Author Archives: Anton

Takana go goth

Posted on Sunday, 2008 October 12 by Anton

See Takana. The 306 figures shown there can be reduced to 45 by rotation and reflection. I fitted a polynomial curve to each partial path, and superimposed them.

Posted in curve-fitting | 2 Comments

it’s a post, ain’t it?

Posted on Saturday, 2008 October 04 by Anton

a very clever picture — clean, but be warned, much of that site is NSFW. Bon mot from Sheldon Richman: Advocates of the free market are sometimes parodied for their seemingly all-purpose answer to any problem: Let the market handle … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, economics | Leave a comment

to make a mark

Posted on Thursday, 2008 September 25 by Anton

Some work of fiction, possibly Varley’s Steel Beach, mentions a service called First Footprints that takes tourists to untrodden parts of the Moon. I’d pay extra for a temporary inflated tent so as to make bare footprints.

Posted in futures | 3 Comments

Martian months

Posted on Monday, 2008 September 22 by Anton

Most proposed calendars for Mars have 24 months, and various systems have been offered to name them. Here’s one more: use the names of the 24 brightest stars, in order of longitude right ascension (relative to the rotation axis of … Continue reading →

Posted in calendars | Tagged | 4 Comments

hyperreality

Posted on Monday, 2008 September 22 by Anton

Dad has often mentioned that when he first got eyeglasses he was surprised to see that trees had discrete leaves; I never found that to be a big deal. But now I sometimes find that blades of grass stand out … Continue reading →

Posted in me!me!me!, psychology | 1 Comment

accumulated miscellany

Posted on Friday, 2008 September 19 by Anton

cause for doubt By the way, if I ever use the construction The X is just that, a X, slap me. I found an unintentionally funny bit: Do you remember the old adage about how power corrupts, and absolute power … Continue reading →

Posted in general | Leave a comment

the Big Whack

Posted on Friday, 2008 August 15 by Anton

Giant impact hypothesis It has been said (though not in that article) that the Pacific Ocean is the scar of the whack. So if the whack hadn’t happened, would Earth’s crust be all continental? In that case the plates would … Continue reading →

Posted in sciences | 2 Comments