Month: September 2008

I just got done watching V for Vendetta, and decided to do some Wikipedia work to find out about the original “Guy” behind the mask, Guy Fawkes. The guy the movie starts out showing and whom the poem is read:

Remember, remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason, why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot!

A stick or a stake for King James’ sake

Will you please to give us a fagot

If you can’t give us one, we’ll take two;

The better for us and the worse for you!

Apparently Guy Fawkes day is a big deal amoung the UK with fireworks and Fawkes being burned in effegy. To think they are still burning him when the plot was all the way back in 1605… wow!

Anyway, since it is late (or early) I should get to bed for the night…

Canon has a new super camera coming down the pipeline… it’s name is the cannon EOS 5D Mark II. and I wish I had the money to buy it… I guess I will have to stick to film for a while with my Pentax (hurray for flickr for hosting my gigs of pictures).

Vincent Laforet got a hold of a pre-release version and filmed a short film Reverie. (due to demand, now hosted at smugmug) Even though I am not a film buff, this camera is nothing short of amazing especially in low light. As it is first a still camera and second a video camera you get away with using all of your pre-existing canon lenses.

Thanks to Calli Lewis from Geek brief tv for tipping me off to this in brief #434.

In other news I watched the Mentalist and I thought it would not be all that good of a show… ie CSI redux, but was kinda surprised, I am going to reserve judgment and see where it goes from here…

It seems like all of the big players in science are coming out with music videos first it was CERN with the LHC Rap. While it appears now that the end of the world won’t be for a while yet… this video does a good job of explaining just what everything does. We are all rooting for you guys and can’t wait to see what the results are when everything gets fixed!

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

Not to be left out the astrobiologists have come out with their own rap… while I feel that this one is not as “cute” as CERNS one it does go a long ways in educating the public. These popsci viral videos go a long way to helping the public understand why science is important. Also they just are fun to watch

If you can start kids out early and show that science is cool and the thing to do, then there just may be hope for the next generation.

Over the weekend Mythbuster’s resident geek Grant Imahara came to CY Stephens here in Ames to kick off E-Week. Due to the disclamer of Discovery eating my first born upon recording his speach I am writing this from my recolecction, so beware! This post, like all of mine may or may not approach the truth, however that is just luck!… During his speech Imahara briefly spoke on the life of a mythbuster and his experiences at ILM. Some of the highlights of his presentation included stories of building the latest generation of Energizer bunnies (one of the most amazing things about his bunnies is that they were originally equipped to run on a crap ton of AA batteries (energizer of course!) and that the batteries are stored in the drum head. Grant also spoke about his time working with the Star Wars characters for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Not only did he help renovate R2D2 but he also was one of his operators for public appearances as well as being a public appearance C-3PO. Grant spoke in depth about working with Star Wars including, how to tell if the R2 unit is the human r2 or the robot (look at the third leg, if it has one it is a bot). Finally Grant spoke on how he got started as a EE. Including relating how he dropped out of school and his asistanceship, and eventual return to being an EE major. In the end his insight to this was being in the right place at the right time. The downside to his presentation was that the posters and blurbs all hinted at his showing footage and bloopers from Mythbusters, however that never happened. I would say that Grant gave a very good speach and I would recomend going and listening to him if you ever get the chance.

Press release from ISU