You Think Basements Are Scary
At Intelligent Life, J. M. Ledgard writes about the deep black sea:
In many respects, the ocean is more hostile than space. Even with a futurist exoskeleton, the human body is too liquescent to contemplate stepping onto an ocean floor. There will never be a Neil Armstrong moment. Space flight is about weightlessness, speed, and the pressure inside the capsule against the airless void outside. Ocean descent is about weight, slowness, tonnes of sea water bearing down, and the discomfiting realisation that humans are alien to most of our own planet. Space offers a sighted journey towards infinity, the ocean a blind journey towards finitude.If you're not completely fascinated by the ocean floor, then, among other things, you haven't seen the BBC series The Blue Planet, and particularly the episode called "The Deep." (I briefly mentioned the documentary in a post about giant squid.) Part one of "The Deep" is below. You can get the rest online as well:
posted by JMW at 7:24 PM
2 Comments:
If you've enjoyed "Blue Planet," then I doubt I need to suggest the BBC's "Planet Earth." It's amazing.
What you might not know about -- and which I feel pretty confident you're going to love -- is a website called "Ted." It features "talks" by leading "thinkers" on a subject of their choice (Sorry about the quotations. I don't know what else to call them.) If you go to the Ted website and choose the category "Top 10," then you can view a speech by a guy who demonstrates some cool animal stuff from under the ocean. It's insane.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_gallo_shows_underwater_astonishments.html
Several of the talks are fascinating. They range from physics to earth sciences to religion. It's a wonderful website, and when I'm feeling like I haven't been intellectually stimulated in a while, I'll sometimes go check out a few speeches.
-- MattM
Touché sir. And thank you for expanding my frightscape.
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