Starship Asterisk*

Beyond wrote:
Just how many times do they get to watch the 'end' of the world??

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-end-of-the-world-upside-and-downside/2011/04/29/AFl36HUF_story.html wrote:
The end of the world: Upside and downside
By John Kelly, Published: May 1

<<I ignored the first e-mail I received informing me that the world will end on May 21, 2011. Just more spam, I thought. I ignored the second one, too. And the third. But by the fourth, I was having my doubts.

I mean, even a blind pig finds a truffle every now and then. Maybe an Internet crackpot stumbles across the truth.

You have to admit, the math is pretty bulletproof: “Years ago we learned from the Bible that the flood occurred in the year 4990 B.C.,” read the Web site the e-mails directed me to. Factor in the day Christ was crucified (April 1, 33 A.D., apparently), do some more multiplication, mix in some spiritually important prime numbers, and all signs point to a massive earthquake destroying the planet on May 21.

It’s a Saturday.

Actually, the world doesn’t end completely that day. That just marks the beginning of the end. May 21 kicks off five months of torment, with the lights finally going out for good on Oct. 21. The e-mails I received said: “I just wonder why your office have [sic] not taken any action to investigate on this matter when the whole world already know [sic] about this.”

Why haven’t we taken action? Well, first of all, I don’t think the whole world already knows about this. I haven’t seen a run on milk and toilet paper at the Giant, for example. And it’s probably better to keep this hushed up. Can you imagine the panic that would ensue if The Washington Post plastered this headline across the front page: “World to end on May 21; Day of ‘Rapture’ will begin ‘5 months of torment’; Pepco warns of outages; Snyder vows to continue City Paper lawsuit”?

No, better for us to slip the news into my column in the B section so people can calmly and quietly get their affairs in order.

I’m not saying this will be easy. A colleague of mine here at The Post (I think we all got the e-mails, from a California-based sect) mentioned that he has Red Sox tickets for May 21. He wondered if maybe the world could end on the 22nd instead.

Apparently not. If only the crucifixion had been on March 30. . . .

I feel sorry for the Red Sox’ pitcher. Imagine if he has a perfect game going into the ninth inning, only for it to be ruined by geysers of molten lava erupting from the field. I mean, how do you even score that?

But there are some upsides to the world coming to an end on May 21, 2011. No more car payments. No more “Jersey Shore.” The pollen has really been getting to me this spring, and the end of the world as we know it will probably put my suffering into perspective.

In fact, May 21 is going to be a serious reality check in a lot of ways. People always say, “Live every day as if it’s your last.” Now we’ll have a chance to really do that.

Not that I ever thought that was good advice. I mean, I probably wouldn’t spend my last day on Earth mowing my lawn, but if I did that every day — that is, not mow my lawn — it would soon be a terrible mess. On the other hand, I might choose to spend my last day on Earth rolled up in a ball, rocking gently while weeping and cursing my fate. The last time I did that, it just annoyed the people I sit next to at work, who got tired of having to step over me.

Here’s the main benefit to the world ending on 5/21/2011: We’ll finally get some answers. I was pondering some big questions the other day, all the apocalyptic e-mails having put me in a reflective mood. Where did God come from? What was there before the Big Bang? What’s outside the universe? How come these pants don’t fit me anymore?

Perhaps the universe is like the desktop on your computer. Now we’ll get to see what’s behind the desktop. Is it pure, white light, the cleansing rays of a benevolent spirit? Or is it another desktop, but with all the icons arranged differently?

Well, that’s all I have to say on this matter. I guess we just sit and wait now. I’ll probably mow the lawn anyway. Just in case.>>

Beyond wrote:Geckzilla, inquirey-->Just how many times do they get to watch the 'end' of the world?? I feel I'm missing something here.

geckzilla wrote:

Beyond wrote:Geckzilla, inquirey-->Just how many times do they get to watch the 'end' of the world?? I feel I'm missing something here.

I don't know. Look at the picture. That's all I know. There's an owl there sitting in a nice flowering tree watching the fiery doom around it. That's what they do, of course.

Beyond wrote:Owlice playing with one of her cats

Beyond wrote:http://www.flixxy.com/cat-and-owl-are-friends.htm

geckzilla wrote:I like this one. Man, I didn't realize there's enough owls in art to take over this thread until I started posting them.

Click to view full size image

There's an Owl on My Bike!

Definitely the best excuse I've ever had for being late to work.

BIKE OWL UPDATE: at the advice of some owl / bird rescue folks, we left him alone, and sure enough as soon as it started getting dark out he called (screeched, really) for his momma owl to come take care of him. For a while we actually had TWO owls on my bike! She kept him well fed, and this morning I spotted him hopping away towards a tree, so I think all's well in his world.

There's an Owl on My Bike! by Adam Norwood, on Flickr

Ah, Caturday. When else would I post a picture of two adorable owlets?

© All rights reserved by [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/24229547@N03/]Chris Setter[/url] [[url=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3165/5766357407_57381af035_o.jpg]Click to strigiformenate.[/url]]

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These are two Great Horned Owlets, babies from a mated pair that come back every late winter to the same nest in Boulder not far from my house. There’s a bike path there, and so I see them frequently. My brother-in-law Chris took this shot a few weeks ago; since then they have flown off to do whatever it is owls do (but he has another way-too-cute pic of them snoozing on that branch, too).

However yesterday the weather was nice so I took a ride along a different set of trails. I spotted a group of four people peering into the trees off the trail, and had a hunch what they were seeing. I stopped and asked, and they pointed out to me an owlet nestled between two branches about ten meters away. They told me one parent owl had just left, and they had seen another owlet earlier. I had always figured owls all nested around the same time, but clearly that’s not the case; the owlets pictured above are at least a month older then the one I saw yesterday.

I love Boulder. Not just because I get to see owls, which is actually pretty cool. But also because people will go out of their way to get a peek at them, and welcome others to join in and watch as well. I know that’s not unique to this town, but it is definitely a part of this town.

That, and the owls.

owlice wrote:
I love wrens, and that one is certainly adorable!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Wren wrote:

The ever adorable Sir Christopher Wren (1711)

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[color=#0000FF]Wren's detailed and accurate (1664) figures were among the very first modern images of brain anatomy. They included a numbering system for the cranial nerves which remained in use for more than 100 years, and shows the Circle of Willis, the ring of arteries at the base of the brain which supplies the organ with blood. It also precisely demarcates the hippocampus and surrounding structures for the first time.[/color]

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<<Sir Christopher Wren (20 October 1632 – 25 February 1723) is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history. He was responsible for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710.

Educated in Latin and Aristotelian physics at the University of Oxford, Wren was a notable astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist, as well as an architect. He was a founder of the Royal Society (president 1680–82), and his scientific work was highly regarded by Sir Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal. The main sources for Wren's scientific achievements are the records of the Royal Society. His scientific works ranged from astronomy, optics, the problem of finding longitude at sea, cosmology, mechanics, microscopy, surveying, medicine and meteorology. In 1661, Wren was elected Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford.

One of Wren's friends, another great scientist and architect in his time, Robert Hooke said of him "Since the time of Archimedes there scarce ever met in one man in so great perfection such a mechanical hand and so philosophical mind."

When a fellow of All Souls, Wren constructed a transparent beehive for scientific observation; he began observing the moon, which was to lead to the invention of micrometers for the telescope. He experimented on terrestrial magnetism and had taken part in medical experiments while at Wadham College, performing the first successful injection of a substance into the bloodstream (of a dog).

In Gresham College, he did experiments involving determining longitude through magnetic variation and through lunar observation to help with navigation, and helped construct a 35-foot telescope with Sir Paul Neile. Wren also studied and improved the microscope and telescope at this time. He had also been making observations of the planet Saturn from around 1652 with the aim of explaining its appearance. His hypothesis was written up in De corpore saturni but before the work was published, Huygens presented his theory of the rings of Saturn. Immediately Wren recognized this as a better hypothesis than his own and De corpore saturni was never published. In addition, he constructed an exquisitely detailed lunar model and presented it to the king. Also his contribution to mathematics should be noted; in 1658, he found the length of an arc of the cycloid using an exhaustion proof based on dissections to reduce the problem to summing segments of chords of a circle which are in geometric progression.

A year into Wren's appointment as a Savilian Professor in Oxford, the Royal Society was created and Wren became an active member. As a Savilian Professor, Wren studied thoroughly in mechanics, especially in elastic collisions and pendulum motions, which he studied extensively. He also directed his far-ranging intelligence to the study of meteorology: he invented the tipping bucket rain gauge in 1662 and, in 1663, designed a "weather-clock" that would record temperature, humidity, rainfall and barometric pressure. A working weather clock based on Wren's design was fabricated by Robert Hooke, and completed in 1679.

Another topic to which Wren contributed was optics. He published a description of an engine to create perspective drawings and he discussed the grinding of conical lenses and mirrors. Out of this work came another of Wren's important mathematical results, namely that the hyperboloid of revolution is a ruled surface. These results were published in 1669.

It was a problem posed by Wren that serves as an ultimate source to the conception of Newton's Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis. Robert Hooke had theorized that planets, moving in vacuo, describe orbits around the Sun because of a rectilinear inertial motion by the tangent and an accelerated motion towards the Sun. Wren's challenge to Halley and Hooke, was, for the reward of 30-shilling-worth book, to provide, within the context of Hooke’s hypothesis, a mathematical theory linking the Kepler's laws with a specific force law. Halley took the problem to Newton for advice, prompting the latter to write a 9-page answer, De Motu, which was later to be expanded into the Principia.>>

Beyond wrote:
But Art, he's got no feathers And besides that, he's l-o-n-g g-o-n-e.
The Wren picture i posted, i took this morning. Fresh feathers!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglodytes_%28wren%29 wrote:
<<Troglodytes [Greek τρωγλοδύτες "cave-dwellers" (compare troglodyte), from trogle (τρώγλη) "hole" + dyein (δυειν) "to enter"] is a genus of small passerine birds in the wren family. Most wrens are small and rather inconspicuous, except for their loud and often complex songs [e.g., Jabberwrens]. Wrens often hold their tails upright. As far as known, wrens are primarily insectivorous, eating insects, spiders and other small arthropods, but many species also eat vegetable matter and some will take small frogs/lizards.>>

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1047417/Lifes-hoot-Shrek-baby-long-eared-owl-adopted-greyhound-called-Torque.html wrote:
Life's a hoot for Shrek the baby long-eared owl adopted by a greyhound called 'Torque'
Last updated at 4:46 PM on 20th August 2008

<<In the childhood fairytale it was the owl and the pussycat who were the very best of friends. But in real life it is this greyhound and owl who have formed a rather bizarre friendship at an animal centre. The six-month-old dog, Torque, adopted tiny baby owl Shrek when she was taken from her mother for her own protection after just three days. Keepers feared Shrek's mother would eat her first clutch if she became stressed. Adoptive dad Torque is now guarding the rare bird at the home of head falconer John Picton.

Sofa, so good: Shrek and Torque get comfy

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They spend their evenings together watching Eastenders and Coronation Street. Shrek is free to roam the lounge as she strengthens her legs and often snuggles up to Torque on the sofa. Outdoors at the Ringwood Raptor and Reptile Centre in Hampshire's New Forest, they often sit together, with the greyhound guarding his feathered friend.

Their friendship started slowly as John introduced the unlikely pair gradually - first by feeding three-inch-high Shrek her meals of marsh rats and quail in the same room, and then holding them close so Torque could smell her.

Tamed Shrek will be used as a display owl at fetes and open days and John believes her interaction with dogs and humans from an early age is ideal training. He said: 'Their relationship is so unusual but also rather sweet. 'Torque seems to have adopted Shrek as his daughter and is now very protective. He follows her around at home and keeps his eye on her.

'They play with each other in the evenings while I'm watching television and it is an opportunity for Shrek to wander and strengthen her legs. 'I was a little wary of introducing them to start with but I now trust Torque 100 per cent. Because he is only a puppy he didn't feel so threatened by a new animal joining his pack. 'Shrek is doing well and becoming used to human and animal contact. I'm sure that will be beneficial when she is taken to shows because nothing will phase her.'

The unnamed mother laid four eggs, of which two hatched. Shrek was the first owlet to hatch and was taken away because it was thought she had the highest chance of survival. The second chick is still with his mother and his chances of survival are growing each day.>>