Earth Angel

One of our internet friends (and fellow Jonathan Coulton fan) Freecone has posed an interesting question over at Ask.Metafilter.

He asks:
"How would a metal rod with a slightly larger diameter built around the earth react to gravity? Say it's built as to avoid extremes in altitude, mountains and the sort. Would it hover in place, spin at a set point, spin randomly, or buckle? Is there anyway to know the answer other than building one?"

He's even gone so far as to create a sweet infographic to supplement the question.

Check out the ongoing discussion here.

Walking with Darwin

We recently went with some friends to see the live puppet show "Walking with Dinosaurs" at Phillips Arena. When I say puppets... I mean three story tall, life size robot monsters. They were awesome.

The Dinosaurs ranged in size from little newborn dinosaur hand puppets to man sized suits for the Velociraptors (very awesome) even all the way up to a huge motorized Brachiosaurus. The "drivable" dinosaurs had a slim pod under their bellies were a puppeteer would sit to operate the giant puppet. They actually walked freely around the stage, that was the most impressive part.

The two Dinosaurs with the most personality were by far the crowd pleasing mother Tyrannosaurus Rex and it's baby. The offspring was another man sized suit. These were a great touch, their natural fluid movement made the minimal clunkiness of the giant robots a lot more palatable. (Even though we're of the opinion that there's nothing more charming than a clunky old clunker of a robot...) The mother's roar was tied directly into the sound system so it sounded amazing. We even got to see the crew testing out the T-rex robot/puppet after the show. You could see right down into the cockpit.

There was another aspect of this show that I really liked. It wasn't all about giant robots and rubber suits. They talked about Science and Evolution, these subjects were treated as matter of fact and not glossed over in any way. I know it's a show about dinosaurs, so they probably figured anyone who was in attendance was at least interested in the subject enough to be familiar with Evolution. However, we're in the south, and I am constantly amazed by how little respect the subject gets here.

I kept thinking about how many mothers in the audience had to quickly cover their children's ears when the Narrator made a big deal about modern day birds being the direct evolutionary descendants of the Dinosaurs.

Keep it up Darwin.

A poor representation of something greater.

Madeleine L'Engle, author of the classic "A Wrinkle in Time," passed away last thursday at the age of 88.

In that classic book, Madeleine L'Engle makes reference to one our most favorite theoretical mathematical shapes. The Tesseract. Also known as a hypercube, the tesseract is an imaginary projection of an ordinary 3d cube viewed in the 4th dimension. Sound complicated? It is.

In honor of her passing, physicist David Morgan explains the tesseract in this NPR video. (via boingboing)

And of course what would a post about the tesseract be without a little help from Carl Sagan. Actually, what would one of our posts be without mention of our most beloved of science persons. Here he explains the tesseract:

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

The Enemies of Reason

We have a general rule around here about posting on topics of religion and politics. In that, generally, we don't do it. Which is not to say we don't have strong feelings about them both, because we do. It's also not intended to imply that there couldn't be an open-minded and enlightening discussion about them both, because there could be. It's just that the odds are stacked very much against such a conversation.

Even the Free and Accepted Masons outlawed the discussion of both in their Temples.

So it is with trepidation that we present this documentary in two parts. It is titled: The Enemies of Reason, and it was made by one of the world's leading Atheists, Richard Dawkins. It is in the spirit of disclosure, not of persuasion, that we comment on him now. The fact that we have not until now said much about Richard Dawkins in a testament to our general rule. In fact the only regular mention of him we've made is a subtle link to his non-profit organization, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Richard Dawkins, a molecular biologist, made big waves with his first book, The Selfish Gene, a controversial book for it's time. (1976) His newest book, The God Delusion (2007) would prove to be even more controversial.

We are huge fans of his, but the dude is a firecracker. Part of his efforts in raising awareness of Atheism is a systematic disrespecting of religion. It sounds harsh (because it is) but he says that no respect is given to a non-believer, so why in turn, does everyone bend over backwards to respect religion?

Dawkins says:

"Even those with no faith have been brainwashed into respecting the faith of others. When so-called Muslim community leaders go on the radio and advocate the killing of Salman Rushdie, they are clearly committing incitement to murder--a crime for which they would ordinarily be prosecuted and possibly imprisoned. But are they arrested? They are not, because our secular society "respects" their faith, and sympathizes with the deep "hurt" and "insult" to it.

If that hasn't left a bitter taste in your mouth, then I invite you to watch his two part documentary:

The Enemies of Reason.
In this documentary Richard Dawkins takes a break from battling Religion to investigate all forms of superstition and psuedoscience, from homeopathic cures to healing by chokra and investigating water dowsers. *spoiler alert* They're all scams.

Part 1:

Part 2:

R.I.P. Mr. Wizard

Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert died at the age of 89 on Tuesday. The L.A. Times has a nice article on his life and his awesome television show.

Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique

This post represents my application to
The Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique.

The Science Scouts are half joke, half alternative to faith-based groups like The Boyscouts. They all generally agree about "The Truth." They also like badges, some of them are funny, others are just plain awesome, and we actually qualify for quite a few! New badges are being released by The Order all the time. If you'd like to apply, simply submit a page like this detailing your qualifications. Below you'll find the badges we've earned and our reasons for their award.

The "talking science" badge

On a near nightly basis, you can count on my wife sitting through more than a few science based discussions. If you are still not convinced, feel free to track down my few remaining friends for conformation.

The "I blog about science" badge

Are you kidding me? Science posts are the very corner-stone of this weblog. Please refer to my Math & Science as well as my Cosmology posts.

The "arts and crafts" badge

Well... I went to art school, and I make robot puppets out of cardboard. I also like to draw images of space and animate them.

The "destroyer of quackery" badge

We all gave a good cheer when "Dr." Kent Hovind was sent up the river.

The "I'm a freaking rock star who sings about science!" badge

Well... rockstar is a bit misleading. We've made rap songs about science.

The "I can be a prick when it comes to science" badge

Don't talk to me about going to Catholic High School. Also, I'm a jerk.

The "I know what a tadpole is" badge

Well, I do.

The "experienced with electrical shock" badge (LEVEL III)

While extracting human hair from a film projector while working as a projectionist at a crappy movie theatre. Entire left arm went numb. Hair was removed, movie continued.

The "I'm into telescopes astro" badge (LEVEL III)

I feel cheap about claiming this one, but it's true. I have seen the rings of Saturn as viewed through the 30-inch reflecting telescope at the Bradley Observatory on the Agness Scott College campus once. It was small but it was A-MAZING.

all these worlds are yours...

20 light years away... Circling a small red dwarf star called Gliese 581 (the star is still 10X the size of our sun: Sol) there sits an Earth-like planet. This planet has a climate similar to Earth's (some cosmologists suspect it ay be MORE friendly to life than our beloved Earth) it has gravity and water. It's got all the right conditions to support life, and it's only 20 light years away. Right now it is designated: Gliese 581c

If we were to transmit a message today to this newly discovered planet on the end of a laser beam traveling the speed of light it would take 20 years for our message to get there. Our message would have traveled 117,492,033,468,146.02 miles. Not that there'd necessarily be anybody there to receive our message. But there might be life...

So Astronomers and Cosmologists have this thing called the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation predicts how probable extra-terrestrial life is in our Universe. It takes into account how many stars *probably* have formed within our Cosmos. (R*) Then the equation narrows that variable down to the stars that may have planets circling them (fp) and is then refined further still to how many of those planets may be capable of supporting life (ne). But we're not done yet... The equation takes into account how much of that life may develop (fl) and then that life developing intelligence (fi), the ability to communicate (fc) and finally... actually be alive long enough to send us a message (L).

It's written like this:

Cosmologists believe there may be billions of planets floating around in our Cosmos, but as of today they have only discovered 220 that exist beyond our solar system. This is due to the mind-blowingly large distances between us and any other planets out there. We're in the sticks, a pale blue dot in a backwater arm of the Milky Way. Although we've been learning sooo much about our Universe in recent years it's still easy to forget how little we really know.

For the Overdroid: Let's Blow up Gliese 581c!!

"I am the main dish of the day."

a clip from
Growing Up in the Universe
the 2 Disc DVD produced by
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

Physics for Future Presidents

Richard Muller is a professor of physics at UC Berkeley. He teaches a physics class designed specifically for non-physics majors called Physics for Future Presidents. In the style of Carl Sagan his goal for the lectures is "for everyone to come away with the feeling that what was just covered is important for every world leader to know." (via metafilter)

Now you can take his entire class online... for free-ninty-nine! (that means free) Complete with quizzes, exams, and google video of his actual lectures. You can even email Muller himself if you're having problems!

I have always kicked myself for not taking my math classes more seriously in school. Although I did take a shine to Catholic High School level Biology, but I believe this to be the result of having to hand draw hundreds of models of single celled, and micro organisms. Once I've drawn something I can pretty much remember it forever. I even tried to teach myself calculus with available online text books, however, I've found that without a good lecturer, it's difficult to self-teach.

Now that Muller's lectures are all available online, that's not such a problem anymore. Well, Berkeley has taken this even further. You can now view courses and lectures from UC Berkeley directly through iTunes! Also for free! It's really a refreshing thing to see knowledge being given away freely like this. Sadly, it's also very rare.

Why does it have to be so rare? Why shouldn't everyone have access to this knowledge? OK, the people who attend Berkeley have worked very hard to do so, and are paying a lot of money. I totally respect that, their reward for this is a Berkeley diploma. The knowledge itself, the actual teachings, should be free to everyone. But if you want to say you've gone to Berkeley, well that's a different story, you need to get the grades to be accepted, you must pay the University to sit in their classes. This is essentially what Steve Jobs did. He dropped out, and started attending the classes that interested him. Learning what he wanted to learn. Look where that got him.

Chasing The Station

Wow, we just got back from a 4 day weekend, and boy did we need it.

We didn't just celebrate America's Independence all weekend mind you, we worked on the Pleaseeasaur Animation for most of it. The first piece of the animation is almost complete, now just 9 more to go :)

I've been reading the book Dragonfly: NASA and the crisis aboard MIR, kindly donated to me by Perk. It's pretty awesome, and follows the series of accidents and equipment failures that plagued MIR as it's era was waning, and the International Space Station was being planned. It's like 4 dudes were locked up in a billion dollar trashcan doing science experiments while the whole thing fell apart around them. MIR commanders used to spend most of their time aboard MIR fixing MIR. That was actually in their mission description! "Fix MIR"

I mention this because yesterday was not only Independence Day here in America, but it also marked the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. Discovery's mission is to meet up with the International Space Station, to deliver supplies and, get this, make repairs to the International Space Station.

You can track Discovery's location and it's relation to the International Space Station. It's chasing the Station because Discovery's launch was delayed, and as a result the Station just flew by in orbit overhead.

Blotting out the sun.

This photo was taken from the International Space Station on March 29, 2006. Featuring our (The Earth's) 4th solar eclipse since 1999.

"The International Space Station (ISS) was in position to view the umbral (ground) shadow cast by the Moon... This astronaut image captures the umbral shadow across southern Turkey, northern Cyprus, and the Mediterranean Sea. The terminator of the eclipse—the line between the light and dark parts of the Sun’s disk— is visible as it passes across central Turkey. The portion of the ISS visible at image top is the Space Station Remote Manipulator System."

The Mariner's Valley.

There might be a trench as impressive on Earth as The Mariner's Valley is on the planet Mars (perhaps the similarly named Mariana Trench in the Pacific?). But we can't really know, because our deepest and widest trenches are under billions of gallons of water.

But we have robots on Mars, and flying around it. Based on Observer imagery The JPL Digital Image Animation Laboratory has reconstructed this giant trench that could fit the complete island of manhattan lengthwise on it's floor as a highly detailed computer animation. Google video does it again, take the tour of The Mariner's Valley.

Water Ho.

You've probably heard about this, but the Cassini spacecraft that's been exploring the moons of Saturn has returned some very interesting data.

The southern polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus has shown Yellowstone-like geysers of icy water erupting from apparent liquid reservoirs very close to the surface. Why is this so exciting? Where there is ice, there is sometimes water, and where there is water, there is sometimes LIFE. The prospect of a form of life, even primitive, in our own solar system is very exciting. This isn't some far away planetoid in the arm of a distant galaxy. This is right in our own neighborhood. Granted: It's a big neighborhood, but still.

Be sure to check out the short video from Cassini

"If we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms."
- Dr. Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at Space Science Institute

P.S. Oh, in other planetary news, there's a new red spot on Jupiter!

Life Beyond Earth

And The Mind of Man.

From the same collection of National Archive Films that have been uploaded for free downloads to Google Video, the film is an edited version of a symposium held at Boston University on November 20, 1972. It explores the implications of the possible existence of extraterrestrial life within the galaxy and the universe.

Featuring some of the most brilliant minds of the time, and in fact, the most brilliant minds still of today... Dr. Richard Berendzen, astronomy professor and historian of science at Boston University; Dr. Ashley Montagu, anthropologist, social biologist and author at Rutgers University; Dr. Philip Morrison, physicist educator and philosopher of science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Dr. Krister Stendahl, clergyman and theologian at Harvard University; and Dr. George Wald, biologist at Harvard University...

and of course...

Dr. Carl Sagan, astronomer and exobiologist at Cornell University.

Intellects... Vast, Cool and Unsympathetic

"Minds that are to our minds as our minds are to the beasts in the jungle."

Google is running a project with the National Archives to upload 101 significant films from the archive to Google Video.

One of those videos is called Who's Out There. Made in 1975, the year I was born, and narrated by Orson Wells. (with a guest appearance from the beloved and brilliant, television's favorite nerdy scientists, and 1970's swinger... Carl Sagan!)

Wells begins the film by reading from H. G. Wells' famous science fiction book The War of the Worlds. He then talks about his equally famous radio broadcast and dramatization of the same book, and how people really thought aliens were landing wen they heard the broadcast. Then actual real-life people who were fooled into jamming the highways, or who ran into the hills are interviewed. They try to give us perspective as to why they were fooled so easily.

Suit Sat 1

On February 3rd, 2006 the crew of the International Space Station pushed a Russian space suit out of an airlock. It was filled with batteries, radio transmitters, and some diagnostic instruments.

They called it SuitSat 1:

People all over the world then tracked the floating man-made satellite.

Looks beautiful man... um does it run?

Yeah it runs, well the engine runs, but it's got no lights. The scooter that is.

I'm saving the "Big Reveal" of the new scooter paint job until I have that sucker in full working order. So expect a few less scooter posts (I know it'll break everyone's hearts) until those kind people at SPD have a chance to put a new central nervous system in my dearly beloved.

In other news: The New Year quickly approaches.
We'll be ushering in 2006 at PushPush Theater's New Year's Party featuring the talents of DJ Rene spinning black circles... and also playing records...

Here is something interesting, these guys at SpaceTimeTravel.com have created a computer simulation illustrating what we should see when moving at nearly the speed of light. When you begin to move as fast as the light surrounding you, your field of vision would expand, everything you passed would not in fact move behind you, but would become squished at the edges of your vision. And get this... When you go fast enough (theoretically) you could actually see things that are BEHIND YOU. You'd be "cathing up" to that light coming from behind you.

It is physically impossible for humans, or anything besides light, to travel at the speed of light, and in fact even approaching those speeds would surely cause serious problems associated with being alive... But through these simulation we can speculate on what it would be like.

This subject was also covered with similar detail in Episode 8 of Carl Sagan's Cosmos: Travels in Space and Time.

The Reality of an Ion Drive

In Star Wars, the TIE fighter is driven by, and gets its name from, Twin Ion Engines. I remember as a kid when I first heard that. TIE just sounded like a made up word, but back then Lucas was smarter than that. Now, Ion Engine, that sounded made up also... But, it's not.

In 1960 at the Glenn Research Center NASA invented the first real life Ion Engine. It works just like the proposed Star Wars ion drives, just on a much smaller scale.

"Ion propulsion is a technology that involves ionizing a gas to propel a craft. Instead of a spacecraft being propelled with standard chemicals, the gas xenon (which is like neon or helium, but heavier) is given an electrical charge, or ionized. It is then electrically accelerated to a speed of about 30 km/second."

NASA first live tested an Ion Drive in it's space craft Deep Space 1 in 1998. Ion Drives are ideal for deep space missions:

"Because the ion propulsion system, although highly efficient, is very gentle in its thrust, it cannot be used for any application in which a rapid acceleration is required.

This means that Ion Propulsion isn't going to get you out of the atmosphere, but once you've escaped Earth's gravity, say into the vacuum of space, it'll take you far, far away.

Oh Brother...

A Kansas School Board redefines "science" so they can cram nonsense into children's skulls.

"The board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena."

Yes, this is that same Intelligent Design nonsense that's so ridiculous the Catholics have denounced it. The Catholics! When the guys who wouldn't accept the sun as the center of our solar system until 1979 tell you that you're on the wrong track... listen to them.

Hypercool

The tesseract is a theoretical mathematical object that "predicts" what the most simplest object would look like in the 4th dimension. In our third dimension we would call a tesseract a cube. But when we try to project this 4th dimensional object into our own 3 dimensions, we can only see it's "shadow." And it's shadow is mindbending.

Well there would be many other shapes in the 4th dimension, besides the tesseract. What would they look like? That we can never know, because as humans we do not have the ability to live in the 4th dimension. So anytime we try to imagine what things would look like in the 4th dimension, we are only seeing the "shadows" of those objects. Adrian Ocneanu, professor of mathematics at Penn State, has designed and created a sculpture so we could see the shadow of a new 4th dimensional shape represented in our 3 meager dimensions. (via The Ape)

Litigating Common Sense

Maybe you haven't been keeping abreast of this, but in Dover, Pennsylvania there is a court case between the parents of students and the local school board that wants to teach students Intelligent Design.

What is Intelligent Design? It's the latest re-hashing of Creationist Science. Intelligent Design, or ID, says that life on Earth is far too complex to be attributed to evolution. It had to be designed by some sort of intelligence. ID's origins can be traced back to the 1890s. William Paley in his book Natural Theology makes his famous watchmaker analogy:

If we find a watch in a field, it is too complex to have appeared there by natural process so we assume that there must be a watchmaker responsible for its creation. Similarly, the argument goes, life is too complex not to have a creator, God.

In current ID doctrine they never actually say *whispers* God, because their strategy is to use scientific method against itself. Though, in the same breath they elude to the fact that aliens might be responsible for all life on Earth.

Why is this trial important?
It will set a Precedent, that's with a capital P. It's the school board who is attempting to introduce ID into the school curriculum, that's insane! These parents are taking a stand against this assault on common sense. Some parents have begun pulling their children out of schools who are fighting to teach ID as an alternative to Evolution.

You can keep track of the proceedings in PA on The Panda's Thumb weblog. The ACLU has a special section of their website that is also devoted to this case. If you want to get an impartial foreign view on what asses we are making of ourselves here in the U.S. over this, check out this article from the Guardian UK.

This is something that cannot be ignored. When religion is dressed up and taught as an alternative to science in freaking science classes, we have indeed reached the tipping point. The place where we are all going to finally tumble is still up to us. All I know is that if this goes the way of the ID Priors, zombie Carl Sagan will rise from his grave and eat your stupid brain.

...and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the lidless Eye

The Hubble Space Telescope finds an interesting image of the star Fomalhaut.

"The ring is composed of dust particles in orbit around Fomalhaut, a bright star located just 25 light years away in the constellation Pisces Australis – or the Southern Fish."

"I'm your density" - George McFly

We've seen Carl Sagan talk about Time Travel previously. He eluded to a discovery like this.

A new model in Quantum Mechanics states that time travel can occur within a feedback loop, but only where the backwards movement is "complementary" to the present timeline.

This new model will cancel out the notion of a Grandfather Paradox, which states that if you go back in time and kill your grandfather, you would never be born to travel back in time in the first place.

"You go back to kill your father, but you'd arrive after he'd left the room, you wouldn't find him, or you'd change your mind," said Professor Greenberger.

This makes Doc Brown very happy.

A poor representation of something greater.

Thorsten Fleisch is a german born short film maker. At his website Fleischfilm.com you can see his collection of films. Also, be warned, when you put the words "German" and "short films" in the same sentence expect some existential weirdo stuff. But it's good.

The one that caught my eye is titled Gestalt, and it's projecting fourth dimensional quaternions (a group of fractals) into a three-dimensional space. Yeah what does that mean...

Well if we were ever to be greeted by a fourth dimensional being, we would only be able to see "slices" of that being as he intersected with our meager 3 dimensions. Most of our inter-dimensional traveller would be invisible to us, as it would only exist in the fourth dimension, and therefore beyond our ability to envision, or even comprehend. Inter-dimensional travel caught your interest? check out the book Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. See also, Cosmos on DVD by Carl Sagan.

This film attempts to re-create what a fourth dimensional object would look like to us.... and... that's COOL! (via metafilter)

physics.org

The Institute of Physics in London has developed a flash based interface to detail The Evolution of Physics.

It's no wikipedia on the subject, but the site will give you a virtual history of the growth and development of physics, and you can even ask it questions that it tries to answer automatically with links from it's database. (via)

A wrinkle in time. oh and space.

According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, matter causes space to curve. And because space and time are intertwined, matter will also cause time to curve.

When two stars are trapped in orbit around each other it's called a Binary Star system. It looks something like this. This phenomenon causes massive ripples called gravity waves to spiral outward from the twin stars. These ripples severely distort space-time, and are a direct consequence of Einstioen's Theory being proven out.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been developing a spacecraft called a Laser Interferometer Space Antenna to measure these ripples in space-time. They call it LISA and it would be the first dedicated space-based gravitational wave observatory. With this technology NASA hopes that it may be able to measure gravitational waves that escaped from the earliest moments of the Big Bang.

The Galactic Highway.

Scientists are mapping the gravity pools of the universe. Armed with this knowledge they may be able to create low-fuel highways using these "celestial currents" to send space craft farther with less fuel. (via metafilter)

that's rad.

The Pi Pie

Megpi works as a pastry cook in Hollywood, she made a Pi Pie.

Feeding a Dinosaur... with insanity

Ok, this is a short follow-up to yesterday's post. This has become less about Religion, and more about what a raving lunatic Dr. Kent Hovind is.

Dr. Dino.com is the website of Dr. Kent Hovind, and is the official Creation Science Evangelism resource center. With links to such exciting events like The Creation Boot Camp.

Here is a funny bit, the website kent-hovind.com is not a website run by Kent Hovind, but is instead a website analyzing the good "Dr." They look at where Kent Hovind got his PhD from:

"Hovind acquired a religious based PhD in "Christian Education" from Patriot University. "Christian Education" is an evangelism course. Patriot University is an unaccredited correspondence school (note '.com' not '.edu'). "

Also, Kent Hovind runs a Creation Science dinosaur theme park called Dinosaur Adventure Land. Here is a guy who visited that place, and here is a snippet of what he had to say about it:

"Young-earth creationist Kent Hovind has built a dinosaur-filled theme park in the Florida panhandle and claims to prove that evolution is bunk. A visit there shows that it is definitely a fantasy land."

There is also a section called Quacky Qoutes, there are some gems in there, like this one:

"The Smithsonian Institute [sic] has 33,000 sets of human remains in their basement right now as you are reading this.  Many of them were taken while the people were still alive.  They were so desperate to find missing links, so desperate to prove their theory that they murdered people to prove it."

and finally, Ken Hovind on Ali G. (no video, just a discussion about the show)

alright I hope we all got that out of our system, and now back to your regularly scheduled clunkyrobot.com

Feeding a Dinosaur

Some of my co-workers have been border line obsessed with The Creation Science Museum in Stone Mountain Georgia. (the Museum used to have a website, but it's down, here is a google cache to prove it actually did exist at one time. The reasons for it's mysterious disappearing web presence are open to interpretation) While I shouldn't speculate on why they find the museum so interesting. I know why I do, because of the Creation Scientist's interesting explanation and justification of the Dinosaurs.

This is not a post about religion. People should be free to believe whatever they want.. I think that's fair. I just think it's dangerous when personal belief flies in the face of science and common sense. To that point, here is the cover to Creation Science Evangelism, The Creation Seminar Series Part 1: The Age of the Earth:

Now, I held this tape in my hands. I looked at it, I said something to the effect of "Man, Creation Science.... weird stuff." It was only when I walked all the way back to my desk and sat down did it finally strike me....

THOSE PEOPLE ARE FEEDING A DINOSAUR!

seriously. Can we please get our shit together, as a race of humans.

ok, to be fair, you should watch the video yourself, and you can. I've found it online, all 6 parts, including the provocative 7th Question and Answer portion. I give you Dr. Kent Hovind's Creation Science Seminar Online in Realvideo. Watch it, and find the answers to such questions as:
"How old is the Earth?"
"What Happened to the Mammoths?"
and
"What about Cave Men?"

Carl Sagan is awesome.

I was reading Jason's journal, he was talking about time travel, and it reminded me of an awesome interview Nova did with Carl Sagan about that very subject. Check it out:

"First of all, it might be that you can build a time machine to go into the future, but not into the past, and we don't know about it because we haven't yet invented that time machine. Secondly, it might be that time travel into the past is possible, but they haven't gotten to our time yet, they're very far in the future and the further back in time you go, the more expensive it is. Thirdly, maybe backward time travel is possible, but only up to the moment that time travel is invented. We haven't invented it yet, so they can't come to us."

- Carl Sagan on Time Travel

Apollo 11

July 20th was the 35th anniversary of the first moon walk. Now, for the first time in Fullscreen QTVR. As photographed by Neil Armstrong. Quicktime needed. (link via kobyrama)

This panorama was created by Hans Nyberg, who has also done panoramas of The Royal Wedding of Frederik and Mary, and Wall Painting in Danish Churches.

The familiar audio is that of Neil Armstrong taking his first steps on the moon.