(no subject)

[aesmael]

One of the articles I read today has reminded me of something I sometimes wonder, about how our screens and cameras look in wavelengths we don't see. I know (assume) we don't make any effort to capture those faithfully but I don't know we specifically exclude them. So I wonder how our screens look in those wavelengths and if photo manipulation software affects the appearance of our photos in infrared and ultraviolet in a way incongruous with the effects we produce in visible light. It makes me think that if we ever expand the range of our vision we will need to revamp our equipment and software to remove distortions and artefacts we are presently unaware of - once we realise something is wrong.

8-bit Theatre

1. 832: Character Is What You Are In The Dark [No RSS feed means sporadic 'light' warriors. But if even Black Mage can do this why would they run?]
2. 833: x100 [Puntacular part one]
3. 834: World War: Rock? [We now return to the conclusion of our epic pun.]
4. 835: Refining Moment [Call me simple but this had me laughing for minutes.]
5. 836: An Offer You Can't Refuse [*snort*]
6. 837: Importer/Extorter
   
7. 838: No Air Down There
   
8. 839: Wide World Of Sports [*giggles* *snort*]
9. 840: New Guard [Last four strips? Totally worth it. Assuming you find murder funny.]
10. 841: Permission To Speak Freely [Interesting dynamics to that group.]
    

Aetiology

1. Yes, the government can still enforce quarantine & isolation [Says the official as reason for potentially isolating those with, for example, XDR-TB "We're on the verge of taking what was a curable disease, one of the best known diseases in human endeavors, and making it incurable[.]" Comments well worth reading.]
2. Why do I blog? [Memey]
3. Tangled Bank--final call [Carnivaley]
4. Tangled Bank #77 [O: Major Carnival. I'm going to have to stop here for the night.]
   

Ami Angelwings' Heavenly Comic Reviews

1. Week of May 2 Super Short Reviews of Dooms :D
   
2. Teen Titans - #46 Review or What exactly does Adam Beechan have against Batgirl? [Maybe he was beaten up by batgirl once?]
3. 52 - #52 [SG1 saves the world again!]
4. Superman - #662 Review [Even Superman needs repeat reminders of lessons learned?]
5. The All New Atom - #11 Review or Did GAIL SIMONE just create the new Major Force!? [Since Ami has convinced me I should read this series, I really hope the next story picks up. Otherwise I might have to change my mind.]
   

Astronomy Picture of the Day

1. Small Galaxy NGC 4449 [Neato. It's giant companion seems to be invisible - probably because we can't see ourselves]

Autism Diva

1. Rats. Rats. Poison. Autism.
   

Ballastexistenz

1. Manipulative? No. Impertinent? Maybe. [Another post for Blogging Against Disablism day. Perhaps I am fortunate to be one of the few people I know who has no memories of hospitalisation.]

Biology in Science Fiction

1. Science Fiction Citations for OED [The Oxford English Dictionary turns its classificatorial gaze upon the field of Science Fictional vocabulary. Some examples of words originating in science fiction, plus some clarification from the person running the site in question how words are selected by the OED.]
2. Would extraterrestrial life use DNA? [Biology in Science Fiction is an excellent blog which probably does not get the readers it deserves. I suspect she does not actually promote it (admired). The sentence 'Billions of years ago there was a heavy exchange of meteors between the bodies in our solar system' makes me think of planetary pirate vessels pulling alongside to exchange a broadside. The newspaper phrase 'Life on Earth appeared very quickly after the bombardment -- too fast, Ruvkun believes, to have evolved on its own' could have been lifted from any number of panspermia articles I have read just by varying the scientist's name. It would be rather spectacularly interesting if Martian life were to be discovered which shared genetic heritage with Earthen life but overall I would be surprised if life elsewhere in the universe used DNA (something which annoys me, talk of 'alien DNA', etc in sci-fi). Whatever else is used would surprise me too, mind.]
   

But Enough About Me!

1. Wiscon [Too bad I can't be there. Panels topics apparently include (lack of) diversity in SF television, how one raises children outside a strict gender binary (last year apparently talked about not assuming one's kids are straight), the Hero's Journey and young girls (I guess that explains those posts earlier), and feminism and the apparent need to pair people off into marriages at the end of tales. Well, apparently those are just the panels Kate Elliott will be on, and just my mangled paraphrasings, but I would love to be in the audience for any and all of those.]
   

Calvin and Hobbes

1. 2007-05-03 [Hah.]
   

Devil's Panties

1. 2007-05-03 [Indeed.]
   

Dilbert

1. 2007-05-03 [Yup, badmeta]
   

John Crowley Little and Big

1. I'm Back [Author visits Ukraine, is awarded historic cat]
2. {no title} [Pictures of said historic cat delayed]
3. New Query [From outside science fiction, fresh perspective]
4. {no title} [Now I want to visit Kyiv. Does one have to be a wonderfully human person to craft wonderfully human tales, I wonder?]
5. UBix [I benefit from delayed reading maybe]
6. A Day in the Ukraine, A Night with the KGB [New York = beyond my reach, mighty as I am]
7. Nother Query [The nonreal extensible Caliphate]
8. {no title} [In New York, on April 3, someone named Thomas M. Disch is launching a book of poetry. The name seems familiar.]

Peanuts

1. 2007-05-03 [Good grief?]
   

Planetary News

1. Water Identified in Extrasolar Planet Atmosphere [An expected result. The expected and unexpected are both exciting because either way we have learned something new.]
2. Venus Express Celebrates One Year in Orbit [This probe does not get enough press. Mars Mars Mars. Not everything is about Mars! Or Europa. Or whatever is the exobiology darling of the moment. One regret I often have about images of these clouded worlds is I am continually unsure what detail would be visible to a human eye observing the planet and what has been added through image processing - or even from invisible wavelengths so we will have something to look at. More so than with other images, that is. This is just a quick overview of Venus Express' findings (it has only been there a year), mostly concerning the major planet's atmosphere (like why Venus glows at night). But then, the atmosphere is the part easiest to see. Hopefully in the future Venus Express will provide us with information on the planet from top to bottom.]
3. NOAA and NASA Restore Climate Sensor to Upcoming Earth Monitoring Satellite
   
4. Human and Spacecraft Errors Together Doomed Mars Global Surveyor [Lessons in the long term operation of spacecraft.]
5. Astronomers Map Out Planetary "Danger Zones" [Not what I thought - neither stellar habitable zones nor 'galactic habitable zones'. Instead, this is about how near a young star can be to a hotter star before it would have its ability to form planets blasted away. As always, the news tantalises with hints of interesting permutations.]
6. STEREO Returns First 3-D Images of the Sun [ROUND!]
7. New Image: Hubble Celebrates 17th Anniversary with Panorama of Carina Nebula [Still an amazing image the second time round. This is how stars are made.]
8. "Habitable" Planet Discovered Orbiting Nearby Star [Looks like they changed the title. More like Earth than any planet known! Except Mars. Venus. And Earth. I may be acting all aloof and too cool for this discovery but inside I am itching to see what it's surface is like. I would wager it is less Earthlike than the news reports are leading people to believe but there is probably plenty of novel, uh, planetology to discover. Should probably track down some of the papers (which I am confident exist) that attempt to predict the conditions on such a world. I should add, as far as stars go, this is one of the very closest. Also I am not sure if I mentioned previously, the wobble induced in this star by Gliese 581c is about the same as that induced in Sol by Jupiter. I find that a pretty nifty coincidence. In fact, this is roughly the level of sensitivity astronomers felt was needed to search for extrasolar planets at all, since they were expecting to find Jupiter equivalents. Had we known where to look, we might have found this world ten years ago. I'm wondering about the temperature of this planet too. I guess it will depend fairly heavily on the atmosphere it has; I'm told Earth would be cooler by as much as 15(?) degrees Celsius if we did not have our atmosphere to warm us.]
9. Stephen Hawking Flies into Zero-G and Tastes Space [Well, good for him. I was wondering how A.J.S. Rayl (the writer) knew so well the wondrously indescribable nature of the experience but apparently ve, too, has experienced on of these flights - the maiden one, apparently.]
10. Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Finds Past Water at Home, Opportunity Takes in Tierra del Fuego [Haha. Don't let my grumping earlier fool you. This is both amazing and fascinating. Long though, bring a snack. Every time I realise those rovers are roaming around another world, that that is where these pictures are coming from... well, it always stuns me for a while.]
11. New Horizons' Close Encounter Provides Rare Views of the Jovian System [Amazing how much instruments have improved since the Voyager probes. I wonder what the next one will see? Still disappointing that New Horizons will only be a flyby of Pluto. Some amazing pictures (must find a new word), especially this one. I'm curious to see what they can find by way of KBOs to observe afterwards, although whichever it is will be famous only for being the KBO New Horizons visited, the one we have best information of, unless something remarkable is discovered *jots down notes*.]

Transadvocate Blog

1. Is The Radical Feminist Movement Our Enemy? [Me? I don't know varieties of feminism. I would rather know a person's position in their own words before deciding if I am their enemy. Which means I have no position on this as yet.]
2. Nappy Hoe's and Presidential Faggots [Dan Savage again. My opinion already given.]
3. The Man Who Would Be Jester [Blah at him]
4. Thank You, AMC [That soap again?]
5. You're Just A Tranny... And You Always Will Be
   
6. GenderPAC CIRCA 1959
   
7. May Flowers and ENDA's Showers [Hmm]
8. Religious Right Fights For The Right To Hate [Ah. Now, this I am on firmer ground with. Except... I have never been so sure of hate-crime laws. Anti-discrimination, yes, but if anyone has convincingly explained to me the need for hate-crime laws specifically I have forgotten. It seems to me the problem is inconsistent and discriminatory enforcement of existing laws.]
   

Wizard of Id

1. 2007-04-24 [Not sure why I subscribed to this. I was fond of it younger but less impressed last time I saw it. Well, there are a few comics whose subscriptions I could not really justify if pressed.]
2. 2007-04-25
   
3. 2007-04-26 [Ha]
4. 2007-04-27
   
5. 2007-04-28
   
6. 2007-04-29 [:)]
7. 2007-04-30 [(:]
8. 2007-05-01 [:) Three in a row?]
9. 2007-05-02
   
10. 2007-05-03 [Pragmatic?]