Happy Belated, Dearest Neptune!

June 12 was Neptune's birthday. I was going to write about it. But I forgot. So here we go.

Neptune, the eighth planet from our Sun, takes 164.8 Earth years to rotate around the Sun. Exactly 164.8 years ago Neptune was discovered. So really, it's been a year since Neptune made its planetary debut.

The first person to 'notice' Neptune was Galileo on December 28, 1612, as a faint star. The (apparent) reason for Galileo's mistaking of the planet for a star was that Neptune had just reached 'retrograde', an effect that is caused when Earth's orbit takes it past an outer planet. What that means for the Earthbound observer is that the planet will seem to switch directions.

Since planets (Greek for 'wandering star') move differently from stars, which stay in a fixed place each night, they can be noticed easily. Retrograde, in its early stages, causes the planet to appear fixed, like a star. Thus, Galileo doesn't receive credit for Neptune's discovery.

Skip over a bit less than 250 years. It's 18forty-PARTY-six, and people were partying. In their weird 19th century way of partying. Tally-ho. And when people weren't partying, they were doing science.

Anyways, Johan Galle discovered Neptune at the Berlin Observatory on the night of September 23/24 after receiving a letter earlier that day from French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier telling of his prediction of a planet just beyond Uranus. He discovered just one degree from Le Verrier's predicted location. People got very angry.

Englishman John Couch Adams claimed he also predicted where Neptune was. This was no lie, he really had. Cambridge University astronomer James Challis had already searched for Neptune and found it in August 1846. The problem? He didn't identify it. Quoting Challis: "I have been greatly mortified to find that my observations would have shewn me the planet in the early part of August if I had only discussed them."

In the end, Galle and Le Verrier got there planet and... ate it, too. They didn't, actually. Unless someone made them a cake with Neptune drawn on it with icing. Then that would be another matter.

For anyone who has a telescope (as Neptune is not visible with the naked eye), in the next following weeks you can see Neptune exactly as Johann Galle saw it in party-crazed 1846.

A quick note. Although you'd think Neptune's one-year anniversary should have been September, there are some calculations that I don't completely understand that explain why it's in June. I don't want to misguide you lot, so I'll leave that for you if you care.

So that is the story of the great planet Neptune. Deceit, lies, Germans, publishing rights. Sounds like a French tragedy to me.

Feo.

Fancy Dance: Aftermath

Apparently, Feo's Fancy Dance has been blowing peoples' minds. In response, here comes another Fancy Dance video.

Class 2: Fancy Walking and Public Dancing

We learned several things while filing today.

• Don't run while doing a dance. You will get tired fast.
• Don't have a plan.
• And we determined that Fancy Dancing (our version, at least) has only one true rule: keep walking. Don't just stand and dance. You have to go somewhere. You thought I was going to say 'have fun', didn't you? Well I didn't.

Please remember! Feo's Blog wants YOU to Fancy Dance! Break it down to your favorite tunes and send your Fancy footage to us. (Comment with a link or something!)

Anyways, here's the video.

Fancy Dancing

I have started a trend. A culture, if I may say so myself.

Yes, Fancy Dancing will be reborn in my eloquent hands and steps! And you shall all follow!

Don't be stupid! Be Fancy and get your dance out.

WE'RE going to Whyte Ave. You should, too.

Class 1: Introduction to Fancy Dancing

Feo.

P.S.
I don't know why the like button is there.

I Like

On the subject of blog enhancements, I added a Facebook 'Like' button. A quick note: you can like individual articles by clicking on their header and going down to the bottom of the post. The button's there.

There seems to be a bug that makes all the buttons gray (used) if you click on the main page. I really don't know how to fix it. Do you?

Feo.

STILL GOOD TO BLOG!

Apparently, more and more people have been reading my blog. It really doesn't show considering that google friend connect is telling me I have one follower. How does nobody in this universe have GMail? I am so confused. I think I'll go cry on my computer. Maybe it will make sparks and stuff. Sparks are like fireworks. Happy.

Anyways, several people who have seen this blog have Tumblr blogs. Don't make me come to your houses and attempt to convert you to Bloggerology. We have meetings every Saturday.

Cool. So if you want to forgo the home-based conversion attempts, there is a nice plus shaped button that connects to a bar of logos at the bottom of every post and on the left sidebar. Hover your cursor over the '+', and a white window should appear. Press the Tumblr button and reblog my posts so I can get famous.

Another concept really worried me. What if you're out abroad, and need some useful advice on how to post my stuff to Tumblr. No worries. I found this setting that lets me give the blog a mobile version. It doesn't look as sexy as the current theme, but it'll do. Just log on from your iThing and experience the magic of the information age in the palm of your hand!

One last thing. I tried giving the blog a summer theme. Didn't work out. I'll try again, but no promises for an orange letter scheme to make you feel like having drinks with me in France. Oh yes. I'm going to France for a month and a half. I have a secret plan to keep the posts coming while I'm in the Wi-Fi disabled Azure coast of FrancItaly. We'll see. FRANCITALY!

Feo P-S

Blind as a Bat (Not at All)

The man in the photo above is Daniel Kish. Daniel Kish enjoys, among other things, biking, hiking, roller-skating, playing basketball, and skateboarding in Orange County, California. Except there's one catch- he's blind.

At the age of 4 months, Kish was diagnosed with retinoblastoma in both eyes. Retinoblastomas are cancerous tumors of the retina that are potemtially fatal. Treatment usually requires removal of the entire eye. One of Kish's eyes was removed at 7 months, the other at 13 months. Up until that point the blastomas were so large that it was unlikely Kish could visually discriminate anything other than light from dark. Kish was always blind.

After the removal of Kish's eyes, his parents didn't attempt to make the world any less real for him; they knew he was blind and they were going to help him live with that. Despite bumps and bruises, they did not restrict his activity. They also did not act as guides- they let him experience the world on his own.

His parents claim that the clicking began before his eyes were even removed. Now, before I continue, it's time we had a quick science review. It's a common fact that bats use high pitched sounds and clicks to see where they're going at night. I hope you see where I'm going with this...

He used this clicking early on to guide his crawling, cruising, and early walking. Daniel Kish can see with his ears.

Today, he guides tours with his friend Brian Bushway. These tours usually involve mountain biking with blind people. Their tours inspire confidence and self-esteem in blind people of all ages. They also tour and teach their mutual skill, human echolocation, to the masses.

The media, unfortunately, calls this skill a "medical mystery", or "special gift". Quite on the contrary, human echolocation is very human indeed. You can do it. Oh yes you can.

Kish's 'refined' echolocation allows him to do all the above activities with ease. When asked by a person with normal vision as to 'what' he sees on his bike rides, his reply was, "I can hear the sides of the trail where the brush meets the dirt. I can also hear if there are big rocks or trees in or near the path. All the important stuff about the trail..." Another favorite past time of Daniel Kish is camping and nighttime walks through the woods. Especially courageous 'normal-seeing' friends sometimes turn out their lights and allow Kish to lead them on the trail without a stumble.

So how does Daniel utilize clicks in a way that let him perceive objects down to the material they're made from? It's actually quite simple. Do begin, make a 'shhhh' noise while you move your palm back and forth from your mouth. The sound should change as your hand's distance changes. What happens is the sound waves collide with your hand. This 'sonar interference' changes depending on how far the interfering object is from the sound source. This effect is not an illusion that just occurs in the said example (unless you start thinking philosophically. Everything's an illusion, then. Wake up and smell the spiritual existence, friends. WE DON'T EXIST. Anyways.). The same thing will happen if you move a book in front of a speaker.

Well that's all interesting, but let's make it practical. Substitute now your palm for a wall. Find a wall in your home where you'll have 10 feet of clearance and no tapestries or paintings nearby. Position your face some 1 foot away from the wall. Close your eyes and start making the 'shhhhh' noise. Bob your head back and forth so you can hear the whooshing interference. As you continue making the noise, move progressively away from the wall and then move back closer. Eventually you should feel the wall more than hear it. Continue moving back and forth. You should 'feel' the wall when you get closer.

Next, stop making the 'shhhhhhh' noise and walk six or seven paces from the wall. Turn, with you eyes closed, to the wall. Start making 'sh-sh-sh-sh' noises while slowly walking towards the wall. When you feel you're getting close to the wall, concentrate hard and move slowly. When you feel yourself 1 foot from the wall, open your eyes. Keep doing that until the wall is visible through sound in your mind rather than through vision. Once you're good, research it some more and become a bat. Then you can build a cave, get a badass car, and hunt clowns. Only a suggestion.

Feo P-S

P.S.

If you did find this interesting, check out See What I'm Saying: The Extraordinary Powers of Our Five Senses by Lawrence D. Rosenblum, the source material for this article.

Just Where Do You Get OFF?

Well I just don't get it. OFF Deepwoods is supposed to keep mosquitoes away, right?

For the past month or so, Alberta has been suffering something of a mosquito epidemic. And what OFF is supposed to do is keep mosquitoes off. Even if you're walking through a cloud of them. It really doesn't.

Well, it does, but for a total of around 5 minutes. Then they bite through the stuff. And it hurts when they bite the same place because they're running out of surface area.

And what's more, HOW THE HELL DID A BITE GET THERE?! It's just not physically possible! That region has no outside access! HOW?!

So, yes, this is a minor call to arms to all the mosquito repellent companies. Wake up and smell some new chemicals. Because if I'm going to put garbage on my self, I want my garbage to work.

Feo.

IMAGE BROUGHT TO YOU BY PHILOSOPHICAL GANGSTERS, COMING SOON! YEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH!