Category: Items of Interest

The Limitless Arsenal of Science

Screw your tommy guns. We’ve got SCIENCE!

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If you like that, then you should consider backing the Jill Trent: Science Sleuth #1 Kickstarter campaign.

Suitable for all ages, the short stories in JILL TRENT, SCIENCE SLEUTH #1 include both a mix of “real” science and goofy sci-fi, celebrating women in science with an undercurrent of feminism.

With 5 different versions of the Science Sleuths, the unspoken theme is, hopefully, one of diversity and empowerment. The book celebrates women in science as well as female characters in comics.

HT: Cannot precisely recall whose feed I saw this RT’d in, but I think it was John Rennie.

#GradhogDay

Monday was Groundhog Day, which inspired one of the great films, Groundhog Day from the late, great Harold Ramis. It, consequently, inspired #GradhogDay, the revision of classic lines to have a science-y spin (and vent a little graduate school blues).

You can read all the tweets in the #GradhogDay Storify or contribute your own. So far, my favorite has been this offering:

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SJW: Social Justice Witch

If Hermione Granger and the Goddamn Patriarchy from BuzzFeed’s Daniel Dalton isn’t the best thing the Internet produces today (hell, all weekend), I will be gobsmacked.

Without Hermione, The Boy Who Lived would be dead as shit.

A Lab of Their Own

The sciencing of A League of Their Own  (#ALabofTheirOwn) reminded me a bit of the sciencing of Conan the Barbarian (#ConanthePostDoc). Both films have great scripts, with great lines; but most people only remember one or two. People other than me do not have the scripts burnt into their souls.

That is ok. In fact, it is better than ok. As Jimmy Dugan says to Dottie Hinson:

It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.

It was not easy, but I think we found a few gems that speak honestly to the practice of science now.

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Some of the lines were so relevant that observers mistook them for actually commentary.

One would hope that a movie about women playing baseball in the 1940s would not be relevant to science today.

The #ALabofTheirOwn storify makes up for its lack of quantity with some real quality, but I’m biased.

Spirography

Created by Josh Witten using Inspirograph (by Nathan Friend)
Created by Josh Witten using Inspirograph (by Nathan Friend)

For folks of a certain age (ie, approximately my age), set your “Nostalgia” dial to 11. Nathan Friend has created an addictive, online version of the spirograph called Inspirograph. Enjoy.

According to Friend, a mobile app is in the works.

HT: Brian Kelly and Sheila McNeill