Here and There

From Wired.com.

Exactly what Google’s founders did, announced today.

* How are SPF levels determined? From listening to the Slate Explainer podcast, which I do from time to time: So what they do is get a little study group together, made up entirely of people who burn easily. There’s a scale for skin type, a spectrum ranging from blondes and redheads all the way to dark brown skin. The ones they use for the tests are on the light end, naturally. They simulate UV rays on a small patch of subjects’ skin, and see how long it takes to burn. Then they repeat the experiment with the product being tested and record the time it takes to burn. After a simple bit of math, they derive the SPF.

* The origin of the word “galaxy.” From a photo caption in the latest New Yorker. It comes from the Greek word for “milk,” or “galakt,” according to wikipedia.

* Not learned as much as reminded: “Your Love” (”I Don’t Want to Lose Your Love Tonight”) was written and performed by a band called The Outfield (who, amazingly, are still together). Heard the song at a bar the night before, and couldn’t for the life of me remember who it was.

I’m sure it’s the kind of thing that was determined, say, in ancient Greece …

But as I was attempting to get back to sleep around 5 a.m., I wondered for the first time really, Just how fast is the earth moving in its annual trips around the sun?

I set myself to the task of determining this on my own. Here’s my estimate:

Based upon three sources (1, 2, 3), I came up with an average for the length of the earth’s orbit of 580,705,545 miles. I then calculated the amount of hours per year (a simple 365 x 24 will do for an estimate, thank you), and got 8,760 hours. I divided the length by the number of hours and got 66,290.587 mph. I decided to take it a couple steps deeper: next was speed per minute (1,104.431 miles) followed by miles per second (18.414052 miles).

So there you have it. Since I started writing this post, the planet we’re all on has hurled about 5,522 miles through space. Thank you, sun, for keeping us in your orbit.

The other day, I began a work-in-progress (what, I ask, is not a work-in-progress?), compiling a list of things I like about the country I live in. I got up to 25.

Today, I’m adding to it, beginning with number 26. (Remember, there is no reason for the order of my list. It only denotes the chronology at which things come to me).

1. Google
2. Apple
3. Al Gore
4. Bill Clinton
5. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
6. The Bill of Rights
7. California wine
8. MIT
9. Spike Jonze
10. Charlie Kaufman
11. The New York Times
12. New York City
13. The Flaming Lips
14. The New Yorker
15. Benjamin Franklin
16. Thomas Jefferson
17. Thomas Paine
18. Teddy Roosevelt
19. Woodward and Bernstein (back then, anyway)
20. Wikipedia
21. Star Wars (the original trilogy)
22. Willie Nelson
23. Paul Krugman
24. Thomas Friedman
25. Frank Rich
26. Hendrik Hertzberg < <<
27. Keith Olbermann
28. The Atlantic
29. James Watson
30. The Grand Canyon
31. The Daily Show (who, much to my amusement, recently made its clips available through a proprietary player)
32. Texas barbeque
33. The Internet
34. The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways
35. Seinfeld
36. NPR
37. Frontline
38. Nova
39. PBS in general
40. The Discovery Channel

No, not the kind taken by me. Unfortunately.

The NASA rovers are going crazy over at Earth’s outbound neighbor, and they’re sending back more of those grainy, sometimes color-separated, always-pasted-together photos of the planet’s lifeless, dry landscape.

Of course, this kind of event brings out the super-geek in me. I just think it’s astounding, given the day-to-day failings I see in people all around me (myself included), that humans could acquire the technology to propel something millions of miles to another planet, landing that thing on that planet, through its less-than-friendly atmosphere, and then having that thing move around on the hostile surface. The fact that we can see what the land-crawlers see is nearly beyond belief.

…Somewhat unrelated, and owed simply to the fact that I was looking up info on this point, I just learned that our entire solar system, dwarf planets, kuiper belts, asteroids and all, revolves around the center of the Milky Way.

It’s all the more reason to see the sound argument of the macrocosm and microcosm.

I neither shed any tears nor lost any sleep last night over Pluto’s “demotion” (scroll to bottom of page) to dwarf planet. I don’t even see it as insulting, but rather a refreshing further push to get to the heart of what the hell Pluto is.

Kottke.org has some funny mnemonics on our “new” solar system. MVEMJSUN…I’ve always liked that “SUN” at the outer reaches, and now it’s no longer bound by an intrusive “P.” The sun wins again.

For my thoughts on the reclassification of Pluto, see this post from a few days ago. Nothing new to add.

So, it looks like Pluto will be “demoted” to something called a dwarf planet in the coming days. There’s been a sizeable buzz around the International Astronomical Union’s meeting in Prague about the union’s devising a definition for “planet.” Amazing that we didn’t have one until now.

I’d just like to say, pretty much, “who cares?” Don’t get me wrong, I cherish my own armchair astronomy as much as the next nerd. But does getting closer to the truer nature of the planet by way of coming up with a more apt definition for all planets really change the planet itself? Better that we know more about Pluto (as well the other “trans-Neptunian objects), right? Isn’t that what science is all about?

I guess I’m barking up the wrong tree, though. Status is what’s important, and Pluto is getting served.