johnkemeny.com

 

1. Alan points out this important date in history, February 26, 1616, when the Spanish Inquisition delivers an injunction to Galileo.
2. Lia dons her Inquisitor garments, complete with instruments.
3. The streets are crowded with traffic.
4. Last call at the bar.

This cartoon, printed in a Russian newspaper, says “We never taught them to do that…” .  The paper was closed down.  You can find the original politically incorrect cartoons on Michelle Malkin’s blog. Not so incidentally, Michelle’s site has recently been subjected to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.  Here is where to find the “Buy Danish” Corner Banner Code.

Best known for his books popularizing science, including the fun “Mr. Tompkins” series and the terrific One, Two, Three…Infinity (I have them all – I am a Gamow book collector!), George Gamow, in 1928 explained radioactive decay, in the 30s, after defecting from the Soviet Union (successfully after 2 failed attempts by kayak!), created what became known as the  “Gamow factor” which explains how fusion is possible, in 1948 published the famous science joke (its history can be found here) quantifying the processes that formed the Big Bang, and later predicting the Cosmological Background Radiation 17 years before it was discovered, and, for grins, in 1954 formed the RNA Tie Club and proposed how to crack the genetic code by using triplets of nucleotides.  Obviously an overachiever.

His son, Igor, an iconoclastic inventor, was fired from a University position  under strange circumstances, and has a movie about it on his website.

Rowing is a sport that exercises lots of muscles.  The World Indoor Rowing Championships, also known as the C.R.A.S.H.-B. Sprints (to be held this Saturday, 25-Feb), exorcises technique and fortitude.  Shown is the proper technique from Catch to Finish of applying power in 3 phases – Legs, Body, Arms.  I know, I know, the pictured rower is Rushing the Recovery.

Check out your online computer store at 

 

and be assured you are buying from a reputable vendor,

such as  or .

Allison rows in my rowing club (CRI - usually in bow with me in the 2 seat) and is a terrific photographer.  She just closed a month-long exhibition at the New England School of Photography Center for Photographic Exhibitions on Beacon Street.

“The moon is tangible, but also mythic, which is a compelling dichotomy. It waxes and wanes, directs tides, and waltzes into poetry.”

She is available for weddings – see her website.

Want to send a large file to someone – too big to email?  You can use yousendit to send a file up to 100 MB (1 Gb with $4.99/month subscription) in size.  The recipient gets an email with the download location.  So send me that large file.

Of course, the logo will never win any paper airplane contests.  But you can use NASA lesson plans and software to design your own paper airplane.  You could learn something like:

You are flying an F-117A fully equipped, which means that your aircraft weighs 52,500 pounds. You want to maintain equilibrium in straight and level flight at an altitude of 30,000 feet, cruising at 400 knots to conserve fuel. The aircraft’s wing area is 1,140 square feet. At what angle of attack should the F-117A be set to maintain equilibrium?

              

Born on this day in 1564, Galileo Galilei (more) published his Starry Messenger in 1610, in which he used his newly perfected telescope to discover, among other things, the ‘Medicean stars‘ (new revisionist book on Galileo’s rise and fall), or, as we know them, the Galilean Moons.  

In the history of science, the Starry Messenger:

• provided the first direct evidence that not everything orbited the Earth (geocentricity),
• provided an explanation for the retrograde motion of the planets, and
• indicted that a theory of Copernicus might be correct. 

It took only 346 years for the Catholic Church to apologize for persecuting him (‘The Galileo Affair‘) – I guess science and religion can coexist in the long run.