darw1n.net

This is a cool article/pictures of a supposed comet collision at “hypervelocity,” a word which again reminds me, in conjunction with other recent posts, of Calvin’s excellent suggestion of renaming the Big Bang the “Horrendous Space Kablooie.” It doesn’t mention any proposals to change “hypervelocity” to “insane unthinkable instant death speed” but it makes it sound like the discovery was something of a “wtf” moment for astronomers.

Probably the best stop-motion music video I’ve seen since It Had to Be You.

Short but interesting, here’s a series of visualizations of what it would look like if the Earth had rings a la Saturn. The perspective would change relative to where on Earth you were, etc. Sound optional.

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2010/01/world/haiti.360/index.html

ok actually it’s all “He-man” inspired, and it’s all pretty awesome. I’d seen one or of these before making their rounds on the internets, but I’d never seen this huge collection of high-res awesomeness.

http://ihavethepowerart.blogspot.com/?spref=fb

I promise this will be the last time I use Mariah Carey lyrics in a title.

That aside, it has occurred to me that I have never read any non-Tolkien fantasy books (at least of the sword/sorcery type), but that certain persons on this blog tend to read them fairly often, and describe them in terms that make them sound very interesting. Alas, I never remember the book/series/author names. So post ‘em if you got ‘em, and hopefully I won’t be the only one to benefit from the rec.

I have been reading the Bill Watterson biography since Christmas. It’s fantastic, I recommend it. One aspect of the book that I enjoyed was the context it provided for “Calvin & Hobbes”. I read the Sunday comics when I was home and they’re really awful. The comics in that section have often been running for ~50 years. When the creator dies, their family members often take up the strip. This has led to stagnation, and that stagnation makes Calvin and Hobbes stand out even more. The stagnation has also driven me away from the comics page and into the realm of web comics. One of my favorite comics has a collection of links to syndicated comic parodies:

Sunday Comic Parodies

Mini doc on the ever-engaging true story of Mike the Headless Chicken, who lived for 1.5 years after his head was cut off, only to choke to death while on tour:

In ongoing celebration of this heroic bird’s commitment to undeath, I also present death metal parrot and death metal rooster.

…this isn’t one of those “philosophical” posts, what can I say?

Sand dunes look a lot cooler from space. Cooler than I would have thought, even. And that’s pretty damn cool.