Behold a false-color image of Messier Object 27, better known as the Dumbbell Nebula. False-color images of astronomical objects are not unusual, of course, but what’s unique about this one is that I created it my ownself, while noodling around on software the final day of LaunchPad. And the absolutely cool thing is that you […]

So I’ve been living and breathing astronomy for four whole days now, and it’s producing conversations like this: ME: I’ve been observing the Wal-Mart parking lot, and I’ve noted twelve Class O supergiant vehicles, fifteen Class B giant vehicles, eight Class G vehicles, and nine Class M dwarf vehicles. CARRIE: What conclusion do you derive […]

The Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (RSA) has been sponsoring lectures for 250 years. But only recently have they been producing a series of brilliant animations of the lectures themselves, including this one illustrating a talk on the financial crisis by controversial anthropologist and geographer David Harvey. The analysis is frankly Marxist. […]

The Clarion Workshop is holding this year’s Write-a-Thon even as I’m typing this. Writers will be beavering away for the next month, trying to write enough copy to trigger donations from their sponsors. You could be that sponsor! Support the Writers of the . . . well, I can’t say Future, can I? That’s another […]