Tales of a Robotic Misfit

I am Isaac, a devoted fan of GLaDOS, Soundwave, Shockwave, HAL9000, Andrew the Spy Core and Betrayus. This is where I will put my musings, Surge's feelings, repost some excellent STEM posts I find, be my usual nerd/geek self, and try to be a help. I'm a friendly guy, so don't be afraid to ask any questions.

[starscreamclone-blog]

LABOR DABOR.

[calmingmanatee]

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A photograph of a manatee underwater. They are facing the camera and reaching out a fin just below it. A diver with another camera is in the background. TEXT: “You are good enough. You are always good enough.”]

[Image from Boulder Weekly]

[starscreamclone-blog]

LABOR DAY.

IT'S LABOR DAY EVERYBODY.

TODAYBOR DAY IS A LABOR DAY.

SAY IT WITH ME, NOW.

TODAYBOR DAY IS A LABOR DAY!

[starscreamclone-blog]

HAPPY LABOR DAY!

(NOTE: The end shows the easter eggs in this episode, and one of them is violent, so just in case you're sensitive to that sort of thing...)

[starscreamclone-blog]

Hey everybody~!

Guess what~?

OHHH TODAYBOR DAY IS A LABOR DAY, TODAYBOR DAY IS A LABOR DAY...

[from-the-earth-to-the-moon13]

[disneyconceptsandstuff]

James Lopez, a veteran Disney animator (The Lion King, Pocahontas, Paperman), is currently trying to raise money for his traditionally animated project Hullabaloo. Hullabaloo is a steampunk short film which Lopez is hoping will help save the cause of 2D animation, and possibly lead to a TV series or film. So, if you’re interested in badass steampunk ladies or traditional animation, may I recommend you give a dollar or two. Hullabaloo's IndieGogo page is over here, visit to donate and learn more! And I’ll conclude with the plot: 

Hullabaloo is the story of Veronica Daring, a brilliant young scientist who returns home from an elite finishing school to find her father—the eccentric inventor Jonathan Daring—missing without a trace! The only clue left behind points Veronica toward Daring Adventures, an abandoned amusement park used by her father to test his fantastical steam-powered inventions. There she discovers a strange girl named Jules, a fellow inventor who agrees to help Veronica in locating her missing father and discovering the secrets of his work.

Together, Veronica and Jules learn that Jonathan Daring has been kidnapped by a mysterious group of influential persons, who seek to use his latest invention for nefarious purposes. These villains are wealthy and influential and neither Veronica nor Jules can stop them openly. But determined to save her father and holding true to the family creed that technology should be used for the good of all, not the greed of some, Veronica assumes the secret identity of “Hullabaloo”, a goggled crusader who uses wits and science to combat evil and oppose the nefarious conspiracy that has taken her father.

[starscreamclone-blog]

You guys have no idea how badly I want this to happen.

[spaceexp]

What’s Up for September 2014: A comet’s close encounter with Mars, and the ‘Zodiacal Light,’ evidence of the tenuous ring of dust and debris around the Sun.

[starscreamclone-blog]

If someone ever insults GLaDOS in front of me:

And I shall say:

"Oh really?  Hnh hnh hnh...  And what good video game villains do YOU know?

Female villains?

Villains that FORCE you to THINK otherwise you will DIE from CARELESSNESS?

Villains who insult you in hilarious ways?

Villains who are beautiful without being human?

Villains who are that amazingly intelligent?

Villains who sing with such a lovely voice?

I.

THINK.

NOT."

[starscreamclone-blog]

Fact: The vitrification order that condemned the lower portion of Aperture Laboratories was put in place on June 15, 1961.

So, I now dub June 15 International Condemned Laboratory Appreciation Day!

[mit]

Art at MIT by Suzanne Hunt on Flickr.

Throwback to FAST (2011) at MIT. This is Skylar Tibbits’ voltaDom.

[spaceexp]

Cosmos Tree: Fraser Bay, Lake Huron, ON

Source: Alendrathril (reddit)

[spaceexp]

Me staring at the Milky Way and Aurora Australis

Source: mamba_79 (reddit)

[codeorg]

Elizabeth Bacon Los Angeles, CA

Ms. Bacon teaches several computer science classes but she isn’t a teacher, exactly. She’s a counselor whose school didn’t offer computer science a few years ago. She proposed the idea for a course and offered to write the curriculum and teach it herself.

[spaceexp]

Milky Way seen over Silex Spring in Yellowstone National Park

[kidsneedscience]

On Aug. 30, 1992, astronomers Jane Luu and David Jewitt discovered an object in the outer solar system that had been predicted since the 1930s, which became the first Kuiper Belt object and which was given the name 1992 QB1.  After the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh, astronomer Frederick Leonard proposed the existence of a trans-Neptunian poplulation, wondering whether it was “not likely that in Pluto there has come to light the first of a series of ultra-Neptunian bodies, the remaining members of which still await discovery but which are destined eventually to be detected”.  In 1987 David Jewitt (then at MIT) directed then graduate student Jane Luu to begin looking for objects outside of Pluto’s orbit as Leonard and others had proposed.  The work was slow and painstaking, using technology developed decades earlier, but breakthroughs came when they began using  CCD (charge-coupled devices).  Since the first Kuiper Belt Object was discovered, over 100,000 KBOs over 100km in diameter have been discovered.  They were named after Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who discovered the moon Miranda orbiting Uranus and Nereid orbiting Neptune, as well as pioneering the use of infra-red observation.  Kuiper also worked with the Apollo program to identify landing sites on the moon.  

[spaceexp]

The Wizard Nebula .