Tag Archives: Sun
Many tables with room for all. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
While one might disparage the white colonialism that birthed the holiday along with the bowdlerization of its history, I like to think time denatures these things and leaves us with a Norman Rockwellesque secular day of family travel, over-eating, discontent, and infighting. Our American tradition.
But pointed opening aside, the season in general, along with the coming year’s end, does — if we but take it — give us a chance to pause and reflect on the past year and what it meant to us. And, if the soul is gentled and still, to find things to be thankful for.
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3 Comments | tags: dad, mom, parents, Sun, sunshine | posted in Life
Once again we pivot into the dark half of the year. Here in the northern hemisphere, anyway. Folks below the equator are enjoying the opposite pivot, the good one into light.
The Autumnal Equinox is my least favorite Solar Occasion (today: 12:44 GMT, 7:44 AM CDT). It means winter is coming. I can deal with the cold, but the short days and long dark nights, that’s tougher.
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3 Comments | tags: autumnal equinox, Bentley, equinox, Jon Stewart, Sun, sunshine, The Daily Show | posted in Life, Politics
Long ago (in the first year of this blog), I posted Sideband #34: The North Star, which was about how sighting on the North Star (Polaris) gives you your latitude. Simply put, the elevation of the star is your latitude. My Twin Cities are at 45° north, so Polaris is 45° above my northern horizon. Simple!
In this Sideband, I’ll explain how you can use your wristwatch as a compass. Assuming your watch is an analog one with hands. And assuming you can see the Sun (so this doesn’t work at night).
But, unlike North Star navigation, this one does work in the southern hemisphere.
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9 Comments | tags: celestial navigation, Dick Francis, south, Sun, wearing a watch | posted in Basics, Sideband
Sort of. It’s not quite the shot I’d hoped for, but it’s close-ish:
There actually is a cloud bank on the eastern horizon, so the Sun wasn’t too visible as it rose, but once it got a bit above the horizon, it was. And, a day later, it’s moved a bit south, too.
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17 Comments | tags: autumn, autumn leaves, autumnal equinox, Harry Nilsson, Sun, trees | posted in Life
The two Solstices are the only universal holidays I celebrate. There are many personal holidays, almost all anniversaries of whatever happened that day: births, weddings, deaths; the arcs of jobs and love affairs; graduations and engagements; all the milestones of life. (The trick is to avoid Marley’s chains and chests.)
When it comes to the world, I see only two true holidays whose meaning every mind on Earth shares; two that everyone can anticipate and appreciate. These holidays are defined by the star that gives us life. They mark our orbit as precisely as the numbers of a clock mark the hours.
In fact, there are four such star-marked days; two major, two minor.
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13 Comments | tags: astronomy, four, moon, Ophiuchus, Sagittarius, Sagittarius A*, scorpion tail, Scorpius, solar system, Solstice, stars, Summer Solstice, Sun, three, twelve, zodiac | posted in Life
Good news, everyone! The star dragon that’s been munching on our local star has finally gotten tired of chasing its food across the sky and will be moving on at last.
(We’re apparently in a migration path, because we seem to get one nearly every year. Every year I can remember, anyway. Good thing they only feed during the day, so the sun as a little time to recover.)
I’m glad it finally left; I was a little worried it might see Parker as a tasty hors d’oeuvre. Or a toothpick. You never can tell with dragons.
And now our star can start to heal and grow back to its lovely warm summer fullness. (Only problem with that is, it attracts hungry star dragons!)
1 Comment | tags: humor, Solstice, Sun, Winter Solstice | posted in Life
On the one hand, global climate change is likely to make things very — strictly in the curse sense — “interesting” for the human race as this millennium progresses. The effects already are obvious, visual, striking, and — one would think — undeniable.
Randall Munroe, of xkcd, has created another of his brilliant graphics, this one showing the history of climate change. It’s well-worth checking out (do it now). It makes the point in a visually striking, and — one would think — undeniable way.
On the other hand, it’s very — in the usual sense — “interesting” that we’re here at all.
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3 Comments | tags: carbon, climate change, Cowboys & Aliens, elements, global warming, gold, Jupiter, mitochondria, moon, Saturn, Saturn's Rings, solar eclipse, Sun, uranium, xkcd | posted in Physics
It’s one of those days you remember better than any birthday or wedding. Those were planned; these hit you suddenly, stunning your mind, breaking your heart. “The shuttle blew up!” “The Towers fell!”
The impact was even greater if you saw it happen in real-time. If you watched the shuttle launches. If you caught the breaking news before the second tower was hit. Saw the second plane, realized at that moment, “This is no accident!”
Even if you saw it after, you saw it; saw it as an attack.
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5 Comments | tags: 9-11, Earth, emotional mind, human mind, humanity, making movies, media, moon, rational mind, rational thought, Sun, Venus, war movies | posted in Life, Politics, Society, TV
“Space is big. Really big.”
When I started blogging here, one of the first bloggers I followed was Robin, of Witless Dating After Fifty. Over the years, she’s several times mentioned a great question her dad often posed when discussing religion with someone: “How big is your god?”
Last week my buddy and I were having our weekly beer- and gab-fest and our (typically very meandering) conversation came to touch on the problems with young Earth creationism — the Christian fundamentalist idea that the universe is only thousands of years old.
In fact, there’s a pair of real whopper problems involved!
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46 Comments | tags: atheism, creationism, deism, galaxy, God, science and spirituality, solar system, spirituality, stars, Sun, theism, universe, young Earth creationism | posted in Religion, Sunday Sermons
It’s Friday, and I’m sure you’re thinking about the weekend, so today will be just a review and some more details about the speed of light.
And speaking of light, today is the Vernal Equinox. For the next six months (for those of us in the northern hemisphere), our days will be longer than our nights. No doubt the combination of spring, the Equinox, and the weekend, have you wondering what you’re doing at your computer reading about Special Relativity.
I’ll try to be very brief…
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8 Comments | tags: Albert Einstein, equinox, Galilean invariance, Galileo Galilei, light, light speed, light year, moon, Special Relativity, spring equinox, Sun, vernal equinox | posted in Physics
Logos con carne 