The NSF online porn scandal!

Posted on February 3, 2009 by skullsinthestars

Finally I have a post topic (almost) as attention-getting as scicurious’ posts (see, for instance, here and here)!  It was reported a few days ago that an internal investigation by the National Science Foundation’s inspector general has revealed numerous cases of employees of the NSF downloading porn at work.  Via Politico,

Despite the less-than-lurid sound of the probes, the employees in question weren’t just logging onto their Facebook accounts or buying birthday gifts on Amazon.com. The report says they were watching, downloading and e-mailing porn, sometimes for significant portions of their workdays, and over periods of months or even years.

In one particularly egregious case, the report says one NSF “senior official” was discovered to have spent as much as 20 percent of his working hours over a two-year interval “viewing sexually explicit images and engaging in sexually explicit online ‘chats’ with various women.”

Investigators calculated the value of the time lost at more than $58,000 — for that employee alone.

The revelations of the report have gotten Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley up in arms, and he has requested/demanded all relevant documents related to the scandal.

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Posted in ... the Hell? | 3 Comments

A. Merritt’s The Metal Monster

Posted on February 2, 2009 by skullsinthestars

Last week I discussed A. Merritt’s book The Moon Pool (1919), an adventure/horror novel showing genuine flashes of weird brilliance but marred by some rather stereotypical pulp conventions.  Merritt’s next novel, The Metal Monster (1920), is something else entirely!  Perhaps the best place to start is with the assessment of H.P. Lovecraft, from a letter to James F. Morton dated March 6, 1934:

Other recent items on my calendar are Dunsany’s new book — The Curse of the Wise Woman — Weigall’s Wanderings in Roman Britain, and A. Merritt’s old yarn The Metal Monster, which I had never read before because Eddy told me it was dull.  The damn’d fool!  (nephew — not our late bilbiophilick friend)  Actually, the book contains the most remarkable presentation of the utterly alien and non-human that I have ever seen.  I don’t wonder that Merrittt calls it his “best and worst” production.  The human characters are commonplace and wooden — just pulp hokum — but the scenes and phaenomena… oh, boy!

Just as with The Moon Pool, I find myself in complete agreement with Lovecraft’s assessment (excepting that I have no opinion on the foolishness of Lovecraft’s nephew).  Though the protagonists of the novel are essentially generic pulp heroes and heroines, the weird and horrific elements of the novel are truly jaw-dropping in their beauty and utterly unique.  The Metal Monster has catapulted to near the top of my list of all-time favorite weird tales.  Let’s take a loving look at it below the fold…

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Posted in Horror, Lovecraft, Weird fiction | 5 Comments

A volcano to watch: Mount Redoubt

Posted on January 30, 2009 by skullsinthestars

Via CNN, we learn that Mount Redoubt in Alaska is showing clear signs of an eminent eruption.

As is always the case with forecasting eruptions, it is impossible to predict exactly when the eruption will happen; from CNN:

Peter Cervelli, a research geophysicist with the observatory, told CNN that “every indication is that we’re heading toward an eruption.”

Cervelli said scientists don’t know exactly when it will happen, but if it does happen, it could be days or weeks — or even hours.

This uncertainty can lead people to make life-threatening and even foolish decisions.  Before Mount St. Helens erupted catastrophically in 1980, loggers had fought to return to work in the area around the mountain.  Had the eruption happened on a day other than Sunday, many of them would have been killed.

Even pre-eruption, Redoubt has claimed its first casualty: the Alaska Volcano Observatory’s website!  Because of the enhanced media coverage, traffic to their site (and the webcam pointing at Redoubt) has overwhelmed their servers.  As of this posting, the webcam site displays an apologetic message.

Though the eruption will be a great opportunity for scientists to gather more information on volcanic eruptions, it will undoubtedly suck for local residents.  This includes the people of Anchorage, who live only about 100 miles away.  Though they aren’t in any direct danger, the eruption will probably disrupt air traffic and has the potential for dumping lots of annoying ash on the city (via Google maps, with my marker for the volcano, as there seems to be some dispute in Google as to the mountain’s exact location):

redoubt

It could be quite a show, though; Redoubt last erupted in late 1989, and throughout the early part of 1990, and produced some spectacular images (via Wikipedia):

redoubteruption

(Original photograph by R. Clucas, April 21, 1990.)

For those who are interested in reading more about volcanoes and volcano research, I can recommend the blog Magma Cum Laude, which is written by a graduate student of geology with a specialty in volcanoes.  I don’t know whether or not Jess will have a lot to say about the Redoubt eruption, but the blog is one I use for my vulcanology fix.

Posted in Science news | 2 Comments

Bush finally gets that monument in Iraq!

Posted on January 30, 2009 by skullsinthestars

Well, right-wing pundits were convinced that Iraqis would be so grateful to Bush for liberating their country that they’d construct statues and name streets after him.  It’s taken some time, but finally a monument related to Bush has shown up in Iraq (via CNN):

shoemonument

Quoting CNN,

For the war-beaten orphans of the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, this big old shoe fits.

A monument to a shoe thrown at former President Bush is unveiled at the Tikrit Orphanage complex.

A huge sculpture of the footwear hurled at President Bush in December during a trip to Iraq has been unveiled in a ceremony at the Tikrit Orphanage complex.

Assisted by children at the home, sculptor Laith al-Amiri erected a brown replica of one of the shoes hurled at Bush and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki by journalist Muntadhir al-Zaidi during a press conference in Baghdad.

You know, I’ve always had great sympathy for the Iraqi people and the suffering they’ve undergone, but stuff like this really just makes me think they’re awesome.  It puts them in the same league as the folks who tried to get a wastewater treatment plant named after Bush in San Francisco.  That proposition failed at the ballot, but the arguments against it were none too flattering to Bush either.

Incidentally, the shoe-thrower himself, Muntadhir al-Zaidi, is still incarcerated in Iraq.  His employer, al-Baghdadia television, keeps a prominently displayed picture of him on their home page.

Posted in Politics, Silliness | 4 Comments

Nazi zombies threaten Austin, TX!

Posted on January 29, 2009 by skullsinthestars

… at least that’s what a pair of electronic road signs warned drivers on Wednesday:

zombiesahead

Station KXAN in Austin has the details.  Apparently a group of enterprising prankster hackers changed the messages on the road signs to warn of a zombie holocaust ahead.  Some samples, taken from the video report:

“Caution! Zombies ahead!  The end is near!!!!!”

“Zombies ahead! Run!  Nazi zombies! Run!”

The prank counts as a definite act of hacking, because on top of cutting the padlocks protecting the computer interface of the signs, the hackers needed to get past the password protection. (Which, I would guess, involved putting in whatever the factory default is.  Who would think of seriously password-protecting a road sign?)

Of course, the Austin Public Works is not amused, and was quick to point out that this is a crime which potentially endangers public safety (the signs are there to warn of traffic issues), not to mention an act of vandalism (cutting padlocks).

Provided it is a one-time prank, I find it pretty amusing.  I’ll have less sympathy if this becomes a recurring or copycatted event.

For now, though, a little extra unexpected silliness in the world is really appreciated.

Update: Be sure to take the KXAN poll, on a tab on the story’s web page: Do you have a zombie escape planned out already?

Posted in ... the Hell?, Silliness | 10 Comments

200k page view milestone!

Posted on January 28, 2009 by skullsinthestars

I’ve passed yet another personal blogging milestone: a total of 200k page views!  It seems like yesterday that I passed thet 100k mark, though it was actually last month.  Thanks to my ‘spot the math errors‘ post, I’ve had over 100k views within a month’s time…

Here’s hoping that 300k comes just as quickly!

Posted in Personal | 3 Comments

Dick Van Dyke: Still cool

Posted on January 27, 2009 by skullsinthestars

I’ve been a big fan of Dick Van Dyke for a long time, and it’s great to see that he’s still active and in the news!  CNN has a nice interview with him in which he reminisces about making Mary Poppins — and the hard time he has gotten ever since for his Cockney accent in the film.

If you want evidence that Van Dyke is still totally cool, though, you should watch Night at the Museum.  Well, actually, just watch the credits. There’s a scene where Van Dyke dances, and he had better moves at 81 than most of us have at 21!

Posted in Entertainment | 4 Comments

ScienceOnline ’09: Web and the History of Science

Posted on January 27, 2009 by skullsinthestars

Before the events of ScienceOnline ’09 are completely lost in the labyrinth of my memory, I thought I’d post a few thoughts about the session that I co-moderated with scicurious and Brian, on The Web and the History of Science.  I should note in advance that these are my thoughts on the session, and what stuck in my head afterwards; scicurious and Brian no doubt have different points they would emphasize.

For those who didn’t attend, the session was very loosely organized and was mainly intended to be a broad discussion of why the history of science is important, and how to blog about the history of science.

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Posted in History of science | 6 Comments

Measuring the ‘kick’ of a photon leaving a fiber!

Posted on January 25, 2009 by skullsinthestars

ResearchBlogging.org
In physics, there are a number of fundamental and seemingly simple questions which have remained a source of controversy for years, even decades. Last month, a paper was published by a Chinese research group describing an experiment which throws new light on one of these controversies, the so-called Abraham-Minkowski controversy.  For nearly a century, theorists and experimentalists have struggled to answer the question A-M raised: how does the momentum of a photon change as it enters a material?

Though, as we will note, the new experiment does not completely put Abraham-Minkowski to rest (as we note below, there may not in fact be a controversy anymore at all), it does illustrate quite nicely that light carries momentum, and does so in a way which can be recorded on camera!  We take a look at the controversy and the recent experiment below.

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Posted in Optics, Physics | 5 Comments

A. Merritt’s The Moon Pool

Posted on January 21, 2009 by skullsinthestars

Occasionally my random impulse buys at the bookstore turn out to be unusually fruitful!  After Christmas, I was looking to spend some of my gift card money and happened across a copy of A. Merritt’s The Moon Pool (1919):

moonpool

I had never heard of Merritt’s work before, even though he was an enormously successful author in the pulp era that I’m most interested in!  I’ve corrected that oversight, and I’m glad I did: his work is fascinating and well worth looking into.

The Moon Pool itself is billed in the Overlook Press edition of the book I have as “A forerunner to ABC’s Lost”.  We take a look at that claim, as well as the book itself, below.

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Posted in Horror, Lovecraft, Weird fiction | 6 Comments