Archives for the month of: November, 2012

A friend of a friend wrote this amazing blog post about something awful/hilarious that happened to her. I can’t really tell you what it’s about without ruining it, but let’s just say…sometimes when you’re having a bad day, things just get worse.

Adorable.

Eric linked to this great article by David Simon about the changing demographics and ways of thinking in the United States, and how irrelevant certain factions will become (have already become?) if they continue the same broken strategies.

Hard times are still to come for all of us. Rear guard actions will be fought at every political crossroad. But make no mistake: Change is a motherfucker when you run from it. And right now, the conservative movement in America is fleeing from dramatic change that is certain and immutable. A man of color is president for the second time, and this happened despite a struggling economic climate and a national spirit of general discontent. He has been returned to office over the specific objections of the mass of white men. He has instead been re-elected by women, by people of color, by homosexuals, by people of varying religions or no religion whatsoever. Behold the New Jerusalem. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a white man, of course. There’s nothing wrong with being anything. That’s the point.

This election marks a moment in which the racial and social hierarchy of America is upended forever. No longer will it mean more politically to be a white male than to be anything else. Evolve, or don’t. Swallow your resentments, or don’t. But the votes are going to be counted, more of them with each election.

This is the portable x-ray diffraction machine I’m using for my second research project with Brian. We’re analyzing rocks from volcanic environments.

portable XRD!
XRD tuning fork

This big tuning fork is used to shake the sample, since you can’t move the x-ray emitter around the sample, as you normally would, when you’re on Mars. In the top photo I’ve put the sample in the well, in the bottom photo I’ve turned on the external shaker, and the sample was moved into the tiny windowed area, ready to be analyzed.

This XRD is a duplicate of the XRD onboard the Mars Science Laboratory! See its sister ‘in action’ in this MSL animatic: