h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, if you get one like that one, make sure to put the petunias in a BOWL.

I don't think I'll be getting those anyway - already got my DNA-related tattoo http://twitpic.com/3bn5n6

I think I'm going for an old style rose and crown next, just got to figure out where to put it...

I've just noticed how similar the lettering is between those two. Must be generic tattoo font, unless my tattoo artist isn't telling me something...

Nice. I've got my Answer on my wrist. https://picasaweb.google.com/doktorrobingram/Misc#5400077571633247458

I forgot that https links don't link here.

I believe I've seen that one - 42 isn't it?

Yep.

These kinetic sculptures are mesmerizing. The physics geek in me approves. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dehXioMIKg0&feature=spotlight

The thought that must go into each of those is mind boggling

I had to replay this one several times in full screen HD mode. (click back to around :55 seconds.)

This isn't CGI. This isn't scifi. There is some cropping and composition work done but it's all from actual photography.

Here's what it would look like to do a close fly-by of Saturn, its rings and moons.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110315.html

I hope Douglas Trumbull sees this.

Stunning

Just a quickie, I just found this handy little guide to British vs. American English.

Share and Enjoy

http://i.imgur.com/EBZze.jpg

Ummm... about a third of the way down it goes all Boris Johnson

I'm not going to explain this image more than to say that it was taken by the Messenger space craft as it nears Mercury.

When you understand what you're looking at you'll understand what an amazing image this is.

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/pics/CW0181616382B_RA_3_stretch.png

Could it be... the blue marble and its satellite?

Yep. From 114 million miles away. They're not very close together, they're just almost aligned.

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=388

Messenger is now the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury

________________________________________________________________________
"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that pale white dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale white dot, the only home we've ever known."

~ Carl Sagan

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9469000/9469152.stm

Sometime in our future, possibly soon, humans will have to deal with not being one of multiple sentient species on Earth. I have no doubt it will be a contentious transition.

Argh... that sentence suffered from over-editing.

*Sometime in our future, possibly soon, humans will have to deal with being only one of multiple sentient species on Earth.

Define 'soon'

Soon... evolutionarily speaking.

However, our definitions of intelligence and sentience are adjusting as well. We're learning more all the time about the behaviours of other species that would indicate that they are much closer to us than we once thought.