Mary Shelley’s The Last Man

Posted on April 23, 2009 by skullsinthestars

I have to admit that the collapse of the world economy has gotten me into a rather pessimistic, even doomed, mindset.  Some months ago I decided to use this mindset constructively and began reading a series of novels with a common theme of the “end of the world”.  I put the phrase in quotation marks because most apocalyptic novels really focus on the end of civilization or the end of humanity, not the literal end of the planet.

Anyway, I was rather surprised when my researches revealed that one of the earliest stories about the end of humanity (not counting various religious prophecies) was written way back in 1826 by none other than Mary Shelley, who is better known for her groundbreaking science-fiction/horror novel Frankenstein (1818).   Shelley’s The Last Man is a lengthy, tragic novel which describes the rise and fall of the fortunes of a circle of friends, set against the backdrop of a merciless plague which is inexorably exterminating humanity:

shelley_lastman

The novel, though I found it slow-going at first, builds in intensity and emotional impact to a level which eventually affected me deeply.  Though there are plenty of discussions on this book online, I thought I’d give my own humble take.

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Posted in Horror | 13 Comments

I saw Steve Carell way back when… I think…

Posted on April 21, 2009 by skullsinthestars

My mind, in particular my memory, often works in bizarre ways, especially when it comes to film and television.   I’ve regularly identified movies and television shows that I’ve never even seen from a split second clip during the flip of a channel.   I can think of two striking examples, both curiously involving Stephen King stories.  Once, I turned on the television and saw a man lying by the side of the road, critically injured in a hit-and-run accident.  A monstrous creature appeared out of the trees and approached him — and I immediately knew I was watching a story written by Stephen King.  An even more impressive instance occurred once when I turned on the TV and saw a man standing outside a small airport at night, looking up at a single-engine aircraft flying above his head.  I said to myself, “Hey, they made a movie version of King’s The Night Flier” — and I hadn’t previously known such a version existed.

Often, watching a television show, I’ll single out a particular actor and immediately identify them as someone I’ve seen in some other obscure role years before.  I may have just beaten myself for weird identifications tonight, though.

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Posted in ... the Hell?, Silliness | 2 Comments

Back in the air!

Posted on April 20, 2009 by skullsinthestars

The weather has finally been getting nice enough again to get some consistent skydiving in and not freeze one’s ass off at the same time!  The following video is actually back from January, but I finally got around to uploading it the other day.  It consists of two skydives: an eight way and a six way.  Both jumps look a little confused, as we hadn’t really gotten much jumping in over the winter months, but they allowed us to shake off some of the rust and get back in the swing of things.  Video by my friend Quincy:

“Currency”, as it’s called, is very important to a regular skydiver.  Though freefall is the most natural feeling in the world to me, it is not a natural activity and one can forget how to “fly” after a prolonged lay-off.  Most jumpers try and get out pretty much every weekend for at least a couple of jumps.

(P.S.  YouTube is getting really goofy with copyright fears!  Quincy had put together for me a DVD with a background song, and this was what I uploaded to YouTube without thinking much about it.  I was astounded to see that they now automatically scan uploaded videos for similarities to pop music, and block things that have musical clips.  I replaced it with some horse$#!+ that YouTube ‘suggested’.)

Posted in Sports | 3 Comments

The birds have fledged!

Posted on April 19, 2009 by skullsinthestars

Just a quick update about the family of house finches we’ve had on our front door wreath: the babies have fledged!  This previous Tuesday, we chanced a peek into the nest and saw a little face peeking back at us:

nestlings

Cute, eh?  It looked like they still had quite a ways to go.  (Incidentally, the house finch keeps the poop of the baby finches around the border of the nest — hence the mess of white.)

Today, we heard a very raucous peeping coming from the nest, along with some rustling.  Suddenly, a flock of birds appeared on the tree in front of our house:

the-family

Our bird babies are flying!  The fiancée and I felt very lucky to have been present for what must have been one of the first flights.  (The picture is a bit grainy because I had to shoot through a screen and window.)  Soon, we’ll be able to clean the poop off of the front door!

Posted in Animals | 4 Comments

The Giant’s Shoulders #10 is up!

Posted on April 16, 2009 by skullsinthestars

The tenth edition of The Giant’s Shoulders is up at Stochastic Scribbles!  Thanks to Yoo for assembling it!

The next edition will appear on May 16th at Curving Normality.

Posted in General science, Science news | Leave a comment

Levitation and diamagnetism, or: LEAVE EARNSHAW ALONE!!!

Posted on April 13, 2009 by skullsinthestars

In one of my regular explorations of StumbleUpon I happened across a nice homemade demonstration of magnetic levitation on a page called spark, bang, buzz.  The demonstration is adapted from a description at scitoys.com.  The setup is illustrated schematically below:

levitationscheme1

A strong collection of permanent magnets are supported by a wooden frame above the ‘levitation’ area, and provide the ‘lift’ for the levitating magnet.  The levitating magnet itself is supported between a pair of plates made of bismuth which — and this is in fact the key point — is a strongly diamagnetic material.

It is a nice demonstration, but what really caught my eye was the following passage of the post:

It is always annoying to me when someone flashes a bunch of mathematical mumbojumbo in our faces and says something is impossible. Many times the impossibility may be true in the true sense of the mathematical definition, but mathematical definitions often fall way short when evaluating our real and practical world. Someone named Earnshaw, using mathematical mumbojumbo, said that a permenant magnet can not be levitated without using some energy input for stabilization. In the practical sense, one would be a fool to take the Earnshaw therom seriously. The picture shows that permenant magnet levitation can easily be done at home… Diamagnetism probably does not fall within the definition of the Earnshaw therom but who cares.

It’s hard to tell if the author is being snarky or really looks upon mathematical physics as a “mumbojumbo” that impedes progress.  Taking the statement at face value, it highlights an important and semi-common misunderstanding of many physics theorems, and so I thought I’d take a qualitative stab at explaining Earnshaw’s theorem and its relationship to diamagnetic materials and magnetic levitation.

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Posted in Physics | 28 Comments

Terminator and Dollhouse: excellent, again

Posted on April 10, 2009 by skullsinthestars

Just a short note: I’ve been rather preoccupied with classes and other academic responsibilities and haven’t had much time to work on detailed physics blog posts.  This will hopefully change this week, as I’ve got a few ideas in the works.  (Part of the problem: I’m getting really ambitious with my posts, and they end up requiring much more research than I first think.)

In the meantime, I had to just comment that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse were both really good, and compelling, tonight.

It was the season finale of Terminator, and it didn’t disappoint: the writers “doubled down” in a sense and introduced a number of really unexpected twists to the story.   The show, though somewhat slow moving at times, has introduced a depth of character and a complexity to the plot far, far beyond what ever appeared in the movies.

Sadly, it still isn’t clear if there will be a season 3, as nothing has been announced!  It is thought that the upcoming theatrical release of Terminator 4 might convince FOX executives that TSCC is worth keeping around to capitalize on “Terminator mania”.  I’m definitely hoping…

Dollhouse gave more of a hint how the show can sustain its premise over an extended run.  As I noted in my previous post on the show, though the “dolls” in principle are different people in each episode, they serve as “mirrors” through which the hopes and desires of the other characters are reflected.  We saw a bit more of that tonight, as well as another aspect: a somewhat Frankenstein-ian twist to the tale.  The character of Echo, like Frankenstein’s monster, is turning out to be more than her creators expected or can handle.

Posted in Entertainment | 11 Comments

Dave Arneson passes away at 61

Posted on April 9, 2009 by skullsinthestars

And now, we can officially say that it is the end of an era: Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has died, a little over a year after Gary Gygax passed away.  Though Gygax’s name was much more synonymous with Dungeons & Dragons and roleplaying games in general, Arneson had as much, if not more, of an influence on the early development of the system.  Around the same time that Gygax and Perrin were developing their fantasy miniatures game Chainmail, Arneson was developing his own fantasy roleplaying game called Blackmoor.  In short order he formed a collaboration with Gygax which evolved into the first edition of D&D, and like Gygax, Arneson continued developing game ideas well after D&D.

I offer many condolences to Arneson’s family, and mourn the loss of a man who gave the world a new, unique, and enduring form of entertainment.

Posted in role-playing games | 1 Comment

Birdwatching WIN!

Posted on April 8, 2009 by skullsinthestars

My new camera came through for me big time!  We’ve been pretty convinced that our avian houseguests (wreathguests?) are house finches, but I hadn’t been able to get a picture to confirm it until this afternoon.  The papa bird was hanging out on the tree in front of our house when I went outside, and I snapped the following picture:

housefinch

Now, compare with the image of the male house finch from Whatbird.com:

housefinchdrawing

Birdwatch win!  The daddy bird headed back to the nest right after I took the picture, so I know I’ve got the right bird this time.   I’m quite exhilarated at finally having a positive ID; the fiancée and I are thinking of taking up birdwatching now.

Posted in Animals | 1 Comment

The Italian earthquake, predictions, and selective perception

Posted on April 7, 2009 by skullsinthestars

In the wake of the truly horrific Italian earthquake on Monday come reports that an Italian seismologist predicted an impending major event but his warnings were ignored.  From the NYT Blog,

A local news Web site in the region where the earthquake struck on Monday, Il Capoluogo d’Abruzzo, reports that Giampaolo Giuliani, who claims to have predicted the earthquake by measuring radon gas, wants a public apology from the authorities for ignoring his warning.

…

According to Reuters, Mr. Giuliani “was reported to authorities for spreading panic among the population” because “vans with loudspeakers had driven around the town a month ago telling locals to evacuate their houses” after he first warned that a major earthquake would strike L’Aquila soon.

The evidence which Mr. Giuliani based his prediction on is an increase in radon gas, presumably released from subterranean sources in the seismically active region.  This is a relatively old idea, but a generally discredited one: though it seems that radon gas emissions are occasionally connected with earthquakes, the correlation is very weak.  In other words, plenty of earthquakes happen with no radon emission, and plenty of radon emission happens with no accompanying earthquake.

Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Giuliani’s prediction — and his demands for an apology — gain traction over the next few weeks.  Human nature, and the phenomenon of selective perception, will drive people’s belief in a novel earthquake-predicting technique which is being supressed by “the man.”

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Posted in Science news | 1 Comment