For the curious reader of science fiction (scifi) and fantasy
In the face of the embarrassment of the bad joke who represents the United States to the rest of the world (America Last! America Last! First in Consumption, Last in Care!), I can think of one way to make myself smile:
Tree-climbing goats.
From Discover Magazine.
A colonoscopy without sedation? Not so bad, reports this reporter. Somewhat uncomfortable, yes. But it was pretty interesting to watch on the monitor. And leaving with a clear head? And being able to enjoy a cold one (of whatever kind) later that evening, and not feeling like you’re losing a whole additional day? Yeah, that seems like a good trade-off to me. I’ll probably do the same next time.
Which, sorry to say, will be in just three years. Oh well. I’m healthy.
And now, where’s that pizza?
From the movie Paul:
This comic is particularly appropriate today….
After just one dose of that drano they make you drink, I feel like turning my insides out like a sea cucumber.
I have just finished our taxes, and in celebration I am toasting the tardigrade! This hardy little critter can survive the vacuum of space, the cold of near absolute zero, and temperatures up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. These little extremophiles are tough! All it asks is some moss to suck on. How can you not admire the tardigrade, who is sort of cute, in the same way certain breeds of dogs are cute.
You’ll like this short video about them on Curiosity.com. (I couldn’t find a way to embed it here.)
Are tardigrades the secret to panspermia, the seeding of life through the universe? I wonder.
Apparently so. The above was the plaintive cry of the daughter I will call Pip, when she heard me ask the daughter I will call Mouse if she knew what was in the detergent bottle sitting next to the washing machine. The bottle clearly said Arm & Hammer Free & Clear detergent, and I had no reason to think otherwise when I picked it up off the floor and put it on the shelf. A day or two later, I went to use it—but when I shook it, I thought it felt like water, not detergent. So I put it back down on the floor and made a note to ask the troops.
A little time passed. When I finally asked my daughters, Mouse said, “Oh yeah—that’s for you to water my plants while I’m away. Don’t worry—it has plant food already added.” And that’s when Pip, listening in disbelief, realized what she had just used to launder her clothes.
Plant food! Water for plants! Labels, people—this is why God gave us labels, and big black markers! Caramba!
(Wondering: How can people who are so smart…?)
Conduct your own experiment with Schrödinger’s Cat in space! Go to APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) and press the button to see if the astronaut is holding a picture of a live cat or a dead one. You have to go to APOD; it won’t work here. Are you determining the course of the universe, or splitting it into another set of infinite branches? What do you think? I know which interpretation I favor, but pick your own. (No one knows which is right! Who says science has already answered all the great questions?)
Oh, and Happy April 1st!
The perp. Goes by the moniker Moonlight.
I’m sure every writer has either had this happen, or had nightmares of it happening: You finish up a nice bit of work and walk away from the computer. Do you think about the havoc your cat can wreak on your work? No, you do not. And when you return, hours later, having forgotten all about it, you find gibberish on the screen in place of your finely turned prose.
Yeah, it just happened to me. Look at Moonlight. Doesn’t she look innocent and cuddly? Well, cuddly she is, but innocent she is not. No, this kitty tried to rewrite my chapter for me. Bad kitty! Seriously, she’s a terrible writer. Here’s a sample: [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[… What kind of writing is that?
Yes, of course I had saved my work. (How stupid do you think I am? No, on second thought…) I saved, and furthermore, it was backed up automatically to Dropbox. What I failed to do, though, was to close Scrivener before I walked away. Scrivener auto-saves anything you write. So your cat dances on your keyboard (or parks her fuzzy butt on it for warmth), and Scrivener obligingly saves all her new work for you. And the new work gets saved to Dropbox!
That’s what I found when I came back to my laptop, hours later.
What to do? Dropbox’s “deleted versions” to the rescue! I went online to my Dropbox account and looked for the mostly recently changed file in my Scrivener folder. (That took a little while, owing to the spaghettified file structure of my book, but never mind that.) Scrivener saves each chapter as a little rtf file, and sure enough, the last-saved file was time-stamped half an hour after I left the house! Caught you, you little scalawag!
Dropbox saves a number of older versions. It’s not even remotely obvious how to find them, but I eventually discovered if you click on the file you want, then click the little icon with three dots at the top, it offers to show you the version history. And there’s where you find your pre-cat-dancing version, and restore it to its rightful place.
Hah! Show you, you little furball!
Have you ever tried to teach a dog to dance? In rhythm? I’ve tried with all of our dogs. Never mind their grace in running, jumping, and snatching food from the air. Dogs are hopeless when it comes to rhythm. But watch this cockatoo, who could put many an inebriated undergraduate to shame. Now and then he even breaks into double-time. And catch his aplomb in response to the applause at the end.
;Speaking of messing with us, why did I just find a picture of Allysen with a snowman on her head in my cloud picture folder?
I guess they were partying down at her job.
The Boston Globe has already put online the top ten commercials to be run during tomorrow’s Superbowl broadcast! What more do you need? Watch the commercials now (some of them are pretty good!), and then you can read a good book or watch cat videos during the game!
Here’s one from Audi. Watch the rest here.