Lunar Eclipse!

Tonight we got to see a lunar eclipse! Erika, who is now 3, was very excited! As the moon turned a reddish hue she exclaimed, "the moon looks like Jupiter!!" I asked her how the heck she knew what Jupiter looked like!? She replied, "Cosmos". We got out the DVDs and indeed, she knew what she was talking about. That's when I took this picture. Maybe it's not too early to get a telescope after all. I don't know anything about telescopes, but I'm hoping some of you do. What should I get? And make it fast since this Cosmos phase of hers is due to last only another couple weeks and then we'll be back to Angelina Ballerina.

Vuzix personal display

I was trying to snag a picture of these glasses which interface with your video iPod and emulate a 44" screen 9ft in front of you, but I can't overcome the lack of a right-click save-as on the MAC.  Anyway, check out Vuzix.  This may be my next project, if I can obtain an iPod and something worth watching.  I think this would be perfect for making the exercise bike time more palatable.

We could have easily come up with this

Another missed opportunity. Take something as cool as magnets, and something dear as "Mr. Happy" (I don't want to offend our reader(s) with overt reference to dangly bits) mix in a scientifically illiterate populace and voila!  Magnehance!

Just stick this in your shorts: a super-flexible neodymium iron boron magnetic insert- and wait I guess.

The idea is based on magnetic material increasing blood flow presumably because people are told that iron is in the blood, and iron is magnetic!  Even though I think everyone reading this blog has made it beyond PHY204 I will reiterate that iron in hemoglobin does not have a magnetic dipole moment.  It's electrons are busy doing other things, like holding on to other atoms and are not free to participate in a magnetic field domain.  

Good thing it doesn't! Because when people are put in a 2T magnetic field in an MRI machine all their blood would rush to one side or the other and they would suffer a fantastically sci-fi-looking death which would be blogged here for sure.

Reader challenge:  What else could men stick in their shorts to improve things?  (YR policy: No answers are ever rejected as too cynical, but you can try.)  

I call shotgun

The AA-12 Shotgun "...re-writing the rules of urban warfare"

Mini Mac!

Behold, I have a Mac. Here it is pictured with a bluetooth keyboard, a mighty mouse, and the little remote control that comes with it.It really is a slick little box. I just got it today, so I'm still playing, but it is impressive. Everything seems well-thought out. Cleverly done. Solid. Am I blogging from this little guy right now? Well, no. Google Picasa does not have a Mac thing that I could find. But that doesn't matter since I'm going to be using this to pitch video to my new flatscreen TV. My master plan is to cancel Comcast cable, and stream videos via Netflix on-line. Now I find out that Netflix does not support Apple. Well, whatever! I'll stream something! Eventually! And it will Rock. Steve Jobs wills it.