"We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."
It is amazing and sad that such a massive scientific achievement is receiving such little attention from the media. I'm not really sure who's fault it is that Americans seem to care so little about science, but it seems to me like we're going to be in rough shape heading forward if that doesn't change.
The Dark Knight is a great film which I thoroughly enjoyed watching, but failed to live up the the hype. The performances were incredible, it was beautifully shot, but it was way too long.
The one thing that really took me out of the film was that it looked exactly like Chicago. Christopher Nolan did a much better job creating Gotham in Batman Begins.
I have a good excuse for how slow it's been here lately, Jess and I got married last week!
The ceremony was in Ogunquit ME on the 28th of June and went off without a hitch (I am really funny at night). We were treated to some very Maineish weather that should make for dramatic photos.
We don't have any of those photos yet which is why I am posting this photo from our honeymoon to Costa Rica. Generally honeymoon photos consist of lovey, sunburned, slightly drunk looking couples hanging all over each other with a sunset in the background. I may or not have some of those, but I am posting this photo because it's my favorite from the trip (favorite photo without a sloth in it anyway). This was the view of Arenal from our cabin in the hills above Monterrey.
Is it me or are there virtually no McCain bumpers stickers out on the road right now? I cannot remember seeing a single one. This occured to me this morning so I paid very close attention while running a bunch of errands this afternoon. Sure enough, I didn't spot a single McCain sticker in the sea of Obama bumpers. Granted I live in a liberal area but I swear I have seen more cars with Bush/Cheney '04 stickers than McCain '08.
Last Friday night (5/3/08) around 12:30 I was playing Mario Kart on the couch directly underneath the large and old skylight in my apartment when we got hit with an intense hail storm. It was unbelievably loud. M. Nature gave me a pretty serious pelting when I ventured out to recover the handful of hail pictured here.
Luckily the hail stones survived the week in my freezer because I kept forgetting to bring my calipers home from work. The largest one was just under an inch in diameter (9/10ths). Definitely the biggest hail I have ever seen, but pretty small in comparison to some of the photos from the area. A lot of people had golfball sized specimens.
I finally saw Cloverfield last weekend. What a complete piece of garbage.
Back in January I was genuinely excited to see it, which is odd because I am neither a big monster movie nor JJ Abrams fan. In retrospect it seems I succumbed to the "viral" marketing campaign. It's hard to argue with the Statue of Liberty head flying down the street, and the idea of a new monster was exciting.
The bottom line is Cloverfield is boring as hell, which is really saying something since it's about a monster ripping through NYC and its 84 minutes long. The main characters are so lame I actually found myself anxious to witness their demise. Plus I figured the movie would be over when we were rid of them(turned out to be true, surprise!). The monster was also really disappointing. It looks nothing like the whale-esqe drawings that piqued my interest initially. Instead, it resembles the nondescript monsters you've seen in every lame video game from the last 20 years.
Since I found the movie thoroughly uninteresting I wasn't compelled to read many reviews. Most of the criticism I did see focused on the steady cam work and/or the undeniable similarities to 9/11. As far as I am concerned the camera work fit perfectly with the narrative style of the film (however flawed), and I will leave the 9/11 commentary up to the residents of Manhattan. From my perspective the principle problem with the movie was its attempt to rethink the monster movie genre.
The main idea is that Cloverfield it would be the first monster movie shot from the perspective of the people getting squished rather than the monster doing the squishing. That seemed like an interesting approach at the time, but ended up falling pretty flat. The reality is the people on the ground (in this film at least) are not interesting, at all. I spent the whole movie wanting to see more of the monster, wanting to know where it's from, wanting to know what the military was going to do about it. Every other monster movie lets people in by giving them this info. And they make the MONSTER THE STAR! I spent the whole time wondering why we were following this preppy dumbass around Manhattan when there is an awesome Monster to watch?
Lesson learned? Sometimes conventions are classic for a reason, because they work.
Obama's cut the BS approach is a large part of why I voted for him in the NC primary this morning. Let's hope he wins huge in Carolina today and we can get on to winning this thing in the fall.
Yes, I went to see Iron Man on opening night. And yes it was awesome. As long as you can forget anything you happen to know about physics, or science in general, it's a lot of fun. One quick shot of RDJ wearing a Wonder Woman suit under the Iron Man armor could have made it perfect. I guess they are saving that for the sequel.
Favorite hilarious moment?
"TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE! WITH SCRAPS!"
"We want to react against the organic, improvised expression. We wanna do a more synthetic, weird and non-organic expression. Within the artificial expression new moods and spheres arise. Electronic music is absolutely the music of the future. Machine music is good."
Last Friday night (5/3/08) around 12:30 I was playing Mario Kart on the couch directly underneath the large and old skylight in my apartment when we got hit with an intense hail storm. It was unbelievably loud. M. Nature gave me a pretty serious pelting when I ventured out to recover the handful of hail pictured here.
Luckily the hail stones survived the week in my freezer because I kept forgetting to bring my calipers home from work. The largest one was just under an inch in diameter (9/10ths). Definitely the biggest hail I have ever seen, but pretty small in comparison to some of the photos from the area. A lot of people had golfball sized specimens.
