10 Shocking Ways the Second World War Could Have Ended Differently

http://io9.com/10-shocking-ways-the-second-world-war-could-have-ended-1558135375?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

A bunch of interesting WWII what ifs.

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon

Why “Critical Density” Could Determine the Fate of the Universe

http://io9.com/why-critical-density-could-determine-the-fate-of-the-1550168923?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_twitter&utm_source=io9_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

I don’t remember seeing Esther (the author of the above article) at last Saturday evening’s ASKC meeting and Dr. Feldman’s lecture on Dark Matter and Dark Energy … but I’ve seen that graph very recently.

Hmmm…

20140322_192901
Dr. Feldman and the Definition of Cosmology

Professor Hume A. Feldman, Ph.D.

Movie Review: Parkland (3.5 Stars)

Parkland

3.5 out of 5 stars

Watched BluRay late March 2014

I must be mad (hinting at March Madness) or crazy because all this film did was depress me.  These events predate me by almost ten months.  Not even a glint in my parents’ eyes yet.  I’ve stood on the white “X” on the street where President Kennedy was shot in Dallas.  I’ve walked through the park and stood in the spot where Zapruder captured the assassination on film.  I did not visit Parkland, where both Kennedy and Oswald were declared deceased.  Until this morning, I didn’t even know the name of the hospital nor the doctors and nurses burdened with that triage.

Continue reading “Movie Review: Parkland (3.5 Stars)”

Watch a staggeringly beautiful time-lapse video of Yosemite National Park

http://io9.com/5878091/this-time-lapse-video-of-yosemite-is-staggeringly-beautiful

I’ve been to Yosemite twice. I loved it. It would be the only reason I would ever move to California.

[vimeo 35396305 w=500 h=281]

Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.

This stunning time lapse combines several of my favorite photography subjects into four breath taking minutes: sunrises, sunsets, moon rise, Milky Way with meteors, nature, landscapes, etc.

And if four minutes wasn’t enough, try the five minute sequel from Project Yosemite:

[vimeo 87701971 w=500 h=281]

Yosemite HD II from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.

Dramatic photos of Venus disappearing behind the moon | Human World | EarthSky

http://earthsky.org/space/dramatic-photos-of-venus-disappearing-behind-the-moon#.Uw3M6MFME0M

Some day I hope to be in the right place at the right time to see an occultation like this.  If only I’d been visiting India this week.

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon

Video: The Problem with Facebook

Thanks to one of my astronomy Facebook friends, I watched a video on Faster Than Light Travel (don’t get your hopes up) by Veritasium (an element of truth), which led me to this excellent post on the Problem with Facebook:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g?rel=0]

Sun Dogs on Snow Day

The day after the Kansas City metro area got nearly a foot of snow dumped on it, I ventured out to return to work.  Most of the local schools and some businesses remained closed that day, but not my employer or the employer of one of my other vanpool riders. On the commute home, I enjoyed watching some sun dogs playing around the sinking sun.  My smartphone camera just doesn’t do them justice:

sun dogs
Click on photo to see rest of Snow Day Sun Dogs album