From Terry Teachout’s About Last Night: “…the only way to stuff a human being into a pigeonhole is to cut off pieces until he fits.” And if I haven’t yet done so, allow me to recommend both the Arts Journal site in general and Terry Teachout’s blog in particular for arts-related stories and ideas.
…as recorded by microphones on the Huygens probe, are starting to show up here.
And the data are starting to come in. I’m on pins and needles… UPDATE: And here‘s the first picture!
As the father of a 3 1/2-year-old, I have to say, don’t these people realize what kind of pressure they’re putting the rest of us under?
Mozart was a very tired-looking 34-year-old, if this newly discovered portrait is any indication. I guess being a genius takes it out of you. In the (paraphrased) immortal words of Tom Lehrer, though, “It’s a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he’d been dead for 10 years…” UPDATE: Oops! Link was bad before, …
Like the quick-growing sunspot I blogged about earlier, this curious object on Mars, apparently made of metal, could also be the beginning of an SF thriller–for those whose minds have been bent by years of reading the stuff.
From SpaceWeather.com: BIG SUNSPOT: In less than 48 hours, sunspot 720 has blossomed from an almost invisible speck into a dark behemoth 5 times wider than Earth. You know, one of the hazards of reading science fiction is that one sees a probably innocuous item like this and starts conjuring up apocalyptic the-sun-is-going-to-explode (or worse, …
Check out this headline: “Opera is new weapon in fight against crime.” Am I the only one who sees a potential new caped (or, possibly, horned) crusader waiting to be brought to comic-book life? He doesn’t fight criminals: he drives them away with the power of his Puccini, the weight of his Wagner, the might …
Deep Impact successfully launched yesterday, and is en route to a great coming together with a comet in six months’ time.
The pineapple has always been one of my favorite fruits. Apparently I’m not alone: a recent e-mail from a listener to the CBC Radio version of this column noted, “There is a new pineapple on the market that is very sweet, has extra vitamin C, (is) much less acidic and is ready to eat when …
Astronomers have identified what may be the three biggest stars ever spotted–big enough that, if they were located where the sun is, their outer layers would extend to somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn.
Tsunamis are not a natural hazard we have to worry about here in extremely landlocked Saskatchewan (if a wave makes it this far, it’s pretty much goodbye humanity, I’d have to think) but should they or volcanic eruptions be something that keeps you up nights, you might want to investigate this inexpensive personal earthquake detector.
