When [It] Strikes Me

That would be NASA and not Pixar.

There has been science in the news this week.  It hasn’t been great, but even the worst news sometimes has a silver lining.  And I think that’s the case here with both stories.

President Obama’s budget proposals in his first year have been science heavy.  His 2009 budget gave bumps to several science-focused departments and additional programs, granted NASA stimulus money and tried to find room for a return to the moon by 2020.

Not withstanding my belief that Obama cares more about science than the recently departed government CEO, he’s pretty much been forced to end his support of it this year.  Particularly with NASA, the spending freeze he’s instituting is gutting science.  On Monday, he’s expected to announce that he’s killed the Moon 2020 plan and it looks to move to commercialize and privatize space flight [There's a joke to be made here that he's finally found one industry sector he doesn't want to socialize].

This is not, however, to say that the President has killed NASA.  Quite to the contrary, I think he’s merely made an amputation of the fully government-controlled space flight program in an effort to save the corpus as a whole.  He’s proposing to grant the ISS several more years of life and I’m confident he might try to find a way to extend the Hub and other observational satellites, which are the stuff of scientific magic.  Nevertheless, it’s a bit of a dark day when you realize that manned flight (that which contributes the most to a child’s imagination) is taking the brunt of the hit.

All this comes just two days after the true-life Wall-E story of the robot that just wouldn’t quit.  The Mars rover Spirit is almost 1900 days past its scheduled run of 90 days of operation.  Unfortunately, much as with me golf courses, you don’t want to get stuck in a sand trap on Mars.  That’s exactly what Spirit did this past week.  Spirit is now permanently in said trap but remains scientifically operational.  There’s a long winter ahead for it, but it’s done its service to America and humanity at large, and it appears it will continue to do so, at least for the time being.

XKCD put together a great tribute cartoon for Spirit which I’ve linked after the jump. Read more…

The suffering of Kentackalacky over the short lived top ranking is quite reminiscent of Bruce Pearl’s “suffering” when his Vols were, for all intents and purposes, knocked from their pedestal by the Commodores just 48 hours after defeating off Calipari’s Memphis Tigers two years ago.  Of course, you can’t be suffering too much if you’re number one even for just a day.

I actually wouldn’t be shocked if this shirt actually became a bigger hit because it’s not available until its point is moot.

On January 25th the Kentucky Wildcats rose to #1 in the national college basketball rankings.  To commemorate their accomplishment the UK Team Shop released this shirt, due in stock on January 27th.  On January 26th the Wildcats lost to the unranked South Carolina Gamecocks.  Oops.

From Rick Ankiel’s Mustache, via probationaryperiod.

If the Gregory Brothers can Auto-Tune the News, John Boswell over at Symphony of Science figured he could “bring scientific knowledge and philosophy to the masses, in a novel way, through the medium of music.”  IMO, he’s put together some really great stuff here.   While I don’t have the time to produce real content of my own, I figured I ought to provide some good entertainment that can still pique the mind.

Note that you can download the movies and the MP3s at Boswell’s site.

The Unbroken Thread, featuring Attenborough, Goodall and Sagan

CLICK THROUGH FOR SOME MORE VIDEOS Read more…

Once again, it’s a Monday night in the New Year, which means family night with “24”.  As I mentioned last week, my folks come over for the one show they watch to catch it on the big screen TV.  The benefit to me is my Mom’s a wicked solid cook and I get a home cooked meal… and the impetus to leave work early.

As I’m going to try to do all season, here are my quick hitter thoughts on last night’s episode.  Spoilers ahead, so don’t read unless you’ve already watched the episode.

CLICK THROUGH TO READ MORE Read more…

I’ve been swamped at work and haven’t been able to churn out the site product like I’ve wanted to.  So here’s an update of what I have in the works once work calms down:

Book Reviews

Non-Fiction Book Reviews (“The Next 100 Years”, “The World Without Us” and “The God Delusion”)

Graphic Novel Reviews (“The Walking Dead”, “Y: The Last Man” and “Pax Romana”)

TV and Film Reviews

TV Reviews (The Shield: Season 1 Review and The West Wing Recap for Season 1)

LOST Recaps (The rest of Season 5)

Movie Reviews (Carriers, Rogue, The Education of Charlie Banks and Angels and Demons)

Gadgetry Reviews

Review of the FitBit, two weeks in (what I’m closest to being done with)

Unboxing the Kindle, a first look

In the meantime, enjoy this Animated GIF:

The timing on the TeamSpeedKills.com weekly Blogosphere Power Poll is awkward for Hoops.  A Thursday midnight cutoff is a full half week after the Top 25 polls close and is just a weird time to submit.  Nevertheless, Phil from Save the Shield and I got our picks for Conference Week 3 of Southeastern Conference Hoops in on time.

The only real, substantive change is that South Carolina got jumped by Ole Miss and Florida, and that Ole Miss jumped Florida.  There’s a pretty big drop between MSU and Ole Miss and between South Carolina and the bottom of the league.  The real question mark is how much better the Fighting Freshmen in Kentackalacky are than the rest of the league.  That question (and whether the Vols’ lack of depth will catch up to them) are the real unanswered questions.  It looks like it will be a three team (UK, UT and Vanderbilt) battle in the East and a state of Mississippi battle for the West (with MSU winning at Oxford already).

Anyway, Phil’s and my picks are after the jump. Read more…

This is a character you’re likely to not know unless you’re a participant in college sports message boards.  On the Rivals.com network, in particular, LSUFreek is legendary for providing hilarious animated GIFs.

Terrance Donnels (the man behind the screenname) was recently granted his own domain on SportingNews.com to further distribute his images and thoughts.  You can visit that site here, but really all you need to do is follow his Twitter feed @LSUFreek.

Linked after the jump are some of my favorite LSUFreek animated GIFs.  There are a ten of them, so it may take a second to load. Read more…

YouTube user hh1edits has assembled the 100 Cheesiest Movie Quotes of All Time.  Embedded here:

A bird may love a fish, signore, but where will they live?

Seriously?  Really?  Drew Barrymore can’t demand a better set of lines?

As I wait for my newly ordered Kindle to arrive (I finally caved and promised the stack of paper books I’ve got on my bedside that they will still get read), I was excited to see news break today that Jeff Bezos is soliciting Apps for the Kindle.  Starting next month, a KDK (Kindle Developer Kit) will be made available.  Granted, the E-Ink format likely won’t be able to compete with whatever flash comes out with the iTablet, but it’s good to see Amazon strike now, before Apple gets into the game.

Source: Macworld

The folks over at OnlineEducation.net have been putting together some well constructed infographics.  Although I’m not entirely certain what service they provide (or if they’re just a great site producing infographics), even if they are trying to sell you something, that doesn’t vitiate the excellence and thought provoking nature of their graphics (at least not any more than a New York Times infographic).

The latest is a discussion of the true nature of higher education in the United States.  It’s somewhat bleak in many ways and one has to wonder if the modern system of education with the payoff of jobs available is an appropriate balance.

Click through to view. Read more…