seen from 31 million miles away. The spacecraft, Deep Impact, took shots at 15-minute intervals, which were combined to make the sequence shown below. passing in front of the

The latest images show the moon and Earth in greater detail than previous ones taken by orbiting spacecraft, showing oceans and continents on our planet and craters on the moon. By studying how Earth looks from so far away, the scientists hope to sharpen their search for alien worlds that may share similar characteristics”

This is just really cool. It’s a water balloon colliding with a guy’s head in slow motion (1000FPS = 1000 frames per second). Played back at 30FPS (normal video) that is a slowdown rate of 3% of normal speed.

I am always fascinated by things like this in slow motion. There was a great Dave Chapelle skit where he talked about how anything in slow motion is instantly much cooler/funnier. It’s true. Movies always exploit this effect.

Take anything, the simplest thing, and slow it down like this, and it becomes this amazing, beautiful sequence. I still remember being in grammar school and watching this video where they slow down a bunch of normal, everyday actions — and one, of course, was a simple drop of water incident on standing water. The coolest thing ever. That image sticks with me to this day.

 Freecycle!  I read about this in the paper today, and so I finally checked it out tonight — it is a great idea.  Basically, it does the old trick of turning your trash into…well, someone else’s gold.  All for free!  It serves two purposes: 1.) keeps junk out of landfills that are still useful to someone, and 2.) gets people free stuff they need.

It’s the type of site you wish exists when you move.  You think to yourself, “do I really want to hang onto this lamp?  I don’t want to throw it away.  I could just leave it here, but who knows if the next tenant won’t just throw it away anyway??”  Perhaps you haven’t been in that exact same position, but I have.  I took the lamps and now they sit in my parents basement - they didn’t make it to the new apartment.

It has been around since 2004, though, which I was not aware.  I am already signed up for the Amherst group.

…and you would have a population equal to all humans who have ever lived throughout history.

This came up in conversation the other day with a friend of mine, and was an estimate I was unaware and, to be honest, is incredible to think about.  The estimate says that of the entire human population throughout history, from all eras - 5.6% are alive today.   It makes sense when you think about the 6 billion population total as of today, but it’s still something that’s hard to wrap your brain around.  It’s essentially a product of exponential growth, although it is hard to know how exactly population growth has gone, as this article states, and plateaus of population numbers or sharp increases aren’t exactly accounted for.  All and all, it admits it is a guess, but it is fairly conservative, and seems like a plausible guess.