(*dc) who put that there?

Giant Void In Space Discovered. The AP reports, "Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe" in which there are "no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter," just "1 billion light years across of nothing." Minnesota astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick, author of the paper that will be published in Astrophysical Journal on the find, called it "too much of a surprise."
Space.com added that Rudnick said, "Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size." Rudnick's colleague Liliya R. Williams agreed that the void "is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the universe."

(dc) the dangerous nap

i went down for a nap this afternoon around 6 or so and just woke up (7 hours later). now i must choose whether i want to try to get anything useful done before dawn, or whether i should squeeze in another night's sleep before morning.

i guess i was really tired. i woke up a few times to appreciate the light in the studio around magic hour.

oh, that reminds me - if you haven't already done so, please go to www.famecast.com, register (i know, i know, but just do it - it's worth it), and vote for Anis (Mojgani) on the spoken word stage. he's in the competition final (top five), but needs lots more votes to win. enjoy his poetry while you're at it! he is amazing. some of you are masters at, let's just say, working the system - let's help anis win this national poetry slam.

(dc) rubens' tube

my space artist friend, ayako ono, has done some really cool experiments with standing waves and particles in space.




i think her experiments are even cooler than the more traditional rubens' tube, which is a similar idea, but it doesn't require zero g for the visualization - just some dude's garage and some pvc pipe (thanks for the link, pedi):

(dc) pressure

inexplicably, my blog readership is at an all-time high. this increases the pressure to say something that is actually interesting. i'm afraid, like most pressure, this pushes me towards procrastination. so, i have been listening to music for inspiration and finding it in
* bat for lashes
* zero 7
* radiohead
* mozez
* glen hansard and marketa iglóva
* herbie hancock (with johnny lang & joss stone)
* müm
* my brightest diamond
* g. love and special sauce

and now i must go find inspiration within to generate lunar powerpoint charts, music to butterfly and crystal documentaries (along with the rest of my film scoring homework, the completion of which will give me my music production certificate), a summary of my 2006 financial records for tax purposes, and an analysis of my conversations with the 20 people in my partnership book. i must also read, in the next week, "the order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences" by michel foucault. i also feel compelled to do some sort of serious reflection before i turn 38 a week from tomorrow.

can i do it all? of course not. and swimming in the overwhelm, it becomes terribly urgent to find artwork for my itunes music, shop for burritos, install new software, and update my blog. and then there is always napping - the best procrastination tool ever. i would have done this today, except that the barrista at 14U put 5 espresso shots in my latte, leaving out the 6th only because she couldn't fit it in the cup. apparently kyle said to make a large latte with 6 shots. she served it to me with an apology and the extra shot in a sample cup. i let her keep that one.

i've talked about this before, how overwhelm paralyzes me, and how i organize my life so that i'm in an almost consistent state of overwhelm. the thing is, even though i think i've stopped doing this, i'm still working off vestiges of previous overcommitments. i'm pretty sure when i finish this music production masters (this week?) and my taxes, i will be more or less caught up.

i'll let you know.

i made a huge life-changing decision last week, but i can't really write about it here. i'll just note it here and refer back to it when the time comes to implement it.

(dc) i met the universe

in the 3rd floor hallway today and we played.






watch out or i will breathe stars all over your ass. raarrr.

(dc) i'm in love with two guys at once

(dc) cool effect

i noticed yesterday morning while walking from the l'enfant plaza metro station to the nasa hq building (which takes me roughly under the train tracks) a very interesting effect. i was walking east along school street and heard the train coming from behind me. just as it passed me, it started blowing its whistle. since it was already past me, the whistle just kept blowing at a constant pitch as i walked. there are a lot of large reflective buildings around there. i didn't notice at first, but then suddenly realized that the train's echo was a higher pitch than its whistle. i spent the next few steps figuring that while the train was going away from me, it must have been going towards the buildings off of which the original waveform was bouncing to come back at me. everyone is familiar with the way a horn or whistle will shift down in pitch as it speeds past you, but how many times have you noticed a train whistle echo blue-pitch-shifted up from its source?

yes, i'm a nerd. but i thought this little doppler effect was cool.