Obligatory Eclipse Post

There was an eclipse earlier this week, maybe you heard of it. My school was able to watch it and we hit 94% totality in Algonquin, Illinois. My Son Charlie went to Sycamore, Ohio which was in 100% totality for a cubing event. They provided glasses for all their participants and took a break from the competition to experience the eclipse. 

He just came home yesterday from the event and we haven't had a lot of time to talk about it yet.  I was able to find some footage on  You Tube, maybe you've heard of it (I know I just made that joke in paragraph one), of the Eclipse as it appeared in Sycamore on Monday. 

 

Time Lapse of Eclipse

Eclipse in real time.

A to Z: H is for the Home of Haggis

For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together. 

April is Scottish Heritage Month

March 30th - April 14th Edinburgh Science Festival

Today is the day to celebrate Scotland from both sides of the pond.  

Here are 10 Things about Either Scotland of the Science Festival:

1. The Proclaimers are from Scotland.  Here is a great song of theirs called appropriately enough, Scotland's Story.

 

2. Haggis is the national dish of Scotland.

, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

3. Scotland is a country and is part of the United Kingdom,

4. Golf originated in Scotland.

18th hole of St. Andrews and Clubhouse

Von paul birrell, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

5. David Tenant voices Scrooge McDuck on DuckTails and they are both from Scotland!

Carl Barks Donald Duck artist at Comiccon  , CC BY 2.0, Link

6. Edinburgh is the Capital of Scotland.

, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

7. The Edinburgh Science Festival began in 1989.

An Experiment being demonstrated - Edinburg International Science Festival 2014 , CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

8. The festival "was the worlds first public celebration of science and technology as a festival."

9. The festival has over 250 events for families and adults.

10.  Valentina Treshkova, spoke at the inaugural festival in 1989, 26 years after becoming the first woman in space.

By Leo Medvedev/Лев Леонидович Медведев, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

 

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The Song of the Day is He Reigns by The Newsboys

  

This gets the Leap Of Dave A to Z challenge Spotify playlist to about a third of it's capacity.   

 That's all for today.  Leave a comment about why you like Scotland, Science, both or neither.  

To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

H is For Hidden Figures

 A to Z Challenge

A Month At The Movies

Hello and welcome back to A Month at the Movies,  my contribution to the A to Z challenge for 2023.

This year I am copying from a myriad of other A to Z  challengers by reprinting the same synopsis about my theme with every letter.  You can skip over this part if you want to.  

I love movies and have decided to share with you a movie each day that I have enjoyed to one degree or another.  With each entry, I'll give a brief synopsis of the film, share a positive and negative review from Rotten Tomatoes ( a website, I didn't use much at all until preparing for the challenge), discuss its resiliency (the theme of the A to Z challenge this year), and other tidbits like whether the film may appear in my top 100 film list, which I have been revamping this year. I think that's enough in the way of introduction, considering you'll be reading it (hopefully) 18 more times this month.

Film: Hidden Figures (2016) 

Director: Theodore Melfi

Trailer for Hidden Figures ...

Hidden Figures tells the story of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan who were among a group of  African American Mathematicians who worked at NASA during the time that John Glenn orbited the earth. 

Positive Tomato: Hidden Figures puts the familiar period-piece lens on an overlooked part of space history without glossing over the ugly bits while still feeling hopeful for what science and technology can achieve when the best and the brightest can participate. Nathan Matisse - Ars Technica

Negative Tomato:

 Hidden Figures will likely satisfy on the actress' strength, but Taraji - and her audience - deserve better than focus-grouped pablum. Chris McCoy - Memphis Flyer

The film stars Taraji P Henson as Katharine Johnson, Janelle Monae as Mary Jackson, and Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughn.  The cast includes Kevin Costner, Aldis Hodge, Jim Parsons, Kirsten Dunst, and Mahershala Ali.

Katherine Johnson - NASA 1966

Resiliency: Each of the 3 main women featured in this movie gives a clinic on resiliency.  It would be hard to boil that down into one moment or one quote.  

My mind always goes back to the scene where Mary Jackson has to go to court to convince a judge for her to take engineering classes at an all-white school.  She says to the judge:

I plan on being an engineer at Nasa, but I can't do that without taking them classes at that all-white high school, and I can't change the color of my skin, so I have no choice, but to be the first, which I can't do without you sir. Your honor, out of all the case you gonna hear today, which one is gonna matter hundred years from now? Which one is gonna make you the first?

Top 100: There is no uncertainty.  This movie is definitely in my top 100 films of all time.  The only question is where.  I would not be surprised if it makes it into the top 75.

A to Z Connections: This is the second film in the challenge to depict a space program (Gattaca).  It is also the fifth film to deal with a character or characters fighting against some sort of discrimination (Breaking Away, Chariots of Fire, 42, and Gattaca). 

Next Time: It's my favorite movie. 

Captain Kirk actor "Shatners" oldest person in space record

 

For Captain James Tiberius Kirk space was the final frontier.

For William Shatner, the actor who portrayed him on network television, Saturday Morning cartoons and multiple motion pictures space was just another step in a long and illustrious career.  The 90 year became the oldest person in space on October 13th ,making the trek from science fiction to science fact.  

Bill Nye, Creationism is Highly Appropriate for our Children

This is a video response of the last post. Spider Droid and I are still planning our own video response.

Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children - OPV

I don't believe any of this, but I post it here.  Spider Droid and I are going to make a response video to this soon.
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