Monthly Archives: April 2017

I was thinking that the abbreviation for the element silver was “Ar,” see, and I had figured out this great, stupid joke I was going to bestow on the world. It was going to go like this:

“Hey, Long John Silver, how do you abbreviate your last name?”

“Ar.”

Because he’s a pirate — get it? Get it?

Yeah, it turns out the abbreviation for silver is “Ag.” Which means that my stupid geek joke doesn’t even work as a stupid geek joke, and I’m left trying to think of some reference to something like “Agamemnon” that isn’t funny even by my own abysmally low standards, and the Internet has been deprived of this crumb of humor it so desperately needed.

This has been a fruitless and un-insightful look directly inside my brain. You’re welcome.

The lack of updates recently is due to a plethora of goings-on in my non-blog life (which, as some readers know, makes up rather the majority of my life). A few things in particular:

• Betsy, Evan and I all got sick at roughly the same time last week, and are still recovering. This is Evan’s first time ever being sick. He’s taking it reasonably well for a baby — which is to say, still crying a lot. His face is also somewhat wetter than usual, because babies are not skilled at what you might call “fluid management.”
• Evan turned seven months old last Saturday.
• He got a flu shot yesterday, and took it like a champ — much better than I reacted to my own flu shot, last year.
• This past weekend, my dad and stepmom and stepdog drove up from Texas to visit, which was great! The previous weekend (Easter), Betsy’s parents and sister and niece and nephew came to visit, which was also great. Introverts that we are, we’re not used to having so many people over in such a (relatively) short span, so it brought us out of our shells a bit, and that’s a Good Thing.
• At the end of March, I finished copyediting a book about programming, called Programming for the Puzzled, for MIT Press. That was a big job, but pretty exciting to be working for a client like MIT.
• Various other editing projects in progress.
• Still working on the first draft of Crane Girl, now over 115,000 words and counting. I may have to cut this one somewhat, but I suspect the finished product will still be pretty long.
• I’m on season 3 (of 5) of Teen Titans. It’s pretty good! It’s closer to the “kid” end of the kid/adult spectrum than, say, Avatar: The Last Airbender, but still very enjoyable, and surprisingly deep and serious in places. It’s also really well done visually, clean and dynamic and powerful.
• Betsy has started watching The Durrells in Corfu, which only has seven episodes so far. I’ve been gradually watching it over her shoulder more and more, i.e., it’s sucking me in. The show is based on some books which are, in turn, based more or less on a true story. It’s about an English family that moves to the Greek island of Corfu (a real place) in the 1930s.
• The March for Science was on Saturday — a successful event, by the sound of things.

I’ve also been reading some poems. Here’s an old one you may not have run into before — I especially like the last two lines.

God’s Grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Yes, the kids’ cartoon from 2003. And no, not because I have a kid now.

I’m a few episodes in. It’s dumb in some ways but brilliant in others, so I may keep watching. We’ll see.

I’m concerned about the theme song, though. It seems … poorly researched. Un-fact-checked.

Take this line, for instance:

With their superpowers they unite

But the leader of the team doesn’t have superpowers.

From their tower they can see it all

In the very first episode they get kicked out of their tower by an attack they didn’t see coming.

Never met a villain that they liked

The team meeting a villain they like is literally the premise of the second episode.

I just … I don’t even know who I can trust anymore.

No Federalist Capers this month, partly because I’ve been extra busy, and partly because I don’t have much wisdom to impart about recent Trump developments. Incompetence, hypocrisy, childishness, self-serving rhetoric, nepotism, lack of transparency, questions about Russia, and a complete disconnect from reality — I’ve talked about most of that already, and it’s all still there, essentially to the same degree. Only the details have changed.

But I do want to draw your attention to the March for Science on April 22 (Earth Day).

What is the March for Science?

Lots of people who love science and support scientific thinking will be marching in a peaceful and positive demonstration on April 22.

I assume they have a website and such.

Site: MarchForScience.com

Twitter: @ScienceMarchDC (currently 343K followers)

Where is this happening?

The big one’s in Washington D.C., but there are satellite marches across the United States.

Who’s involved?

A lot of people. Bill Nye will be at the D.C. event, and the Planetary Society (of which he is the CEO) is an official partner. Other official partners include the Society for Neuroscience, the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and so, so many others.

Incidentally, one of the partners — the MIT Press — will soon be publishing a book for which I was the copyeditor. Aww yeah!

Where do I sign up?

RSVP here.

I can’t go. Is there a way to attend virtually?

Yep! I’m in the same boat myself. Just hit the RSVP link above, choose D.C., and check the box to attend virtually. You get a livestream video of the event, and you can send them signs and other stuff that they will display in some manner.

Are there T-shirts and mugs? Can I donate?

Yes and yes. Here’s the store and here’s the donation page.

Shouldn’t scientists just stay out of politics?

Science is our most reliable method for learning about reality, and politics is one of our best tools for shaping reality. They are inherently linked, and that’s a good thing. I discuss this in more detail here.

Is the March for Science anti-Trump?

The March is pro-science, and it pushes back against actions and messages that are anti-science. Since Trump is the most anti-science U.S. president in modern history (perhaps in all history), yes, the March is largely about defending science from these unprecedented attacks.

It’s sort of like, if you and your community spend lots of time and money and effort building this shelter where people can go to be safe and get an education, and then some dude comes along and tries to set the building on fire, are you anti- that guy? I mean … kinda? Like, I don’t hate you, but maybe don’t try to set it on fire please?

Where was that RSVP link again?

Right here!