Man, it’s hard keeping up with the news. Well, to be more specific, it’s hard to keep up with the news and still have some semblance of a life. So here are some shorts about whassup.
1) The second brightest plutoid/KBO/TNO/blahblahblahwhatever just got a name: Makemake (pronounced mahkee mahkee). Has any told Phil Torrone?
2) Remember the teacher in Florida who was fired for practicing wizardry? I got some flack from posting about that, but it looks like I was right. Paul Hutchinson has more.
3) George Hrab, who is sculpted out of awesome, has written and sung 118 short (like < 1 minute) songs about the elements. What can he possibly say about molybdenum? Find out on his site!
4) A bunch of English scientists got awards for doing cool spacey stuff. I’m all for that. Thanks to SidR for sending that along.
5) Speaking of awards, Jessica Hammock won a $10,000 grant from ideablob to teach astronomy to inner-city kids. Her idea (one of many she has) is to get a solar ’scope (light pollution makes seeing galaxies difficult) and get the kids to take a look at our nearest star. I’ve done this at Halloween, and it’s a fantastic way to excite kids about astronomy. Her website, Project Epiphany, has details (but it needs to be updated!).
July 15th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I extend a warm greeting to the newest member of our Solar Family, Makemake. I’m just sorry that you have to be called a Plutoid.
July 15th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
A $10.00 grant! WOW!
July 15th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Solar Astronomy really is more interesting than gazing through a telescope at night. The sun is big enough and close enough that you can see awesome things with a scope and your eye, instead of having to use digital imagers and combining the images (which is tedious and boring to most people). The only problem is the incredible expense of decent dedicated solar scopes, or even of mods to turn nightscopes into solar scopes:(. I’d love to have one of those things:).
July 15th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Phil,
You being a real astronomer and all, perhaps you can be of assistance where solar telescopes are concerned. I’m looking to get the most bang for a very limited pile of bucks. I was thinking about getting an H-Alpha filter and having a dual use scope, but a friend says it is simpler and actually better bang for the buck to get something like a PST. This is to show the sun safely to kids and to have fun observing on my own. Thoughts?
July 15th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Of course the ultimate song about the Periodic Table was written and performed in the 60s by Tom Lehrer. Tom sings the names of all the elements in a rapid-fire manner, to the tune of (in his words) “a possibly recognizable song” (from Carmen, if I am not mistaken). I have had this song in my collection for decades and drag it out for friends once a year or so. If you haven’t heard it, find it!
July 15th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Charles,
I’ve used #14 welders glass before for looking at the Sun. If you don’t need magnification this works well, protects the eyes, lets you see gross features like large sunspots and (the original reason I got the #14 welders glass) eclipses. I used this glass to good effect in Hawai’i to view the 1991 total eclipse.
HTH,
John (a.k.a TaoMacGuy)
July 15th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
TaoMacGuy,
The song is from Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, not Carmen.
July 15th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Thanks Vernon, I stand corrected.
July 15th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Vernon beat me too it, it’s the Major General’s Song from Pirates of Penzance. I heard the elements song before I ever heard the original so it’s now what always pops into my head when I hear that tune.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Charles, based on my drooling googling over the years, I’d say your friend is right. The more interesting solar filters are reeeeeaaaallly expensive, and you don’t need (and actually, can’t USE) all of the light collecting area of a regular telescope. All you really want is a tiny little scope with a few filters. The PST is bottom of the barrel, but it is really cheap as solar scopes go. I’ve seen pictures taken through them and other, more expensive scopes as comparisons, but I’ve never used one myself unfortunately, so I can’t say from personal experience whether a PST is good enough to have any fun with. My dad’s been thinking of buying one for years now; hopefully he does.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
@ Charles,
Check out the Badastro FAQ on telescopes. you may find some new info there. It’s on the old site.
——
Naturally I went straight for the George Hrab Elements thing. Still downloading (slow connection) but I’m looking forward to one of my favorite elements: Aluminum.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Phil,
“A bunch of English scientists”
No guarantee that the scientists concerned are English, far better to use “British”.
Speaking as a Brit who isn’t English, this UK = England thing is annoying and insulting.
July 15th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Makemake? Why are they using a fertility god instead of an underworld or death god?
Starviking, I hear that sort of thing all the time from Canadians who are mistaken for Americans while abroad. I’m sure that it probably happens all the time with Australians and New Zealanders. The one to keep in mind with us is that you probably wouldn’t want to refer to anyone from the southern US as a “yank”.
July 15th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Depending on where you go all of us English speakers are mistaken for Americans when abroad.
Canucks, when abroad start every sentence with “aboot” and we will know you’re a Canadian and not a Yank. I’ve seen Yank backpackers with Canadian flags sewn onto their backpacks though.
Sorry Southerners, if you’re from the USA you’re a Yank.
If you’re from the UK you’re a Pom. Being called Pommy gets rid of all the other awkward labels like English, Scot, Brit or Welsh.
You can’t confuse Aussies and Kiwis. The Kiwis have lanolin stains on the front of their jeans.
:-^)
(Tongue firmly in cheek)
July 15th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Kiwis seem to have much the same attitude toward being referred to as an Australian as Canadians do to being referred to as Americans. They don’t like it:). I suspect that’s probably universally true of any country that is sitting beside a more culturally recognized country. I bet Mongolians see red every time someone thinks they are Chinese.
July 16th, 2008 at 1:22 am
Regarding (2), I was one of the people handing out the flack.
It’s good to see that some evidence has arisen in this case (it seems, about a week after your followup post, though the PDF links are currently dead).
Countering the fired-for-magic theory, however, I’ve run across other dead-links, such as the one from here:
http://jaypgreene.com/2008/05/15/that-wizardry-teacher-firing-theres-more-to-the-story/
…who points out that:
“Nor did many people mention that the same school district that allegedly fired a substitute teacher for performing one magic trick has been hiring a professional magician to come in and perform for the kids for years, and after this story broke, they’ve reassured him that they still want him to come do his show.”
…so I’m still not sure I have the full story, but at least the paperwork issues make it look less likely a result of disgruntled fired employee.
(Also, FWIW, I may sound much grumpier than I am here, as I’m usually just lurking quietly when I’m happy, which is most of the time, but this implies that when I do speak I’m usually complaining).
July 16th, 2008 at 10:35 am
First let me say thank you very much to Phil for not only the link above but also the kind words in his PM to me. Also a big thank you to all the readers here who gave me my first > 1000 visitors/day in the 7 years I’ve had my domain.
Phil’s post was on May 18th, the WTSP-TV article with PDF’s was posted on May 13th. The article was moved to the WTSP story archives so it no longer has the exact date (it says 2 months ago). The PDF’s were faxed to WTSP on May 12th, if anyone wants copies of the PDF’s, post a comment on my site and I’ll gladly send them to you. The reason all the reporters and media started turning on Mr. Piculas was these clearly sketchy PDF’s that support the school boards side of the story.
Frankly I’m very dissappointed in the media in general and the Tampa Bay media specifically for not investigating the PDF’s. A local reporter could have gone and insisted on seeing the originals which may very clearly show the falsification of govermanet documents. We all should remember from Wategate that the attempted cover up of an embarrassing story may actually expose criminally punishable actions by government employees.
A potential problem may arise shortly because I noticed that this morning I’m getting traffic from TotalFark.com, if their linking to me goes to the public Fark it might bring my cheap hosting account at GoDaddy to its knees.
July 16th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
“Sorry Southerners, if you’re from the USA you’re a Yank.”
The worst war the USA ever experienced, the American Civil War, was between Yankees and Rebels. The South (Rebels) lost. Some Southerners still hang onto bitterness and pride and go so far as to fly the Confederate flag, which most Americans consider a symbol of slavery. Imagine a few Germans flying swastika flags…
I say this only to explain why a few people from the southern United States aren’t comfortable being called Yanks.
That war is long over. Go ahead and call us Yanks. There are far worse things you can call us.
“If you’re from the UK you’re a Pom. Being called Pommy gets rid of all the other awkward labels like English, Scot, Brit or Welsh.”
I’ve never heard of “Pommy” but I understand the irritation of being called English when you’re from some other part of the UK. I use “UK” to be safe like I use “USA” instead of “American” most of the time. The term “American” covers two continents and the huge strip of land connecting them. Lots of us used to call everybody from the Soviet Union “Russians” and didn’t know or care the difference.
July 16th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
I have a very strong memory as a little kid of everybody from the neighborhood gathering in the street to watch an eclipse. My father carefully poked a hole in one sheet of paper with a pin and held it over another sheet of paper. We saw a small, bright circle. As it got eerily dark, a bite appeared in the circle that got bigger and bigger until the circle was gone and all the birds became silent. Our mother, the sun, slowly reappeared much to my relief.
July 17th, 2008 at 3:03 am
I guess no one’s heard of Moly grease? Used for lubing your chassis and a little dab helps when putting the heads of a Chevy Small Block back together.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
What an amazing thing George Hrab did there! I just listened to all of it while using the cooles table on the web that I know (http://dayah.com/periodic/). My favorite song: Praseodymium.
July 17th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Re the Pom/Yank theme – all very interesting, but they are slang terms.
Calling UK scientists ‘English’ is like calling US scientists ‘New Englanders’, or Australian scientists ‘Canberrans’.
I wouldn’t be so miffed – but this isn’t the first time this had happened on this most excellent blog…