kaffy_r | Entries tagged with skience!

Good Things and Other Things

Let's get the "other" part out of the way. This story from NPR, about how the efficacy of recycling plastics has always been a lie, one that oil companies pushed even as they knew it was a lie, has almost caused me to despair. It's certainly plunged me into an environmental Slough of Despond, from which I cry disconsolately "Why the fuck should I even bother?" What do you think, after reading it?

I'll follow that up with something slightly more positive: the potential for at least considering the likelihood of life on or above Venus. (I made that sufficiently equivocal, I think.) The information in this Washington Post piece was intriguing, to say the least.

Further things: I've made applesauce this afternoon. The old apple peeler/corer/slicer that we picked up at either Goodwill or the Sally Ann didn't work this time, although it was really helpful the last time we used it. I'll have to investigate it, but I think the blades involved are now too blunted. Or maybe the apples were too soft ... *wanders off, muttering*

Also on the cooking menu is a cucumber-onion salad. Hmmm; food considerations remind me that I need to create the menu for the rest of this week, because I'm trying very hard to be organized about things like this.

I'm also going to try to get a little bit more writing done on my slow fanfic WIP. Go, me. And the music I'll be listening to as I try is CBC radio, which I was reminded I have access to online. It's been very soothing; lots of diverse music, with quiet chat between pieces, usually with really interesting information about pieces or composers.

Speaking of Canada, now I really have to start watching Schitt's Creek, which I've been aware of for a few years but which I haven't watched, because the idea of a family living in limbo, no matter how funny, pushes the same horrid buttons that Green Acres used to.* It swept all 7 Emmy comedy-connected awards last night, and now that the series is over, I can maybe get started on it.

* When I was a lilttle kid with little to no taste in television, "Green Acres" used to drive me spare; why couldn't they fix the damned house, why were they living where they had to climb a pole to answer the phone, why didn't they just start making their home neater. Why couldn't they control their surroundings? Worse, why didn't they seem to want to control their surroundings? This speaks more to me than it speaks to Green Acres ... amusingly enough, I watched a little of a Green Acres episode not long ago, and really enjoyed it, probably because I could digest its surrealism and enjoy it. A little like not being able to stand blue cheese or dulse as a youngster - not even being able to understand how anyone would like them - and discovering years later how much I liked one, and could enjoy the other.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: "Early One Morning" Nana Mouskourinana
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/565424.html

My Desk Is A Black Hole

Or more precisely, it's a black hole that can drive in reverse.

Remember how we found Bob's passport in one of the desk's drawers, one that we'd searched multiple times? Well here's what happened today.

As you may recall, I had to order new checks because the checks I'd previously ordered had gone missing. I assumed that I'd mistakenly thrown the new checks out. After ordering a second set of checks, I joked with Bob that the original "new" checks would reappear soon after the second set of new checks arrived in the mail. Of course that wouldn't happen, because I'd thrown them out.

This morning, I found the supposedly trashed checks in a pile of paper on top of the desk. A pile both Bob and I had searched before.

Now the nice thing is that those checks are still usable, unlike the cancelled passport. But sweet lord, this desk! It taketh, and it ... uhm ... returneth.

Paging Richard Feynman ....

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: the home office
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/535372.html

I Saw "Arrival"

And it was pretty much magnificent. Dennis Villeneuve has created an amazing film based on Ted Chiang's novella "Story of Your Life." I have not read the story, but based on what I saw today, I'll be buying it soon.

It is elegant, intellectually clean, unsettling, and challenging. It is emotionally sonorous. It is beautiful. Amy Adams deserves so much praise for every minute change on her face and in her eyes. Every character, human or otherwise is treated with respect and, as a result, acts in ways that are understandable. The music is amazing, the message about humanity, language, love, and fear, and time, and more, are what you make of them.

If this doesn't win a ton of awards, I will be very disappointed.

Current Mood: impressed
Current Location: the livingroom
Crossposts: http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/432143.html

The Martian

(Warning; not a real review, just an immediate reaction.)

Went to see this movie tonight, and I have to echo what a lot of people have said - it's awesome. It's hard science fiction, with brain and heart, which means it does Campbell and Gernsback right, the way Campbell and Gernsback didn't, so ... without a lot of racism, sexism, etc., and with a great deal more literary and filmic sophistication than those two might ever have imagined - but still with a lot of true love for, and belief in, the power of logic, science, optimism, humanism and determination to move forward.

Or as hero botanist Mark Watney (portrayed wonderfully by Matt Damon) says, when presented with yet another life-threatening scenario, "I've got to science the shit out of this." And he does, while a totally admirable group of science heroes back on earth do their damnedest to help him out (not always successfully.)

The look and feel of it was gorgeous; I felt like we were looking at Mars, even as I knew that we weren't.

If this doesn't win the Hugo for best long form drama (or whatever the hell they call it next year), I'll either cry foul, or prepare myself to see the film of a lifetime if the winner actually tops The Martian.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Going to bed
Crossposts: http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/381592.html

Thanks - many thanks - to peoppenheimer

For my unexpected exposure to this wonderful video. I am, as I told him, the farthest thing from mathematically inclined, but I adore this, because I know just how frakkin' important mathematics is. Just the core of the universe, don't you know ....

Current Mood: impressed
Current Location: the livingroom
Crossposts: http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/325374.html

So: Just How Do We Fix This?

A depressing little story from Mother Jones about the obstacles medical science faces when attempting to change the minds of anti-vaxxers.

When facts fail, do we look at how we deliver them? Do we look at what makes people reject them? Do we try to see the world from the nay-sayer's point of view in hopes of finding an argument or fact that might change her mind? Do we do all of those things?

Well, that's easy, I suppose. We do all of those things. But, lord, it's depressing to realize yet again that facts won't change peoples' minds.

(And it's depressing to realize that as a human, I could easily fall prey to the same blindness in other areas. Science? Not so much; but other areas? I'd better be willing to acknowledge my own biases.)

Current Mood: frustrated
Current Location: the livingroom
Crossposts: http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/293592.html

What Once Was Wrong, the Inevitable Will Crown Right

When I was a little girl, I used to read comic strips in my daily newspaper. One of them was a would-be Buck Rogers strip called, if I remember correctly, Brick Bradford (which information I had to retrieve from Wikipedia. It certainly ran a long time.)

One of the adventures in that otherwise forgettable strip has stayed with me ever since. The hero sets down on a planet with a toxic atmosphere, with beings he at first thinks are unintelligent beasts. He and his colleagues eventually come to realize that this is a planet that was once like Earth, but which has become so polluted that it now has a completely different ecosystem, to which all those of the planets beings who survived have adapted. To them, Brick's obligatory scientist colleague narrates, Earth's atmosphere would be deadly.

The story fascinated me for two reasons: a) the idea that something we would consider absolutely wrong - an environment, say - would be absolutely natural to other beings, indeed necessary and non-toxic. I considered it compelling both environmentally (although I didn't think of it in those terms back in 1966 or 1967, which may have been when I read it) and philosophically; b) the idea that our world could end, that we would end, but that it might be OK, because something equally important or intelligent or what-have-you, might grow to take our place in a vastly changed world.

All of which leads me to this: Thanks to

ljgeoff for alerting me to this article. For all that I've just said, I'd much rather we managed, somehow against all logic, to stick around. I guess I'm not quite mature or enlightened enough to take the approach of the writer. And he's right, not me.

Current Mood: uncomfortable
Current Location: Going to bed
Crossposts: http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/279096.html

Cortisol Capers

( 'Ware! There Be Superficial Skience Larnins Beyond This Point! )

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: Going to bed
Crossposts: http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/231740.html

Braiinz, Bones and Detritus

It's been a very slow day, largely because BB and I stayed up too late to watched "I Walked With a Zombie" on Turner Classic Movies last night this morning. I suppose I should have gone to bed at 3 a.m. before the rather surprisingly good movie captured my attention. We staggered to bed at 4 a.m., awakened at 12:30 a.m. and I worked on a story for work for the rest of the afternoon, fighting off extreme achiness while I did. No housework or other tasks done, but I'm not guilt-stricken.

(The movie is really quite good, barring some unpleasant cultural and "benign" racism Fail that sadly seems to Come With the Territory in 1943 movies. And it has some really strikingly creepy, nay, frightening, images, like the one I'll hide under a cut at the bottom. Has anyone else watched the film? What did you think of it?)

Anyhow, since I'm about to take a hot shower and more painkillers before we watched Doctor Who (w00t!!1!), I'll leave you with these two other links.

First, because I'm a fan of rhinos (one of who once upon a metaphorical time ate my nose, another story entirely from the tale of how he got his skin oh Best Beloved): The Oldest Wooly Rhinocerous Found.

Second, because I am definitely a skiffy geek, a science geek, and an anime geek (a point that is relevant because my love of the series "Planetes" immediately made me think of it when I read the piece — "They need Half-Section!" said I,) this story: Space Debris at 'Tipping Point.'

And now, off to ablute, get painless and hide behind the sofa.

Oh, right. The Image Under the Cut
( Really, don't click if you don't want to jump out of your skin )

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Home Office
Current Music: Theme to "Princess Jellyfish" in my head

When Rats (and Humans) Dance the Parasite Polka

If you've ever been pregnant, or know someone who ever was pregnant, you're probably familiar with the advice to pregnant women — to stay the hell away from catboxes, in order to avoid toxoplasmosis. That, however, is just one facet of the glittering neurobiology of the parasite which causes the disease. If ever we needed proof that the universe may not only be stranger than we know, but stranger than we can know, this certainly would be a candidate:

"Toxo Modified Humans"

Current Mood: geeky
Current Location: work-ish
Current Music: nothing, at the moment

Current Mood: geeky
Current Location: work-ish
Current Music: nothing, at the moment

Profile

kaffy_r

May 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Dept. of Monday Sunshine
Dept. of Domestic Physics
Dept. of Beautiful Things
Dept. of Movies
Dept. of Because It's the Weekend
Dept. of Face Palm Isn't Enough
Dept. of The World Is Bigger Than We Are
Dept. of Joint Negotiations
Dept. of This and That
Dept. of The World is Weirder Than We Imagine
Dept. of The World is Weirder Than We Imagine

Active Entries

Style Credit

Style: Green Summer for Modular by branchandroot
Resources: p r o l o g u e

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Sunday, 25 May 2025 11:13 pm

Grasping at Grace (and Growth)

Transformation is Inescapable

Entries tagged with skience!

Dept. of Monday Sunshine

Dept. of Domestic Physics

Dept. of Beautiful Things

Dept. of Movies

Dept. of Because It's the Weekend

Dept. of Face Palm Isn't Enough

Dept. of The World Is Bigger Than We Are

Dept. of Joint Negotiations

Dept. of This and That

Dept. of The World is Weirder Than We Imagine