Here’s what you can find there:

This is the Endeavour on its final mission.  NASA has thrown a ton of hi-res images from its May mission up on the web.  Once you go to that link, you’ll see a bunch of links to numbered galleries.  Anything valued higher than where I sent you will show you pictures like the one above — but you should look around at some of the other galleries as well!

Oh, and as I was writing this I got a message from NASA sending me here.  Basically these are the same pictures organized differently, with specific image dimensions for your wallpapering pleasure.

Good stuff!

That’s ON TOP of the 13 episodes still left on this season’s contract, scheduled to begin airing on June 23, 2011.  The next season will also be 26 episodes, which makes for an awful lot of futuristic space-antics!

Without question, Futurama is the smartest show on television (other than perhaps “Into the Wormhole”, but we’re talking about two completely different things here).  I find it amazing how many people think the show is really dumb and comparable to the other stuff one might find in a cartoon sitcom.  But honestly, if you consider the really brilliant way the writers inject social or academic commentary into all the episodes I think you’d agree with me that there just aren’t many programs that can display that PLUS humor on so many levels.  And yeah, I know right now some of you are thinking about the intelligent writing in BSG, Firefly, How I Met Your Mother, or House; but I would wager that none of those shows have writers with advanced math and science degrees!

(Okay, maybe Firefly — someone will have to find out for me.)

…

Edit:  So something I just thought of that should have been included in the first place…  A while back I was with a couple of friends of mine, Tristan and Trey, and we were looking at a very cool-looking laser shining on a CD for a class science demo.  For some reason that I can’t pull out of my memory now, Trey says, “Wow.  It’s like there’s a whole universe in there.”  To which I immediately mutter, “Baby, there’s a universe in all of us.”  Now, I haven’t been around true Futurama fans very much in some time, and normally the people I am around would just ignore my obscure mutterings as a humor that only I would find funny.  But this simple moment was made awesome when Tristan followed up with, “Get a job!”  The three of us laughed very hard, while the group before us just stood awkwardly by waiting for us to get on with it.  It is in these moments that I’m reminded that this show isn’t just a series of one-liners, but that it is a work — when taken in its entirety — that has constructed a culture of nerd-dom consisting of people who feel connected by the the characters and landscape of this fictional future.  Any similarities to the fans of Star Trek isn’t lost on me, it’s just that a single line from Trek doesn’t usually draw a company of people to want to start reciting lines to each other.   Any one piece of Futurama reminds us of the community that Matt Groening and David X. Cohen envisioned and then created.  I am so glad that it was resurrected, and I hope it will continue to air for many years to come.

And I’m also grateful for friends like Trey and Tristan who keep me laughing!

…

What I want you to do now is to look closely at the image to figure out what’s truly funny here.  Or maybe really sad.  Leave your guess in the comments!

Here’s how NASA describes it:

Photographic documentation of a Space Shuttle launch plays a critical role in the engineering analysis and evaluation process that takes place during each and every mission. Motion and Still images enable Shuttle engineers to visually identify off-nominal events and conditions requiring corrective action to ensure mission safety and success. This imagery also provides highly inspirational and educational insight to those outside the NASA family.

This compilation of film and video presents the best of the best ground-based Shuttle motion imagery from STS-114, STS-117, and STS-124 missions. Rendered in the highest definition possible, this production is a tribute to the dozens of men and women of the Shuttle imaging team and the 30yrs of achievement of the Space Shuttle Program.

The video was produced by Matt Melis at the Glenn Research Center.

This video has a 720P option.  I highly recommend going directly to the YouTube link, hooking your computer to the largest monitor possible (47″ flatscreen sounds about right), and letting the whole thing play.  Trust me, it’s totally worth your 45 minutes!

As you should remember, or at least have learned about, Chernobyl was the site of an actual nuclear power plant meltdown in 1986.  It’s located in what was then Soviet Russia — the U.S.S.R.  The Cold War had been raging for decades, and the techniques had been honed so well that practically no one outside of the Soviet government knew about the incident — not even the residents in the surrounding areas — for days after the catastrophe.  The U.S. first learned about the accident from infrared satellite photos.  When first reported on in American newspapers, Russian officials had denied anything out of the ordinary.  It was then that I learned that nuclear disasters could be very quiet things.

Today there is a restricted zone 30 miles in radius around the facility.  Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the danger, and the ground is still popping with radiation.  Just last April, the Ukrainian president was telling folks how the reactor was still a threat.  Reportedly, there are still 2500 people who work for the government around and within the restricted zone to maintain the area.  This isn’t too dangerous as long as their exposure is kept brief.  But being irradiated, even to a small degree, many times over the course of a year does eventually build up.

But for someone like you, who could perhaps visit for a day and then leave, the danger would be minimal.  I would *love* to go there… just to see a place that was so secret when I was in high school.  It would be fascinating, not just to visit the reactor, but to walk the grounds where the plant and animal life were exposed to such high levels of DNA-altering particles.  Understand, I am not an anti-nuclear power activist –in fact, I’m totally in favor of it, and I believe that the US would be better off by building a few more plants to supply our energy needs, but this is a lesson we could all learn from. This accident occurred because of a careless act.  A slip of the brain.  Negligence on the part of the administration and the scientists who felt that the reactor was so safe they could run experiments while it was operating.

As Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman, Yulia Yershova, said, “There are things to see there if one follows the official route and doesn’t stray away from the group, though it is a very sad story.”

Opening up this ‘museum’ to visitors would give us all a firm reminder of the danger trapped within the smallest of particles.  I hope one day to get to visit.

So since we’ve last chatted:

• Turned 39.  I’ve been telling everyone I’m 40 so that when I actually do turn 40 it won’t feel like anything’s changed.  I’ll let you know how that strategy works out for me.
• Halloween was great.  I wanted the clan to dress with a group theme and go as characters from Harry Potter.  I, of course, would be Professor Snape.  …oh, how I’ve longed to portray Alan Rickman in *something*!  (y’know, sometimes I think he really *is* the voice of God)  Alas, even though Geneva thought this was a great idea and created a killer Professor McGonagall costume, every one of the boys wanted to be Harry.  So the idea was abandoned.
• Broke my tractor.  I was having some problems with the clutch sticking, so I tried a trick to pop it out of gear.  Well, it’s out of gear!  Totally broke the drive shaft to the back wheels.  Fortunately, it’s a four-wheel drive so I can still drive it around (and up on the trailer) by using the two front wheels (so I can get it to an actual mechanic).
• the Leonid shower was a wash with the bright moon.
• Had hernia surgery.
• Thanksgiving was pretty fantastic.  –except for the whole ‘recovering from surgery’ thing.  My parents left for the week, so instead of doing our usual Thanksgiving Day bit, my family just stayed home and had our own dinner for a change.  As I said, it was pretty fantastic.
• Back to the hernia stuff — the doc set me up with some very powerful pain killers, for my very powerful pain you see, but they made me itchy.  So, if you can imagine it, everytime I felt bad enough to take one I would spend the next four hours scratching my arms and neck until they were red and sore.  And they made me really grouchy (when the pain-reliever part wore off) so I got no sympathy from *anyone*!  (okay, not entirely true — my wife was actually incredibly nice to me during this whole ordeal, and I can never thank her enough for it.)  [And I'd like to take this moment to apologize to anyone I texted during this time.  I promise, in my mind I thought I was funny.]
• I figured out how to set up a nifty HTPC.  I didn’t build it, I just sorta had the stuff I needed laying around my office.  So that means for the first time since buying my 1080P flatscreen, I finally had the chance to push every pixel.  First thing we watched?  The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.  Not a bad flick.  12GB avi, though!
• Re-read Contact.  I had forgotten how it ended, so I was surprised all over again.  For those who haven’t read the book, it is considerably different from the movie.
• Watched The Venture Bros. seasons 1 and 2.  Okay, here’s a secret about me.  I didn’t get into this series when it began in 2004 because I didn’t like the first few episodes.  Then I watched maybe one or two episodes each season, if I just happened to be looking toward the TV while they were on.  This past season, though, I’ve really gotten into it.  Upon re-watching, I discovered I *still* don’t like the first season.  But there’s this point in the second season (2nd episode, actually — Hate Floats) where the series becomes awesome.  I’ve watched the first 3 minutes of that episode a half dozen times, and laughed out loud each time!
• Geminids.  Good show this year.  Didn’t catch it.  Just heard about it.  The temps dropped to around 20F and I’m just getting too old to dress up and do that stuff anymore.
• Found an old copy of Sid Meier’s Pirates on a hard drive and started playing it again.  Too.  Addictive.  I knew better.
• Christmas break is coming next week, and I so need it.
• Grades came out for my kids and, once again, they’re all above average.  Maybe we should move to Lake Wobegon, huh?
• I found a cover album of the Finn Brothers by various Australian artists that I am just wearing out.  Oh, why can’t we here in America get awesome music like that on our radios?

So that’s pretty much it.  Looking back over the last couple of months it appears that my life has been pretty blah, but what’s not mentioned here is that for the most part I’ve been fairly happy, I’m getting along really well with my folks,  and my kids are doing great and keeping me busy.

I’m still working through the whole Twitter thing.  Not really sure what the etiquette is.  I want to tweet more, but at what point do my texts become really boring (okay, I know you yucksters are all ready to tell me “From the first tweet!” but I’m serious here.  I feel like I either need to get better at it or just lay it down.

…and as far as this blog goes, I actually do have some good stuff to put up over the next week.  And I’m going to make the time to do it as well.  What I have noticed from reviewing the stats from wordpress is that it would appear that people don’t want me spouting my opinions on education and politics.  People seem to be drawn to cool science stuff and pretty astro pictures.  Duly noted!  So hopefully, some of the folks who used to frequent these pages will have some cause to come back.  ‘Til then…

Unbelievable.

Read the reviews.  Add one yourself.  :o)

There is a wonderful tale written by Plato called “The Allegory of the Cave”. To summarize the story, a man makes a discovery and wishes to tell everyone he knows. But his description goes against the beliefs of those around him and he feels his knowledge separates him from them. Eventually, he realizes that the only way for them to understand him is for them to find the truth themselves.

The crux of the story is that our characters in need of truth have always been prisoners in a cave where they have had very little light.  In order to find the truth, they must exit the cave.  Shady descriptions of the outside world will not do.  But with a bright sun, this will be quite painful …so they wait until night.  The dimmest of light, the stars, then becomes the first thing they gain knowledge to.  As their eyes acclimate to their new environment, many things — things whose existence had been mere suggestion — become very real to them.  After a time their eyes can handle brighter lights and they can see many more things.  And finally, after much patience and some discomfort, they can view their world in full sunlight.

The rest of the story is rather convoluted and a bit of a strain to swallow, but what Plato was trying to do was set up an allegory for how discovery works.

It’s been 20 years since I first read The Allegory of the Cave from Plato’s The Republic.  I read it while in Governor’s School, where we then had a lively discussion about whether it was possible to fully explain a new discovery to someone without any direct proof.  Could they be persuaded that you weren’t misleading them?  Could they believe in something that went against their everyday perception if you drew out your argument logically and without flaw, though you had not a shred of tangible evidence to support you?  In the end, the man who left the cave and made a discovery viewed the others as being ignorant, but conversely (and here’s the real kicker!) the ones left behind who did not see the truth viewed the one with knowledge as being ridiculous.

I spoke with a preacher friend of mine this past week, who also happens to be a science teacher.  While debating the efficacy of hands-on versus verbal strategies, he said something quite profound.  He said, “Our perceptions become our reality.”

That’s really deep.  I’ve been thinking about all the topics it could be applied to — science, politics, religion, those crazy Tea Party-ers, and of course our self-perceptions.  It’s something so universally true.  Wish I had thought it up.  (I realize he surely didn’t think it up first; but like when Einstein published E = mc² and said that it’s simplicity revealed it’s truth, it’s one of those things that just sounds profoundly awesome because of it’s simplicity.)

[Tons more after the jump]

But what I’ve really been thinking about (about time I got to it, huh?) is the ongoing accommodation/confrontation debate between science bloggers and educational professionals. Not sure what that is?  Then you don’t read much PZ Myers (boo!) or Chris Mooney (yay!).  heh.  Some folks have a fear of science brought about from their personal histories or from anecdotes from persons within their sphere of influence.  Myers would like to justify that fear for them!  Mooney, on the other hand, is someone I can relate to.  It seems to me he understands the principals of Plato’s Allegory.

Science educators and communicators in general have two obligations:  1) teach current knowledge and 2) remove misconceptions.  Those should be in reverse order, but most of the time I find people think it’s good in this order.  [They're wrong, of course.]  Anyway, the people who have knowledge wish to share that with the people who don’t.  So what happens many times is they forget how much effort went into finding that knowledge in the first place.  The well-intentioned communicator presents the end result of decades (or centuries) of research as though it should be completely logical and understandable by the the whole of society, ignoring the plethora of scientists who disagreed with the discoverer in the first place.  And even though now a majority of the scientists may accept the discovery as ‘common knowledge’, most non-scientists haven’t had the opportunity to investigate the issue as thoroughly.

I think the real problem begins with the education many science communicators receive in college.  If you’re seeking a science degree, it is the professor’s obligation to strictly teach his topic.  This is as it should be, but somehow it was never established how to best present this material in a complete fashion — where the student sees the development of ideas and the controversies that arose.  In other words, the students aren’t allowed to wander out of the cave in darkness; they are shoved out in the blinding sun.  Now, for a student seeking a science degree, there isn’t much of a problem here.  They should be well-prepared to analyze the currents theories for themselves.  But for most others this isn’t true.

When a science communicator teaches a theory that has undergone numerous revisions by many gifted scientists and blatantly hand-waves any dissenting opinions as ‘uneducated’, then he’s being an elitist and will gain few followers.  If the theory was really that obvious, then we wouldn’t have had to develop it.  Likewise, someone who doesn’t believe the theory isn’t necessarily being obtuse, they’re following in the steps of many a scientist who came before — comparing their reality to the one being presented.  If the two are incompatible, then it will take some extraordinary evidence to change their perceptions.  First, you will have to challenge their misconceptions …in an open-handed and dialogue-driven path.

This is where the college training is missing the boat.  At some point there should be an effort by the highest educators to teach the secondary educators how to present the material in a palatable manner.  And if those highest professors don’t know how to do this themselves, then there should be a program for them, too.  There is a polite manner that needs to be placed on those who are taking up the reins of science communication in our modern world.  A crass-and-blast attitude will make people fearful that scientists are simply trying to push some agenda like any political figure or religious zealot.  This is NOT the result we want.

What a good science communicator should do is be aware of the diverse backgrounds of their audience.  If I tell a joke and you don’t laugh, then it’s my fault!  I should have made the joke relate to you.  In the same spirit if I tell you a scientific fact and you don’t understand it, then I’m the one who failed.  I must adjust my explanation to a manner that makes sense to you.  We cannot expect every individual to see things the same way.  Nor would we want them to!

I always go back to Carl Sagan.  He had a manner of reaching people to relate fairly advanced topics in a way that didn’t make them feel inferior or him seem superior.  He not only took the attitude of listening to a person’s doubts about what he was presenting, but he honestly made the effort to visit with people who firmly held non-scientific positions.  He wrote a book about his experiences called Demon-Haunted World which is utterly brilliant and my all-time favorite book.  Page after page I just kept thinking that I would so love to be able to reach people like he could.  I’m sure this new generation of science communicators have also read Sagan.  Some even knew him.  Why is it they can’t strive to be like him?  It seems to me that treating people as equals with the ability to think for themselves is an obligation for all of us.

There are many good programs in the Ivy League schools that teach science writing.  And most any college can teach you oral communication skills.  But there should be more programs that focus on science communication, such as the University of Washington-Seattle’s Course:   Communicating Science to the Public Effectively.  And yes, I know that even the most well-intentioned scientist has at some time or another been totally railroaded by an incompetent reporter who isn’t as interested in getting the facts right as they are pushing paper.  (See “Life On Mars!”, New York Times, 1997)  Obviously, we science educators need to master the delicate art of the ‘sound byte’.  But barring fast, cheap, fly-by science education, we still have a responsibility of educating for the long-term.  Adding a component to the curriculum for a science PhD  to teach future researchers how to deliver their discoveries to non-scientists is important to lift the science literacy in this country as a whole.

And while a person is willing to listen, while a student is bound to our classrooms, while we have a captive ear from someone truly curious, we need to ensure that our words are chosen carefully and our arguments follow the logical steps taken by the discoverers when we pass on their new-found knowledge to people who aren’t experts in science.  If they can perceive the world that we see, then maybe it will become their reality.

So how’s it going, you ask?  Well, the toughest part is losing the morning news.  I know that our local stations broadcast for free –  in Hi-Def even(!) — but if you don’t know, I live in the sticks.  So far out live I that signals from the big city are more ‘suggestions’ rather than actual transmissions.  And in this digital age that amounts to pretty much a black screen.  But back to the stuff I miss…  the morning news.  I’ve grown accustomed to finding out what new thing I’m supposed to be fired up about each morning before heading off to work, and now that I don’t have that I feel, I dunno, not very fired up.  I’m sort of a news junkie so getting my morning fix has become — almost necessary.  And yeah, of course the internets could keep me in the know, but i can’t browse fark.com whilst putting on my socks.  I need that passive information feed.  Well, I guess I’ll just have to rely on NPR during the drive in to fill that hole.  But they need to learn to talk faster!  Headline news can feed me three news stories every minute.  Ya gotta keep Broca’s brain contextually stimulated.

For my other programming I’ve been taking a page from Wil Wheaton and hitting Hulu and various other video-specific websites.  And through the power of the occasional torrent, I’m able to watch most of the TV that I normally would have suffered through the ads to enjoy — like Rules of Engagement, the Venture Bros., and House.  I also can catch The Daily Show through their own website, which is nice because then I can easily catch all the parts of the interviews they edit out for the TV time-slot.  [But why must they show me the exact same very annoying commercial during every single break?  Can't the AXE people just make a couple of extra commercials just to make me not spaz every time I see their product in the future?  morons.]

And so the experiment continues.  The boys haven’t complained about missing their daily dose of iCarly, but with school and soccer their schedules are so packed right now they wouldn’t have a 30-min. break in the day anyhow.  And I’m catching up on a couple of books I’m been limping through and working my way through the back-log of movies I’ve been ‘intending to get to’ for far too long.  (Sherlock Holmes is *still* sitting on my DVD player — unwatched!)

For someone who prides himself on  perpetually integrating current pop culture into his vernacular seamlessly (“Twitcher lets you send and receive short messages called ‘twits’. [ding] Why, here’s a twit now!), I’m gonna find it hard to keep up.  And as I’ve learned in the past, it’s not always a sure thing that an internet meme is recognizable by anyone other than those it was intended for.  …or the other 99.99% of the local population.  meh.  Honestly, if I wore a T-shirt with “The cake is a liar.” printed on it, will it actually make me seem any cooler to the general public?  I think not.

So for anyone keeping score:  Having time to do some things that needed doing, 1.  Keeping in touch with the things that keep me sane and make me cool, zero.

Oh, well.  At least I’ll have another $75 in my pocket at the end of the month.