Saw Pixar's new movie Wall-E over the weekend. No kidding, it's the best movie I've seen on the big screen since "Life is Beautiful" and "American Beauty". The first hour is a Chaplin-style silent movie.
Go see it this week, while it's on the biggest screen at your local multiplex.
Highly recommended: Alison Bechdel's comic essay "Compulsory Reading."
Written to accompany a greatest-books list in Entertainment Weekly magazine.
As you may know, Turing was prosecuted for a same-sex relationship, sentenced to jailtime or forced estrogen injections (he chose the drugs), and driven to suicide in 1954 at age 42. Had he lived to see semiconductor computers, what additional contributions might he have made?
I was reminded of this by the silly comment thread on Cosmic Variance. The post itself was sweet: Sean musing about how CA's marriage equality makes him recall, misty-eyed, his own wedding. The comment thread included the usual slippery slope bullshit arguments, plus a "Stick to your posts on physics, Sean."
Nope, no connection between math/sci/tech and queers. None at all.
A good talk -- I highly recommend "Elephant" if you haven't read it already. That book changed the way I discuss politics (think about the different frames invoked by saying "gay marriage" versus "marriage equality", or "We must end the Iraq war", versus "We must stop our continued occupation of Iraq." Think about it -- "gay" marriage is a special right, but equal is equal; quitting war is cowardly, whereas an occupation is immoral.) I've read only the first few chapters of the new book, "The Political Mind", but it's interesting so far.
During the Q&A session, I asked, "We now have marriage equality in California, but those rights are on the ballot in November. In the public's eye, marriages for same-sex couples trigger both the Stern Father frame ("It's not a family without a father") and the equality frame ("Gays should have the same rights as everyone else.") As we talk to our colleagues, family, & friends about this issue before November, what arguments and language help bring people to vote for our rights?"
Lakoff's response, paraphrased: While stressing equality to straight voters is good, it's also important to stress freedom. The argument goes like this: "Everyone should be free to marry the person they love. The government once barred interracial couples from marrying. If the government can prevent you from marrying the person you love, how else can it interfere in your life?" This argument speaks to many "conservative" voters' libertarian impulses -- they don't want the government messing in people's lives.
So, something for you all to think about as you discuss the ballot initiative with your California friends, family, and acquaintances between now and November.
PS -- The cool thing I didn't realize until this morning: The talk venue, All Saints Church, just married its first female couple yesterday, a few hours before the talk (photo above).
Actor George Takei, best known for his portrayal of Lt. Sulu on Star Trek, has announced his upcoming marriage to longtime partner Brad Altman.
Thank you CA supreme court, for letting Lt. Sulu get married.
I'm still pinching myself, but we won. Strict scrutiny, marriage equality. From an elderly, Republican, cautious California Supreme Court.
NASA's foremost climate scientist, Jim Hansen (you may remember the Bushies trying to muzzle him), has a new paper on arxiv.org. Here's the abstract:
Paleoclimate data show that climate sensitivity is ~3 deg-C for doubled CO2, including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, is ~6 deg-C for doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, large scale glaciation occurring when CO2 fell to 425 +/- 75 ppm, a level that will be exceeded within decades, barring prompt policy changes. If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.Emphasis added by me. Holy shit, people. The cliff's ahead, and we're blithely driving toward it.
As other bloggers have noted, most freshman Astro101 students are the same age as Hubble. And were toddlers when astronauts corrected the spherical abberation, finally giving us diffraction--limited views of the distant universe.
Description of the problem can be found on the SSC website.
