Tuesdays are the new Mondays. Maybe?

Mondays are back! Maybe!

Good movie. Go see it. It has a surprising relevancy to the subject of government funding of the sciences.

Could not have picked a better evening to re-watch "Network". I feel a societal index can be created based on at what point "Network" goes from cynical satire to depiction of modern times. I figured we're at the 1:50:00 mark (our of 2:01:00), though in 1978 it was more like 0:35:00

In Doyle's very first Sherlock Holmes story ("A Study in Scarlet"), there's an exchange where Holmes calls Watson a fool for believing that astronomy is something worth knowing about. Very weird bit!

This week is when our Gaussian Error tutorial runs in 1st yr lab. We've been doing this for many now and the amassed histogram of student measurements now has a couple of thousand points. See the development of the bell curve here: #iTeachPhysics

Let me just check next weekend's forecast... 25-35cm of snow. Great. Amazing.

The best streaming service and it isn't even close.

SDP - Snow Day Pizzas

SDSD - Snow Day Sour Dough

0.9

Forget crop circles. We're doing Ice Circles now.

Aw dang. I unlocked a door with the key of imagination and you'll never guess what was beyond... a whole other dimension!

Happy new year! My all sky camera imaged the sky every 15 seconds and this picture shows what happened in the sky in 2025. It shows the length of the night and day with the hourglass shape, the monthly lunar cycle with the diagonal bands, the elevation of the Sun at local noon, and lots of clouds.

If someone was looking to understand the platonic form of the True Crime/Conspiracy format, what are some recommended podcasts to listen to? Not necessarily looking for quality, I just want some insight into the format.

Last summer, we went to see an outdoor showing of "The Princess Bride" in the Halifax Public Gardens. Everyone there had seen the film countless times and everyone had a gol'darn blast that night watching it. RIP Rob Reiner

Good news everyone. I found our last working Drawdio. A simple 555 oscillator circuit (output to speaker) where the holder is part of the feedback resistance.

My favourite movie of the year. Maybe go see it?

When I came into my current job, I quickly discovered that I was left with some "legacy issues" from my predecessors. So I like to think that what I spent my morning doing was just honouring them...

New video! Looking at the thermal conductivity of two very different materials in infrared vision. youtu.be/5uLbq8CoVYk #iTeachPhysics

Finally, something happened today that wasn't the most tiring version of that thing. Up till then, this day was a complete wash.

🎟️ DEAL: Save some $$ on Carbon Arc's wealth of wonderful Halifax film screenings with a discounted 6-Film Punch Pass, now on for $50 (normally $60)! Get to it before the deal vanishes Monday: www.carbonarc.ca/tickets/punc...

Heck yeah

1) Stoppard the Best A) Science is improved by the Arts and vice-versa.

Hard to overstate how very different my life would be without Tom Stoppard’s work. His (underrated!) play “Hapgood” is the best espionage/quantum mechanics play ever written. And there’s no such thing as a bad production of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”

I starting using a different music player on my phone and it gives me stats on how much music by each artist (I don't use spotify etc, I just listen to music I've bought). All that to say that this was a surprising amount of The Fall.

Very sad to read this. She came to SMU once to do a CBC video piece where we did some physics experiments. It was a great day and though she was slightly unprepared for what we had planned, she rallied incredibly and was game to make it all work.

Just a heads-up if you're looking for a telescope for the holidays... Costco has telescopes again, and they're decent 'scopes. I got one for myself a couple yrs ago that I use at home. 🔭 (It is the time of the year where I'm getting emails wondering how/what/where to get a telescope for Xmas)

So many of his films (especially the ones he made with Masaki Kobayashi) can be summed up with this scene from "Hara-Kiri". One of the greats. His work in "The Human Condition" (all ~10hrs of it!) is some of the best film acting ever.

The contest is open to all Saint Mary's students, faculty, staff and alumni. Science is everywhere! We're looking for images from labs & workplaces, nature, scientific visualization and storytelling. Enter now! smu.ca/photocontest

Did you know the colour of an LED is dependent on the band gap of the doped semiconductor inside? And that that band gap is temperature dependent? And! If you (gently) dunk said LED in liqN2, neat things happen! #iTeachPhysics

New Video Alert! The Meissner Effect! youtu.be/QuR39XYNazA

Posting later today

No Strings Attached!

Never not satisfying.

Outtake. Trying and failing to get a magnet to spin on a superconductor without knocking it off the disc. Three misses is a strikeout!

Let's all just take a second to appreciate this oscillating drop of liquid nitrogen. Ok? Is that too much to ask?

I'll be at the AST conference in Halifax tomorrow sharing free resources for teachers from Star Finder - the David Lane Astronomy Outreach Program. I'm finishing up my presentation now and tearing up over slides about Dave. He was really great. I miss him. He'd be thrilled about that we've created.

I was once in a gallery in the Louvre when the security system kicked in and shut off the whole room. Automatic doors and alarms. There was another time when we watched someone walk painting to painting setting off the alarm on each. Were they an employee?

If you miss the video analysis that was available in Logger Pro that is not included in Graphical Analysis, try Sigmund (noragulfa.com/sigmund). This is a FREE, web-based app that will run on Chromebooks. #iteachphysics

Learning a 3d modelling package for another project and got carried away. Plottertron looks mad to be in 3D.

There is a frankly disturbing close-up pic of my hand on instagram right now and I don't care for it. (My hand, I mean. The photo was posted with permission.)

Weather Model Projection Halifax:Rain::Neo:Bullets

If I only listen to music by The Residents while editing a single lab experiment in a manual for next term, will students be able to spot which one?

"Wait, are you telling me THE Wilford Brimley plays Blair?" "No, just ..."

Been undergoing a lot of personal internal reflection...

Super slo-mo (1000fps) and super zoomed-in clip of a water ripples. The low resolution and weird CCD-induced color scheme leave something reminiscent of fireworks!

New Star Finder Newsletter! sway.cloud.microsoft/hYupvkznJi9o... In this issue: 🔭 Highlights from the first Star Finder Teachers' Workshop 📚 New astronomy lesson plans and resources now available ☁️ Upcoming content on Bluesky! 🌟 Star Finder at the Association of Science Teachers Conference