Something for the chemists…

Posted on April 13, 2008 by skullsinthestars

Via StumbleUpon, I came across this nice collection of chemistry videos at listverse.com: The Top 10 Amazing Chemical Reactions.  If you want to see chemicals acting in very ‘unnatural’ ways, take a gander.

My favorite is the sulfur hexafluoride, an invisible gas over 5 times heavier than air.  Because of this, it can be held in an open container and have lightweight objects floated on top of it.  On a more serious note, it reminded me of another gas which is heavier than air: carbon dioxide.  In 1986, Lake Nyos in Cameroon released a massive amount of carbon dioxide that had been suspended in solution at the lake’s bottom, evidently much like a can of soda bubbles over when pressure is released.  The carbon dioxide hugged the ground and ended up smothering and poisoning 1800 people in the lake’s vicinity.  (Cattle were not spared from the effects, either.)  Currently, a French-Cameroon team is working on ‘degassing‘ the lakes by venting the gas from the lake bottom.

Posted in General science | 3 Comments

Lovecraft on “Time and Space”

Posted on April 11, 2008 by skullsinthestars

I was browsing through H.P. Lovecraft’s writings again, in particular his collected philosophical works, and came across an interesting essay: “Time and Space”, printed in Conservative 4, No. 1 (July 1918). Though extremely flowery and poetic, the essay does justice to both Lovecraft’s fiction and science as a whole, as I discuss below. The text, and some commentary, below the fold…

Continue reading →

Posted in Lovecraft | 1 Comment

A little busy…

Posted on April 10, 2008 by skullsinthestars

I haven’t had much time to write a detailed optics post lately. I’m trying to get a couple of papers prepared for publication, and that’s been hindered by coursework and the travel I’ve been doing. Beyond that, I haven’t seen any new optics results recently that have leapt off the intertubes and cried out for blogging. (The odds are, of course, that I haven’t been looking hard enough.)

Hopefully that will change in the near future, but in the meantime, are there any physical science topics, preferably in optics, that anyone would like me to blog about? Consider this an open invitation to submit your requests…

P.S. For that matter, if there’s any ‘horror blogging’ requests, as well, I’d love to hear those, too!

Posted in Personal | 10 Comments

Stop the Uwe Boll madness!

Posted on April 10, 2008 by skullsinthestars

I hadn’t seen this before, but it cracks me up: a petition to stop Uwe Boll from making any more horrible movies.  If you don’t know who he is, look him up on the IMDB:

To:  Dr. Uwe Boll

We, the undersigned, respectfully ask that Uwe Boll give proper weight to the wishes of the video game community, the horror community, and the film going community in general and stop directing, producing, or taking any part in the creation of feature films. His distasteful handling of the subject matter and lack of acknowledgement of his failures simply cannot be abided any longer.

Mr. Boll has repeatedly shown a complete lack of comprehension regarding the videogames he has dragged, kicking and screaming, to the silver screen and his ham-fisted approach to horror has soiled future possibilities for anyone else who may attempt to bring videogames to film.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Number of signatures so far?  163,000 as of this posting.  There’s also a pro- Uwe Boll petition, though it isn’t too polite to Uwe, either.  Number of signatures?  1800.

Posted in Entertainment | 2 Comments

LOLCats can has accuracy?

Posted on April 10, 2008 by skullsinthestars

The girlfriend sent me the link to the following I Can Haz Cheezeburger, which I post without further comment:

Posted in Animals, General science | 3 Comments

Creationists and cranks: Ignore, Engage, or Insult?

Posted on April 9, 2008 by skullsinthestars

Via Pharyngula, I see that Scientific American has posted a number of reviews of the creationist propaganda film Expelled, and as one would suspect, none of them are good. One statement by John Rennie on the matter caught my eye, though, and seemed worth mentioning in a post:

Rather, it seems a safe bet that the producers hope a whipping from us would be useful for publicity: further proof that any mention of ID outrages the close-minded establishment. (Picture Ben Stein as Jack Nicholson, shouting, “You can’t handle the truth!”) Knowing this, we could simply ignore the movie—which might also suit their purposes, come to think of it.

Emphasis mine. I found these observations particularly wise, and pertinent to an issue that constantly plagues the comments of various science blogs: when dealing with creationists and cranks, should scientists ignore them, engage them, or simply insult them? Which strategy avoids playing into the hands of the propagandists?

The quote above suggests that there is no straightforward strategy, and that the best answer one can typically give is: “It depends.”

Continue reading →

Posted in ... the Hell?, Science news | 2 Comments

Why I hate the media, part 10,000

Posted on April 9, 2008 by skullsinthestars

CNN’s current headline, as I write this: “President Bush takes part in commemorative tree planting.”  This is listed as a “Live, developing story.”

Posted in ... the Hell?, Politics | 4 Comments

Richard Marsh’s The Beetle: A Mystery

Posted on April 8, 2008 by skullsinthestars

As I’ve mentioned previously, Wordsworth Mystery & Supernatural is publishing an excellent collection of long out of print Victorian-era novels and short stories.  I just finished reading one of them, a neglected novel of suspense and the supernatural, Richard Marsh’s The Beetle: A Mystery.

Continue reading →

Posted in Horror | 7 Comments

Making anamorphic images, part 1: Piecewise images

Posted on April 7, 2008 by skullsinthestars

In my recent post on the camera obscura, I discussed the optical illusion produced by so-called anamorphic images, i.e. images which only appear normal from a particular point of view. One can readily understand such images from the point of view of geometrical optics, but I thought I’d go a step further and show how a little geometry can be used to construct your own simple anamorphs. In this post we discuss the simplest form of anamorphic image — one constructed from piecewise planar images — and when my sanity returns I’ll contemplate doing posts on other, more complicated distortions.

Continue reading →

Posted in Optics | 8 Comments

Ramsey Campbell’s thoughts on horror (updated)

Posted on April 6, 2008 by skullsinthestars

I haven’t stopped by Ramsey Campbell’s official website for a while, but it was updated since I last saw it with an introduction that talks about why he writes horror and why it is a worthy literary pursuit. It’s a great defense of a genre that shouldn’t need a defense; to quote a highlight:

An old saw states that horror and pornography are the only kinds of fiction that seek to produce a physical reaction. Presumably whichever human prune originated this twaddle was never made to laugh or weep by fiction. I think there’s nothing at all wrong with art that causes us to feel, but I maintain that horror fiction can address the intellect as well. I don’t want to scare people out of their wits; I’d rather scare them in.

I highly agree with this assessment, and I like to think that I’ve been pushing a similar argument in some of my previous horror posts. For instance, Lovecraft and his contemporaries were drawing in significant amounts upon the scientific discoveries of their era (relativity, quantum mechanics, evolution) to unsettle, by exploring what might be considered to be unpleasant consequences of our increasing understanding. I’ll have more to say on this in a few days, after I’ve collected my thoughts a bit more…

Update: Via Trudi Topham, I’ve found that Campbell is currently, and for a couple of weeks, answering questions at the Pantechnicon Forums.  If you’ve ever had a question for a horror master, here’s a good chance to ask it!

Posted in Horror | 4 Comments