What many people don't realize is that while the surface of Venus is hellish (as discussed above), the region 50 km above the surface is as close to Earth you're going to get outside of Earth. It's got about 1 g of gravity, a reasonable temperature, and the air pressure outside is such that Earth atmosphere is a…

I thought this was already pretty explicit, although they won't actually come out and say it in dialog because that would be way too cheesy.

I thought they explained the townspeople going about their business by saying "after years of having an alien doctor wiring up the town and curing them of cholera, it takes more than a disappearing phone box to impress them." Nothing about the Doctor specifically, just that this town has grown fairly jaded about alien…

A much more extensive list of "ways to measure the height of a building using a barometer" may be found here: http://jcdverha.home.xs4all.nl/scijokes/2_12.html#subindex

I've been watching all of Supernatural recently, and contrasting the role of women in that show compared with Warehouse 13...they couldn't be more different. I'm glad that some genre shows include female characters as more than just victims.

I can't be the only one who's getting a bit suspicious of their message of "D&D Next will incorporate everything you love about your favorite previous edition of D&D. Yes, even if the thing you love is mutually exclusive with the thing someone else loves. Everything that has ever been good about any version of D&D…

As long as he can lay off the profanity...that sort of thing is OK for his website, but it's not appropriate in a science museum.

I'd say that *that* is obvious, and the real question is whether the Teacher (as Mrs. Frizzle/Mary Poppins goes by when among other Gallifreyans) is also Mrs. Jewls (from Wayside School), Susan (from the Discworld), and Anne of Green Gables (from the eponymous novel).

See also Sanderson's First Law.

Hey Annalee, should cellphone companies be required to label their phones reading "This device produces radiation. You're scared of radiation, right? Therefore this cellphone must be harmful, somehow." Even though the EM radiation from your phone is physically incapable of causing physical harm, and multiple studies…

The cameras used for these preliminary pictures are the hazard avoidance cameras which will eventually be used by the rover to not run over rocks and crevices and whatnot. There are eight of those, located on the four corners of the device (each corner has two cameras, for redundancy). We've already got pictures from…

The cameras used for these preliminary pictures are the hazard avoidance cameras which will eventually be used by the rover to not run over rocks and crevices and whatnot. The actual high-res scientific cameras are on the mast. They're not going to raise the mast and activate the high-res cameras until they're 100%…

Never mind replacing college for those who can't afford it, I think Reddit is replacing college *for those already at college.*

By "high resolution," they mean "256x256 pixels." Compared to the earlier 64x64-pixel thumbnails, that's pretty high res.

I recently attended my local Regional Convention, and honestly found it lacking compared to the last Nation Event I went to (specifically, Dragon*Con). The weird thing is, what I missed most wasn't the huge crowds, big-name celebrities, and overload of creators. The best thing about Dragon*Con was the discussion…

Well, of course. If they included Australian snakes, you'd have no chance to survive your dissertation.

Alternately, if you want to read a novelization of Shada as Douglass Adams himself would write it, pick up Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. OK, so the plot's a bit different, but Professor Chronotis still plays a large role.

I felt this was way too busy. Some of the still frames were nice, but the transitions with lots of random things flying around, and the kinematic typography...it just distracts and confuses the viewer.

Turns out that Gawker's code wouldn't let me link directly to a page with parenthesis in the title, so yes.

Basically, yes: [en.wikipedia.org]