Random Thoughts

Five hundred smiling people from around the world gathered today in the world's theme park capital to set the Guinness World Record for the biggest smiley face. Coinciding with and celebrating today's official World Smile Day(R), they formed the smiley face and stood shoulder to shoulder for ten minutes on the top parking deck of the new Amway Center mega arena, home to the NBA's Orlando Magic.   During the campaign to produce the world's largest smiley face, they also raised $19,825 for the charitable organization, Smile Train, which will be used to provide more than 70 cleft lip or…

My main computer died, and I'm on my backup system.  While I can still work, it feels like I've shifted from my starship bridge to the tiny emergency control room, while still on full battle alert. I have many working computers in the house.  Between my main (a linux PC), the Windows box (for when you absolutely need 100% Windows compatibility), the 2 netbooks, and the music/vid box, I can 'do' stuff.  I just can't do it as seamlessly, and that's caused frustration. I have no data loss, in theory-- I have a backup drive with all my files.  And despite the crash, I'm still…

I occasionally get questions about usage of Science 2.0 that go beyond the FAQ so I decided I would write up a short article on using the site for non-beginners.   The FAQ covers the basics - what Science 2.0® is, the experimental nature of this open writing site for science, etc. along with the basic functionality, like the dashboard - but due to the way the site has grown some other features may not be evident for newer members. How to find good stuff to write about? As Science 2.0 became a respected source for feature writing and analysis, I started to get far too many requests for…

It is unfortunate that whenever I have personal stuff to post as a blog here I have nothing else to choose as a tag than the uninformative "random thoughts"... I wish the posting interface in our beautiful site had a wider selection of tags, including ones such as "stuff that does not interest anybody but selected few", or "my own darn business". But perfection is not of this world, that is until Hank decides to work on his seventh day as well. So here I am posting the progress of my diet, which I started about five weeks ago. I declared my intentions in a former post, and there I explained…

This article prompted me to consider the question of whether there were any boundaries regarding the silliness that could be presented as science.  The article entitled 'Vampire Books Like "Twilight" May Be Altering Teen Minds' has reached a new peak. Of interest is that the leading proponent of this view is organizing a conference to discuss this topic. I haven't quite figured out how a professor of literature is remotely qualified to engage in this kind of idle speculation, but I suspect it occurs when being surrounding by too much fiction. While there is little doubt that an immature…

In science, we first verify our procedures and the process by which we got our results.  Then we validate it against reality.  For example, I wrote a code that simulated galaxies colliding.  The main verification was to ensure the subset of physics we were using was properly coded, and that we had sufficient physics and resolution that the results were plausible.  The validation is what tackled the larger issue of whether the results were 'right', whether they were meaningful or not.  This validation was best done by comparing it against astronomical observations of…

Cyberstalking as a way of trying to bully someone into giving them what they want on line.  A certain website was set up just to slander me by The  Organisation Intersex International  OII.    Now one Katrina C Rose a Phd candidate in history at U Iowa has gotten into the act. I have responded to OII's inane comments before.  Now evidence emerges that people are keeping tabs on what I do online.  That's something else entirely.  This crosses every legal definition of cyberstalking.  In Illinois law it is known as as "Harassment through…

I confess I have never been to Maui or any other part of Hawaii.   Part of that is my age - I am still young enough to do fun stuff and so I have had run-ins with Turkish police, the Bulgarian mafia and even set a record at the Escape&Evasion course for officers at Ft. Gordon, GA, but I have never been to Hawaii. Like the World's Biggest Ball of Yarn, it is something I can do when I am older.   But part of it is also lack of interest.   Culturally, Hawaiians are regarded as the most racist people in the US - they hate everyone white most of all but they also pretty much…

” The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your decisions, and the quality of your decisions is determined by the quality of your thinking.” Schick and Vaughn, How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age That quote is the essence of what I try to convey to my students, to my children, and to those who choose to come by and sit a spell and visit with me at my blogs. It’s something you ought to take a minute to say out loud a couple of times like we’re at one of those awful cheesy self-help workshops. Seriously. You should. It’s something that really…

Yesterday afternoon a flutter of Monarch Butterflies landed in the courtyard garden at the end of our block for a wondrous "asteral" visit. The winds were shifting and gusting and thunderheads were accumulating overhead, but these butterflies appeared serene, even focused, clinging to the swaying and swinging New England Aster blossoms. Whenever the Tortoise Cat, my favorite strolling companion, launched herself toward the closest one of these irresistible, vibrant mini-birds, the amazing critter appeared to linger several extra moments, almost at paw's length, as if on purpose, before…