Shooting begins this June, and right now Philip Seymour Hoffman is locked to play the new religious leader and Joaquin Phoenix is also locked to play in the film as well.
Best news of the day.
NASA Announces Results of Epic Space-Time Experiment
Einstein was right, it turns out. Spacetime is curved. The results of the long-running Gravity Probe B experiment have been released today, and Einstein’s theory of gravity falls in line precisely with its measurements.
Measuring this effect was likened to measuring the “thickness of a sheet of paper held edge-on 100 miles away.” It required gyroscopes made of the most perfect spheres mankind has ever constructed, only differing by 40 atomic layers on their surface. Combine that with a satellite that was designed to avoid drag with Earth’s outer atmosphere and five years of data analysis … and there you have it. The implications for astrophysics are huge … and very complicated, as reading this article has shown me 🙂
Laika and Bessie, a great combination.
25 Abandoned Soviet Monuments that look like they’re from the Future
Amazing.
Obligatory: I want to go to there.
From Sebastian’s paean:
You had this idea that young men in combat act in ways that emulate images they’ve seen—movies, photographs—of other men in other wars, other battles. You had this idea of a feedback loop between the world of images and the world of men that continually reinforced and altered itself as one war inevitably replaced another in the long tragic grind of human affairs.
That was a fine idea, Tim—one of your very best. It was an idea that our world very much needs to understand. I don’t know if it was worth dying for—what is?—but it was certainly an idea worth devoting one’s life to. Which is what you did. What a vision you had, my friend. What a goddamned terrible, beautiful vision of things.
Awesome. I need to see if I have the funds available, but my friends birthday is coming up in May and I’d love to get this for him. We’re both huge Sagan fans.
Hell yes! HELLLLL YESSSSSS.
wnyc:
The Most Aggressive Defense Of Teachers You’ll Hear This Year
The guy who asked teacher Taylor Mali, “What do you make?” at a dinner party certainly never thought he’d get this answer.
Amazing. Take three minutes out of your day to watch this. It’s so powerful and spot-on. Go Teachers!
Watch this. Now.
wooooooooooooooo!!!!! -A.P.
Saw this back in the day on Def Poetry, and it’s even more relevant now then it was then.
Volvo reported yesterday that it has only a ten-day supply of Japanese-built navigation and climate control systems left and is girding for a possible production halt. Last week General Motors announced it was closing its 923 employee Shreveport, La. plant where it assembles Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon models because of a lack of Japanese made parts. In Marion, Arkansas, the Hino Motors Manufacturing Plant that makes rear axles for Toyota Tundra pickup trucks and other Toyota models struggled to stay open in the face of a rapidly declining supply of gears and other parts that are imported from Japan.
The situation is similar in a variety of other industries. Much of the equipment used to make semiconductors »
Jule and I driving around Washington state.
Astronomers observing the center of the Milky Way from the European Southern Observatory in Chile fire a laser into the heavens. The Laser Guide Star (LGS) is used as a reference to correct the blurring effect of the atmosphere on images. (More information here)