softer world

Today's Softer World is a good one.

Secret Wars Re-Enactment Society

Very over the top, but looks like it was fun to put together.

Ira Flatow: Science Tuesday

I went to see Ira Flatow's City Arts & Lectures talk Tuesday night. It's always strange to see an accomplished interviewer interviewed, but he had some really good things to say about paying more attention to the politics and budgetary policies surrounding science in this country. I very much agree with him, that our current messianic administration and affiliated allies are really trying attack science and put unverifiable faith on equal footing with science. It's truly a sad state of affairs, but he also said some very encouraging things about science education and education in general being local issues and not federal and that it was up to local voters and communities to voice up in how they want their schools to be run. But too many otherwise liberal well-meaning people are pretty cheap when it comes to ponying up for even their own local schools.

He also said some interesting things about the unknown future of radio broadcasting. Apparently the Science Friday podcast has 6 million downloads, while all the other NPR podcasts have about 13 million downloads. Of course, most of the other popular NPR shows are being sold as downloads on audbile.com rather then podcasted, which is a whole other topic, the increasing commercialization of public broadcasting.

One Red Paperclip

I just discovered One Red Paperclip. From one red paperclip to a house all in trades. What a brilliant idea! I'm constantly amazed how someone with a good idea, some press and the Internet can truly do something pretty amazing.

James Jean Jams

One of my favorite artist recently is James Jean, who blogs at http://processrecess.com. He's truly doing some very lovely work of late. Though I must say, I'd love to see some sequential art from him at some point, rather then just cover images. Can't complain too much though.

More pigeon photos

I got a better view of the pigeon chick this morning. It's quite odd looking, especially the beak. It looks way to big for a bird that size. Maybe it'll grow into it. The yellow feather are also strange. I'd never have thought of pigeon chicks as yellow.

I remember we had this book Fly High, Fly Low in my 3rd grade classroom. It's all about a a couple of pigeon living in Union Square. Even at that point I thought it a bit odd to have a book about pigeons, but was fascinated by the idea of what real pigeon chicks looked like.

Lunar Power

My new book club has been reading Jared Diamond's latest Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. One of the things we've talking a lot about, obviously, is whether the our current globalized, capitalistic system is headed toward collapse, environmentally, economically or otherwise. I tend to think that human species can live in some pretty miserable screwed up living conditions, so we're likely to survive in some form or fashion. I can't help though but have some hope for ideas like Moonbeams to Power Earth

nesting

pigeon nest
Originally uploaded by leef_smith.

I was walking down the garage stairwell this morning and saw this pigeon nest right at eye-level. They used to nest in this awning right above my office entrance, but they put up that anti-pigeon netting forcing them out. I have to wonder how smart these pigeons are though. I mean a cat or anything could come right in there for a little snack.