Our friends at GeoEye released this now-famous satellite image of the Obama inauguration. Their site has many more close-up shots, and it is simply amazing to see the tremendous number of people ... even hours before the ceremonies began (and the crowds got REALLY big!).
click for larger imageChristensen has an interesting take on what early family dynamics lead children to develop innate curiosity.
I watched this video and thought of my father, who was very much like the father Christensen describes. Ironically, I ended up being the exact opposite. However, even though I did not develop the same kind of mechanical or technical curiosity for which my father was an excellent role model, I *did* develop an intense curiosity about how everything else works: interpersonal relationships, religions, political/economic/legal systems, nature, science, etc., etc.
I just hope that I can be as good a role model for my three young kids!
What an excellent commentary on the impact of technology on our social relationships ... as told through an entertaining medium:
The world is quickly being overrun by robots! Well, perhaps not quite. However, the point of this IEEE Spectrum piece remains: humans are increasingly relying on mechanical assistants to help with a large number of tasks.
My 8-year-old son spends HOURS designing, creating, building, and re-building all varieties of Star Wars ships and vehicles out of LEGOs. However, even he was impressed and inspired by the work of Mark Borlase, who built this 5' x 10' Hoth base diorama using 55,000-60,000 pieces of LEGO. Apparently, it took him 4 years to finish and cost over $3,000. Now that's a fan(atic)!
Here is a fairly detailed map of the entire Star Wars galaxy. Nice!
click for larger imageMy wife always makes fun of me because I have two 21" monitors for my desktop, as well as my laptop open in front of me (not to mention the small TV off to the side so I can watch sports events while working!). However, I got a little envious when I saw the setup that Scott Jones, CEO of ChaCha, has in his home office: 8 screens PLUS stationary bike pedals to exercise while he works! Check it out:
Someone recently forwarded me a link to a gallery of very cool photos of lenticular clouds. Here are a couple of my favorites:
(image credit: Valuca)
(image credit: Jane English)World-renowned submersible designer Graham Hawkes is the founder and Chief Engineer of Hawkes Ocean Technologies and Ocean Galactic. As he is fond of telling his aerospace colleagues, "you've got your rockets pointed in the wrong direction!" Spending time with Graham at last fall's Space Angels Network Aerospace Venture Forum, I became increasingly intrigued by the notion of focusing on exploring Earth's oceans as a precursor to exploring outer space.
I've been finding a number of interesting projects around the world, but unfortunately I'm just not sure how viable each of these will be. I'm still holding out hope! Supposedly, there are plans for a 7-story underwater hotel in Istanbul. However, the most prominent such projects include:
Poseidon Resorts in Fiji
Hydropolis in Dubai
There are other projects around the world, each in varying stages of development. I certainly hope that I'll be visiting one of them soon!
I was recently reminded of how blown away I was a couple of years ago when I saw the following scene in Casino Royale:
Besides the refreshing throw-back to the older Bond movies where REAL stuntmen performed REAL breath-taking stunts (no CGI here!), I was amazed by the running style used during the chase sequence. It led me to research this a little, and I discovered "Parkour" or "free running." I was especially intrigued by Sebastian Foucan, the man Daniel Craig is chasing in the Casino Royale clip and one of the founders of free running.
Unfortunately, I'm way too out of shape and past my prime to be able to enjoy this new sport myself, but man is it cool to watch!
Speaking of teaching my kids ... I recently came across the following image while trying to figure out the best way to show them a relative time-scale of human existence versus the dinosaurs versus planet Earth versus the universe. This is an interesting visual depiction.
click for larger imageThis was one of my favorite videos from last year, since I was also able to use it to entertain/teach my kids about particle physics (ha!):
