Today Show on MSNBC screws up Equinox

As usual a news show tries to trump up how the Equinox is the only time you can balance an egg on end. This is entirely untrue, debunked by Phil Plait here and here. But that's not the fun part of the below video.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Video hosting services?

Google Video is going to cease hosting new videos, so I need a new service to compress and host videos for my classes. Unfortunately Wikipedia's comparison charts of video services doesn't list all the things I want to know about. Here's what I'm looking for; the first few are required characteristics, "preferred" are additional characteristics I really want, and "optional" are bonuses.

1. Unlimited file size (or at least 500MB), unlimited time (or at least 90 min)


2. Cross-platform compatible


3. No additional software required for viewing (things like Java, Flash are ok since most computers have them already)


4. Compresses videos as well as sharing them, so they're faster for students to download on slow internet connections


5. No bandwidth cap, or 1.5GB/week / 8GB/month minimum.


6. Free to me and viewers


7. No account required for viewing (preferred)


8. I can choose not to display my name/account with videos I post (so I can use the same account for personal use) (preferred)


9. I can choose to not allow students to find other videos that I posted (ditto the purpose) (preferred)


10. I can choose to unlist videos I post, so no one but my students with a direct link are likely to find them (for intellectual property reasons) (preferred)


11. Download of video available (preferred)


12. Organization of videos into "folders" so I can post a link to the folder and the student can access all videos for that class in one place, and not the videos for other classes (optional)


13. Tool to upload multiple videos simultaneously (optional)


14. Upload tool allows me to resume paused or interrupted uploads (optional)

Anything else I should be looking for? Who do you like that has these? Google Video had 1-9. YouTube already fails at #1. I started looking at Vimeo and RapidShare, but don't know much about them. Edit: RapidShare seems a bit sketchy, Vimeo has weekly bandwidth limits below what I need.

Naming the Sky

The second video in my series for my online course.

What is Science?

I'm working on creating an online course that is the equivalent of my face-to-face intro astronomy course. Think of it as an "astronomy for poets" course, as there's very little math, and it's an overview course. Below is the first online lecture for it, or if the embedding doesn't work well for you, here's the direct link.

Science Ads

There is something seriously wrong with science ads these days.

"Boom De Ya Da" (ad for the Discovery Channel)


"epMotion" (ad for Eppendorg automatic pipetting machine)


"'The PCR Song' by Scientists for Better PCR" (ad for Bio-Rad PCR [DNA analysis] machine)

Evolution of a Clock

I believe this is from the same guy who did the white and black evolution demo. In this one, he takes the strawman argument of the "blind watchmaker" and turns it around: the argument is a flawed analogy, as there is no driving force or limiting factors in actual watchmaking the way there is in evolution - random mutations, and natural selection. The author introduces these to factors into a pile of gears and hands, and watches what happens.

As you watch this nearly 10 minute long video, it may help to hover your mouse near the pause button, as some of the text goes by quickly.

The Eye's Evolution

Latest from the National Center for Science Education is a video about the evolution of eye. This video is a very simple explanation of why the irreducible complexity argument for the eye is flawed. The answer: it isn't irreducibly complex!

Is this conscious action?

In the below video (8:28), a visitor at a zoo records an elephant paint a picture, apparently a self-portrait of elephant with flower.



This begs the question to me: is the elephant aware of what she is painting? She definitely is deliberate about her actions, it's not just a case of putting random splotches on a paper that humans then interpret as a picture. But the question is whether she understands that it's a drawing of an elephant, or if to her it's a random pattern of lines that she has learned produces praise from the audience and treats from her keepers. If we saw creativity (that is, variations of the picture), that might lean me towards thinking it's conscious action with understanding, but then again elephants are remarkable creatures and perhaps she is capable of memorizing dozens of patterns that result in rewards.

Paintings are not, in my opinion, reliable Turing tests for animal intelligence.

Mars is Amazing

Why to Take Action

Summary: We can't ever know for sure what the future holds. What we can know is the worst case scenario. If that scenario is bad enough, then we MUST take action to reduce that risk, regardless of what the chances are.



Let's say you're handed a gun with six chambers. You have no clue how many bullets are in the chambers. You are told we have to put the gun to your head and pull the trigger. You have the choice to either (A) do it now, or (B) first pull the trigger once while pointing at the wall, then spin the chamber and point the gun at your head. Which do you do? Of course you should fire at the wall first - if it was an empty chamber you spin it and then point it at yourself, losing nothing; if it was a full chamber you have emptied it, spin it, and then point it at yourself and have gained one additional empty chamber.

What if you were told you could either (A) pull the trigger now, or (B) take 10 lashes, empty one chamber, and then point it at your head? I would still take choice (B). 10 lashes will not kill me. I have no clue how many bullets are in those six chambers, it could be that they're ALL full and my only chance of survival is emptying one of them in exchange for the lashes. It's not worth that risk of my life, so long as the cost (10 lashes) is not enough to kill me either.

That's what this guy is arguing about climate change - even if we had no clue about whether it was happening, the cost of trying to reduce it just in case is so much less than the potential consequences, that we must take that choice.

And there's his various replies here.

What do teachers make?

Australia bans incandescent bulbs

Awesome, Australia has decided to ban "normal" incandescent bulbs, in favor of CFLs (compact fluorescent lights). [BBC, CNN Video]

The motivation is that saving the electricity will save CO_2 production, and therefore slow global warming. That's great, but I have a couple questions still: (1) What about all the mercury going to landfills? and (2) can physical science teachers still obtain incandescents for demos? :-P