I’m plugging away at some late-night work, and peek out of my window — what do I spy rising above the eastern rooftops of Queens?
Well, if it ain’t our familiar friend, a yellow June moon:
Archive for the ‘Space and Astronomy’ Category
June moon
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
What does it look like inside of a black hole?
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010According to Andrew Hamilton, an astrophysicist who presented at the World Science Festival’s (WSF) “Black Holes and Holographic Worlds” event, it looks a bit like this:
A failed attempt at 48 Hour Magazine
Sunday, May 9th, 2010I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
- Thomas Edison
Well, I did my best to sneak into the pages of 48 Hour Magazine — a “raucous experiment in using new tools to erase media’s old limits.”
Unfortunately my 430ish words didn’t make the final cut for their “issue zero,” which was themed around the word hustle.
Alexis Madrigal of WIRED tells me that my piece made it far, in fact sailing into the second round. But there it met demise in the face of stiff competition.
Low on battery power, high on hopes, and swimming in motion sickness, I gave it everything I could while crammed into a Ford Escort during a 20-hour road trip to Florida. And regardless of the circumstances, I still think it’s a pretty neat piece. (See below.)
But please don’t mistake my words for whining; that makes for poor company, and even poorer blogging!
This was a hell of a lot of fun, I learned a lot, and I’m extremely thrilled that I even had the opportunity to try, follow through with a submission, and make it as far as I did in the selection process.
I’ll rest peacefully tonight knowing that 48 Hour Magazine appears to be a shining, glorious, smashing success — congrats to all of you guys and gals, contributors included — and that there will always be next time.
That said, here’s my submission:
On immortality
Monday, May 3rd, 2010Immortality. Something more esoteric than I usually brave to tread, so please cut your mental parachutes and join me in free fall. (Don’t worry, I packed us a backup ‘chute.)
First, some back story:
This March at a science writers mixer, I met Rita King — CEO of Dancing Ink Productions, IBM innovator, mayor of Loveland, writer, and so on. Suffice to say, she wears a lot of hats.
I mined advice from King in anticipation of the then-upcoming social media panel. We spoke about good presenting techniques, social media trends, virtual and augmented reality technology, and increasingly more far-out and futuristic conjectures that nerds tend to have after drinking one too many Black and Tans.
So it goes.
Today, King invited me to comment on her recent post at The Imagination Age about filmmaker/Current TV host/personality Jason Silva‘s Turning Into Gods, a new full-length documentary exploring immortality.
Here’s the trailer:
From my limited vantage point, Silva seems very bright-eyed about a future with immortality in it.
Good for him!
Me? I think it a future with immortality in it is profound and exhilarating. But it also freaks me the hell out.
Allow me explain. (more…)
The most amazing thing about the universe
Monday, April 12th, 2010
Last weekend, Kendra and I had dinner and drinks with some friends. Put two nerds together, and we eventually get to talking about science…
One of my particular guilty pleasures is waxing poetic about our astoundingly meager place in the universe. It reliably makes my skin crawl. (Think that’s weird? Please subtract some points from your nerd score.)
So we somehow managed to corner our helpless guests with tall tales about what is known about space. Where spacecraft have visited and what they’ve observed; if we think life is out there, and where; when we’ll get to Mars, if ever; if any habitable planets are nearby; how large the universe is thought to be; where does matter come from; and so on.
As we threw back our beers at the local pub, one friend dropped the question any science enthusiast salivates over:
“What do you think is the most amazing thing about the universe?” (more…)
Miles O’Brien + online space show = yes
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010Only in another universe did I imagine getting free, high-quality, on-demand, weekly TV news about space, astronomy and science in general.
You know, as an alternative to mind-numbing nightly news reports about babies recovered from taxi cabs, the latest fads in dog clothing, and slimy politicians (what’s new, right?). As if there’s nothing else notable *coughtheuniversecough* to cover.*
Miles O’Brien, and SpaceflightNow.com, thank you for “This Week in Space.”
Thank you very, very much:
(more…)