Monday, October 16, 2006
Anyone getting married?
Interesting stuff from last week in the life of the Invisible Ben as passed through the lens of a wedding-related cliche. Do not question the structure of this discussion. Just accept it for the literary conceit it is and move on.
Something Old
Well, it's not quite Halloween yet, but there was probably no better way to get into the spirit of the season then by watching scary movies. And while some of my friends might hold massive marathons of franchise films featuring cutting edge of the seat kills and gallons of synthetic blood, I was lucky enough to catch a screening on Friday of one of the first horror movies ever made: The Phantom of the Opera. Not the whiny Andrew Lloyd Weber version. And none of your pesky "dialogue" either. This is the classic 1925 version with Lon Chaney as the Phantom. Now, I own the flick on DVD and have screened it before, but this was a special treat because the screening was in the Old Ivy University Chapel with live organ accompaniment! And let me tell you, when the opening chords of that Tocatta and Fugue, it confirmed once and for all that this was the way the film was meant to be seen, with the sound of the accompaniment sweeping over you in a way that film music today just can not accomplish. All in all a great viewing experience, except for the hard wooden pews. I would still definitely appreciate the chance to recreate the experience, perhaps with a comedy, but I have a feeling that there is a shortage in skilled silent movie accompanists in today's economy. Maybe we could outsource?
Something New
So in case people were wondering how the Invisible Ben has been wasting his minimal free time of late, allow me to introduce you to my new favorite toy. Audience...this is Celestia. Celestia, say hello to the nice people.
Celestia is an open source planetarium program, with a twist. It's 3-D allowing you to fly around the solar system. And if strafing planets proves confining, you can always take off for other star systems. Quick trip to Alpha Centauri sound interesting? How about Aldebaran? How about Babylon 5?
Scifi fans fear not...that last one was not a typo. In addition to space probe models, improved planet texture mapping, and new planetary data, you can also add fictional elements like space elevators and non-existent planets.
I haven't played with it that much, but so far it's been a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to tinkering. My only regret is that I didn't have it to play with last year when I was teaching astronomy.
Join the fun by visiting the Celestia homepage here.
Something Borrowed
So as you may have guessed, graduate student life in the liberal arts consists of a lot of reading. A LOT of reading. Today I read a book on atomic theory during the early 19th century. Tomorrow, I plan to read an article or two on property rights and then another book on the development of thermodynamics. The trick isn't reading this stuff...it's keeping track of everything. There's a lot of information in these things and contrary to what undergraduate life may have taught, professors in graduate school will not put up with any crap during discussions. You want to make a sweeping generalization? Fine...but be sure to defend it with details or you will lose respect.
And possibly your graduate stipend.
I realized last week that this is only going to get worse, especially as I start cramming for general exams, so I need a system to keep track of all this new information that I'm supposed to be assimilating. So what does a good historian do? He looks to the past and adapts a tried and true method. In this case, my old legal implications of technology class saved the day and I decided to follow the suggestion of my T.A.'s from junior year.
That's right you legal eagles...I'm briefing my grad school reading. It takes a little bit of extra time (maybe an additional hour per book), but when I finish, 500 pages of reading are distilled onto 1 page for easy access. Some squinting required, but the font generally settles around 8 point, so it's not even that bad. Now I don't panic when professors ask me the structure of a book or its main argument or what have you...I just flip to the brief in my binder.
Yes, it's nerdy...but it works. And people say lawyers never helped them out...
Something Blue
This blue dot is something that until last Wednesday I had never seen directly with my own eyes. I have been interested in astronomy for the past 18 years or so. I have stayed up obscenely late to watch meteor showers and earned a detention for watching a solar eclipse. I used to give star tours to counselors at summer camp. And yet, despite nearly two decades of astronomical enjoyment and access, during the majority of that time, to an ideal viewing environment with minimal light pollution, it took a trip to the Old Ivy astrophysics' department public telescope viewing for me to finally check out the dot above.
For those of you wondering, it's Uranus. (You may snicker now...) And the view I got of it wasn't nearly so sharp. The observatory had a 12 inch reflector which is plenty good for observing under optimal conditions. However, the observatory is right by the football stadium, and we had to put up with a great deal of light pollution. (Yay...sodium vapor lamps!) Still, the planetary disk was quite visible, and quite blue. The upshot of which is that now I can finally say I saw all of the planets capable of being viewed with the naked eye.
Later on, I'll have to write an entry about the book I found on the library shelves that was published when Uranus was still being referred to as the furthest planet from the sun. But that would not fit into this writing frame and thus will be postponed until later.
Interesting stuff from last week in the life of the Invisible Ben as passed through the lens of a wedding-related cliche. Do not question the structure of this discussion. Just accept it for the literary conceit it is and move on.
Something Old
Well, it's not quite Halloween yet, but there was probably no better way to get into the spirit of the season then by watching scary movies. And while some of my friends might hold massive marathons of franchise films featuring cutting edge of the seat kills and gallons of synthetic blood, I was lucky enough to catch a screening on Friday of one of the first horror movies ever made: The Phantom of the Opera. Not the whiny Andrew Lloyd Weber version. And none of your pesky "dialogue" either. This is the classic 1925 version with Lon Chaney as the Phantom. Now, I own the flick on DVD and have screened it before, but this was a special treat because the screening was in the Old Ivy University Chapel with live organ accompaniment! And let me tell you, when the opening chords of that Tocatta and Fugue, it confirmed once and for all that this was the way the film was meant to be seen, with the sound of the accompaniment sweeping over you in a way that film music today just can not accomplish. All in all a great viewing experience, except for the hard wooden pews. I would still definitely appreciate the chance to recreate the experience, perhaps with a comedy, but I have a feeling that there is a shortage in skilled silent movie accompanists in today's economy. Maybe we could outsource?
Something New
So in case people were wondering how the Invisible Ben has been wasting his minimal free time of late, allow me to introduce you to my new favorite toy. Audience...this is Celestia. Celestia, say hello to the nice people.
Celestia is an open source planetarium program, with a twist. It's 3-D allowing you to fly around the solar system. And if strafing planets proves confining, you can always take off for other star systems. Quick trip to Alpha Centauri sound interesting? How about Aldebaran? How about Babylon 5?
Scifi fans fear not...that last one was not a typo. In addition to space probe models, improved planet texture mapping, and new planetary data, you can also add fictional elements like space elevators and non-existent planets.
I haven't played with it that much, but so far it's been a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to tinkering. My only regret is that I didn't have it to play with last year when I was teaching astronomy.
Join the fun by visiting the Celestia homepage here.
Something Borrowed
So as you may have guessed, graduate student life in the liberal arts consists of a lot of reading. A LOT of reading. Today I read a book on atomic theory during the early 19th century. Tomorrow, I plan to read an article or two on property rights and then another book on the development of thermodynamics. The trick isn't reading this stuff...it's keeping track of everything. There's a lot of information in these things and contrary to what undergraduate life may have taught, professors in graduate school will not put up with any crap during discussions. You want to make a sweeping generalization? Fine...but be sure to defend it with details or you will lose respect.
And possibly your graduate stipend.
I realized last week that this is only going to get worse, especially as I start cramming for general exams, so I need a system to keep track of all this new information that I'm supposed to be assimilating. So what does a good historian do? He looks to the past and adapts a tried and true method. In this case, my old legal implications of technology class saved the day and I decided to follow the suggestion of my T.A.'s from junior year.
That's right you legal eagles...I'm briefing my grad school reading. It takes a little bit of extra time (maybe an additional hour per book), but when I finish, 500 pages of reading are distilled onto 1 page for easy access. Some squinting required, but the font generally settles around 8 point, so it's not even that bad. Now I don't panic when professors ask me the structure of a book or its main argument or what have you...I just flip to the brief in my binder.
Yes, it's nerdy...but it works. And people say lawyers never helped them out...
Something Blue
This blue dot is something that until last Wednesday I had never seen directly with my own eyes. I have been interested in astronomy for the past 18 years or so. I have stayed up obscenely late to watch meteor showers and earned a detention for watching a solar eclipse. I used to give star tours to counselors at summer camp. And yet, despite nearly two decades of astronomical enjoyment and access, during the majority of that time, to an ideal viewing environment with minimal light pollution, it took a trip to the Old Ivy astrophysics' department public telescope viewing for me to finally check out the dot above.
For those of you wondering, it's Uranus. (You may snicker now...) And the view I got of it wasn't nearly so sharp. The observatory had a 12 inch reflector which is plenty good for observing under optimal conditions. However, the observatory is right by the football stadium, and we had to put up with a great deal of light pollution. (Yay...sodium vapor lamps!) Still, the planetary disk was quite visible, and quite blue. The upshot of which is that now I can finally say I saw all of the planets capable of being viewed with the naked eye.
Later on, I'll have to write an entry about the book I found on the library shelves that was published when Uranus was still being referred to as the furthest planet from the sun. But that would not fit into this writing frame and thus will be postponed until later.
