Mr. Deity: Funny Parody of Religion

I have known about it but quiet some times now, and it is one of the funniest internet videos around. Plus, I decided that presenting to the world this show would be best for blasphemy day. ^_^ . Basically, it is about the Deity, which is the alternate version of the Christian God. It pretty much makes fun of religion for making giant leaps in logic and for pretty much being nonsensical. Although even though it makes fun of religion, some relaxed religious people might like it. After all, there are certain things that even some Christians agree that are nonsense, and above all, it is genuinely funny. The latest one is Mr. Deity and Da Man, which is about the genesis account of man. Very funny:

Digitizing My Physics Lecture Notes

I have a physics notebook, and not only do I write the usual class notes, but I also wrote a lot of derivations. Now, the notebook is becoming somewhat annoying. If I want to fit in something else in the section a topic is on, I have to squeeze. When I erase things, the graphite smears all over and once I make a million mistakes, the spot is messy. Also, as I started adding more and more things, many sections became disorganized. So, I want to add some order and cleanliness to them. I have thought of rewriting my notes on my computer, but the softwares I have don’t write equations. But I know one place that can write equations, and that is a wordpress blog. So, the question is, should I make an effort to grab my notes and transcribe it in a separate blog? Hmmm…

The October Sky

At my astronomy club, I got to see a presentation on galilean telescope and recieved a sky calendar. Before I get to the sky calendar, I just want to tweak your curiosity on telescopes. I have a few links for your perusal.

Now that that is out of the way, behold the October sky and the various celestial events (I suggest you click on it, click again, and then zoom in):

If you to observe the sky and watch something really neat, then look at the dates and find the events. For example, October 1 will have Venus 45 min before sunrise. Yeah I know, waking up 45 minutes before sunrise is a stretch, but if you are up to it, then by all means go ahead and enjoy.

When All Hope was Crushed

A few hours ago, I was sitting at a physics class for 30 minutes overconfidently doing nothing while others were studying hard for the test, and the instructor didn’t come. We all agreed that we should go, made jokes on the inadequacy of the instructor, and were ready to leave. You have no idea the amount of excitement this generated in the air, I could almost feel it. After all, it would mean the test would be posponed until next week. For a while, we speculated what happened to him, and I speculated that he was having a bad bathroom brake. We were all hesitant to leave, of course. He could come at any minute and start class. This one guy tried even calling the instructor, but he got the voice message. We all had a laugh and reprimanded him for doing exactly what we guessesd he would do outside. Then a few people left. I was ready to leave when those  leaving came back, claiming they saw him coming. And so I cursed in misery. We had to sit there for the boring lecture and had to take the test, which I think I did pretty well myself. One person left before hand, and so missed the test. We were so close to delaying the inevitable. Isn’t fate cruel? Now, if my cell phone could have come with just a damn USB that fits my phone AND connect to the computer. I could have shown the classroom that was about to be emptied, and could have posted about the astronomy club meeting instead of this silly story.

Planck Ready to Observe Deep Space

In case you don’t know, Planck, from the European Space Agency, is a satellite designed to observe the background radio radiation, successor to WMAP. The background radiation is composed of very unenergetic photons that were released 400,000 years after Big Bang, when temperature was low enough for atoms to form and release the energy that particles used to absorb. The photons have been travelling over 13 billions of years to reach our eyes.

What is so important about it, you may ask? Well, WMAP has helped to shape the views of modern cosmology and the validity of the Big Bang, determine the age of the universe, determine the composition of the universe, and more. Planck is going to be even more accurate, and will allow them to pinpoint even a more accurate model of the universe.

Here is the press release on its first observation, which also has a cool animation of what Planck will do. Also, I found a blog of an astrophysicist who seems to be involved in this. You might be interested in what they are doing. Plus, there is a release of the background radiation imposed on the Milky Way galaxy. Now, I know the radiation part looks all blotchy, chaotic, and somewhat ugly. What seems disorder, though, can tell us a lot of things, and if you click on the picture, iw:

(hat tip: Blogging the Planck Mission)

Hubble is Back! And Other Pretty Pictures

Yeah, I know, that is old news. But still, there are a whole lot of new pictures that are amazing. Plus, other missions have their own share of pretty pictures which I want to share. After all, probably most of you who read this probably almost never check those space pictures.

So, recently, a new and better camera has been installed on Hubble. Online right now, it took pictures of already know objects. If you compare it with the old ones, the new ones are much better in quality and resolution. My favorites are:

Omega Centauri is a globular cluster in our galaxy. Some believe it is a stripped core of a dwarf galaxy. As you see, it has old red giants at the end of their lives, old blue stars which collided with others and increasing their lifespan, and the smallish yellow sun like main sequence.

And these five group of galaxies. I believe that four of them are merging, although it will take billions of years. The upper left one is a galaxy much closer to us, so it is really a foreground galaxy which is not interacting with any of them.

Now, another mission I have been missing out on is LRO, a lunar mission. It has also been producing amazing pictures:

A crater with a rim eternally in sunshine, and a hole in perpetual darkness.

Weird channel thingy:

Cracked crater:

MRO also has a lot of amazing Mars pictures.

Look at this one, Mars crater with sand dunes, simply amazing:

And cheese moon of Mars Deimos:

Good times for astronomy, overall. ^_^