We’ve been writing a lot about A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones lately, and that’s fabulous. You have been a super audience and excellent with the comments, reading, and sharing. But as today is May the Fourth and there are other cool things going on I’m going to pop in to add a post that, while awesome and geeky, has nothing to do with Game of Thrones. Not even a little.
Continue reading “May the Fourth be With You and other things unrelated to Game of Thrones”
So an obvious question being asked by fans of GoT/ASOIAF is this: since the sigil of the Targaryens is a dragon with three heads, and since Daenarys Targaryen has three dragons, who are those other two heads? In other words, who will be riding the other two dragons? She’s the last known Targaryen, after all, especially after the deaths of her brother Viserys and her great, great uncle, Maester Aemon.
Truthfully, most people already have a pretty good idea whose those two people will be. I feel something like 90 to 95% certain that I know who they are. So let’s talk about how, at least in terms of the TV show, we will discover that these two individuals are in fact the other two Targaryens.
Continue reading “Some GoT/ASOIAF theories on the other Targaryens”
Today’s date is a day on which so many things happened, I doubt I can even remember them all.
Of course, it is the day that in 1861 the Civil War started with an artillery bombardment of the Union garrison in Fort Sumter, in the middle of Charleston Harbor. That’s a gimme for a Civil War historian like me.
Continue reading “Today, April 12, is one of those days when so much happened”
While searching for some videos on YouTube that might do a better job of explaining the phenomenon of rogue waves than I can, I actually found some really, really good material. First, one of my absolute favorite people on the Intertubes, Hank Green, who is also half of the awesome duo that is the vlog brothers. Here, Hank talks about rogue waves on his SciShow channel.
Continue reading “The science and history of rogue waves, part two”
In what could prove to be a huge step forward in predicting how rogue waves are formed, and thus a tool for saving lives at sea, researchers at MIT have found a way to give 2 to 3 minutes warning of an incoming rogue wave.
I know it probably sounds stupid, but it’s hard for me to explain how excited I am about this research. So much so that I am tempted to go speak with the researchers sometime (living in Cambridge does have its advantages). But to understand why I am geeking out about this, it might help for me to go into some detail about what we know about rogue waves, and how they have affected ships at sea, as well as oil rigs, lighthouses, and coastlines. This is one of those times that my love of history (especially maritime history) and my love of science come together.
Continue reading “The science and history of rogue waves, part one”
This post might be a little stream of consciousness. It’s Holy Week, I’m tired, and last night I was exposed to one of the best/worst internet videos of all time.
A U.S. Navy ocean tug that vanished in 1921 with its entire crew of 56 officers and men has definitively been found.
In an unlikely combination that could probably only happen in Boston and, specifically, only in Somerville. Geoff and I combined an evening of tasty Tibetan cuisine with a Zombie Opera for our Valentine’s outing.
Really.
You know, there are some new operas that just don’t interest me that much. There’s something uninspired or over academic about some of the stuff that I’ve seen recently that has left me cold.
Then Teri* told me she was auditioning for a Zombie Opera. And I was intrigued.
Geoff and I were watching an episode of Criminal Minds the other night and a super familiar thing happened. It’s something that happens a lot on TV and it always makes me roll my eyes, but this time it irritated me enough to make me want to come here and get all science-ranty about it.
I should probably say before I get started that I genuinely like Criminal Minds and that I’ve been watching it off and on since Season 1. This problem is not specific to any particular show but to all TV and Movies that need a Big Scary Bug and science be damned.
Btw, there are photos of bugs after the jump. Lots of them. You have been warned.
The Books are Taking Over... 