Protected: The Flute

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Musings on $\pi$ Day

1. The Ubiquity of $\pi$      or, Life, the Universe, and Everything: A Simple Statement of Fact $\pi$ is everywhere you look. It is even the case that there is $\pi$ in the sky. We need $\pi$ in order to live … Continue reading

If Aesop Were a Modern-Day Scientist, This Would Be a Fable.

When you wake up, get up. When you get up, do something. —one of my favorite quotes, from Viola Babbitt Wake up. Sit with the cat for a bit. Because Cat Time. “Is necessary, hooman. Sit.” Wait for cat to … Continue reading

The Bear and the Butterfingers, the Exploding Dinosaur, Fred, (and Fred, and Fred,) and the Orb Weavers

An always delightfully engaging friend asks of the Hive Mind on Facebook: What is the first wildlife you remember encountering in the actual wild (wild is broadly meant here–not a zoo)? Maybe don’t count squirrels. Or maybe do. I’m pretty … Continue reading

Foibles in Finding Fault

A driverless car hit a woman who was walking her bicycle across a street at night. Numerous articles, some less useful than others, but also some more helpful to a better understanding, describe this incident. For example, in order of … Continue reading

Facts Matter: We Know Why Only the U.S. Suffers Frequent Mass Shootings

For the umpteen-gazillionth time, here is a known fact: America has more mass shootings — more gun murders — than any other country on Earth, because America has more guns per person than any other country on Earth[3,6,8,11,10,12,13,15]. Our mass … Continue reading

cretins, fucktards(*), and liars

Trigger warning: I am about to use facts. If you are a conservative, the following will be foreign to your way of thinking and therefore will induce apoplexy. You should probably stop reading NOW. Looky there, my pay check has … Continue reading

My Dear Moore Letter

Hey, Roy Moore, Here are the numbers (WaPo, NYT, and all manner of Fake News): Jones……671,151 Moore……650,436 write-in….22,819 military…..8,700 You lost. It was not a fair contest, since you Republicans prevented thousands upon thousands of those people from exercising their constitutional … Continue reading

Red, White, and Green, and the Children Scream, and it is Impossible to Breathe

Here is one man’s poem. His poetry is not easy to listen to. It is poetry, which means shining a light on uncomfortable things, dark things, things which are hard to look at. But we are human, most of us, … Continue reading

A Physicist Contemplates Training Wheels

Motion catches the corner of my eye. Look up. Over there, beyond Spike the cat on his high perch, out the front window, past the rough-barked pine trees. A little girl struggles to get her bicycle going again. It is an impossible bright … Continue reading

On Conservative “Governance”

  Maternal mortality rates in Texas. What happened in 2010-2012? One theory is that the coincidence of the nearly doubling of the death rate of women giving birth with the mass statewide closing of health clinics due to targeted budget … Continue reading

And They’re Fluffy: an Ode to Modern Air Travel

Other than the airports; the TSA ding-dongs, dipshits, and assorted knuckle-draggers, wannabe-thugs; the doltingly stupid “security”-theater rules invented by bitter assholes who’ve nothing better to do all day than find even more pointless, inane ways to make people miserable; the noisy, milling mass … Continue reading

This is America

This is America. Republican politicians cynically abandon every American value, values we the people—some of us—hold dear. You who voted for Donald Trump and for other high-office Republicans: you are lost, only half a step behind your callous leaders, none … Continue reading

Thor’s Day Morning Mathematical Musings

Have you had your caffeine injection yet? Well, then, here are three puzzles (with answers, but the answers are not helpful!): Can you completely mix a mug of coffee, such that, at every point inside the mug, the coffee at that … Continue reading

Quintessence

Because, now and then, for the well being of your soul, you have to evict the empty diversions, addictive distractions, the noisome bile, and ponder, in the brief space exhumed by an image, a note of music, a spiraling leaf, … Continue reading