To Scale: The Solar System
An evening pause: What this attempt achieves more than anything else is to demonstrate that the scale of the universe is almost impossible to simulate or to conceive. There is a lot of emptiness out there.
Hat tip Rocco.
Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Construction by helicopter
An evening pause: As noted on the youtube webpage, “The last two components of the Incity Tower spire were put in place by helicopter on Sunday 21 June [2015]. This metallic spire, which measures 50 metres and weighs 25.9 tonnes, took the building to its final height of 200 metres. This confirms its position as the highest tower in Lyon and the third highest in France. Three aerial beacons and a lightning rod will now be placed at the top.”
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Sounds of a Glass Armonica
An evening pause: Supposedly this is Ben Franklin’s favorite invention.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Nat King Cole – Red Sails In The Sunset
An evening pause: From a 1957 live performance.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
The modern glassmaker
An evening pause: Though the last two minutes are a commercial and can be ignored, the rest of this video shows the modern way glass is produced for our technological society. Most fascinating, especially because the way it is done surprised me.
Hat tip Rocco.
The Lion Roars
An evening pause: A very short pause, but one that I think is appropriate today with the success of the grassroots tea party movement in forcing John Boehner out as House Speaker.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
Harvesting tulip bulbs with modern engineering
An evening pause: The harvester is the equivalent of a mobile factory assembly-line that operates in the field. It also reminds me of the animated cartoon Transformers.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Robert Tiso – Moonlight Sonata on glass harp
An evening pause: Something peaceful in these interesting times.
Hat tip DougSpace.
Around the World in 80 Days
An evening pause: Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of the new edition of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime, who notes, “Producer Mike Todd lured dozens of stars to appear in cameos in his still-glorious take on the classic Jules Verne novel, and nowhere were they more delightful than in the San Francisco saloon scene.”
How many well known actors and performers can you spot doing cameos in this short clip?
Philomena Cunk’s Moments of Wonder: Time
An evening pause: This hilarious parody of BBC science documentaries, which are not much different than many American PBS science documentaries, captures perfectly the typical empty-headed interviewers that I myself have sometimes had to deal with during too many of my television and radio appearances. They are not only often ignorant of some basic science, they are also ignorant of their own ignorance. They think they know a lot, and thus are easily confused and defensive when suddenly confronted with that ignorance.
I especially like her description of “the famous Greenwich Marillion line.”
Hat tip to Danae.
Auckland Symphony Orchestra – Angry Birds
An evening pause: I must admit I am entirely ignorant of what the Angry Birds game is. The music here and the playing however is stellar.
Hat tip to Danae.
Railroad thermite welding
An evening pause: These railroad construction workers don’t waste a move or a word as they weld two track lengths together. It is like watching a roughhewn ballet.
The engineering itself is clever, more than a hundred years old, and fascinating. This video explains it.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.