Just you wait ’til Ben is old enough…
“Science Toys You Can Make With Your Kids”:http://www.scitoys.com/
All posts by Chris
pack your ice skates
According to an article in New Scientist, “Mars may have a frozen underground sea”:http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7039 right near the equator. If it’s there, it’s just under the surface, is about 45m (145ft) deep, and covers thousands of square kilometers, about the size of the North Sea.
In related news, I just finished reading “Red Thunder”:http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/red_thunder.shtml, John Varley’s recent novel about plucky youngsters launching a mission to Mars. It’s a fantastic read, the kind of book that would be written by the mutant prodigy love-child of Varley, Robert Heinlein, Carl Hiaasen, Spider Robinson, Douglas Coupland, Neal Stephenson, and Carl Sagan.
exurban wasteland
A recent “Guardian story”:http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1418173,00.html provides insight into what our new US “exurbs”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exurb look like to the UK:
“As US towns sprawl into the countryside, creating anonymous zones dominated by soulless malls, one of Britain’s leading historians asks if it could happen here…”
Scariest quote:
“After a closely fought referendum, Phoenix, a city of 3.5 million (roughly half the population of London), has only just agreed to a light-rail system.”
the best defense is a good… lie
OK, so let me get this straight. We’re spending “$9 billion a year on a ‘missile defense’”:http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-02-17-rumsfeld-missiledefense_x.htm which a) doesn’t stop missiles even in simple testing and b) wouldn’t deter anyone from developing or deploying missiles. If that’s the case, I have a “bullet defense” here that consists of waving a pen vaguely in the direction of a loaded gun. How much is that worth? Do I get extra points if having the pen constitutes a treaty violation?
gettin’ hitched, New York style
AP (via CBS) has a wonderful analysis of why New York’s same-sex marriage ruling is different. Worth a read.
Oddly enough, Mayor Bloomberg is appealing the ruling because he’s an ardent supporter of it. Apparently he’s been advised that it might not stand on its own, and only the Court of Appeals can make it stick. Or something.