La meilleure boule à facette

So I didn't blog about anything yesterday because I spent the morning actually working and the afternoon on a field trip, more or less. About 10 of us drove out, in two separate cars (which is another story, namely that I'm lucky to be alive) to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

We went there to see "Science on a Sphere," which is a spherical (duh) screen that uses four projectors, a computer, and a Wiimote to show presentations. Basically, you can make this sphere look like Jupiter, Mars, the Moon, and so on, and you can show/track changes on earth like the melting and freezing of ice caps. Purchasing one will set you back about $250,000, apparently.

The videos were cool, in that "these planets remind me how small I am" way. I had to remember a lot of things I learned in grade school/high school (planetary order, Jupiter's moons, etc). The very mature deduction that we basically all came to, independently, is that this thing would make the world's best disco ball.

Random roundup

* The winner on Jeopardy! (regular Jeopardy!, not a dumbed-down, younger version) last night was college senior Kristina Caffrey. She beat a nondescript middle-aged man and a smiley, Bible-knowledgeable woman...

* My brother got a job with the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows. I'm going to assume they're a lot better than Teach for America (jerks).

* He's kind of a big deal.

* The NYT reports that I shouldn't expect eternal fidelity from a guy (without or without his eyesight) or a shrike. Thanks, Spitzer. I did like this excerpt about dung beetles from the Times article:

In one experiment with postmatrimonial scarabs, the female beetle was kept tethered in the vicinity of her mate, who quickly seized the opportunity to pheromonally broadcast for fresh faces. Upon being released from bondage, the female dashed over and knocked the male flat on his back. 'She’d roll him right into the ball of dung,' Dr. Barash said, 'which seemed altogether appropriate.'