APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
wcgreen

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by wcgreen » Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:57 pm

bystander wrote:Subject: Happy People Dancing On Planet Earth (APOD 22 Jul 2008)

Additionally, in my view, APOD is also about planet Earth, exploration, and making connections between science and things not classically related to science. In this case, this APOD focussed on humans specifically, who have never been highlighted on APOD before. This also gives APOD a "human" link usable inside of future APODs.

- RJN
The answer to the "Allow this post" question about the science of this site is not "humanity"

I have the rest of the Internet for humanity. Please leave your view out of it and bring back space and astronomy. There's little enough science around as it is.

lefty475

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by lefty475 » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:25 pm

I don't see people dancing: I see people juggling.

Questioning

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by Questioning » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:25 pm

Nix the dancing. Stick with astronomy. I love to learn more about science, and this video just doesn't do it for me. Very disappointed today. :(

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neufer
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Let's all do the Higgs!

Post by neufer » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:26 pm

http://news.discovery.com/space/listen-to-the-higgs-boson-120710.html wrote: Who would have thought that the sound of God
would tune on a habanera rhythm?
by Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News, Tue Jul 10, 2012

<<Researchers say they have "sonified" the data from the Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, making it possible to "hear" the newly discovered Higgs Boson-like particle, dubbed the "God particle" by Nobel-prize winning physicist Leon Lederman. The result is a melody which resembles the dotted rhythm of the habanera, a Cuban dance which became popular in Spain in the early 19th century.

On Wednesday July 4, scientists at CERN announced that they had found a Higgs-like particle after analyzing results from the Large Hadron Collider. Researchers detected a "bump" in their data corresponding to a particle weighing in at 126 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), consistent with the Higgs Boson, which is believed to give mass to all other particles.

"As soon as the announcement was made, we begun working on the sonification of the experimental data," Domenico Vicinanza, product manager at Dante (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe), Cambridge, UK, told Discovery News. Vicinanza led the Higgs sonification project collaborating with Mariapaola Sorrentino of ASTRA Project (Cambridge), who contributed to the sonification process, and Giuseppe La Rocca (INFN Catania), who was in charge of the computing framework. "Sonification worked by attaching a musical note to each data. So, when you hear the resulting melody you really are hearing the data," Vicinanza said.

The researchers mapped intervals between values in the original data set to interval between notes in the melody. The same numerical value was associated to the same note. As the values increased or decreased, the pitch of the notes grew or diminished accordingly. "In this way any regularity in the scientific data can be naturally mapped to the melody: if the data are periodic (they are marked by a repeated cycle) the sonification will be a music melody which will have the same periodicity and regularity," Vicinanza said.

In the sonification, each semiquaver corresponded to an increase of 5 gigaelectronvolts (GeV). The detection of the Higgs-like particle around the 126 gigaelectronvolt mass-energy range (GeV), was then expressed by a peak made of three high notes (about 3.5 seconds into the recording). The bump corresponding to the new particle is represented by an F note which is two octaves above the preceding F note, a C which is the most acute note in the music (also two octaves above the subsequent C note) representing the peak of the Higgs, and a E note.

"The discovery of the Higgs-like particle is a major step forward in our knowledge of the world around us. By using sonification we are able to make this breakthrough easier to understand by the general public," Vicinanza said. Amazingly, the sonification produced a habanera-like music. "After hearing the piano solo version, I created another version, more in tone with the resulting melody. I added bass, percussion, marimba and xylophone," Vicinanza said.

Particularly useful when dealing with complex, high-dimensional data, sonification requires enormous amounts of networking and processing power to produce results. To create the Higgs melody, the researchers relied on high-speed research networks including the pan-European GÉANT network, which operates at speed of up to 40Gbps (it will become 100Gb/s by early 2013) and the EGI grid computing infrastructure, which works by linking together multiple computers in different locations via high speed networks.>>
Art Neuendorffer

mosselkots

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by mosselkots » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:37 pm

First off,
I didn't mind much finding this OT video on my favorite site of all time, having seen this Dancing Doofus (well-put, Thrud.) before, I only wasted a second watching it.
But suspecting well written rants, I went to read (all) the comments.

Ok, my 2 cts...

This particular doofus had been just another annoying attention-seeker to me before, but apparently lots of people see his "project" as a world-uniting "message" and feel uplifted by that.
Which is a good thing. Could use more.

But finding out about the aircraft carrier rather changed my opinion about Matt Harding.
"Happy dancing on a weapon of mass destruction seems a bit Orwellian" indeed , (thanks Gern)
but also either very ignorant, in very bad taste, or even downright (subliminal) war propaganda, connecting people's uplifted feeling about the world to the dominating US war machine.
Ugly stuff. Can do without.

Also,
Even if complaining seems silly (I had no intention to do so before) as APOD is easily the greatest thing on the webs,
and this kind of OT-post is so rare,
and nobody has any right to say anything about such free goodness anyway,
and I agree with Markus in that the occasional surprise is a good stimulus...
I must also agree with Thrudhammer.

There IS "a whole world of this kind of claptrap" out there, and seeing it finding it's way onto my beloved APOD is slightly worrying...

Getting my astro-fix somewhere else for a day,
mK.

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bystander
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Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by bystander » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:40 pm

lbeckham wrote:In conclusion, I will quote Mr. Bostock again:

"I really don't mind if I sit this one out"
"Really don't mind if you sit this one out ..."
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

mosselkots

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by mosselkots » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:50 pm

Ah, found my astro-fix =]

For everybody still looking for a true Astronomy Picture Of the Day:
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_023531_1840

cheers,
mK

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Psnarf
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Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by Psnarf » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:52 pm

Ha! I knew it was a hoax!
Click to play embedded YouTube video.

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Psnarf
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Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by Psnarf » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:56 pm

Can you hear the silence, Dear Friends?!
Can you hear the silence, Dear Friends?!
Sound.Of.Silence.jpg (2.09 KiB) Viewed 4331 times
Sound of God

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neufer
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Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by neufer » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:59 pm

mosselkots wrote:
This particular doofus had been just another annoying attention-seeker to me before, but apparently lots of people see his "project" as a world-uniting "message" and feel uplifted by that. Which is a good thing. Could use more.

But finding out about the aircraft carrier rather changed my opinion about Matt Harding.

"Happy dancing on a weapon of mass destruction seems a bit Orwellian" indeed , (thanks Gern) but also either very ignorant, in very bad taste, or even downright (subliminal) war propaganda, connecting people's uplifted feeling about the world to the dominating US war machine.

Ugly stuff. Can do without.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_American_%28pejorative%29 wrote: <<Ugly American is a pejorative term used to refer to perceptions of loud, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless and ethnocentric behavior of American citizens mainly abroad, but also at home. The term was used as the title of a 1948 photograph of an American tourist in Havana by the Cuban photographer Constantino Arias, but seems to have entered popular culture as the title of a 1958 book by authors William Lederer and Eugene Burdick. In 1963 the book was made into a movie directed by George Englund and starring Marlon Brando.

The best-selling, loosely fictional account provided contrasting characters with different approaches to opposing Communist influence in Southeast Asia, and the use of foreign aid in particular. The majority of the Americans exhibit a range of blundering, corrupt, and incompetent behaviors, often concentrating on impractical projects that will serve more to benefit American contractors than the local population. A minority are effective because they employ knowledge of the local language and culture, but most of these are marginalized and some even considered suspect. As a result, their influence is more limited than it should be.

The title character, Homer Atkins, is introduced late in the book. He is "ugly" only in his physical appearance. His unattractive features, rough clothing and dirty hands are contrasted with the bureaucrats' freshly pressed clothes, clean fingers and smooth cheeks. Their behaviors have the opposite contrast: Atkins cares about the people of southeast Asia and wants to help them create practical solutions to their everyday problems; the bureaucrats want to build highways and dams that are not yet needed, and with no concern for the many other projects that will have to be completed before they can be used. The book led to a move by President Dwight Eisenhower to study and reform American aid programs in the region.

In the book, a fictional Burmese journalist wrote, "For some reason, the people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious. Perhaps they're frightened and defensive, or maybe they're not properly trained and make mistakes out of ignorance." The idea of the ignorant or badly-behaving American traveler long predates this book. Mark Twain wrote about The Innocents Abroad in the nineteenth century, and Algonquin Round Table member Donald Ogden Stewart wrote Mr and Mrs Haddock Abroad in 1924.>>
Art Neuendorffer

mosselkots

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by mosselkots » Tue Jul 10, 2012 3:00 pm

Ha!
good call Psnarf!
NOW I'm going to watch it.. =]
(with the sound off)
mK

surfsideguy

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by surfsideguy » Tue Jul 10, 2012 3:05 pm

Thank you for sharing a little joy!

DrNate

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by DrNate » Tue Jul 10, 2012 3:07 pm

How'd he get into North Korea???

Glacies

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by Glacies » Tue Jul 10, 2012 3:18 pm

Was a perfectly acceptable change of pace. For those of you moaning about it, you don't pay anything to come here, and there are a few thousand archived images you can go back to and look at for the day.

Clearly there are a lot of angry people around, who could do with a deep breath. Its a website with very few off-topic posts; if this is what you feel you need to complain about then you might want to refocus yourself a bit.

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Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by rstevenson » Tue Jul 10, 2012 3:52 pm

FloridaMike wrote:What is NOT astronomical about it? All I see is a bunch of self organized star dust that happens to be enjoying itself.
:lol2:

Rob

Doink

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by Doink » Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:18 pm

I enjoy APOD, have viewed it regularly for more than a decade and have followed the Starship Asterix* discussions frequently (and occasionally joined in) over the past two years. It always blows my mind that the days when there's a typo or an "off-subject" pic/vid elicit so many more passionate comments than the days when APOD presents truly masterful pieces of work. Thankyou, presenters of and contributors to APOD for all your good work and don't sweat an 'off' day.

Linus: "I love Humanity, it's people I can't stand." - Charles Shultz

Zorpoid

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by Zorpoid » Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:28 pm

This is (a) a commercial for some software package (b) it is not about astronomy. Talk about lame!

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Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by Case » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:12 pm

What’s with the blurred out faces of some people in the video? They were adults and aware of the camera, right?
It just seems odd.

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Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by geckzilla » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:18 pm

Case wrote:What’s with the blurred out faces of some people in the video? They were adults and aware of the camera, right?
It just seems odd.
Their identities were obscured for their own safety. A sad world we live in.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

sandybeach

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by sandybeach » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:20 pm

sigh, how sad that this agenda drives out astronomy. As this site wanders from its original purpose, I think many will wander to other sites that know how to maintain a sharp, telescopic focus.

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neufer
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81 Terpsichore

Post by neufer » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:57 pm

http://www.cuckney.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/astronmy/Asteroids.htm wrote:
[img3="81 Terpsichore in Leo / Meade LX200GPS 10" f6.3
Starlight Xpress MX7C CCD Camera 10 secs
"]http://www.cuckney.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk ... 060413.jpg[/img3]
<<81 Terpsichore (tərp-SIK-ə-ree) is a large and very dark main belt asteroid. It has most likely a very primitive carbonaceous composition. It was found by the prolific comet discoverer Ernst Tempel on September 30, 1864. It is named after Terpsichore, the Muse of dance in Greek mythology. (Diameter 119.1 km, Orbit period 4.82 years, Distance 338.5 million km). In Greek mythology, Terpsichore "delight in dancing" was one of the nine Muses, ruling over dance and the dramatic chorus. She lends her name to the word "terpsichorean" which means "of or relating to dance". She is usually depicted sitting down, holding a lyre, accompanying the dancers' choirs with her music. She is sometimes said to be the mother of the Sirens by Achelous. Her name comes from the Greek words τέρπω ("delight") and χoρός ("dance").>>
Art Neuendorffer

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Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by Greyhawk » Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:02 pm

Amazed at some of the short sighted responses on here for people who are supposed to look beyond horizons. If ever you wanted proof about the astounding nature of the universe, just look and see what happens to the end product of supernovas dancing.

To make an apple pie from scratch you first need to create the universe. Post a picture of an apple pie and Mr Sagan (no astronomy slouch) would see the connection. This has everything to do with astronomy in my opinion.

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Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by Ann » Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:42 pm

In hindsight, I think my first comment was a bit snide. I hadn't even watched the video when I wrote it. Now I have, and I like the video. It's sweet, and it does create a feeling of "happiness" and "dancing" and "humanity". It isn't bad that humanity has endowed the universe with such things, whether or not happiness and dancing also exist elsewhere!
Image
Source: Shutterstock footage
Still, just because this video is an Astronomy Picture of the Day, I can't stop thinking of it from an alien's point of view.



Imagine approaching the Earth in an alien spaceship, getting closer and closer, and eventually seeing...











...this!!!



(Wonder if they will be dancing?)










Ann
Color Commentator

mosselkots

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by mosselkots » Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:55 pm

Amazed at some of the pseudo-insightful responses on here for people who are supposed to like to look at astronomy pictures. =P

But seriously...
By this apple pie logic, literally anything could be seen in an astronomical light, and therefore would qualify for APOD.
Then we might as well type in a random word in google's image search each day, and have astronomical thoughts about that...

I for one hope this never happens.

JL_Picard_Durat

Re: APOD: Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth (2012 Jul 10)

Post by JL_Picard_Durat » Tue Jul 10, 2012 7:34 pm

I regret today's APOD and for me it has nothing to do with astronomy. If we go down this road, then why not talk about endangered species, unhappy (oppressed) people in Syria and elsewhere, human rights, sports (other kinds of human manifestations), etc. The list is endless. Furthermore, Kabul, muslins, etc all looks like an effort of being politically correct by embracing diversity and other cultures. Thumbs down and I hope this is the last one, as a political APOD would mean the end of the game.

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