Photo Du Jour

Christmas Cooter

Playing with the an old Canon "nifty fifty" (Model 1) that I bought at a local consignment place for $24. Shooting wide open at f/1.8, it has a very shallow depth of field, resulting in a lovely bokeh from the Christmas lights in the background.

In case you haven't figured it out, Cooter is the cat's name.

Chicken Soup for Thinkers

Here's a link to bookmark and enjoy: a list of 51 nominated blog postings for Scientific American's Open Lab Anthology for 2011.

Some of the authors are familiar to me:

• Maggie Koerth-Baker of Boing-Boing
• Carl Zimmer of The Loom
• PZ Myers of Pharyngula
• Jennifer Ouellette of Cocktail Party Physics

Resolution: read (or attempt) all of these posts.

Earth's All-Night Diner

A headline in a recent New Scientist article caught my eye: Let's build a beacon to tell aliens who we were.

It made me think of this Gahan Wilson cartoon from my youth (a long time ago):


Google images comes through again for me.