Author Archives: Brendan

Transit of Venus video

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I don’t have my promised Flickr gallery of the Transit of Venus online just yet, but here’s a 3-minute video of portions of the transit. The first 2 minutes of footage are sped up between 4x and 20x and set to pertinent music; the final minute is normal speed, with chit-chat and a round of applause as Venus and the… Read more »

More Venus pics & videos coming soon

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Yesterday was I day I’d been literally counting down to for 6 1/2 years, or 2,935 days — and it totally lived up to the hype. My first and last viewing of a Transit of Venus was simply awesome, and well worth the drive to Carbondale. (Now, only 1,902 days until the next big event! Heh.) Anyway, after returning home… Read more »

Transit of Venus: AWESOME

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What an absolutely phenomenal view and experience of the Transit of Venus in Carbondale, Colorado. It was well worth the three-hour drive. Many thanks to the members of the Three Rivers Astronomy Club, who hosted a truly awesome transit party, and let me & other members of the public use their telescopes (and take pictures like the one below). More… Read more »

Go west, young man

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The Transit of Venus is just hours away (it starts at 4:05 PM MDT and goes until sunset, which is around 8pm), and while I didn’t take that flight to Tucson, I have decided to drive three hours west, into the Rocky Mountains, to find a better viewing location. Actually, I’ve already found it: a field near St. Vincent’s Church… Read more »

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[This post was originally published on The Living Room Tumblr.] Testing testing testing.

Venus to transit the Sun tomorrow, then not again for 105 years

Above: Video of the Transit of Venus taken by my dad in Connecticut in 2004. Long-time readers might vaguely recall that, eight years ago, I considered flying from Phoenix (where I was living at the time) to Chicago, for just a single day, to view the Transit of Venus. I ultimately decided against it — instead shipping my video camera,… Read more »

2008, the sequel?

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Unless your name is Mitt Romney, this is terrifying. The head of the World Bank yesterday warned that financial markets face a rerun of the Great Panic of 2008. On the bleakest day for the global economy this year, Robert Zoellick said crisis-torn Europe was heading for the ‘danger zone’. Mr Zoellick, who stands down at the end of the… Read more »

Occupy my ‘hood

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The “Occupy Denver” folks — in coordination with the SEIU, seemingly — protested outside Wells Fargo in downtown Denver this morning, about a block from my office. Naturally, I couldn’t resist checking out the scene. Note the tie-wearing 1 Percenters on the right, greedily sipping their Starbucks coffee, which no doubt contains ground-up $100 bills as a garnish. 😉 After… Read more »

One Eurobond to Rule Them All

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With the news of Germany standing fast against “Eurobonds,” and the Eurozone crisis worsening as a result of the impasse, I posted this silly tweet last night: Fear! Fire! Eurobonds! Awake! #PANIC Political Math said he found this very funny, to which I replied with a faux-quote from Angela Merkel: “Let the little people blow.” This caused a brainstorm, as… Read more »

Win the Big East, win the White House

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As if you need any further evidence that conference realignment has gotten way out of hand, Andy Glockner, Mike Greiner and NU Hoops Fan made a brilliant observation on Twitter just now: if a presidential candidate were to win every state with a current or incoming member of the Big East Conference, they would get 291 electoral votes — enough… Read more »