Hey, I Uploaded a Video

Just got back from a great trip to Beijing, very enjoyable if a bit tiring, where much musing was done on the Primordial Existential Question, about which more anon. But I also mused a bit about what this blog needs, and I came to the conclusion that must have been obvious to everyone else long ago: more videos of me. So, here you are. Thanks to some heroic efforts on the part of folks who would just as soon lurk behind the scenes, we now have video captured from the C-SPAN broadcast of our science panel at YearlyKos. Here is my talk, conveniently divided into two pieces to appease the YouTube gods. They are a little fuzzy, but you get the idea. I used the mysterious beauty of dark matter and dark energy as an excuse to make some didactic points about science and rationality and politics. (If I weren't an atheist, I would have made a good preacher.) You can also find videos of Chris's talk and Ed's talk at their respective sites; Tara, who felt sorry for me for being given the impossible task of making the universe sound interesting, has the Q&A up as well. But! Behind the fold, the true payoff! Those talks of mine are inspiring and educational and all that, but they're not truly art. For that, you will have to check out this series of videos by Dylan King. Here is a taste. For our slower viewers, I'll explain: this is a series of trumpet improvisations, recorded over (and inspired by, I like to think) my appearance on Art Bell's Coast to Coast AM. A confluence of science and music, radio and the internet, that can only be described as unique.