Just Sayin Is All

So, I like thinking about science and words and pin-ups and how if I'm careful and articulate they will change the world. But perhaps you like thinking artfully about new music. JustSayinIsAll lays a palette of musical selections over poetic text strewn with an illumination of cutting edge images. Whether your visiting for the music samples or to find yourself a new avatar, just go. Go now.

"This track is as cold as the slick on the sidewalk. The words are as plain as translucents and whites. The chorus tapers and repeats like the drifts. The hope is rigid and melts like lonely delusions. And tonight when I lick it, it sticks to my tongue as I sleep."--December 12, 2008

Really? I mean, goddamn. Or try this one:

"Dwayne scratches his voice like a skipping vintage record over a freeform jazz riff to tweeze Macy Gray out of Louis Armstrong. Practically acapella, his voice is stretched and flailing at :48 when "CAPture what I say" tapdances his words against the floor in trip-a-let."--December 14, 2008

Kyle Pfister is the genius behind this wonderment. He makes videos on Vimeo too. Enjoy!

Real Pictures of Alien Worlds

Imaging exoplanets (the term for planets outside our solar system) have come a long way since I brought an article discussing the first evidence of their existence into my "Current Problems in Astronomy" course in 1997. Phil Plait's, Bad Astronomy blog updates our ability to capture these elusive giants in his "Gallery of Exoplanets: Real Pictures of Alien Worlds." Don't expect details of planet surfaces and orbiting moons, for now we'll leave that to the matte painters of Star Trek, but do be prepared for spectacular spectrometry, Hubble images of multiple exoplanet solar systems and evidence of cold, cold worlds, some over 50 billion kilometers from their stars.

The pain of inter-web email technology

The Oatmeal recently posted a collection of email archetypes, loosely based on the idiocy brought forth by the human-keyboard matrix, i.e., the inability to envision consequences when faced with an internet connection and a send button during the hours of 9am and 5pm, roughly speaking of course. Because there is no way that mere timing could inhibit the impulse to load your colleagues with unintelligible bullshit or useless, time-wasting responses to an email that wasn't even meant for you. Wax Wendy has an actual life experience that documents the latter for you, which is so intensely ridiculous, it induces rapid-fire wheeze-snort responses. The Oatmeal's hilarious send-ups of our daily "You've got mail" kind of pain are scary, insightful, and funny enough to make you spit out your coffee. "I hate your email signature" is my particular favorite. I wish I could append it to all my messages.

Ten-Ten-Ten

       A most auspicious day

Heather Champ is encouraging people to document today, 10/10/10, in photographs.  Your pictures can be shared at the tententen flickr group; you have 10 days to upload them and join in the tengasm with the rest of tenopedes.  Random images will also be displayed starting tomorrow at her site - here.

So what's so significant about today, other than a randomly cool symmetry that won't happen again for another gigabillion years?  Well, if you look closely through your lens, you may just discover the meaning of life.

Heather Champ via laughing squid