Circles within circles

Via stumbleupon I came across this really cool orrery. The text is absurdly small and hard to read(*), but this does mean you can turn the brightness down and just watch the motions of the planets. What I really enjoyed doing was comparing the simplicity of the paths in the Copernican (sun centric aka correct) vs Tychonian (earth centric) views, putting on planet trace or turning down the brightness and imagining what it must have been like for the astronomers trying to figure out the equations of motion back when they thought everything revolved around the earth.

Man, I feel like solving some equations now.

(*)If you can make out the planets but not the text, the copernican/tychonian buttons are in the bottom right. Top right is set the date/show zodiac/choose planet/stop planet tracing, top left is speed/sound/help, and bottom left is moon phase.

And this is why I buy from Threadless

The subjects of two emails I got today:

From Threadless: We luv $5 shipping (and $10 too, for you non-US folks)

From CafePress: FREE Shipping to [name of the Australian suburb I live in] - or to your sweetheart's door

But of course once I opened the Cafepress email there was fine print about the free shipping only applying inside the US. Amazon does this too, putting FREE SHIPPING all over their emails and website while simultaneously trying to make everything feel "personalised", with my name everywhere and references to Things Australians Might Like. This does not endear them to me.

There are productive things I should be doing right now but I feel incredibly crap and complaining about companies being wrong on the internet is more emotionally satisfying.