HoodedHawk

Let’s hope for a scholarship: Just got an alumni email from Dartmouth (my graduate school alma mater, at left), and the undergraduate tuition, room/board/fees for next year total $52,275.00.

For grins I also checked my my undergrad alma mater (Boston College, below). BC is now at $50,970.00.

Mind boggling, the cost of college these days; nevermind what it will be in 18 years…

Over two feet of snow, and more coming down. Oh, the joy! At least we still have power (fingers crossed!) and plenty of food. This is a record for Maryland; from what I’ve been told, this is the most snow at one time since ~1950. Normally we get ~18 inches over the course of the winter. So far we’ve had that much dumped on us just in December, and now this current storm is in itself over 26 inches so far…

Just a bit South of here (DC) and East had actual “blizzard” conditions last night. We just had a major snowstorm. :)

Click any picture for slideshow.

Snow Storm 2-2010: Two feet.

Over 2 feet- taller than Olivia

Snow Storm 2-2010: Two feet, and he's not going to be much help shoveling...

Snow Storm 2-2010: Two feet.

Snow Storm 2-2010: Our Mailbox

Snow Storm 2-2010: Preparing for the arctic.

Snow Storm 2-2010: Preparing for the arctic.

Snow Storm 2-2010: Actic Trail left by explorers

Snow Storm 2-2010: In the arctic.

Last month, our extended family had a wonderful vacation at the Chautauqua Institution, in Chautauqua, NY (upstate, western NY state). Highlights of the week were lectures by Professor Donald Johanson (pictured below signing my copy of Lucy’s Legacy), as well as:

• Annie Griffiths Belt, National Geographic photographer
• Wade Davis, ethnobotanist, photographer, author, The Serpent and the Rainbow
• Kobie Boykins, NASA engineer, Mars Expedition Rovers program
• Mattias Klum, National Geographic photographer, filmmaker

Dr. Johanson signing my copy of Lucy's Legacy

We rented a house on the grounds, and spent a week enjoying lectures, concerts, beautiful weather, and wonderful grounds. It’s like a really nice small town, gated. It’s a very family-friendly environment, and there is nice beach on the lake.

The Catholic House sponsored a couple of excellent lectures as well, and Mass was offered daily. Did I mention the weather was wonderful? We’ll be going back next year; I can see why people go back to Chautauqua religiously (no pun intended :) ).

Chautauqua 2009

Chautauqua 2009

Chautauqua 2009

More pictures are on the Picture page (Chautauqua)

It’s hard to post this with dry eyes, but: Pixar granted a dying 10-year old girl’s final wish: to see the movie “Up” (which is currently only in theaters).

The girl (Colby Curtin) was not able to travel to a theater to see the movie, so Pixar sent an employee to the girl’s home with a DVD of the movie. The girl was able to watch the movie, and then passed away seven hours later.

At about 12:30 p.m. the Pixar employee came to the Curtins’ home with the DVD.

He had a bag of stuffed animals of characters in the movie and a movie poster. He shared some quirky background details of the movie and the group settled in to watch Up.

Colby couldn’t see the screen because the pain kept her eyes closed so her mother gave her a play-by-play of the film.

At the end of the film, the mother asked if her daughter enjoyed the movie and Colby nodded yes, Lisa Curtin said.

The employee left after the movie, taking the DVD with him, Lynch said.

“He couldn’t have been nicer,” said Lynch who watched the movie with the family. “His eyes were just welled up.”

After the movie, Colby’s dad, Michael Curtin, who is divorced from Lisa Curtin, came to visit.

Colby died with her mom and dad nearby at 9:20 p.m.

Among the Up memorabilia the employee gave Colby was an “adventure book” – a scrap book the main character’s wife used to chronicle her journeys.

“I’ll have to fill those adventures in for her,” Lisa Curtin said.

– from OC Register

Tonight I went to a booksigning and a panel of SF authors at Reiter’s Scientific Bookstore in DC. Among the authors present were: Dr. Catherine Asaro, Greg Bear, Bud Sparhawk, Tom Purdom, Tom Ligon, Yoji Kondo (Eric Kotani), John Hemry (Jack Campbell), Charles E. Gannon, and Dr. Arlan Andrews. The roundtable discussion topic was “How Science Fiction Changes Everything” – How Science Fiction Serves the National Interest. The Washington Science Fiction Association also sponsored the event.

Catherine Asaro

Some (all?) members of the panel are also members of SIGMA:

SIGMA is a group of science fiction writers who offer futurism consulting to the United States government and appropriate NGOs. We provide a new concept in public service “think tanks”– an association of speculative writers who have spent careers exploring the future. Many of us have earned Ph.D.s in high tech fields, and some presently hold Federal and defense industry positions. Each is an accomplished science fiction author who has postulated new technologies, new problems and new societies, explaining the possible science and speculating about the effects on the human race.

The event was mostly the panel fielding questions from the audience. I enjoyed the evening; it was quite interesting to hear the viewpoints of various SF authors, especially Bear and Asaro, as I’m a fan of both. At the signing Dr. Asaro mentioned that the cover of Alpha was her favorite. The artist was going to go with a flowing gown, but she told him, no, I’d rather look like this:

SF Authors: Bear, Asaro, etc. Roundtable at Reiter's Bookstore

Greg Bear

Greg Bear

 

The US Postal Service will be releasing a set of “The Simpsons” postage stamps on May 7, 2009. Many years ago (as a kid) I used to collect stamps. None were as cool as these! The Simpsons has been on TVfor 20 years now; longest running comedy ever…

The USPS is even hosting a survey where you can vote on your favorite character -guess which one I voted for? Duh!

BAB, the Ikea Baby. From a pdf file the artist created for an expecting friend.

Xylocopa has a set of Alphabet blocks engraved with pictures of all the equipment and training a budding mad scientist will need:

A – Appendages | B – Bioengineering | C – Caffeine | D – Dirigible | E – Experiment | F – Freeze ray | G – Goggles | H – Henchmen | I – Invention | J – Jargon | K – Potassium | L – Laser | M – Maniacal | N – Nanotechnology | O – Organs | P – Peasants (with Pitchforks) | Q – Quantum physics | R – Robot | S – Self-experimentation | T – Tentacles | U – Underground Lair | V – Virus | W – Wrench | X – X-Ray | Y – You, the Mad Scientist of Tomorrow | Z – Zombies

Also:

…the blocks have a super-secret built in encryption function – if you rotate any block 180 degrees, it’ll encode to ROT13. If it’s good enough for Adobe Acrobat, it’s good enough for Mad Science!

-via BoingBoing

This toolbox (toolchest) was built by a piano repairman (Henry Studley) who worked for the Smith Organ Company and then the Poole Piano Company in the 1800’s. This beautiful chest contains 300 tools, and is made of mahogany, rosewood, walnut, ebony and mother of pearl (all of which were probably scraps from Poole Piano).

Though now owned by a private collector, it is supposedly still on display at the Smithsonian – the National Museum of American History. I’m definitely going to check on it the next time I go downtown!

While:

…nanostructures are building blocks for many important technological advances, including high-performance solar cells and batteries, new methods of diagnosing and treating disease, next-generation computer processors and memory, and lightweight composite materials… [from Nanobama.com ]

you can also use them to create nifty structures like the Nanobama above, just for fun. Note that each of the Obama faces shown is made up of about 150 million nanotubes – about one for each person who voted in this election. And for scale: each face is only about 0.5mm wide (about 10 hair-widths). Created by a team at the University of Michigan.

See also: Mechanosynthesis.