We Brains all seem to muse about living in a world we only imagined when we were kids reading Science Fiction. Well, here’s something that pushed that button for me:

On April 20, 2007, the comet had just dipped inside the orbit of Mercury, perilously close to the sun, when a solar eruption struck and literally tore the comet’s tail off. This surely has happened to comets before, but for the first time in history a spacecraft was watching.

Aside from the coolness of the video itself, isn’t it nifty that we can see this stuff?

By strange coincidence, I’ve recently found myself moving somewhat out of my normal social and cultural sphere and getting a glimpse of the world of, not the rich and famous, but at least the people in the top 2%. I attended a party on a houseboat. Which doesn’t sound like much except that this houseboat was over 80 feet long, had five bedrooms (with king sized beds in them) and came with a pilot. The top deck had a built in gas grill. It was pretty swank.The group I was with were pretty sedate. We cruised out Lake Travis, stopped by the nude bathing at Hippy Hollow and then headed to a popular cove where the pilot tied us up to a tree and we could swim (the boat had a water slide) and eat hot dogs and burgers. There was music playing and some drinks, but it was all pretty low key. Not so for the boat near us. That boat was not more than 80 feet long. It was a cruiser rather than a house boat. What caught the attention of our party was the girl in the teal bikini dancing on the deck to her own music. (Okay, what caught my attention was the dog, who looked like a boxer/American Bull Terrier cross, and who was having a very good time swimming and wandering around the boat. But what caught most other people’s attention was the girl in the teal bikini.)

The boat, which was maybe thirty feet long, had eight people on it. Five guys and three girls. And they were all young. There seemed to be a fair amount of drinking. The girl in the teal bikini, though, she was at her own party. She was dancing out near the prow. After awhile she was joined by another bikini clad girl. And after a little dancing and putting their heads together, they climbed up to the top of the boat and took off their bikini tops and danced. Read More »