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The Kisslympics

Aug 19, 2008 by Jared Smith

For the first time since 1984, I’m kinda digging the Olympics. Besides gymnastics judges that are idiots, tie-breaker rules that make no sense, and 12-year-old Chinese gymnasts, it’s been mostly enjoyable. But there something I’ve seen that makes me a bit uncomfortable.

What’s with all the kissing at the gymnastics events?

I know it’s a European custom, but seriously, do they really have to kiss EVERY single person on the sidelines after EVERY single event? If I were a gymnast, I don’t think I could kiss a Russian coach without tossing my cookies. Yuck! Can you imagine this being a common activity at the boxing, wrestling, or weight lifting events? Did Phelps kiss his teammates after winning gold? I think not! Now woman’s beach volleyball on the other hand (which has more than it’s share of hugging)… Stop…… must… visualize… Russian… gymnastics… coach.

And then there’s this doozy:

Granted I am not an expert on European cheek kissing, but this doesn’t really look like a “To the left. Oops, I meant the other left!” kinda thing. Though if girls are going to kiss, I guess this is better than all the fake love we usually see. On a related note, can anyone explain why the lady in red is holding a bear-shaped bottle of honey?

And then there was Alicia Sacramone’s awkward kiss thingy with an Italian vaulter. Apparently in Italy it’s three kisses instead of two. Let me explain what happens. 1. They kiss right cheeks. 2. They kiss left cheeks. 3. Sacramone, apparently all kissed out, takes off. 4. The Italian lunges for her neck in vampire-like fashion. 5. To remove all semblance of eroticism, NBC cuts to a shot of a Russian gymnastics coach and/or Lyle Lovett.

Check it out in this video. (Don’t worry kids, it’s much less erotic than the new Twilight Series book – or so I’ve heard.)

And now for the ultimate in Olympic awkwardness… women’s wrestling, which naturally results in plenty of Kodak moments such as this:

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a new desktop background.

Posted in Humor | 5 Comments »

Jupiter… and friend

Aug 12, 2008 by Jared Smith

Last night, in preparation for tonight’s astrophotography presentation, I set up the telescope for the first time in… well, way too long. The Perseid meteor show is peaking and I saw around 30 bright meteors. When I turned the telescope to Jupiter, I noticed the Great Red Spot moving across Jupiter’s surface. While the GRS can be seen 3 times per day, I had never seen it with my bear eyes. I quickly attached my CCD camera and captured some video. Jupiter is pretty low in the sky at this latitude, so the video was pretty fuzzy, but after processing it looked… alright. Nothing to write home about, but you can tell it’s Jupiter and can see the GRS.

After processing, I noticed the ‘dot’ above the top red band. I checked some software and realized that it is Ganymede, the largest of Jupiter’s 63 moons. Ganymede is about 1/3 the size of Earth and is bigger than the planet Mercury. This photo gives you some perspective of the size of massive Jupiter – 318 times bigger than Earth.

Posted in Astrophotography | 1 Comment »

First Radio Signal Detected From Beyond Our Solar System

Aug 11, 2008 by Jared Smith

The internets has it’s collective panties in a bunch this morning after an article titled “First Radio Signal Detected From Beyond Our Solar System” was published by some geeks in South Africa. Many are heralding this as proof of alien life. The article (they are technically capable of receiving signals from 30,000 light years away, but can’t keep their web server running) claims that the group detected radio waves from the Sagittarius A region, which is the area of the center of our galaxy.

While a substantial portion of humanity is donning tin foil hats and dancing on top of L.A. skyscrapers with “Beam me up!” signs in hand, I was a bit skeptical because radio signals are naturally occuring and rather common in outer space – we’ve detected plenty of them. A closer reading of the article reveals that the announcement was simply that a bunch of nerds built an antennae big enough to detect it’s first extra-solar radio signal. It would be like me saying, “This is the first photo taken of M51 with my telescope” and the world somehow believing that the photo was the first ever taken of this galaxy.

So let’s pretend that this is a message from aliens on a different world, here are my thoughts on what it would likely mean:

– Princess Azura wants to transfer 6 Billion Riles to your account as she is trying to get her recently deceased father’s (an oil tycoon and the previous regent of her planet) funds out from under the newly imposed Military Junta on Sagittarius 19. What she needs from you is your Social Security number, address, phone number, bank details, etc.

– It’s just Jodie Foster’s dad, he wants us to build a machine.

– Is Amanda there? Amanda Hugginkiss?

– Never gonna give you up. Never gonna let you down. Never gonna run around and desert you.

– Hello. We are a very advanced civilization, could you help us get Windows Vista to run faster?

– Hitler at the Olympics

– Is your refrigerator running?

On a somewhat related note, I’ve been asked to present on astrophotography at a big star party tomorrow. Details at http://www.awhc.org/page.php?n=star_party

Posted in Geek Stuff | 1 Comment »