There was a screech owl in a brooding posture on the floor of my box a few hours ago. A male would be unlikely to adopt that posture, in my experience, so I assume the owl was a female whose mate must have recently claimed the nest box, and talked her into trying it on for size. (I heard a male in my back yard calling quite persistently one night last week.) She's gone now, but this is an
It can hardly be a coincindence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "as beautiful as an airport."Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk
The following is the slightly corrected text of a comment I submitted to whichever part of the government was studying network neutrality, and requesting comments from the public, back in mid-January. I submitted this comment as a private citizen, but, of historical necessity, it references my employer. Let me be perfectly clear about this: I in no way speak for, or represent, my employer.
He phoned the BBC and asked to be put through to his department head.“Oh, hello, Arthur Dent here. Look, sorry I haven’t been in [the office] for six months but I’ve gone mad.”“Oh, not to worry. Thought it was probably something like that. Happens here all the time. How soon can we expect you?”“When do hedgehogs start hibernating?”“Sometime in Spring, I think.”“I’ll be in shortly after that.”— So
Our Moon, Third Quarter, February 5, 2010.©2010 Chris W. Johnson
While I’ve had my back turned in recent weeks, the Obama administration announced the scrapping of NASA’s Constellation program to return astronauts to the moon, explore asteroids, service distant space telescopes, and lay the groundwork for human exploration of Mars. I’ve since read several articles about this, and still have no
NASA is offering the book X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight by Dennis R. Jenkins as one of their small library of free e-books for most popular viewers. (Thanks to NASA Watch for pointing it out.) Personally, while e-books may indeed be the future (at least until civilization next stumbles, and they – trapped in their unusable viewers – all become inaccessible for a few centuries, if not
NPR’s All Things Considered ran their story on my friend David Bamberger yesterday. They've provided a nice page to go along with it containing what I presume is the text of the story, photos, and a link to the audio. I haven't had a chance to listen, yet (I’m operating on a weird schedule), but I encourage anyone so much as curious to have a look/listen.
It's a shame that it can be considered “