I can watch this video many many times and it will never appear to be real to me. That is my primary issue with high definition video; it looks more like the detail I would expect from some big budget blockbuster CG moon than the real deal. My eyes expect grainy footage here.
Perhaps that expectation is related to the original moon landings; they were using less sophisticated equipment, but that is all that I have seen of the moon other than what I can observe here on Earth with a limited budget.
Nevertheless, the reality is that this footage is about as real as it can get. Observing the surface of something so alien is a strange thing. I wish that I could be alive for the exploration that is sure to take place in our futures.
(Video No Longer Available. Sad.)
Short video, but surreal. The probe that shot this is currently heading towards it’s destruction on the surface of the moon and shall impact on June 10th. Via Kottke.
There is something about this that makes me cry out, “FAKE!” It’s not, but it looks that way to me. Perhaps it is the fact that it is high def.
I don’t know how much stock I have in studies like this. Especially considering these stats:
- Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
- Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
- Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth’s surface that is covered with water.
- Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.
If true, and it’s hard for me to believe it’s true, the first statistic would be ridiculously sad, the second believable if a lot of people are creationists, the third makes me wonder how far off people were, and the fourth, well not everyone can answer every question correctly.
Eh, it’s not apathy that makes me not care, it’s just the ridiculousness of these studies that does.
Via Kottke.
I was reading the ‘Since you Asked’ column over at Salon–which is basically a dear Sally type of thing–and this particular letter had a self-described atheist adamantly refusing to understand or tolerate the creationist views of his devoutly Christian friend.
The problem was not so much with his views, although you got the sense that yeah maybe it was a problem, but it was with the fact that the school the Christian friend works at had requested that he teach young earth creationism (essentially the creation story in the Bible) in his science class–oh, the problem was also that he taught his kids the same thing. The writer likened this kind of lesson to “child abuse”.
What?
When did one of the pillars of western culture become child abuse? And when exactly did 21st century science become pre-modern Roman Catholicism, in that every thing that might be in contrast to its views is heresy? Bring on the reformation.