The Getting Clever Project

Rabbit, rabbit!

The end of April was difficult for me. It was the one-year anniversary of my nephew's passing and also the anniversary of my sister's death. I was in a funk there for a couple of days. But I think I'm coming back. I was worried about my neighbor who broke some bones in his neck. I hadn't been able to get an update on his condition. But he's back home and doing well, which is a relief.

It's the little things that make me happy - I finally coaxed a bloom out of my "Christmas" cactus. I hope I've finally found the right combination of sun and water for it. It does throw off new leaves every so often but the blossom has been hard to achieve.

Books: I liked Donna Leon's Give Unto Others. A decent description of COVID's impact and an interesting if minor case. It's odd the way people from Brunetti's past are aging but his immediate circle is not. And Leon also addressed Brunetti's questionable use of his coworkers. I also read Little Black Book by Kate Carlisle, the latest in a cozy mystery series abut a bookbinder. Utterly improbable but a fun read. And I'm about halfway through The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel, all about women astronomers, mostly at Harvard, who did a lot of the grunt work in classifying stars. A woman paid for most of the research as a memorial to her husband, too.

I've started watching Season 3 of Bosch on IMDBTv. I loved the first two seasons but then let the show drop. I'm enjoying it, though. Titus Welliver is as perfect in the role as I remember.  I should see if Michael Connelly has more books out.

Have a great week, everyone!

I went to a very interesting lecture at Air and Space yesterday. Four panelists discussed the shift in viewpoints going into space causes but how hard it is to share that experience. Two were astronauts and two were philosophers. One astronaut talked about the impact of returning to gravity. How do we get anything done? A common thought is how very thin the atmosphere is. All four agreed we live on a spaceship, we just don't realize it. They talked about how shocking that first look out the window is. All four are proponents of commercial space flight, so more people might experience it someday.

They showed a video. One thing that surprised me was seeing how fast they book it around the earth. At 92 minutes a circuit, they are really moving.

Here is the link. Take a look.

Http://www.video.com/55073825

A meteorite hit Russia. A video from a weather satellite shows the Russian Meteor trail. You can see the shadow on the ground! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdoKEFsemvw

Fortunately no one was killed. A number of people were injured, mostly from glass shattered by the sonic boom.

Someone observed that if this had happened 30 years ago, it might have been taken as an attack.

ETA: Here's another video from a car's dashboard camera http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCawTYPtehk&feature=youtu.be

If you are on Twitter, I strongly urge you to subscribe to Chris Hadfield's account @Cmdr_Hadfield. He's on the ISS. He posts the most amazing pictures of the Earth from space. On Australia Day, he posted pictures of the brush fires, Queensland and the Outback that looked like brush paintings. I also love his posts about basic station maintenance and cleaning. He cleans ALL THE THINGS and tells us about it. Of course, cleaning for him and his crewmates is a little more life-or-death than mine.

This month's lecture on astronomy covered Africa's role in space. The closer launch sites are to the equator, the more fuel efficient they are. The lecture was a little unfocused - the speaker spent too much time on the earth's formation and not enough on current events - but it was still interesting.

Afterwards, I saw African Cosmos, Stellar Arts at the National Museum of African Arts. Really interesting. Some were artifacts from ancient times and some exhibits were modern art. I saw this and instantly thought of a stargate.



Actually, it's the Yoruban equivalent of Ouroboros, the worm that eats itself. It's made from gasoline cans. To the right is a fabric hanging entitled "Starkid" The print was made using ancient adinka techniques. They also had a couple of short films from South Africa modeled after the ones done by Georges Melies.

http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/cosmos/index.html

I went to an interesting lecture at the Library of Congress. NASA Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati talked about “Looking Homeward Toward Earth: The Power of Perspective.” He was an engaging speaker, with great slides and video clips.

He started and ended with with the Christmas Eve picture from Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders of Earth over the lunar horizon. He showed how we've gotten increasing capability to analyze events here on Earth. What we do with the information is up to us. Some slides showed how clearcutting is affecting Brazil while others showed ice mass changes in the Arctic. One fascinating clip showed airplane flights around the globe as the day moved on. The more information we analyze, the better the perspective on problems.

The auditorium was standing room only, so people were interested in the topic.

So do something you'd only do once in a blue moon!

Today is also the private memorial service for Neil Armstrong. The Astronomy Picture of the Day is the first photo he took from the moon. In these days of Curiosity, it's good to stop and remember what came first http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120830.html

A quick reminder that Venus, Jupiter, and the crescent moon should be presenting a lovely triangle tonight. I hope the weather is clear where you are so you can see it. It's clear but very breezy in DC today. I'm hopeful of getting a peek.

Actually it was a rainy July evening when I was born.





The page also has a link to the Naval Observatory's page for finding the actual details. As I am a sucker for such details, I had to look it up.

USNO page is here. I was born under a waning crescent moon, with 2% illuminated. New moon was officially 11 hours later.

This is a mindboggling timelapse video of the Earth at night from the ISS: http://tinyurl.com/6qg2q3h

The ISS is moving relatively quickly. I kept pausing it to see where I was. There are terrific shots of the aurora and lightning storms. Just gorgeous!