Today, for the last day of 2011, we went to the Lick Observatory. It is about 45 minutes up twisty-turny roads from San Jose to Mt Hamilton where the multiple telescopes and their domes reside. There must have been about 6 different domes housing everything from the massive 120 inch spectrograph Shane Telescope to the new 2.4 meter Automatic Planet Finder.
Over the holiday we made a little film called "Nice View." Its nothing complicated, but we hope you all enjoy the result. Be sure to watch it in high resolution (720p or 1080p) for best effect by clicking near the bottom of the video where it says 360p. Also click on the full screen button in the lower right corner.
The movie was created with a Sony NEX-5 camera and iMovie. The music was created with GarageBand. With these simple, consumer tools, we were able to follow a process very much like a big budget Hollywood movie. We shot multiple takes with different camera angles. We were able to write the music, then edit the video to fit the music (and edit the music to fit the video too). We edited dialog, music and effects. We even did dialog replacement for the one and only line of dialog (is it a line of monolog then?).
The whole idea was to make a movie of the simplest concept that would allow us to follow all the steps that the big guys do. From that perspective the project was a success. I also must say that its pretty amazing what quality you can get from consumer grade tools.
OK, we definitely like our gadgets here at the Digital Diner, but, as with anything, one has to watch out for the signs of overuse. This infographic has some good points about all the ways that mobile devices are bad for you. There are certainly a few things to think about. It probably wont stop me from using anything, but it may help influence my behavior a bit.
Yesterday we went for a ride on our bikes since Bix got a fancy new mountain bike for Christmas. It was certainly fun. Bicycles are amazing machines. As we rode along, it reminded me of young Steve Jobs' concept that Apple was building "bicycles for the mind." The reason that this analogy captivated Steve Jobs was that he read a Scientific American article that talked about the efficiency of locomotion of various animals. Condors were most efficient and humans finished somewhere in the middle of the pack. However, someone at Scientific American had the brilliant idea to compare the efficiency of a human riding a bicycle to the other animals and the cycling human was off the charts. To Steve, the bicycle symbolized man's ability to use tools to gain an advantage. He felt (rightly so, I think) that computers would ultimately be this type of tool for our minds.
That's fun and all, but not why I choose to write about this topic today. Bix and Widdikay both have fancy new-fangled bikes compared to the old school bikes that Monika and I ride. Seeing how dated our bikes were looking started me thinking. While they did look old, it was intriguing to me that the actual design of the bicycle hasn't changed much in a long time (certainly nothing like the changes that computers have gone through, but that is a different story). Sure, we've come a long way since the high-wheeler of yesteryear, but the modern chain-drive, diamond-frame design has been around for over 100 years. The geometry of the frame has been tweaked a bit over the years and specialized for different purposes, but the overall design has remained stable - possibly because we have hit on a very efficient design.
Bike Concept from Yanko Design
When I saw the new bike concept above, I was immediately captivated. It really does look like something different. It's beautiful. The lines are not those of a standard bike, but the human still fits on it in the same old fashion way. Of course, this design is completely impractical. The wheelbase is so short that it would likely be difficult to control at high speeds. That wouldn't be too much of problem since it would be very difficult to get any speed since it would take several rotations of the pedals to get the wheel to turn a single revolution. Actually, there is so much rake (angle) on the front head tube that it is likely difficult to control at any speed. Still the design is a thing of beauty from an artistic perspective. I find it interesting how some designers get caught up in the art of their creations and lose track of the usefulness and practicality. To me, the most beautiful designs are those that are artistic and functional.
The bike above is designed by Yanko designs who recently published their top designs of 2011. Their collection includes several interesting designs; some practical, some not so much. Which is your favorite?
Recently we celebrated St. Lucia Day (The Festival of Lights). A part of this tradition is the always yummy saffron buns. The distinctive taste of saffron is a key part of the flavor of these buns, but saffron is alway expensive and hard to come by. Apparently it can run up to $1000/pound. The folks over at nomilicious.com put this into perspective with their article that explains why. You see saffron comes from the crocus flowers (Crocus sativus). Apparently each plant produces four flowers per year and each flower produces three saffron threads. That means that you can get a maximum of 12 threads per year, per plant if all goes well. One pound of saffron is usually 50,000 - 75,000 threads, so that can be up to 25,000 flowers. As you can imagine, with each thread being manually picked, it's a labor intensive process, not to mention that it takes a football field sized area to produce a pound of saffron. To me, knowing this will just make those saffron buns taste all the more unique.
It was exciting enough that the planet Kepler-22B was discovered right around the time that we got to see Frank Drake talk just over a week ago, but today NASA announced the discovery of two new earth-size planets. Kepler-22B has just the right orbit to be a good temperature for life, but they believe it may not be able to support a rocky surface because of its size (about 2.5 times Earth's diameter). The newest planets are more earth-like in size, but they are very close to their sun, so they are unlikely to have water in liquid form. Also, obvious to all of you who know Kepler's laws of motion, if these planets are very close to their sun, they will have very short orbits, so a year there is is between 6 and 20 days here. I just had a birthday, and while I can see that it would be nice to have a lot more birthdays, I'm really glad that I don't live on Kepler-20f because I would be 2872 years old! Since this system is about 1000 light years away, its unlikely that I'll get to visit there anyway.
None of these planets are outstanding candidates for life as we know it on Earth, but its really exciting that the Kepler spacecraft is finding so many interesting planets so quickly. It really is starting to seem quite likely there are many Earth-like planets out there.
I remember as a child being a little confused about why it was that nobody seemed to know all the details about Santa. Well, now I see that its completely understandable since what we know of him has come from so many places...
