Swans on Tea

Over at the XKCD blag, Randall discusses solar sails and levitating squirrels. And he’s absolutely right — the Back-to-the-Futuresque 1.21 Gigawatts will levitate about a kg, assuming perfect reflection. Assuming absorption, you vaporize the squirrel in a couple of milliseconds.
(1 kg of water requires about 2.5 million Joules to boil away, starting at [...]

I’m shocked, shocked, to find that I’m getting shocked. My adventures with static electricity.
It’s winter, it’s dry and that makes for pretty good sparks. I haven’t been going to the gym the last few mornings (recovering from being unwell) but have been going to work, so that means peeling off some layers of [...]

Check out this illusion over at Cognitive Daily, along with all the explanation that goes with it.
I think illusions are pretty neat. They are also a reminder to not trust what you think you are seeing, since our vision is relative and we also see patterns because we impress them on data.

Lunar eclipse tonight
The entire event is visible from South America and most of North America (on Feb. 20) as well as Western Europe, Africa, and western Asia (on Feb. 21)
Unless your weather sucks, of course.
Snow showers in the morning will give way to a mixture of rain and snow for the afternoon. High [...]