SpaceMika

I haven’t said any more about Iceland’s eruptions since everyone else is already explaining everything you need to know.

If you want to hear about the Worst Case Scenario, that’s covered (and I still peg Yellowstone as a more likely candidate for a flood basalt eruption, and that as “not very likely”). If you want to get a more reasoned approach, that’s covered, too. I even like the writeup on how this isn’t a big-league eruption.

The only I feel a need to emphatically restate is about the claims by commercial airlines that a few successful cargo flights count as “empirical evidence” that flying is safe showing a fundamental (and I suspect willful) ignorance of risk. You can’t dodge what you can’t see, you can’t mark a corridor clear when the winds are constantly shifting even a little bit, and you can’t tell me that gobules of glass in a jet engine are an acceptable risk. Ask any aeronautical engineer, ask any airplane mechanic, ask anyone who knows how the mechanics work, and they will agree that this counts as a Very Bad Idea. But allowing flights after wind disperses ash? I’m completely fine with that!

If flights do go out through the ash, I hope their passengers won’t need to remove their shoes for terrorist-screening.

On a more cheerful note, this dude photographed a fireball meteor through a telescope!

I’m doing yet more research for this presentation next week. I think I have a pretty good handle on what I say, but a bit more reading is always handy. Tonight’s reading suggestions:

A hilarious list of ways the world could end
talking about how to have talks (starts to touch on a few ideas I’m playing with for my upcoming talk)
Star Trek: how I love you so, and it isn’t for your flawless continuity
A nice take on archiving, especially as I accidentally unearth boxes of floppies and old spiral-bound notebooks from my youth
teehee
An interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson
particle plushies make me giggle and inspire me to knit up a few…

I finally found the Australia answer to the Canadian quarantine advertisement. The 30-second tv ad isn’t online yet as far as I can tell, and isn’t nearly as cute, but the animated bug is fairly adorable.

A married man, and an MRI machine. Long, but awesome read.

If you’re in the US, check out World Privacy Forum tips on how to opt out of so many things.

This is a common story, but well-executed: the problem with cables.

Lunch Bag Art is awesome.

Kristi passed on this Canadian Customs Cartoon that made me really happy.

This is an awesome story.

I am very excited to soon be leaving the rain of Vancouver and head down under for sun, fairy penguins, reefs, jungle, and… yeah. I’m excited.

I’m trying to get last-tasks finished before I go, but today has turned into one of those Disaster-Prone times where everything I touch goes off-kilter so I’ve been cruising DIY sites instead. Some cool finds:

• a use for scrap yarn
• fabric birds
• eraser stamps (which can be paired with stamped coasters
• monster booties (with claws! death by cute)

The Save the Bees video is awesome.