Not that the good guys are much better. Their leader, Churchill, appeared in a grand total of one episode before, where he was a bumbling general who suffered an embarrassing defeat to the Ottomans of all people in the Battle of Gallipoli. Now, all of a sudden, he’s not only Prime Minister, he’s not only a brilliant military commander, he’s not only the greatest orator of the twentieth century who can convince the British to keep going against all odds, he’s also a natural wit who is able to pull out hilarious one-liners practically on demand. I know he’s supposed to be the hero, but it’s not realistic unless you keep the guy at least vaguely human.
What Do You See, Superman?
The universe at different wavelengths
Including x-rays
On The Clavicles of Collossi
Research generally gets more difficult over time, in a quantifiable way, as you clear out the low-hanging fruit.
The fact that discovery can become extremely hard does not mean that it stops, of course. All three of these fields have continued to be steadily productive. But it does tell us what kind of resources we may need to continue discovering things. To counter an exponential decay and maintain discovery at the current pace, you need to meet it with a scientific effort that obeys an exponential increase. To find a slightly smaller mammal, or a slightly heavier chemical element, you can’t just expend a bit more effort. Sometimes you have to expend orders of magnitude more.
Crapolium
The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense
An actual periodic table, i.e. the phenomena as you move down columns are related, for the most part, which is a concept lost on many makers of spoofy so-called periodic tables (Or is that tables made of spoofium)
I, Writebot
A number of places on the web have pointed toward “I Write Like,” a site which analyzes your writing style (assuming you have a style) and vocabulary, and compares that to a somewhat limited database of authors. According to the algorithm, I write like David Foster Wallace1 (with one Dan Brown outlier; apparently some find a Dan Brown comparison to be off-putting). Or, from another perspective, my writing least resembles the other writers.
The only David Foster Wallace I have read would be short snippets from things posted by DFW fans who write blogs I read; I get the impression that it’s a highly nonlinear effect — if you like DFW, you really, really like DFW. And he’s been in the news in recent years: his death (a great career move for so many) and subsequent discovery of unfinished works.
1I am told his works are heavily footnoted
I Concede The Point
However, I do alright with tabletop-ish atomic physics, which is literally very cool.
Adding Insulting Injury to Injury
Almost as funny as George C. Scott getting hit with a football. My groin!
I'm Concerned About Your Cantaloupe
How Insects Have Solved the Baggage-Fee Problem
NPR: Look Up! The Billion-Bug Highway You Can’t See
You can see them launching themselves, says entomologist Matt Greenstone:
“They just stand straight up on their little back legs and just by doing that they can get part of their body up into this layer [of air] where it’s more turbulent and then, if you can get a ride on a parcel that’s going up, you can get off the ground and then if you’re lucky you can get carried aloft.”
Politicians Were Not Involved
When they screw us, the earth doesn’t move.
A little earthquake this morning, a 3.6, at a smidge after 5 AM. I didn’t feel it (don’t flatter yourself, Otter, it wasn’t that great), but was probably in my car by then.