Happy Earth/Sun Perihelion Day! Let’s Talk Seasons…

Perihelion and Aphelion [Image Credit: Illinois State Museum]

The Earth’s orbit around the Sun is elliptical, meaning that as it orbits the Sun, there are times that Earth is closer to, as well as, further away from the Sun. The distance is actually very minor, in the larger sense of things. Perihelion is the term for when the Earth is closest to the Sun and occurs today with the Earth being ~147,166,462 km (91,445,000 mi) from the Sun. At aphelion (when the Earth is furthest from the Sun), it’s ~152,171,522 km (94,555,000 mi) away from the Sun, a difference of 5,005,060 km (3,110,000 mi). Sure, this seems like a big change. When you consider that the distance is ~3.4% of the Earth’s total distance from the Sun, it’s not that vast. Wait… if today is the day that the Earth is closest to the Sun, shouldn’t it be warmer? It’s a common misnomer that the distance in orbital difference is the why the Earth has seasons. The Earth should be warmer when it’s orbit takes it closer to the Sun. The idea makes sense, even if its wrong. The reason for Earth’s seasons is actually due to its 23.5 degree axial tilt. How did that tilt happen? How does that tilt give us seasons?

Videos: “An Open Letter to the President” from Minute Physics and Dr. Neil Tyson

[youtube http://youtu.be/BGL22PTIOAM]

Minute physics is one of my favorite YouTube channels! It manages to explain some fairly complex theories in a way that the non-scientists (or someone with only a minor knowledge of science) can understand. This video was put up about a week ago, but I managed to miss it up until today. I agree whole-heartedly with the sentiment expressed within and I think it is an amazing and integral point to make. America doesn’t seem to be that interested in scientific education. How are future generations supposed to succeed without innovation, exploration and education? Here’s a great piece about this topic from Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson that will illustrate the point that I’m getting at.

[youtube http://youtu.be/CbIZU8cQWXc]

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article about how this country is based on the idea of unity through diversity (Click Here for That Article) and I believe that is true. I also believe that education and exploration budgets have been heavily depleted recently. This is my call to action to not just the President of the United States of America, but to all people reading this, without a strong focus in the S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering and math) fields how will our future advance? Without the continuity of NASA and space exploration, what is there to inspire our youth to advance not only their race, and not only our country but the human species as a whole? We need these things. I will leave you with a quote from the above video…

Nobody’s dreaming about tomorrow anymore. -Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson

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#NerdNite Teaser 11.10.12

[youtube http://youtu.be/xDj7gvc_dsA]

#Nerdnite, as you may have guessed, is one night out of every week where my nerdhurd and I get together at someone’s house so we can play games, watch nerdy shows & movies and just be nerds, in general! This is a little preview of what’s coming up for tonight’s #NerdNite:

1. Gaming: I’ve been working crazy hard on this space based board game. I finished the writing process a couple of weeks ago and built a REALLY shitty alpha mock-up of the board. We (my nerdhurd) playtested it a few times and found a few bugs that needed to be worked out. I was expecting this, so it was no big deal. I got some GREAT feedback from Carol and Holly, two of my nerdhurd regs, but also got some great feedback from Levi and Sarah over at Bonsai Games, the two newest members of #NerdNite #TeamWholigans (an honor that I have yet to actually officially bestow upon them; if either of you are reading this, SURPRISE!) . They just successfully funded a card game called Ruse (click here for more about it) on Kickstarter and I could’t be happier for them! The point is, I finished the re-write on the space game and I’m hoping to get some playtesting done on it tonight with the nerdhurd! More on the space game soon.
2. More Gaming: I recent got my copy of Ruse and a copy of Cards Against Humanity! I’m hoping we can get into those a bit, as well.
3. Epic Rap Battles of History: I KNOW I’m behind the times… but I just founds this YouTube channel called Epic Rap Battles of History. I am really stoked to show some of these vids to the hurd! There’s a few I hope to show, one at the top of this post and two more at the bottom of the post
4. Even More Gaming!: Holly, Josh and I started a campaign with the Doctor Who RPG a few weeks ago and I am stoked to get back to it!

I have two questions I’d like to ask, feel free to answer either or both!

1. What should the working title of my Space Game be?
2. Do you have your own #NerdNite? What do you and your besties like to play/watch/do?

Feel free to leave answers in the comments section below or hit me up with them on Twitter or Google+!

[youtube http://youtu.be/njos57IJf-0] [youtube http://youtu.be/zn7-fVtT16k]

 

Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk Video Show

[youtube http://youtu.be/cVg-snQdrms]

Any regular reader of mine knows that I’m a turbodork for spacey-wacey type things. Those same readers would probably know that I am a super fanboy for Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Well, The Nerdist Channel finally launched the show that I’ve been looking forward to the most, StarTalk! Those of you that are fans of Dr. Tyson yourselves are probably familiar with his podcast, StarTalk Radio, and this video show is a video version of those live shows. I’ve taken to calling the show StarTalk Video. You can watch episode 1 above, but I wanted to throw some of my favorite Neil-isms into this post, as well, in case this happens to be the first time you’ve ever heard the name.

“Gangnam Style” Commentary

[youtube http://youtu.be/9bZkp7q19f0]

The above video is currently number 1 on YouTube and has over 100,000,000 views on YouTube since July 15, 2012. I will admit to being at least 20 of those views. Fair warning, this is K-Pop (as in Korean Pop)

The song has a good beat and I enjoy the tune. However, the video is what makes the tune! There are so many things here that just make me laugh sooo hard, that I decided to pass the video around and add a little commentary to it here. I’ll reference times with my thoughts on the segment in question.

Doctor Who Premier Weekend Wrap-Up

Post “Asylum of the Daleks” Q&A With Matt Smith and Karen Gillan

[youtube http://youtu.be/ZJVNb6EOiWM]