My dear Holmes

Scientists and media everywhere seem baffled and excited about 17/P Holmes, the comet that has suddenly, for some unexplained reason, become roughly one million times brighter than it normally is.

Not only is the comet surprising because of its sudden increase in luminosity, it's confusing scientists because it apparently doesn't have a tail.

Scientists can't seem to agree on whether it actually has a tail or not, and what it might mean if the comet really doesn't have a tail.

If it turns out to be the case that the comet really doesn't have a tail, let's hope Occam's razor doesn't apply. It seems, to this reporter anyway, that the simplest explanation for a lack of detectable tail is that we're looking at the front end of the comet. That, of course, would mean that it's headed straight at us.

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The other neat effect this comet is having? An increase in the number of UFO reports in India.

Sterling adds:

I saw the comet last night.

As Chris said, the comet Holmes is in the constellation Perseus. The best way to see the comet is to look north towards Polaris. Then look down to the left (or East). When you see a little ghostly star, that is the comet. If you are looking at Orion, you have gone too far.

Clear as mud?

Here is a map from Bad Astronomy.

Gardens by the Bay - a biotic Singapore

From the good people at Squint/Opera comes this fantastic animation of how a future Singapore could be the model for terraforming.

Oh yes, this film is spectacular.



Check out the rest of this art house's fantastic portfolio.

Celebrating Sputnik

"Technology now is way ahead of what was available in 1957, and making your own fully functional Sputnik would now be very simple indeed," says Jan Buiting, editor of Elektor Electronics, a hobbyist magazine.

Another in the long list of Sputnik-related awesomeness:

The BBC has posted instructions on how to make your own personal Sputnik with common household items.

Flatland: the movie - I can't wait!

Flatland: the movie is coming to a classroom near you! Based on the 1884 novella by E.A. Abbott, this film should go a long way to helping explain concepts of mathematics and ideas of social hierarchy and revolution.

Re-written for a 21st Century audience, with voice talent from Michael York, Martin Sheen and Christine Bell, this movie looks awesome!



I read this book years ago, and I really like it. Over the last few weeks I have been compiling a list of novels that I might produce into audiobooks (with music, sound effects, etc.) This book is on the list.

Read the novella.

Flatland: the movie

James Howard Kunstler - Angry/funny talk against suburbia

TED talks are great, especially when they have someone as quick and angry as James Howard Kunstler. All of his books on how suburbia are bad are excellent, and his blog is great at iring up the blood.

Inspired by Soviet Poster a Day: Space Worker

I found this amazing piece of art on the Dark Roast Blend. The only information about this piece I have is the name, "Space Worker," and that it's by russian artist Gennady Golobokov, circa 1973.

I like the hammer - in space you will have to hit things.

And the ship, oh the ship.

Do you know anything about Gennady Golobokov, because I can't find a single article or reference.

Late night dreams of West Coast living

"Sub City" by sparth. Put this guy in you RSS, and gaze upon the incredible.

Watch e2 on PBS Online - Blog Action Day post

Today is Blog Action Day - a rallying point for bloggers to post about the environment.

So what can you do? Watch e2 PBS shows online. Over the next few months, PBS is putting the entire episodes of e2 and e2: design on their site.

These are well done half-hour episodes covering green energy, sustainable architecture and how society can become a green juggernaut.

And the episodes are narrated by Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt.

PBS is only keeping one episode up at a time, so you have to check in once a week if you don't want to miss any episodes.

Here is a taste - clips from this weeks feature "Harvesting the wind"

It's not just Betty...

If you're one of the few people who read this blog, you'll know that I really, really like crows.

Well, their awesomeness has just been expanded. Researchers have known for a while that crows in captivity can make tools to solve problems, but some had questioned the findings by saying that maybe tool making is a product of living in the lab. There was, of course, no reason to think that, but it was an objection nonetheless.

But not anymore.

From the CBC:

British researchers have found that the wild New Caledonia crows, like chimpanzees, are crafty with tools in the wild.

Footage from video cameras the researchers attached to the tail feathers of 18 wild birds in New Caledonia, an island in the Pacific Ocean, show the crows were able to design different types of tools, make them and even select them according to each task.

"We observed a new mode of tool use that was not known before," researcher Christian Rutz of the Behavioural Ecology Research Group at the University of Oxford said in Britain.

So there you have it. Wild crows can make tools too.

Welcome to Accrapolis - The first two weeks

I am living vicariously through my sister, Alison Lang. And it is driving me crazy. Lang is in Ghana, teaching radio journalists about reporting on human rights issues.

Not only is she on a foreign continent doing the journalism and suffering/glorifying in culture shock, but she writes in such a captivating and funny form that you can't help but forget everything else that is going on in your life.

My evidence? Here are a few clips from "How to spend your first two weeks in Ghana"

"You are now in your first week. You become amazed at how accustomed you become to being hissed at - in Accra, this is the way people get each other's attention, and isn't considered rude the way it is in Canada.
You skip over open sewers like hopscotch lines. You eat banku and fufu and dip it in crazy soups that have pieces of goat intestine floating in it. You eat some intestine in an attempt to impress your first Ghanaian friend.
Your Ghanaian friend is not impressed and instead laughs his ass off."

"You learn a couple of key phrases in the Twi dialect - how are you, I live in Labone, etc etc - only to realize that half the people here speak another dialect called Ga. Or another dialect called Fanti. Or another dialect that you haven't even heard of.
You come to terms with the fact that people are always yelling things at you and you are never 100 percent sure what is going on."

"You get lost approximately five times every day. To your own house."

"You cry a lot, but not solely due to homesickness, sadness, etc. Your colleague describes it as a perfect heartbreak. And it's true. Ghana is breaking your heart gloriously."

Check out Alison's blog Welcome to Accrapolis for more irreverent/homesick/lovestruck writing.

I can't wait for "How to spend your first six months in Ghana."

Cyberpunk Living Circa Early 90's London

I found out about cyberpunk a little too late - it was the summer of 1992, a Ucluelet day of light, cool from the fog. In among the Niven's, Asimov's, Benford and Herbert, it sat - a dog-eared copy of Neuromancer.

Bleak futures, with leather, ceramic bones, and wrap-around HUD shades.

Anyway, cyberpunk has morphed into many sub-genres since, but those first few years, there were people that took cyberpunk very seriously. Over on Coilhouse (my favorite new design blogmag) there is a feature on Steve Pyke, photographer of the London underground.

Check it out

LEGO DENMARK - BIG DESIGN

BIG is a Danish design firm that re-imagine and re-engineers the idea of the city.

Here is an amazing video of an architectural model made entirely out of LEGO.

Why?

From Dwell:

Denmark has become a country built from LEGO bricks. Rather than seeing the modular mania as a straightjacket, this project is a homage to Danish building industry. By turning the site in to a modular matrix of 12X12ft we created an elastic field of peaks and valleys. A thousand plateaus ascending and descending, separating and merging to form a fluid space of private and public plateaus. Combining the rigorous and the adventurous. The box and the blob.

Here is the clip:



Found this video on DWELL

Portal puzzle game

Portal has gotten a lot of buzz over the last few months. I mean, who doesn't want to use a wormhole gun to escape certain death and maybe have a little fun ratcheting the rules of reality while you're doing it?



Of course, if you have the tech to make a wormhole gun, do you really need one?

video most recently spotted on Futurismic

In for the krill - Penguin noir

A penguin is killed by an orca and leopard seal hitsquad, but why? Max, penguin P.I., is going to check every fish joint, ice capade and late night rookery before the truth gets up and bites back.

CHECK IT OUT - In for the Krill webcomic

I can't wait for the movie.

found via Drawn!

The Talon MAARS armed robot - the most terrifying/cool thing I have seen in days

The Talon MAARS (Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System) from Foster-Miller is ready to kill people so you don't have to.

From the sales pitch:

MAARS™ uses the more powerful M240B medium machine gun and has significant improvements in command and control, situational awareness, maneuverability, mobility, lethality and safety compared to its SWORDS predecessor.

MAARS will also come with a new manipulator arm having a nominal 100 lb lift capability. The arm can quickly replace the turret mounted M240B weapon, literally transforming MAARS from a remote weapons platform for force protection to an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) identification and neutralization tool. The MAARS robot will not only permit units to employ multiple mission payloads but production of common chassis and DCUs will also lead to economies of scale resulting in lowered customer costs.

Big, fast, tough, robotic, lethal - everything you can want from a robot and more.

When will this thing get open-sourced and parts bought from my local hardware store?

found via Danger Room

MK12's History of America - weekend frivolity

What you need to know about this film - Astronauts fighting Cowboys leads to the creation of the US of A.

That is all.

Part 1 - In the beginning....



To download the whole film, go to History of America tv

Space Alphabet - kids book from the '60s

The great Ward-O-Matic blog put up this great picture book from 1964 - Space Alphabet by Irene Zacks, pictures by Peter P. Plasencia.

Here are some of my favorites:

Check out flickr for more!

The Space Race docudrama - The Launch of Sputnik

This is an excerpt from the BBC's docudrama "The Space Race." The series first aired on the BBC in 2005, and follows the work of Korolyov and Von Braun. I found this video while mining my RSS reader.

The clip you are about to see is about the run-up to the Sputnik 1 launch.



found via Spaceports

50 years in space, Comrades: Sputnik 1 launch October 4th, 1957

Glory to Soviet Science poster, found via A Soviet Poster a Day

This is the day, this is the day, that the Russians made, that the Russians made.
Sorry, that is the closest I will ever get to singing a hymn.

Fifty years ago today the Russians bootstrapped the first man-made object into space, heating up the Cold War and starting the race to space! Sputnik 1 is the reason we have satellites, and in this fiftieth year of spaceflight, Sputnik 1 is finally getting its due.

Listen to the sound of Sputnik 1

So here are a couple of articles to peruse before you get together with the family around the replica Vostok in the front room, lay a wreath in front of the busts of Tsiolkovsky, Korolyov and Tikhonravov, and sing the Internationale.

What? You mean your family doesn't do that?

New York Times: Texas Man Linked to Past and Future of Space Exploration...
The Space Age special edition
Air and Space Magazine: 50 Ways to Space Out
It all started with Sputnik
New Scientist Special Report: Sputnik Legacy
How Sputnik changed the world

Sputnik post - Sputnik Commemorative Watch

I love Russian watches, especially the space watches. This is a Sputnik commemorative watch by Poljot. It is a "Shturmanskie" or navigator watch.

I really like it.

That is all.

found on Russian Times via Watchismo

Suzuki biplane - I just really like it

Amazing looking concept bike from Suzuki - the Biplane. I find myself looking at bikes a lot lately because of a story I am working on (it involves motorcycles, forest fires, teenage climate militias and interplanetary weather, in a anarchic BC. You'll see)

found via Neatorama

I also like this concept truck - the Suzuki X-HEAD.
found via boingboing gadget

Sputnik - October 4th is fast approaching

Image Credit: NASA/Asif A. Siddiqi

The fiftieth anniversary of humanity's foray into space is coming up on October 4th - Sputnik blasted off.

That one launch started the first Space Age, with people landing on the moon within 12 years. Fear of Russian capability in space was the impetus, but new info from the time shows that the Russians weren't all that ready for a space launch.

From Wired (via AP):

But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.

As described by the former scientists, the world's first orbiter was born out of a very different Soviet program: the frantic development of a rocket capable of striking the United States with a hydrogen bomb.

Because there was no telling how heavy the warhead would be, its R-7 ballistic missile was built with thrust to spare - "much more powerful than anything the Americans had," Georgy Grechko, a rocket engineer and cosmonaut...

The Soviets had a satellite program, but no specific launcher, so they shot it up on the most powerful rocket they had - a proto-ICBM

Neat.

And all this info is coming from the memories of the original development crew. A lot of the history of this time period is sketchy, because the Russians kept writing down to a minimum in fear of the KGB.

Future Soon will try to put up a couple of Sputnik posts over the next few days.