The world will be photographed again on July 19. The picture will be a very small picture, reminiscent of this image taken at a distance of about 3.7 billion miles away, from the Voyager in 1990. The pale blue dot at the centre of that image is our planet, which inspired astronomer Carl Sagan to write “Pale Blue Dot“. Sagan narrated on this 90 second video, an animation by Joel Somerfield.
In Saturns Rings, the movie [Video]
In Saturn’s rings, the movie, is composed entirely of millions of still photographs using innovative visual techniques developed by the filmmaker. The photographs themselves were taken and beamed back by cameras on board the Cassini-Huygens Mission that landed on Saturn in 2004, a mission virtually unnoticed by the world. The film-maker is Stephen Van Vuuren, an award winning film-maker, whose love of image-making began at the age of 12 when his father gifted him a 35mm camera.
[Thanks Joe]
Why You Can’t Name New Moons And Planets Anything You Want [Article]
Nothing is above dispute, including naming of supernatural objects, as this article in the NPR describes.
A dispute over the names of two new moons of Pluto is highlighting a broader battle over who names what in our solar system and beyond. On one side is the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a venerable consortium of astronomers who have set the naming rules for the better part of a century. On the other side, a growing number of astronomers who feel the IAU has unfairly designated itself as the intergalactic naming police.
Franz Kafka [Video]
A short film celebrating the author by another master story teller.
The mother of all demos: RIP Doug Engelbart [Video]
A demonstration by Doug Engelbart from 1968. Doug passed away yesterday. If you don’t know who he is, read this.
The European Union Explained [Video]
An awesome video that explains the European Union. *
*mostly
Weird Al Bob – the palindrome song.
damn, I can even sing this song backwards! Wierd Al Bob
Muhammad Ali: I’m so mean I make medicine sick [Video]
Not exactly a speech – but close enough.
Great speeches: Severn Cullis Suzuki at the UN
Great Speeches: Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator [Video]
From the 1940 Charlie Chaplin movie, The Great Dictator
Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel! Who drill you – diet you – treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate – the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
Full text of the speech here