The even more overdue X-mas knitting post, part 2

I mentioned last time that I overcame my fear of stranded colourwork with those Spidey Socks. Well, as part of my X-mas knitting, I also overcame my fear extremely fuzzy silk-mohair blends (à la Cracksilk Haze). For my mom, I knit Romi Hill's Ice Queen from Knitty. I didn't use Rowan's Kidsilk Haze, but a slightly cheaper similar yarn called Filatura Di Crosa Baby Kid Extra in a gorgeous silvery grey colour.

I love this pattern. It's so simple, just a feather and fan kind of design, but it works so well with this yarn. And fuzzy mohair blends are just made for knitting with sparkly little beads. I used some little shiny purple ones from my bead stash. It ended up stretching out a little more than I'd hoped for, but Mom still likes it, so it's ok.

The beads I used for the Ice Queen, I also used for my second attempt at chainmail jewelry. I made Mom a nice necklace to match the earrings I made her last summer.

I used the basic rosette from the Chandelier earring pattern in the Anticraft book and then attached them together using these beaded wire thingies. I think the hardest part was making all the loops for the wires, since opening and closing jump rings is pretty easy after a while.

Finally, for my Dad, I made an iPod cozy... Yeah, it seems like I copped out a bit on that one. However, I also got him Sean Carroll's awesome new book, From Eternity to Here, which hopefully makes up for the lack of hand-made gifts.

I used "The BEST iPhone cozy EVER" pattern by bethanye. It's really simple, but works perfectly. I love the little pocket, to which I added a little button for extra security. I also made it a drawstring pouch. I used the left-over yarn from Stevie's socks.

I've actually been doing a LOT of knitting recently, and making a slight dent in my stash, so the lack of posting hasn't been for want of things to write about... I've just been incredibly busy. Hopefully, over the next week or so, I'll be able to catch up on my most recent FOs!

The long overdue X-mas knitting post, part 1

Yes, I know. It's February. I should have posted about what I knitted for everyone's Christmas/Brumalia/Newtonmas presents at least a month ago... Well, better late than never, right? Right?

I'd like to start off with socks. I like socks. A lot. They're pretty much the perfect project. Simple enough to work on while watching TV or sitting through a lecture, yet small enough to be portable, and with that heel-turning in the middle they have just enough of a challenge to keep me interested. And after inheriting a drawer-full of hand-knit socks from my grandmother, I know the awesome squishy comfortableness of wearing them.

This X-mas, I tried my first toe-up socks and ohmygod I'm so not turning back. I love the short-row toe because I always manage to do my Kitchener stitch too tight. And of course, you can try it on as you go, and knit until you run out of yarn. I also tackled my life-long (ok, maybe a few months-long) fear of doing serious stranded colourwork. I'm still not a fan, but at least I can say I tried it.

Sing it with me! Spidey Socks! Spidey Socks! Friendly neighbourhood Spidey Socks! These are totally the coolest thing ever, by the way. The pattern is Even Big Guys Love Spidey Socks by Terri Frid (Ravelry link) and I made it for my brother. It was quite a challenge for me because I wanted to make sure the floats wouldn't catch on bro's toes, so I ended up twisting the yarns together every two or three stitches. It's a work of art, I tell ya... I wish I'd taken a picture of the insides.

Also, then ended up being a little long in the foot for the bro, mostly because I took his shoe size and based the sock size on that without actually measuring his foot. Well, I'll know for next time and he said he'd wear them anyway. And hey, they might shrink a bit in the wash! Then again, the yarn I used is mostly Knit Picks Stroll, which is superwash merino, and likely won't shrink... sigh...

So you're probably wondering what that thing between bro's Spidey Sock-clad feet is. Well, I'll diverge a little from the sock topic to tell you that it's just the most awesome beer cozy ever! It's the Booby Coozy by Keesha Arthur. I made mine an ebony-skinned Amazonian, not only because that was the only yarn colour I happened to have on hand, but because I thought it would look cool against the yellow bikini.

Warning! The following image is not work-appropriate! Teeheehee!

Ok, back to socks.

For my friend Stevie, I also made a pair of toe-up socks and didn't ask for his proper foot measurements and made socks that were way too big. Ah well, he promised to wear them as well. I made them from a lot of left-over yarns I had lying around. I used the left-over Stroll from the Spidey Socks for the blue, and an unknown gift yarn for the brown, and then some leftover red from my Monkey Socks and green from a new ball of S.R. Kertzer On Your Toes.

And that's a long enough post for now... next time, the parentals!

Happy Seamstress launch!

I'm a little late on the uptake here, since Joanna actually relaunched the Happy Seamstress a couple of weeks ago, but I've been busy writing my first first-authored paper, so cut me some slack. Anyway, the Happy Seamstress site looks amazing. My favourite part of the site redesign is actually the pink bubble with the site logo... there's just something about that bright pink colour...

The site currently has some sewing patterns and one knitting pattern, some beautiful lace opera gloves (seen left), but more will be there soon. She already a few great free tutorials worth checking out.

Also worth checking out is our Stitch 'n Bitch contest! Following my review of the latest SnB book, Knitting Superstar, the publisher agreed to send out free copies to winners. The idea is to submit a photo and description of a project you've made from one of the SnB books, or a project that was inspired by these books. It doesn't have to be a project made recently or anything, but it does have to be your own work. If you knit or crochet and have ever used any of the SnB books, you should definitely have a look at the contest page!

Keeping our internet reasonably priced

I'm not usually one to get all riled up about things, but when it comes to my internet, I don't mess around. The CRTC has made a decision which will pave the way to allowing internet service providers (ISPs) to charge Canadians per byte for their internet usage, sort of like what mobile companies already do. This means that we'll be paying a lot more for a lot less internet. To boot, the big telecom companies are forcing small companies to adopt the same billing policy, effectively eliminating any sort of cheaper alternative.

My internet is expensive enough, and I have no interest in paying more for it. If you're of the same opinion, and are Canadian, I hope you'll fill out the below petition. If for some reason that doesn't work, you can use the OpenMedia form.

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In other news, I just got back from an awesome conference in Milwaukee, which I will tell you all about soon with pictures and everything!

Astronomy Tuesday: Elusive Habitable Planets

I know I said that I'd have lots of time to write about astronomy over the holidays, but really, I got so caught up in watching Farscape, reading webcomics and practising extreme relaxation, that I totally forgot. And then the semester started again and I got busy. Why am I writing right now? Well, my friend, it has to do with that procrastination/amount of work to do correlation.

Anyway, today I thought I'd talk about Gliese 581 g, an unconfirmed rocky planet orbiting the red dwarf star Gliese 581. The planet got everyone excited back in September since it was discovered in the habitable zone of its sun, that is, that perfect distance from the star where water can exist in liquid form. This would be the first time a planet outside our solar system has been discovered in that special region around its sun. Here is an image of the Gliese solar system compared to our own (from Wikipedia):

We shouldn't, however, start packing our bags to go visit this extrasolar planet. Besides the fact that interstellar travel is currently just a pipe dream, Gliese 581 g probably wouldn't be as hospitable as one might first think. Even though it's considerably closer to its sun than the Earth is to our own sun, Gliese 581 is much less massive than the Sun and therefore much less luminous. Thus, the average temperature on this planet is about 37 degrees (Celsius) colder than on Earth. It's possible that since it's 3 to 4 times as massive as the Earth, it would be able to sustain a thicker atmosphere with an increased greenhouse effect, but that's pure speculation at this point.

The other issue is that since the planet is so close to its sun, about one tenth the distance that Earth is from our sun, there's a good chance that it's tidally locked, that is, its rotation has slowed so much that one side of the planet is always facing the sun. This would imply that it would be incredibly hot on the side of the planet facing the star and very very cold on the side facing away from the star. This happens when the gravitational gradient, that is the difference in gravitational force which decreases with distance from the massive object (the star in this case), is large it exerts a torque on the planet which causes its rotation to slow down, eventually causing it to rotate at the same rate as it's orbiting the star. This is probably best described in a diagram (from Wikipedia, of course):

I don't know how much that really helped, but the point is, if there is a large difference in temperatures on the planet, it would be more difficult for liquid water to form, and therefore for life to exist. This problem might be solved if the atmosphere of this planet is thick enough to distribute the heat around the planet. Venus, for example, is also almost tidally locked to the Sun and because of its thick atmosphere, the temperature is more or less uniform on all sides. However, since our instruments still aren't good enough to be able to detect the atmospheric composition of Gliese 581 g, it's hard to say anything more on this subject.

The story is further complicated by the recent announcement by another research group that they aren't able to detect the new planet in another data set. The planet was discovered using 122 measurements from the HIRES instrument on the Keck 1 telescope in Hawaii, and 119 measurements from the HARPS spectrograph at La Silla Observatory in Chile taken over 11 and 4.3 years respectively. All the planets in that system (there are 6 in total) were discovered using the radial velocity technique, which I briefly described in a previous post. Basically, the planets all cause the star to wobble slightly in its orbit, and by subtracting the wobbles of the closer and more massive planets, one is able to detect the fainter signals from the other planets in the system. Let's take another look at that wobble (if only because I love animated gifs):

So this other group added 60 data points onto the HARPS measurements and says that they can't find the signal for Gliese 581 g. It has something to do with the error bars on the previous measurements, and assumptions that are made about the shape of the orbits of the planets in the system. On one side of the argument, you have astronomers saying that this new planet doesn't exist at all, and on the other side, the astronomers who originally detected it maintain that you need the data sets from both instruments to be able to see it.

At any rate, it will be interesting to see how the argument is settled, which I suppose will happen in the next year or so when even more measurements are taken. If this planet does indeed exist, it's certainly an exciting prospect for discovering life elsewhere in the universe!

Who-oa! You're like a gorilla!

Yes, I have had the song by the Mopes stuck in my head for the last month or so, but more importantly, I got a GorillaPod!

It's an awesome little tripod with flexible legs and rubbery feet that wrap around and grip things like nobody's business. It had no trouble hanging on to my bookcase:

Or on to Spock, the stuffed beagle:

When my camera is attached, it also vaguely reminds me of those weird alien transporters from War of the Worlds. Especially when it decides to attack my face:

My plan is to use this newfangled contraption to take pictures and videos of my hands so that I can make tutorials and stuff without having to worry about holding the camera. Look ma! No hands!

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On a completely unrelated note, I wrote a book review! You should go check it out on that other blog I now write for.

Books books books...

I'm not very good at making New Year's resolutions. I mean, I guess some years I half-heartedly make a list, and then completely ignore it. This year, however, inspired by an ever-growing pile of books to read, whose prosperity has certainly been helped along by a large number of books received as X-mas presents from the parents and the boyfriend, I've resolved to spend a lot more time reading for pleasure.

Since I started grad school, I've read innumerable scientific papers, but I've hardly read any novels at all. Like maybe 2 whole books in the last 2 and a half years. Pretty pathetic. Well, that's not strictly true. I have been downloading audiobooks from Librivox, and I got through 5 or 6 books that way, and I have been reading a bit on my Kindle. However, I wouldn't say that either of those media really count as true books, since I'm either being read to or don't have to lug a real book around.

Anyway, to show I mean business here, in no particular order, is my reading list for 2011:

I'm in the process of reading the second book in Robertson Davies' Cornish Trilogy, entitled What's Bred in the Bone. I received these books as a birthday present, I think, at least 2 years ago, and have only read the first book, which took me about a year. It's actually a pretty interesting story, mostly taking place in Toronto, centered around the life of Francis Cornish, an eccentric art collector.

Next, I'd like to read The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula Leguin. This is a classic of fantasy literature, considered by some to be on a par with Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Interestingly enough, I first heard about it from an audio recording of a lecture entitled "TMS Rings, Swords, and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature" by Prof. Michael D.C. Drout which was given to me by Stevie ages ago. I then borrowed the books from my mom last winter break, and they've been sitting on my shelf collecting dust ever since.

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins should be a good read. I got this as an X-mas present from my dad last year. The boyfriend has read it, and he rather liked it, so I probably will too. It essentially debunks Creationism, etc. by listing all the evidence that has been found for evolution. If you read my post about the Creationist publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, then you already know how I feel about that subject. I also really enjoy Dawkins' style of writing. He's a very angry person, it seems, but he has very well-structured arguments. I listened to an audiobook version of The God Delusion, and I enjoyed it a lot.

The boyfriend got me this book, The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, for X-mas this year. It's Hawking's first book in over 10 years, and covers all the really big questions about the origin of the universe and so on. I really enjoyed A Brief History of Time and Black Holes and Baby Universes, so hopefully this'll be good too!

I hope I don't get sick of popular science books at this point because The Universe and the Teacup by K.C. Cole looks like an interesting one. I got this from my dad for X-mas this year. From what I can tell, it's about how mathematics enable us to create patterns out of natural phenomena and thus explain them. Sounds like it's right up my alley.

The boyfriend also gave me for X-mas The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow, who also co-authored Stephen Hawking's most recent book. Apparently it's about randomness and how people are unable to account for this in their everyday lives. I'm a huge fan of chaos theory and randomness (Chaos by James Gleick was awesome), so this should be a good read.

Finally, for X-mas last year, I think, my dad gave me Daniel Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music. It explains how all humans are experts in music, even if they don't know it, that is, the human brain is naturally programmed to understand musical concepts intuitively.

So that's my list... hopefully I'll be able to finish all these books by the end of the year, but I won't hold my breath. Still, a worthy challenge!