Random Thoughts

There are far too many theories about the best way to teach kids.  Dr. Seuss had the right idea: make it fun.  It's good to have a child actually beg you to read something out loud. Never mind the Saggerbotham theory of linguistic competence or the Higginsmythe phoneme-clustering prolexial algorithm.  These are kids, for crying out loud!  Let them have fun! When learning is so much fun, why would any kid want you to stop just so you can teach them  useful words like onomatopoeia? With those thoughts in mind, here is another of my verses for children. I hope that it…

Morning Science Quote The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of…

Babies may be born with a predisposition to dance and find music - specifically, rhythm and tempo - more engaging than speech, according to a study of infants aged between five months and two years old. While predisposition towards music may be innate, researchers are unsure why it developed in humans. "One possibility is that it was a target of natural selection for music or that it has evolved for some other function that just happens to be relevant for music processing," the authors write. For the study, 120 infants listened to a variety of audio stimuli including classical music, rhythmic…

The Real Scuttlebutt On Sailing Slang There are plenty of sites around the web which will give you the origins and meanings of nautical slang.  Mostly the wrong ones.  Etymology is a science: you can't just make stuff up. What's the scuttlebutt?'Scuttlebutt' is rumor or gossip.  In any community there will be places where people like to exchange the latest gossip.  In the days of sail the communal water butt was favorite.  One may well imagine sailors swapping yarns around the water butt.  But where does 'scuttle' come into it?  There are two nautical…

Consensus Science In a democracy you can vote without needing to give reasons. In science you have to give reasons or you aren't allowed to vote. Let me explain that.Suppose that I discover by experiment that splomks are vlatikers.  My proof is that by coating a lens with praktonite I ensure that every time I examine a splomk with my lens it sure enough looks like a vlatiker. Scientists across the world rush to replicate my experiment.  Sure enough: a majority of them report that splomks are indeed vlatikers.  We have a consensus. A few experiments fail to replicate my results…

Spring ForwardSpring forward.Seize the daylight hour.We have but too few summers.All mortals must fall backin our autumn years. .Picture via Wikimedia, public domain, courtesy of P. Ingerson I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life constantly checking everywhere to make sure that the picture was being used in accordance with the arbitrary, bureaucratic regulations that the GFDL imposes. I'd rather just forget about it and get on with better things to do. It does seem just a little bit pointless: just a couple of seconds to take the picture, and a lifetime of checking afterwards. Still,…

I came across this video for "This Too Shall Pass" by OK Go, and was absolutely amazed at the amount of creative genius packed into this four-minute piece of eye candy. You have to admire the flawless execution of low-tech physics combined with music and choreography. I also wonder.... just how many takes did this require? Considering it is all one uncut stream of video, I imagine it was quite a few. Anyone who loved to create installations as a kid reminiscent of the game "Mousetrap" has to watch this video. Enjoy!

Eschatology From wikipedia: The word eschatology is from the Greek ἔσχατος, Eschatos meaning "last" and -logy meaning "the study of", first used in English around 1550That is, 'the end times' Time - Clocks Are we cheating ourselves by relying on our clocks?Do we really understand the workings of the universe enough to have comfortably settled into regulating our lives by them?Is the method we use totally reliable? Researchers at Queen's University have helped produce a new archaeological tool which could answer key questions in human evolution.The new calibration curve, which extends back 50,…

Here We Go Round The Binary If this little piece of whimsy helps educators in any way,that will make me very happy. Here We Go Round The Binary verse 0000nothing. nothing. nothing-nothing twice.nothing here - move on,that's my advice. verse 0001oh oh oh onethat makes one.one and three nothingsnow wasn't that fun? verse 0010oh oh one ohspells out two -two and three nothingslook right to you? verse 0011oh oh one onenow we have three -a two and a one -add them up and see. verse 0100oh one oh ohnow we have four -and three little nothings -shall we try some more? verse 0101oh one oh onefive is…

Research From Dr. Masaru Emoto, says that if human thoughts are directed at water before it is frozen, images of the resulting water crystals will be beautiful or ugly depending upon whether the thoughts were positive or negative. Emoto claims this can be achieved through prayer, music or by attaching written words to a container of water. Since 1999 Emoto has published several volumes of a work titled 'Messages from Water', which contains photographs of water crystals next to essays and "words of intent". Here's a video of some of the remarkable crystals http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=…