Science Comedian

Science Comedian on BoingBoing

November 23rd, 2009

I’m on BoingBoing!

Mag­gie Koerth-Baker posted a YouTube clip of me this morn­ing.  It’s an excerpt from my per­for­mance two weeks ago at Won­der­fest, the Bay Area sci­ence festival.

The entire fes­ti­val was video­taped by Fora.tv.  You can see the rest of my 15-minute per­for­mance here.

Also, a dia­logue I mod­er­ated enti­tled Do Robots Make Bet­ter Astro­nauts? (fea­tur­ing Chris McKay of NASA Ames and Kanna Rajan of the Mon­terey Bay Aquar­ium Research Institute).

If you’re vis­it­ing from Boing­Bo­ing… Welcome!

It’s odd to be judged just by these admit­tedly – pur­posely – corny bar jokes.  They aren’t exactly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of my entire act.  They were the silly end to my presentation.

And they also cut the rou­tine short – there are a few more, includ­ing the final bar joke which is arguably the best one….  about Helium.

Check out the rest of that per­for­mance or see my other YouTube clips:  www.youtube.com/sciencecomedian .  Subscribe!

I’m @sciencecomedian on Twit­ter.  Fol­low me!

And check out the sci­ence videos I’ve been mak­ing for Time Magazine’s web­site.

Thank you, goodnight!

Why is Science Important?

March 18th, 2009

Alom Shaha has made a won­der­ful 28-minute film enti­tled “Why is Sci­ence Important?”

Shaha is a physics teacher at an inner city school in the UK, and also a TV pro­ducer who spe­cial­izes in sci­ence pro­grams.  The film was made to be broad­cast on Teach­ers TV (a UK cable chan­nel) but it’s also avail­able online in excel­lent HD qual­ity – and can even be shared and embed­ded, as seen below (you can view a larger size if you click over to his site).

The web­site also con­tains “a col­lec­tion of thoughts from lead­ing sci­en­tists, pub­lic fig­ures …and you.”  Add your thoughts on why sci­ence is impor­tant and they’ll appear along­side the thoughts of Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, SETI’s Seth Shostak, LabLit’s Jen­nifer Rohn, and many others.

Visit Alom’s YouTube Chan­nel – sci­ence­films – to see more answers to the ques­tion “Why is Sci­ence Impor­tant?” as well as some of his other films.

Links:
Why is Sci­ence Impor­tant?
Bad Astron­omy blog
SETI
Seth Shostak
LabLit

Star Trek Trailer & Kirk's Reaction

February 23rd, 2009

First there’s the trailer for the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie, which I think looks pretty cool.  Even if purists are get­ting upset with Abrams’ tam­per­ing with Trek canon – the visu­als look sweet!

Check the lower right-hand cor­ner for the option to watch in higher quality.

Link:  New Star Trek Trailer – Includes Old Spock

And how do you think William Shat­ner would reply?…

Link:  Shat­ner com­ments on the new Star Trek XI trailer

Related post:  Trans­porter Pie