Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Monday, June 26, 2023

Doc Watch: Deepsea Challenge (2014)




Watched:  06/23/2023
Format:  YouTube
Viewing:  First
Director(s):  John Bruno, Ray Quint, Andrew Wight

Like everyone else, I spent last week keeping up with the story of the Titan, the submersible that was designed by a California firm who seemed to play pretty fast and loose with fairly common knowledge about the ways in which one usually plans and develops a vehicle intended for use 3800 meters below the ocean's surface.  As details about the Titan came out, as well as photos, my eyebrows were raised as I saw how the vehicle worked and how it looked.

Look, I'm no engineer, but you couldn't have gotten me in that thing for love or money.  I'm modestly aware of how submarines look, the need for redundancy and failsafe systems that are as robust as possible when one is not going to be in a position to be rescued should something go wrong.  And while I agree that Playstation controllers are a marvel, I also don't want to lose connectivity to my controller whilst being pulled by ocean currents.  And, really, those game paddles were seen as a sign of the clear hubris suggested by the ship's design and thumbing of the nose at well-established standards of engineering, and, in fact, physics, that I think some of us were responding to.  It was less a lack of respect for other engineers and more of a lack of respect for the danger.*

Thursday, November 4, 2021

PODCAST: "Foundation" Sci-Fi TV discussion w/ JuanD and Ryan




Watched:  09 and 10/2021
Format:  Television Apple+
Viewing: First
Decade: 2020's
Director:  various




Juan and Ryan ponder what has come before to consider what is happening now and what will happen next as they take on the famously unfilmable series of books from one of the greats of American sci-fi. Join us as we run the numbers on a show that's epic in scale, and maybe dropping a space elevator on the fans of the books.




Music:
Foundation Main Theme - Bear McCreary


Sci-Fi Playlist

Monday, August 23, 2021

PODCAST: Jurassic Park (1993) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ Jamie and Ryan




Watched:  08/20/2021
Format:  HBOmax
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1990's
Director:  Steven Spielberg



and 18 year old me also noticed the movie had lizards or something


We were so preoccupied with whether or not we could talk about the biggest movie of the 90's, we didn't stop to think if we should.

Jamie and Ryan take you on a (nsfw) podcast 28 years in the making! Join us as we splice together opinion, facts and memories to recall the gigantic beast of a movie that crashed down on an unsuspecting public and changed everything! We'll talk about how this movie was a moment of evolution for the film industry and entertainment, and how we (J & R) became fascinated with a movie about a day at the park not going super great. And, who makes khaki shorts work.




Music:
Jurassic Park Theme Revised - Jamie M. "Goldenpipes" Steans
Theme from Jurassic Park - John Williams
Jurassic Park End Credits - John Williams
Jurassic Park Theme Revised - I'm not really sure


Signal Watch Canon

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Stephen Hawking Has Merged With the Infinite



Physicist Stephen Hawking has passed

Hawking was not just one of the finest minds of our era, but a brilliant communicator for science with a dry sense of humor.  I don't need to remind you that Hawking suffered from motor neuron disease, but he served as an example of overcoming those challenges and how a mind perseveres. 




Saturday, July 16, 2016

Video for "Closer Than We Think" doc


Closer Than We Think from Clindar on Vimeo.

I was sent this video by pal-Andrew (Jamie's brother's wife's brother), and now I totally want to see this video. It's a documentary being made about Arthur Radebaugh and his sci-fi futurist strip, "Closer Than We Think". This hits so many positive buttons, I sincerely hope this film is made and gets a release.

For more on Radebaugh

The official website
Indiegogo site

a blogspot site
From the Ohio State Library
Paleofuture at Gizmodo




Thursday, August 20, 2015

Signal Watch Reads: The Martian, Andy Weir (audiobook)

I guess back in January, my pal Paul suggested I read The Martian (2011) by Andy Weir.  I know this because I keep a list of books I've read mixed with a list of suggestions I've taken seriously, and I do write down who made the suggestion.



When the trailer hit for the soon-to-be-in-theaters Ridley Scott directed version of The Martian, it was absolutely the sort of thing I like seeing, and I got pretty excited.  I was a big fan of Interstellar, and I even really liked Gravity, warts and all.  And as much as I like strange visitors from other worlds-type scientifiction, I also get pretty jazzed about fictional takes or speculative takes on plain old science and technology.  Mix that with the space program, like the two movies I just mentioned, and you've sold a couple of tickets to the occupants of my household.

You've got a few weeks before the movie arrives, and I highly recommend checking out the book prior to the film's release.  It's not that I think Matt Damon and Co. will do a bad job - I'm a big fan of Damon (have you seen the Bourne movies?).  It's that the book is really good and reads really fast.  I'd started the book just over a week ago, and recommended it to Jamie.  She started and finished it all today.  So, there's a context clue for you (and she also cleaned out the cupboard.  I think she bent time.).

I listened to the audiobook, which takes longer, of course, but it more than filled the commute and back I had to Arlington, Texas this week.

If you haven't seen the trailer - and I'm not spoiling anything - an astronaut is delivering his first log entry after an accident occurred during an emergency evacuation of a Mars mission.  He'd been stuck through by part of a loose antenna in a wind storm, and then blown over a hill, his suit's life signs reading nil.  Of course, he wasn't dead, but the crew was forced to leave him, and now he's stuck on Mars, with no way to contact home, the next mission coming to the planet in 4 years, and only enough supplies for 6 people for about a month.

And yet, it's the most optimistic book I've read in years.  Maybe ever.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Happy Birthday, Neil Armstrong - Reboot the Suit


Today marks the birthday of Neil Armstong, the first human to step foot on The Moon.

Next time you're feeling cocky, just remember, Neil Armstrong walked on that shiny thing up there that's affecting the tides and spawning werewolves.

I know Armstrong passed years ago, but why not get him a present?  He got you one.  He went to THE MOON.

There's a Kickstarter going on that's already reached it's financial goal.  The Smithsonian is raining funds to restore the spacesuit Neil Armstrong wore wandering around on THE MOON.

Now they're in stretch goals, and the big one is to raise funds to restore the Mercury suit for Alan Shepard, the first American in space.

Restored, we'll all be able to see these suits down at the Air and Space Museum in DC.  Already a pretty fantastic place, but who wouldn't want to see even better space displays?  And see the very suits of America's real life heroes?

Sure, you aren't helping some dweeb from BFE fund their dream project of a Yu-Gi-Oh fan film, but you are, you know, supporting things that actually matter and aren't a waste of time and resources.  I mean, just...   ugh.

If you're wondering why the Smithsonian needs to go to Kickstarter...  well, (a) it's a publicly funded institution, and we haven't been great about funding public institutions the past decade or so, and (b) what money they do have could also be allocated to work on less high-profile items as well as the suit, so you're making the Smithsonian budget go farther (further?).

Here's that link again.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Sci-Fi Sunday: Forbidden Planet and 2001: A Space Odyssey

It's Sci-Fi movie day on Turner Classic Movies, and I'm doing some encoding of home videos and watching of movies on cable.

I first saw Forbidden Planet during the Paramount Summer Film Series, probably around 97' or 98'.  With my buddy Matt, come to think of it.

None of this ever really happens in the movie, but, whatevs...

They tell me the movie is a sci-fi version of Shakespeare's The Tempest, but I have no idea.  I've never seen or read it.  But I have seen Forbidden Planet about seven or eight times, and every time, I like it better.  Sure, it stars Leslie Nielsen of Naked Gun fame in a dramatic role, which is weird, but it's such a great bit of its time and a snapshot of exploration sci-fi that is a now-kind-of-dead genre (and if you can't see the direct impact on Star Trek, you aren't paying attention).

The visual and audio FX in this movie make it an amazing experience, with the debut of Robbie the Robot, Krell architecture, amazing sets, spaceships, matte backgrounds that are truly massive and alien.  And even the hand-drawn animation of the Id Monster holds up amazingly well, in its way.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

We Salute Mythbusters as they enter their 10th Season

I often forget to mention that I watch Mythbusters nigh religiously.

Yes, they blow things up real good in most episodes.  Yes, I am curious about what happens when you throw a car in a swimming pool, or jump at the last second in a falling elevator, or try to maximize gas mileage or park a car behind the exhaust of a 747, drop a car from a helicopter or blow up a cement truck, just 'cause...  The show raises questions I didn't know I had, then answers them pretty thoroughly.  Even if, in an early episode, they got that whole thing about sodas exploding in one's car wrong.*

Adam has aged, but Jamie is eternal
No doubt the mix of personalities keeps the show working, and the dichotomy of Jamie and Adam's approaches always an object lesson in how even two people who know each other well can have completely different ways of solving a problem.  And, of course, we all love the build team and you should really follow them on Twitter.  They're pretty amusing.

It may not be perfect science, but the progam aims to demystify science and engineering, and therefore, perhaps, demystifies the world through some of the steps of the experimentation (and less often, the scientific) method.  Evidence is reviewed.  Hypotheses and ideas are considered and explained (including why some options are cast aside), and small scale testing of components is shown.  As the full experiment is built to, math is shown, explanations of physics are all brought down to a consumer level.  And if the myth doesn't go off as planned, in recent years, Mythbusters has gone on to find what they think would be required to replicate the scenario described in the myth.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Your Questions Answered: 3D Printing

Marshall asks:

What do you think of 3-D printers? Are you excited? Do you have plans? Or do you think, "Oh, man I don't even...that's for kids of kids to enjoy but I ain't got time to worry about it."


What a fantastic and unexpected question.

In 1999 I was working in a multimedia/ video production office and we were helping produce a video for a faculty going for an NSF grant.  He was helping to develop a process that, at the time, was called "Solid Freeform Fabrication", I believe.  I stood there and watched the process happen (well, watched it on the monitor), and couldn't understand how this was happening, how it was possible.

It was an amazing technology, watching parts within parts rise from a sea of dust on the power of lasers and engineering.  It was like a special FX sequence but it was happening in front of me, just one of many terrific sci-fi as life moments that I experienced working in the College of Engineering (nuclear reactors, robots, super computers...  it was always something new and bizarre).  But I didn't really understand the implications until recent times when it seems that this technology will move out of corporate environments and could soon be consumer-grade stuff.

Like the distribution of media via electronic means or the coming change in education, I'm watching with bated breath.  Self-produced manufactured goods is the next game changer.  In fifteen years, kids will draw their ideas for toys into an app and print their own action figures.  We won't go to the store to buy certain or, perhaps, many items... we'll just buy the design online based on ratings and print up that thing at home.  We'll have access to things imagined by weird people who never wanted to be mechanical engineers, but they've had an idea and refined it and now it's just out there in the sea of ideas.  Maybe you'll buy a portable battery device to make it work.  It's the @#$%ing Diamond Age.

It's going to have us ready to similarly work with and feel comfortable with other technologies that enable us to generate and design technologies at home.  3D printing today, matter converters tomorrow.  Making iPhone Apps is going to seem like rubbing two sticks together for a spark.

I was extremely ecstatic until someone mentioned that guy who was putting designs online for making guns, and suddenly I got a lot less excited.  If you can print up a gun, what else are you going to print up?  A drone to fly that gun into my living room?

None of this means I think we need to control 3D printers or have some sort of government oversight on printing, but it dissolves the supply chain that could be interrupted to keep some items out of the hands of folks who wouldn't normally be licensed to have military assault weapons.  Between you and me, I don't want 13 year-olds printing up M-16s before their parents come home from work.

Let's them them print up nunchucks and shuriken, though, because every kid should have those.

So, yeah, stuff is going to get real complicated with this amazing new power we're giving ourselves.

For me...  well, I lack imagination.  I don't know what I'd print out immediately.  A lifesize bust of our own Randy?  A Theodore Roosevelt action/ adventure playset?  I don't know.

But as these things become accessible and better, I look forward to how it will create opportunity for artists, for inventors, engineers, scientists, kids... all of us, I guess.


Wednesday, January 2, 2013

The 2012 Not-a-List Rundown

author's note:  2012 is a year I have been looking to put behind me for quite a while for any number of reasons.  Obviously the events in my personal life marked a very sad end to the year for us at our house.  Perhaps we should declare 2012 Annus Horribilis and move on.

With recent events weighing so heavily on me right now (and with this post started a long, long time ago), I'm going to stick to pop culture and the original, intended tone of the post - and this blog - and take a look back instead at...  yeah, I guess comics and whatnot.

here we go.


The 2012 Not-a-List Rundown




My Totem for Everything About my Pop Culture Hobbies in 2012

My relationship fundamentally changed with my hobbies and past-times, and superhero comics have begun to dip below the horizon to the same place Star Wars went circa 2002.  Because of travelling and the fact I was sick a lot this year, I also didn't really make it out to the movies very often.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Some interesting stuff in Action Comics #14 on Wednesday!

Quick Superman related notes...

I wasn't off the plane yet and was checking email, and got a note from CanadianSimon about this week's release of Action Comics #14.  Apparently - it guest stars my favorite media-savvy scientist, Neil DeGrasse Tyson!  

NDG pops up in a lot of documentaries, is the host of Nova Science Now! and his podcast, StarTalk.  He also attended UT for a while, but did not feel it suited him and left.

Here he is rolling up his sleeves to go to work, side-by-side with Superman!

Man, someone really talented flatted that page
Oh, by the way, local artist and colorist, Jordan Gibson, did some work on that story!  He is the "flatter" on the art, which means he did some coloring work on this back-up feature.  Jordan is a huge Superman nut, and I'm totally thrilled he's getting an opportunity to see his work in Action Comics.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Felix Baumgartner Space Jumps into the History Books

I had tried to watch this guy, Felix Baumgartner, jump several times, and he kept getting delayed.  So I was quite pleased when PalMatt posted to Facebook that Felix was about to jump yesterday.  I tuned in just as he was about to exit the capsule.

Holy @#$%

In case you missed it, Austrian Felix Baumgartner attached a capsule to some balloons, went up 24 miles above Roswell, New Mexico, and then tossed himself out and over the side of the capsule with naught but a parachute between himself and the record for largest crater formed by a human body.

It was AMAZING.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Neil Armstrong Merges with The Infinite

Astronaut Neil Armstrong, possibly the most well known of all astronauts, has passed at the age of 82.





Armstrong was part of the Apollo 11 team that reached the moon, and was the first human to cross the great void and touch foot to moon soil.

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Armstrong's family on his passing:

While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves.

For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request: Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.

That's a pretty damn good epitaph.

Godspeed, sir.


Thursday, August 23, 2012

Curiosity Mars Rover is Making Tracks!

Way to go, SCIENCE!!!!

We're making tracks on Mars.

Hello, Mars.  We R on U.

Here for many more pics

Go ahead and ask, David...



Monday, July 23, 2012

Sally Ride Merges With The Infinite

I am very sad to say that Sally Ride has passed at the age of 61 after fighting pancreatic cancer.



Sally Ride was not the first name of an astronaut I knew or heard (the first name I really remember is John Glenn.  I think the KareBear liked the cut of his jib or something).  But something about Ride stuck with me not just because she was the first woman in space, but because she felt always seemed like the embodiment The Modern Space Program.  She rode shuttles, not capsules.  She wore the blue jumpsuit.  She was a pilot, a space jockey and a scientist.  She was the Shuttle era and the promise it held.

We all grew up proud of the name Sally Ride, but it wasn't until I was older that I appreciated how amazing Ride must have been to actually win that seat on Challenger and the pressure on her to not just be as capable of her male colleagues, but much more capable lest anyone seize the opportunity to hold her up as an example of why giving her a chance was a mistake.  I cannot begin to imagine.

And Ride pulled it off.

She succeeded not just at NASA, but went on to teach at UC-San Diego, formed a company to create educational materials for young scientists, and served as a consultant in aerospace and defense arenas.

Here's to one of the real pioneers of the era in which I was raised.  You will be missed.

Godspeed.



Thursday, July 19, 2012

Neil DeGrasse-Tyson Helps Confirm What I Already Knew

That the original USS Enterprise is an amazing starship.



thanks to Jordan for the video and link.

Apparently this was a fun panel at SDCC 2012 in which a bunch of folks have a sort of spirited but mock debate over whether this or that geek item is better. Tyson was attending the Con, but he was simply attending in the audience for this panel. However, one does not simply just have Neil Tyson in the room and not have him weigh in on matters of import such as "which spaceship is the coolest?".

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Alan Poindexter Merges with the Infinite

Astronaut Captain Alan Poindexter has died in a water craft accident.

There is an article on his death here.


Poindexter served with NASA for over a decade and served as Pilot for Shuttle Atlantis and Commander for Shuttle Discovery.