One day Erik and I were chatting happily about birds and birdfeeders, all sweet reason and collegiality. Then he said he’d found a squirrel-proof birdfeeder. And the conversation turned dark. Words were said in haste. We eventually calmed down enough to state our cases in a pleasant, civilized manner. [NOW WITH UPDATES. See below*] E: […]
The path I take in the mornings has a stream, Stony Run, running along one side. The path and the stream are in a tiny wooded floodplain you could throw a rock across. The floodplain and stream are more or less maintained by Baltimore city and by the surrounding community associations – “maintained” as in, […]
The last time I saw Dyson, maybe six months ago, I wondered whether he might be slowing down a little; on the other hand it was a Friday night at dinnertime, when all natural creatures slow down a little. This post first appeared October 7, 2013; it’s been updated here and there. I do seem […]
Are we making tactical nuclear weapons again? Tactical meaning “not strategic,” that is, not ones that take out cities and countries, just little ones that take out city blocks? So that we can get the jump on the the Russians before they can get the jump on us? Thereby invoking what the late, great Sid […]
Science, every now and then, interrupts its usual flow of thick, painful jargon to speak in metaphors that reveal the poetry at its soul and lay out a clear path to meaning in life. I’m serious here. I twitter-follow an author named Robert Macfarlane, whom our Michelle also likes, and who posted his phrase of […]
I’m writing this to be the voice of all the people who have had this winter’s ratty cold and have not written blog posts about it. I’ve had it twice now, so aside from worrying about what that says about my fundamentals, I feel qualified to testify. I testified once before here but this time […]
When I interviewed Paul Steinhardt, the theorist of the title above, I told him I loved this story so much that it should be turned into a book and if he wanted, I could help. I don’t remember the words he used but the meaning was, Way ahead of you, and I can write it […]
Google is mighty, everybody says so. Like, nobody needs a library for anything. Like, my flight was delayed and the airline’s app was informative but needed 68 clicks so I googled the airline and the flight number, and Google not only told me first click straightup what the current delay was but also the expected […]