Curiouser and Curiouser

NASA's Curiosity rover speeds closer and closer to its high tech date with destiny...

When the car-sized MLS Curiosity rover arrives at Mars in August it will encounter a problem that has been the death of more than a few of the robot explorers we've sent to the Red Planet.  While only 1% as dense as on Earth the atmosphere that surrounds Mars is still thick enough to burn up arriving craft from friction heating.  On the other hand the atmosphere is too thin for parachutes to be of much use.  As one of the speakers in the following talk explains, "It's too dense to ignore, but too thin to help." 

NASA has a plan they hope will work.  It's detailed in this fine little video, Challenges of Getting to Mars: Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror.  Wicked challenge, awesome engineering, fascinating stuff.  Upon their clever solution all depends.

 Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech by way of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory

Happy Solstice!

My second favorite pagan holiday…

With arrival of the solstice, Summer begins in the Northern Hemisphere at 23:09 Greenwich MeanTime on 20 June 2012. 

Solstice is taken from the Latin solstitium, sol (sun) and stitium (to stop), reflecting the idea that the noonday Sun appears to stop rising higher in the sky on this day.  It also marks the longest day – as measured from sunrise to sunset - of the year.

This and other celestial events were tracked by anonymous early peoples who may be regarded as humankind’s first astronomers using structures such as Stonehenge.

A pagan holiday since pre-historic times, Summer Solstice was co-opted and re-purposed by Christians for celebration as the birthday of John the Baptist.  Winter Solstice became the much more high profile Christmas.

These days various neo-pagans, history buffs, and amateur astronomers still pause to note the turn of the seasons as inscribed in the heavens.

Happy Solstice! 

Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge

Moonrise Kingdom

Is Wes Anderson's best movie ever...

Cassie took to me dinner and a movie for Father's Day.  The movie we chose was Moonrise Kingdom.  We found out why it's been sold out the last two times we tried to see it.  There is something spectacularly, wonderfully wrong with the inside of Wes Anderson's head.  He does not, perhaps cannot, see the world the same way normal people do.  His ability to show us what the world looks like to him is his profound gift to us.  Anderson is too young for Moonrise Kingdom to be his semi-autobiography, but I hope it is drawn from someone's story.   It is hilarious and heartfelt, gentle and subversive.  If you do not find Moonrise Kingdom funny and wistful, magical and fantastical throughout you are a sad and broken person (no pressure).  It may be the best movie I've seen all year.

The City That Became Safe

Good news about crime rates, even in New York City...

By way of Vaughan Bell at Mind Hacks blog... 

The Open University’s blog has a fascinating piece on why New York City has seen an astonishing drop in crime, against the predictions of most social theories.

Indeed it does.

The article by law professor and prolific author, Franklin E. Zimring, is drawn from his recent book, The City that Became Safe: New York's Lessons for Urban Crime and Its Control, which demonstrates that the rate of serious crime has plummeted in NYC despite the community's failure to resolve many issues which have long been assumed to serve as precursors to disorder.  Other solutions are at work in The Big Apple.

Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_york_times_square-terabass.jpg  

A Couple More LSE Podcasts

That are definitely worth your time... 

Anders Dahlvig, former President and CEO of IKEA and author of The IKEA Edge, presented a talk titled The new growth strategy: How responsible companies are profitable companies.  He's not a dynamic speaker and he suffered from a persistent cough throughout, but the story of how IKEA treats its suppliers, employees, and customers stands in stark contrast to the methods applied by the likes of WalMart.  

What Money Can't Buy - the moral limit of markets, was presented by a panel composed of Professor Michael Sandel, Stephanie Flanders, Professor Julian Le Grand, Right Reverend Peter Selby.

It does my heart good to see some folks getting it right.  Give a listen.