The Babbles of an Arch Shaman

Teaching math through movement: Erik Stern and Karl Schaffer

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:00:44 -0400

Erik Stern and Karl Schaffer decided to take their love of dance and apply it to the classroom. Now, they promote the teaching of otherwise-complicated mathematics concepts to kids using the power of movement, as they demonstrate at TEDxManhattanBeach. (Filmed at TEDxManhattanBeach)

Each week, we choose four of our favorite talks, highlighting just a few of the enlightening speakers from the TEDx community, and its diverse constellation of ideas worth spreading. Browse all TEDxTalks here »

TEDx: Democracy’s data revolution: Simon Jackman

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:59:43 -0400

TEDx: Democracy’s data revolution: Simon Jackman:

tedx:

At TEDxSydney, Stanford researcher Simon Jackman demonstrates some of the ways in which an increased availability of data gives us a more accurate picture of electoral trends, the political zeitgeist, and the serious implications this has on the shape of public conversation. (Filmed at…

saveplanetearth: Half of Germany’s 63,000 Megawatts of...

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:34:00 -0400

saveplanetearth:

Half of Germany’s 63,000 Megawatts of Renewable Energy is Locally Owned @ Institute for Local Self-Reliance via Germany Renewable Energy industry

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Fri, 17 May 2013 06:30:42 -0400

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Fri, 17 May 2013 06:29:12 -0400

"We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want whoever to call or not call, a letter, a..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:24:13 -0400

“We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss- we want more and more and then more of it. But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, say the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless: I am living…”

- Marie Howe (via hellanne)

mouselink: Sometimes people criticize because they like you. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t...

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:19:04 -0400

mouselink:

Sometimes people criticize because they like you. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t spend their energy wanting to make you better.
— Matteo Wyllyamz (@mouselink) May 13, 2013

Today's Scarlet Letter is 'Conspiracy Theorist'

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:18:24 -0400

mouselink:

It’s time for us to decide if we really want a free Internet. Certainly many of us do. Some of us think we do, but we don’t really understand what this entails or what the consequences might be. Then there is a rising tide of increasingly loud voices who do not believe in an unfettered, level playing field for human ideas, who are frightened by the radical extremes of people’s opinions, and who would seek to control thought itself. And some of these folks would like to fundamentally change our online lives as we know them.
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think-progress: EXACTLY.

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:00:04 -0400

think-progress:

EXACTLY.

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Wed, 15 May 2013 11:40:25 -0400

howstuffworks: From How Space Stations Work: On May 14, 1973,...

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:38:49 -0400

howstuffworks:

From How Space Stations Work:

On May 14, 1973, NASA launched its first space station — Skylab 1 — into orbit. During the launch, the station was damaged. A critical meteoroid shield and one of the station’s two main solar panels were ripped off and the other solar panel was not fully stretched out. That meant that Skylab had little electrical power and the internal temperature rose to 126 degrees Fahrenheit (52 degrees Celsius).

The first crew, Skylab2, was launched 10 days later to fix the ailing station. The crew consisted of Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, Paul Weitz and Joseph Kerwin. The Skylab 2 astronauts stretched out the remaining solar panel and set up an umbrella-like sunshade to cool the station. With the station repaired, the astronauts spent 28 days in space conducting scientific and biomedical research.

Modified from the third stage of a Saturn V moon rocket, Skylab had the following parts:

Orbital workshop - living and working quarters for the crew

Airlock module - allowed access to the outside of the station

Multiple docking adapter - allowed more than one Apollo spacecraft to dock to the station at once (However, there were never any overlapping crews in the station.)

Apollo telescope mount - contained telescopes for observing the sun, stars and Earth (Keep in mind that the Hubble Space Telescope had not been built yet.)

Apollo spacecraft - command and service module for transporting the crew to and from the Earth’s surface

Skylab was manned by two additional crews. Skylab 3 consisted of Commander Alan Bean and astronauts Jack Lousma and Owen Garriot. They spent 59 days in space. The final crew, Skylab 4, consisted of Commander Gerald Carr and astronauts William Pogue and Edward Gibson. This crew spent 84 days in orbit, conducted experiments and photographed comet Kohoutek.

Skylab was never meant to be a permanent home in space, but rather a workshop where the United States could test the effects of long-duration space flights (that is, greater than the two weeks required to go to the moon) on the human body. When the flight of the third crew was finished, Skylab was abandoned. Skylab remained aloft until intense solar flare activity caused its orbit to decay sooner than expected. Skylab re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and burned over Australia in 1979.

Learn more about Skylab over at NASA’s mission hub. Image credit: NASA.

discoverynews: Into Reality: Top Star Trek Warp Speed...

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:36:52 -0400

discoverynews:

Into Reality: Top Star Trek Warp Speed Concepts

J.J. Abrams’ second Star Trek outing “Into Darkness” will hit movie screens this week, no doubt packed with excitement, explosions, mind-melding Vulcans and phasers set to stun. But there will also be the USS Enterprise traveling faster than the speed of light, carving up the vast expanses of interstellar space as if it was a short jaunt to the shops.

Over the years, warping spacetime has become more than a sci-fi notion, however. Star Trek may have popularized the mode of space transportation with Captain Kirk at the helm in the 1960s original series, but today, there are some serious efforts underway to establish whether spacetime can be warped in a useful way. Could warpships really be the future of zippy space travel? Or should the very notion of warp speed be resigned to the darkness of interstellar space? Read more

New principle may help explain why nature is quantum Like small...

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:32:05 -0400

New principle may help explain why nature is quantum

Like small children, scientists are always asking the question ‘why?’. One question they’ve yet to answer is why nature picked quantum physics, in all its weird glory, as a sensible way to behave. Researchers Corsin Pfister and Stephanie Wehner at the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore tackle this perennial question in a paper published today in Nature Communications.

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sagansense: The Awakening - The Venus Project The...

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:43:54 -0400

sagansense:

The Awakening - The Venus Project

The major difference between RBE and a monetary system is that a RBE is really concerned with people and their well being, while monetary system has become so distorted that the concerns of people are really secondary, if they are there at all. Products are turned out for how much money you can get. If there is a problem in society and we can’t earn money from solving that problem, it won’t be done. RBE is really not closed to anything it’s been tried and with all technology today we can create abundance that can be used to improve everybody’s lifestyle and abundance all over the world, if we use our technologies wisely and maintain the environment.

Many people today attempt to point out shortcomings and abuses of our social system. We are offering positive approaches what you are about to see. It is just such an alternative vision of what the future could be. We use a method of science and with human concern it protects the enviroment and provides people with all of the necessity that clean technology can provide. In order to accomplish this the Earth and its resources must be declared the common heritage of all people and all the artificial boundaries that separate people must give way to RBE where all goods and services are made available without money, border or any means of exchange.

With all techonolgies today we can create abundance. It can be used to improve everyone’s lifestyle and abundance all over the world, if we use our technologies wisely and maintain the environment.

Abundance all over the world, if we use our technologies wisely and maintain the environment.

The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture. There are many people today who are concerned with the serious problems that face our modern society: unemployment, violent crime, replacement of humans by technology, over-population and a decline in the Earth’s ecosystems.

As you will see, The Venus Project is dedicated to confronting all of these problems by actively engaging in the research, development, and application of workable solutions. Through the use of innovative approaches to social awareness, educational incentives, and the consistent application of the best that science and technology can offer directly to the social system, The Venus Project offers a comprehensive plan for social reclamation in which human beings, technology, and nature will be able to coexist in a long-term, sustainable state of dynamic equilibrium.

http://www.thevenusproject.com
http://www.thevenusprojectdesign.org

"A new consciousness is developing which sees the Earth as a single organism and recognizes that an..."

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:43:14 -0400

““A new consciousness is developing which sees the Earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet. One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the Earth finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time””

- Carl Sagan (via inspirement)

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe"

Sun, 12 May 2013 09:01:46 -0400

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe”

- John Muir (via thekhooll)

"Do or do not; there is no try."

Sun, 12 May 2013 03:31:49 -0400

“Do or do not; there is no try.”

- Jedi Master Yoda (via kanavarora)

sci-fact: “ I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not...

Sat, 11 May 2013 23:45:10 -0400

sci-fact:

“ I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and then many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little, but if I can’t figure it out, then I go on to something else. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. ”
_{~ Richard Feynman; (Born 95 years ago today, May 11, 1918)}

"In Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound”. It’s a twinge in your heart, far..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 23:34:05 -0400

““In Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound”. It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards and forwards, it takes us to a place where we ache to go again.””

- Don Draper, “The Wheel” (via stxxz)

"We spend the first year of a child’s life teaching it to walk and talk and the rest of its life to..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 23:33:27 -0400

““We spend the first year of a child’s life teaching it to walk and talk and the rest of its life to shut up and sit down. There’s something wrong there.””

- Neil deGrasse Tyson (via stxxz)