• Best rundown I’ve seen yet of where Apple went wrong with the release of the much-reviled Final Cut Pro X. (This issue caused NYTimes tech writer David Pogue to call me “snarkyface” on Twitter.)
• Apparently I’m the only person in Burlington, Vermont (who isn’t a city counselor, that is) who thinks giving city counselors free parking downtown isn’t the worst idea in the history of humanity.
• Steve Benen and Matt Yglesias point out that policy making is a lot easier when the institutions lawmakers work in are not broken.
• The SCOTUS yields yet another 5-4 conservative ruling, this time taking the definition of “free speech” and twisting it into a corporate pretzel. Justice Kagen’s dissent is worth a read.
• Delicious timelapse, motion-controlled astrophotography (which will be featured at the Vermont International Film Festival this year).
• All four parts of Dan Harmon’s exhaustive walk through Community season two are worth your time (link to part one). He pulls no punches about the sausage-making nature of network TV.
• What? Vermont has a toy museum? How awesome is that?

First up in the Spacetime continuum…

*Look at this fucking picture of the surface of Mars.

*Once every billion years or so, heat deep with the Saturnian moon of Enceladus causes ice volcanoes to erupt like crazy. It turns out this once-in-a-billion-years event is happening right now as Cassini watches.

*Speaking of volcanos, the first “Earth like” (by which scientists mean rocky as opposed to gaseous) extrasolar planet that’s been discovered is in all liklihood a volcanic hellscape with surface temperatures reaching 4000 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s so close to its star that basically, unless its orbit draws a nearly perfect circle, tidal forces must be warping the planet’s mass all over the place and wreaking geological havoc. Deathklok is no doubt planning a music video shoot there soon.

Unfortunately, the new year has produced precious little in the way of interesting cosmological tidbits so far. I did scrounge up the link below, which is a little 2010 science preview, but in the meantime I’ll take the opportunity to recommend a BBC series that occasionally runs on Discovery’s Science Channel here in the states. The show is called Horizon, but when it runs on The Science Channel, they always change the name to whatever the episode is called. So for instance, last week they ran a Horizon episode about Stephen Hawking’s Information Paradox. The episode was called, appropriately enough, Stephen Hawking’s Information Paradox, and that’s how The Science Channel listed it in the program guide. So you can’t just search the listings for “Horizon,” which is too bad because it’s a really fantastic science documentary show. It’s basically the British Nova, only way better. According to Wikipedia, there have been over 1000 episodes of the show produced since 1964 and I have no idea how to go about intentionally watching them. You basically have to luck into seeing them on The Science Channel. I just watched one last night about gamma ray bursters called Death Star. It’s really great. Good hunting!

And New Scientist predicts that in the search for the elusive Higgs Boson, CERN is likely to turn up a neutralino or two…

No one has ever seen one, but it is predicted by the theory of supersymmetry, which fixes many problems that plague the standard model. Supersymmetry doubles the number of elementary particles, adding one heavier super-partner for each standard-model particle.

All supersymmetric particles produced in the early universe would have long since decayed into the lightest such particle, the neutralino. And the neutralino, it turns out, is a perfect candidate to account for dark matter – the mysterious stuff that far outweighs ordinary matter in the universe.

It would be easier to spot than the Higgs, and it might even make its presence felt in 2010. If it does, it would solve two problems at once: confirming supersymmetry and answering the mystery of what makes up the universe’s missing mass. The Higgs would have to take a back seat.

NASA…

For sky watchers in North America, the watch begins after nightfall on August 11th and continues until sunrise on the 12th. Veteran observers suggest the following strategy: Unfold a blanket on a flat patch of ground. (Note: The middle of your street is not a good choice.) Lie down and look up. Perseids can appear in any part of the sky, their tails all pointing back to the shower’s radiant in the constellation Perseus. Get away from city lights if you can.

A slightly gibbous moon will cause some light pollution, but here in Vermont that’s not as big a problem as clouds. The forecast calls for rain on the best night — the night of the 11th — but the following night might be clear and the meteors will still be streaking in, just not as frequently.

Jan. 10, 10:27 p.m. EST – Full Wolf Moon. Amid the zero cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages.  It was also known as the Old Moon or the moon after Yule.  In some tribes this was the Full Snow Moon; most applied that name to the next moon. The moon will also be at perigee (its closest point to Earth) on this day, at 6:00 a.m. EST, at a distance of 222,138mi. (357,497 km.) from Earth.  Very high ocean tides can be expected from the coincidence of perigee with full moon.

Feb. 9, 9:49 a.m. EST – Full Snow Moon. Usually the heaviest snows fall in this month. Hunting becomes very difficult, and hence to some tribes this was the Full Hunger Moon. 

Mar. 10, 10:38 p.m. EDT – Full Worm Moon. In this month the ground softens and the earthworm casts reappear, inviting the return of the robins.  The more northern tribes knew this as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signals the end of winter, or the Full Crust Moon because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night.  The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation.

Apr. 9, 10:56 a.m. EDT – Full Pink Moon. The grass pink or wild ground phlox is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring.  Other names were the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and — among coastal tribes — the Full Fish Moon, when the shad came upstream to spawn. This is also the Paschal Full Moon; the first full Moon of the spring season.  The first Sunday following the Paschal Moon is Easter Sunday, which indeed will be observed three days later on Sunday, April 12.

May 9, 12:01 a.m. EDT – Full Flower Moon. Flowers are abundant everywhere.  It was also known as the Full Corn Planting Moon or the Milk Moon.

Jun. 7, 2:12 p.m. EDT – Full Strawberry Moon. Known to every Algonquin tribe.  Europeans called it the Rose Moon.

Jul. 7, 5:21 a.m. EDT – Full Buck Moon, when the new antlers of buck deer push out from their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur.  It was also often called the Full Thunder Moon, thunderstorms being now most frequent.  Sometimes this is also called the Full Hay Moon.  Since the moon arrives at apogee less than 13 hours later, this will also be smallest full moon of 2009.  In terms of apparent size, it will appear 12-percent smaller than the full moon of Jan. 10

Aug. 5, 8:55 p.m. EDT – Full Sturgeon Moon, when this large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water like Lake Champlain is most readily caught.  A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because the moon rises looking reddish through sultry haze, or the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.

Sep. 4, 12:03 a.m. EDT – Full Corn Moon. Sometimes also called the Fruit Moon; such monikers were used for a full moon that occurs during the first week of September, so as to keep the Harvest Moon from coming too early in the calendar.

Oct. 4, 2:10 a.m. EDT – Full Harvest Moon. Traditionally, this designation goes to the full moon that occurs closest to the Autumnal (fall) Equinox.  The Harvest Moon usually comes in September, but sometimes it will fall in early October as is the case in 2009; the next time won’t come until 2017.  At the peak of the harvest, farmers can work into the night by the light of this moon.  Usually the full moon rises an average of 50 minutes later each night, but for the few nights around the Harvest Moon, the moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night: just 25 to 30 minutes later across the U.S., and only 10 to 20 minutes later for much of Canada and Europe.  Corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice — the chief Indian staples — are now ready for gathering.

Nov. 2, 2:14 p.m. EST – Full Beaver Moon. Now it is time to set beaver traps before the swamps freeze to ensure a supply of warm winter furs.  Another interpretation suggests that the name Beaver Full Moon come from the fact that the beavers are now active in their preparation for winter.  This is also called the Frosty Moon, and as this is also the next full moon after the Harvest Moon, it can also be referred to as the Hunters’ Moon. With the leaves falling and the deer fattened, it is time to hunt.  Since the fields have been reaped, hunters can ride over the stubble, and can more easily see the fox, also other animals, which have come out to glean and can be caught for a thanksgiving banquet after the harvest.

Dec. 2, 2:30 a.m. EST – Full Cold Moon. December is usually considered the month that the winter cold begins to fasten its grip.

Dec. 31, 2:13 p.m. EST — Full Long Night Moon. Nights are at their longest and darkest.  The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long and the moon is above the horizon a long time.  The midwinter full moon takes a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite to the low Sun.  This is the second time the moon turns full in a calendar month, so it is also popularly known as a “Blue Moon.” Full moons occur on average each 29.53 days (the length of the synodic month), or 12.3683 times per year; so months containing two full moons occur on average every 2.72 years, or every 2 years plus 8 or 9 months. There will be a partial lunar eclipse that will be visible from Europe, Africa and Asia with this full moon.  At its maximum 7.6-percent of the moon’s diameter will become immersed in the Earth’s dark umbral shadow.

via Gerry Canavan via Gravity Lens

And no, there’s no reason to suspect that the extra bright full moon will result in more police calls or trips to the emergency room. Just werewolves.

via Dear S

Also…

• NASA tests “deep space internet“
• The future of Pushing Daisies doesn’t look good
• I’ve heard of being caught red handed, but this is too much
• First visible extra-solar planet?