This is pretty cool: astronomers have recorded a meteor impact on the surface of the moon. The resulting explosion appears as a white flash in the black-and-white video clip, looking to my eye like the dust speckles you frequently see in old movies. However, this particular dust speckle was about 10 inches wide, detonated with a force equal to four tons of dynamite, and left behind a crater 14 meters wide and three meters deep. Meteors hit the moon all the time, of course, but it’s pretty wild that this one was actually captured on film. (Or tape, or a chip, or whatever…) Go check it out!
Archives
The View from Cheno’s Window
All right, it looks like we’re going to give Andrew Sullivan a run for his money on this “view from the window” thing. We’ve just received some pics from Chenopup, taken from his home office:
The View from My Window at Work
Continuing with this whole “view from the window” motif, here’s the awe-inspiring urban vista I can see from the Proofreaders’ Cave, located high atop one of the glorious metropolitan skyscrapers in fabulous downtown Salt Lake City:
The View from Anne’s Window
You may recall that last week when I posted up the photo of what I can see from my home office, I invited others to share their views as well. The Girlfriend has decided she wants a piece of that action, so here’s what Anne can see from her apartment:
Tim Hildebrandt
Sad news this afternoon for fans of fantasy art: Tim Hildebrandt, who, along with his brother Greg, was one of the most prominent book illustrators of the 1970s and ’80s, died yesterday at the not-very-advanced age of 67.
High… As a KITE… By Then
As amusing as it was to learn of the former Captain Picard’s fascination with female cinematic nudity, I find that I’m still looking for a reason not to re-create the famous stunt from The Poseidon Adventure (the original one, natch) by hurling myself out my office window and onto the skylight of the nightclub down below. I think I need some heavier ammunition to knock me out of my current funk… I need… the power of The Shat!
Patrick Stewart’s Dream Project
I don’t know about you kids, but I’ve had a bad week. One of those butt-kicking, every-day-I-hit-the-ground-running, too-much-to-do-and-not-enough-time-to-do-it-in, my-pointy-haired-boss-is-talking-again-why-won’t-he-just-shut-up! kind of weeks. A big, long, five-day gruel-fest of petty annoyances and mounting frustrations that has me thinking that maybe, just maybe, it was a bad idea for that primordial ooze to start assembling itself into proteins in the first place. In other words, I’m totally knackered.
So what do I need at the end of a week that has seen me gobbling Excedrin by the fist-full? If you said, “Irish whiskey,” well, yes, of course, you’re right, but I am still at work, so I’d better hold off on that option until later. In the meantime, how about a video clip of respected, dignified Shakespearean actor (and TV and movie star) Patrick Stewart telling an aspiring writer all about his own screenplay, a vanity piece about a man with the psychic ability to remove women’s clothes? Ah, yes, that’ll do nicely…
For some reason, YouTube won’t allow me to embed this clip here at Simple Tricks, so you’ll have to click the link above and go watch it elsewhere. Or, if that’s too much trouble, you could click this one. Trust me, it’s worth the effort…
Volcano Eruption Seen From Space
As long as I’m posting photographs today, here’s a real doozy (and one that I imagine will be of particular interest to Jen B., our resident geology buff, if she’s out there):
The Bennion Scriptorium
In a comment on the previous entry, Cranky Robert asked if all you folks out there in InternetLand “could get a shot of the newly refurbished Bennion Scriptorium.” Well, it just so happens that I have such a shot handy at the moment:
The View From My Window
A couple weeks ago, political blogger Andrew Sullivan tried an interesting experiment: he asked his readers to send in photos of the view from their windows. The idea was to try and get more of a feel for who his readers are by seeing the places they call home. The experiment was an unqualified success — he got hundreds of submissions, so many that his corporate overlords saw fit to gather some of the more interesting ones into an official feature on their website (for the record, my favorite shot is the final one, of a misty morning in the Hollywood Hills).
Never one to let a good Internet fad get away from me, I thought I’d do something similar and share with you what I can see from my home office. This inspiring vista is my back yard at the Bennion Compound; the shot was taken two weeks ago, on a drizzly Sunday afternoon. Click on it to get a better look. FYI, the green thing in the top foreground is an awning/gazebo thingie that shades my deck; the big grayish thing in the bottom foreground is the cover for my hot tub, currently drained and unplugged because it wasn’t worth maintaining for the amount of use it actually received. As I said, inspiring, eh?
I intend to post up a photo of the view from my day-job office, too, whenever I remember to bring a camera into work. If anyone would like to share their views a la Sullivan’s readers, feel free to send them along…