Any day now...
Heard this song on TV, immediately grabbed it off iTunes, and then played it like a broken record probably 6 times in a row. Man, what I wouldn't give to be able to play a guitar and a harmonica at the same time. I mean, and make it sound good.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
The White Stuff
Over a foot of snow in one day...in Dallas, Texas?
Proof:
This El Nino-driven cold snap has left snow on the ground in 49 of the 50 United States. Only Hawaii is completely snow-free this night. And meanwhile, Vancouver, home of the 2010 Winter Olympics that opened up tonight, is snow-free, thanks to its hottest January ever. Wacky.
And on a related note:
Proof:
This El Nino-driven cold snap has left snow on the ground in 49 of the 50 United States. Only Hawaii is completely snow-free this night. And meanwhile, Vancouver, home of the 2010 Winter Olympics that opened up tonight, is snow-free, thanks to its hottest January ever. Wacky.
And on a related note:
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
If Earth Had Rings
Astronomy meets fantasy. Bear with me for a paragraph or two...this is gonna be totally out of left field.
Ever wonder what life on Earth would be like if Saturn-like rings suddenly surrounded its equator? OK, neither did I. If you’re like me, your first thought only considers what this arrangement might look like “from afar”, i.e., as a distant observer not on Earth.
That’s all well and good, but the really fun part is imagining what it would look like from your own backyard. These hypothetical gigantic rings would certainly be far more prominent in the sky than any other extraterrestrial object up there right now (e.g., constellations, the moon, meteorites). Imagine the clouds breaking after a rainstorm to reveal not only a brilliant sunset and thumbnail crescent of a moon, but also those icy rings shimmering in the sky.
Then, think about perspective. If the rings surround the equator, then it’d look like a paper-thin strip directly above an observer on the equator at the Earth’s surface. But the rings might look much broader if you were observing from closer to the poles: the rings might dominate the southern sky in, say Norway, and the northern sky in, say, New Zealand.
I gotta confess, I wish I had been imaginative enough to think this whole idea up on my own. Alas, I am not. But some dude named Roy Prol is, and lucky for us, he’s mighty gifted in the computery arts. Super freakin’ awesome video follows (give it about a minute):
Ever wonder what life on Earth would be like if Saturn-like rings suddenly surrounded its equator? OK, neither did I. If you’re like me, your first thought only considers what this arrangement might look like “from afar”, i.e., as a distant observer not on Earth.
That’s all well and good, but the really fun part is imagining what it would look like from your own backyard. These hypothetical gigantic rings would certainly be far more prominent in the sky than any other extraterrestrial object up there right now (e.g., constellations, the moon, meteorites). Imagine the clouds breaking after a rainstorm to reveal not only a brilliant sunset and thumbnail crescent of a moon, but also those icy rings shimmering in the sky.
Then, think about perspective. If the rings surround the equator, then it’d look like a paper-thin strip directly above an observer on the equator at the Earth’s surface. But the rings might look much broader if you were observing from closer to the poles: the rings might dominate the southern sky in, say Norway, and the northern sky in, say, New Zealand.
I gotta confess, I wish I had been imaginative enough to think this whole idea up on my own. Alas, I am not. But some dude named Roy Prol is, and lucky for us, he’s mighty gifted in the computery arts. Super freakin’ awesome video follows (give it about a minute):
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
