Freaky Cool Asteroid!

Monday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is of asteroid Itokawa, which is currenlty being examined by a Japanese spacecraft named Hayabusa. This is a fascinating mission which involves a sample return, but that’s not why I’m writing this… Take a look at the image. The asteroid is nubbly! No craters! No smooth surface! It looks …

Road Geek

This link concerning Road Geeks came to me through one of my professional listservs. …and technically, I’m violating the terms of my agreement by mentioning it’s existence. “IMPORTANT: This list is confidential. You should not publicly mention its existence[emphasis mine], or forward copies of information you have obtained from it to third parties.” Confidential I …

Thin Member Fracture (a.k.a. Fun with Spaghetti)

What do you do during your lunch break? Today, I decided to check out who was awarded the 2005 Ig Nobel Awards and for what. My favorite one of these was the alarm clock that runs away and hides, which I heard about on NPR a few weeks ago. I think it was on Morning …

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: The Movie

SPOILERS We saw Goblet of Fire last Friday night. My rating is B+. I thought that the first half of the movie was spectacular, and the last half of the movie was good. I found this movie somewhat different from the previous Harry Potter movies because I knew going into the theater that they were …

Gross Irregularity in Harry Potter Film II

SPOILER WARNING Well, I must confess that I made a slight error in my post Gross Irregularity in Harry Potter Film. I believe that the names on the tombstone (in the Book) are Tom Riddle, a.k.a. Voldemort’s father, and Tom Riddle’s elderly parents. This does not materially change my complaints posted earlier concerning the movie, …