The Apollo 11 launch close up and slow

Check out this a wonderful video and commentary regarding the launch of Apollo 11, the first lunar landing. All of this action is captured with a still video camera perched almost unimaginably close to the rocket exhaust. 500 frames per second turned 30 seconds into 8 minutes. This video reminds me about the many ordinary things that had to happen according to plan in order to allow the success of what has to be the one of the most spectacular journeys in the history of humankind. Keep in mind that the Saturn V Rocket was 363 feet tall, only one foot shorter than St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Each one of the F-1 engines (which are still the most powerful rocket engines ever built) were 12 feet in diameter at the nozzle, and there were five of these monsters powering the launch.

Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch (HD) Camera E-8 from Mark Gray on Vimeo.

Continue ReadingThe Apollo 11 launch close up and slow

Pick your plot

A friend sent me the this youtube, "The Time Machine," which allows you to chose your path through a time travel adventure. I hadn't seen this sort of thing before, and can't quite decide whether the choice points are entertaining or annoying, as a general principle. It's obvious that the authors of this particular video had a fund time creating it.

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The antipodes of Sir David Attenborough

Not everyone has earned the right to burn oodles of carbon-based fuel in order to travel to both the North Pole and the South Pole. Sir David Attenborough has earned that right, based upon his exquisite, inspiring, nature documentaries. Yes, he's visiting the poles as part of an effort to produce yet another documentary, this one called "Frozen Planet." Here's the report from the U.K. times:

In more than half a century of bringing the world into our living rooms, Sir David Attenborough has travelled to pretty much every far-flung spot you can think of. But one inhospitable place, short on wildlife and good excuses for stopping by, remained unexplored by the veteran broadcaster. Now he has finally realised his boyhood ambition to stand on the top of the world.
If you don't know Sir David Attenborough by name, you'll like know his face and his upbeat warm-hearted scientifically precise commentary. Here's one of my favorite clips, where he describes the anatomy of the blue whale:

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Fluid space

Here you'll see and hear a beautiful Hawaiian evening sky to go with beautiful music. Such a spectacular way end a long day! Strongly consider watching this short video in HD: The vivid fluidity of the star-filled sky in this video is something I'd never before viewed. There is an ocean of stars up there, including the vast edge of the Milky Way galaxy itself. Watching the "movement" of those stars allowed me to feel, like never before, that our own orb is moving through space. I've long known, intellectually, that the Earth is spinning and rotating through space, but this time-lapse video really brings that point home. We are moving too, in a dramatic way, every second of every day. We aren't the stable platform from which one can objectively view the rest of existence. This video seemingly pushed me to an Archimedean point. Bravo!

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Copyright Bite

I received a warning when I logged into my YouTube account recently. I had openly and with attribution used a couple of popular tunes in some of my videos. Those have been flagged as violations of copyrights, my account to be reviewed, and the videos may be pulled, or my account suspended. Meanwhile, those videos sport pop-up ads to buy the tunes. The two offending videos use tunes that had their heydays in the 1930's and 1970's. Even the children of the original creator and performer of the older tune are all dead. Is it right that some corporation is making a fuss over my sharing this with a few friends? There have been less than 75 views in the year since it's been posted. I see no reason to fight this. I'd be quite content to have ads pop up for the tunes I use. I even wish there were a mechanism in place to request ads to pay for use of related content. It's not so much that I like ads, but that I respect content creators. But I don't respect any right in perpetuity for corporations to hold creative rights once a creator and his direct heirs are out of the picture. Like McCartney having to pay the estate of Michael Jackson to use his own songs.

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