My biggest philosophical gripe with completely self-contained evolutionary theory is that science almost always introduces principles that (at least at a high level) have some sense of coherence with each other.
Go through a mechanical engineering curriculum: the heat guys say heat moves like electricity flowing across a resistor, the electrical guys say electricity works like water flowing through a pipe, the fluid guys say water behaves like a rock rolling down a hill, and the mechanical guys say stress moves through a beam like heat flowing across a sheet of metal.
Everything goes to hell if you just leave it alone and let stuff happen. Any observation other than that makes no sense to me. Where do we have any sort of parallel instance where things just got amazingly, nay, unfathomably better, just by sitting around or unknowingly going about their everyday business? (Unrelated note: this is the only legal use of “everyday” in my book.)
Sure, you’ve got a billion monkeys at a billion typewriters, but who’s making them type? Paraphraseth St. Leary, the cheetah can’t drive a car, at least not very far.
Physicists hate this, but even many little cliche practical phrases are rooted in physics. Opposites attract, action/reaction, etc.
In other news, a moth just brained itself on my laptop’s chassis, leaving a little greasy spot. Score -1 for citronella.
Postscript: light behaves as a wave and a particle, which is maybe the fundamental philosophical reason it gives physicists so much trouble to describe. It’s like it resembles altogether too much of the world, in conflicting ways, all at once. No accident it’s so strongly associated with God.
Christmas 2012 falls into the ideal schedule of a Monday Christmas Eve. Swapping in an alternating off-Friday gives you a five day weekend.
First Law of Photo Printing at Target: Yes, the machine is broken.
I have always felt like one of the reasons to rhyme poetry and music is to feel a sense of purpose, almost predestination, to the content. If it fits well enough to rhyme, it’s meant to be.
Picking a greeting card is like doing this at a pro level, only instead of rhyming it’s trying to align with someone else’s thoughts.
Second Law of Photo Printing at Target: No, we don’t know how to fix it.
The $1 section at Target is ingenious in its value to teachers and others needing tchotchkes, but it’s almost having a Wal-Mart zone right at the entrance. I’m surprised that the micromanaged feel of the Target experience chooses to accommodate that.
Gewgaw, which can be typed with only the left hand, is a synonym of tchotchke.
You can also type tchotchke with only the left hand, but you have to move around a lot and have really good aim.
Some sub-$100 webcams now have webservers built in. I hate when I can buy things better, faster, and cheaper than I intended to cobble together as a project out of freebie scrap.
I get creeped out by greeting cards that get too specific. Especially the “we’ve been through so much” category. When it gets that personal, there are only two words you need to know: “Blank Inside.”
When I built my first media center PC in college, I had thermal problems for the first time ever. I vowed never again to allow myself to have thermal problems with a computer. I have had thermal problems with every computer I’ve built since then, with increasing severity.
The micromanaged feel of Target cannot accommodate a standard red rubber plunger with a wooden handle, as the flimsy lime green plastic one in my garage can attest.
I don’t see how foreigners can ever understand helping verbs in English. I’m sure they have been having to have lessons on having helping verbs in their sentences.
Trying to hide a speaker system in a small storage hassock has both acoustic and aesthetic problems that make it essentially prohibitive on both counts.
The premium the market is currently willing to pay for portability and compactness makes a high-end unsubsidized cellphone be twice as expensive as a decent netbook.
Tablet PCs are pure potential, but in most cases that’s almost where they stop for now.
When they come out with a foldable Kindle with integrated front- or back-lighting, I’m in.
The psychology that goes into wearing a set of golden teeth caps encrusted with diamonds probably merits entire volumes of explanation.
Remember when iPods were so new and popular that 50 Cent was flashing his like bling in his videos?
Dreams where your teeth fall out indicate a subconscious feeling of powerlessness. I, on the other hand, typically have the “unprepared” genre of bad dreams, although my teeth did fall out one time.
When I have a “falling” dream, I’m normally just taking a standard step rather than dealing with some kind of precipice. I still awake with that sinking feeling, so to speak.
The Big Bang Theory tiptoes along the nexus of ridiculing a group of people while retaining those same people as perhaps their biggest fan base.
Databases these days do so much sharding and caching that it’s almost an impressive surprise when a change is reflected immediately. It’s also a potential indication that the site would totally blow up if its user base increased tenfold.
A Penny for My Thoughts, Oh No, I'll Sell Them for a Dollar
I had just recently given up on the folk revival I had long anticipated, and had begun instead blathering about the potential invention of a new instrument.
I think I was under-appreciating country music’s recent developments.
This was actually written by the singer, with a light nod to Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” (flashed on the screen just before the video cuts off).
Aside from the light drums, some unconventional instruments, and that rock ‘n’ roll haircut on the bassist, you’re looking at a fairly strong bluegrass foundation, especially the mandolin and fiddle. I also have to include an artistic nod to 2:37, where they subtly make it look like she’s in the painting.
Combine that with what’s going on with Eli Young, Lady Antebellum, Jake Owen’s near-classic “Barefoot Blue Jean Night,” Brad Paisley’s Midas touch, Jason Aldean’s rap-country fusion in “Dirt Road Anthem,” and a pop side-stage actually quite well-represented by Taylor Swift, you’re looking at a genre, like it or not, that’s blowing the rest of rock/pop out of the water. Darius Rucker, best known as Hootie, has also rebooted his career into country, where he’s seen significant success.
The Buzz is digging out Marcy Playground for literally almost the fifteenth year (“Sex and Candy,” their only significant single, debuted in 1997), and that’s the “new music” station. The next time I hear The Cardigans’ “Lovefool,” I think I’ll complain to the FCC. It’s ridiculous. Look at all the American Idol winners heading over to country. The newest guy is pretty much a Josh Turner knockoff, but he’s making some respectable stuff all the same.
I would also direct attention to a segment of the summer single slate, which featured I suppose you could say meta-music, such as Brad Paisley’s “This is Country Music,” the fairly despicable “Country Must Be Country-Wide,” and a pretty significant revival of Alan Jackson’s 1994 “Gone Country.” I’m looking at a genre that sees it’s winning.
It’s just sad to see mainstream rock so lost. Anything “new” I hear right now pretty much sounds at best like Chevelle covering a Fall Out Boy song.
This isn’t dead-dog boots-under-wrong-bed country here. This is thought-out stuff, often going back to classic structures like the old parallel chorus word play structure (where the same chorus or theme plays out in different contexts after each verse).
The general acceptability of the professional songwriter in country allows a better specialization or compartmentalization of lyrics, musical, and vocal talent, but you’re definitely seeing some of the newer bands writing their own stuff. While I want rock to come back, it’s been fun to spend some time on the country side of things, after a fairly dreary time between the fall of Garth Brooks and a few years ago.
I don’t know if I’m off-base here, but there’s a life insurance company running commercials saying, “With us, you’re not just another number. You matter.” Or something like that.
From my perspective, I want to be as uninteresting to my life insurance company as possible. If I’m getting calls from an agent asking how I’m doing and how things are going, I would start worrying that they know something I don’t know.
By definition, aren’t these guys only useful to you when you’re not there to thank them? Let’s keep it arms-length, guys. Hope to never matter to you.
My leaf blower is in Woot Fedex Limbo right now. It pulled out of Hutchins, TX, around 8pm last night. Estimated time for delivery: October 11.
Incidentally, we spent the night in an excellent La Quinta Inn in Hutchins just last weekend. I calculate that, had I intercepted the delivery truck at the warehouse, I could pick up my leaf blower and walk about 13.5 hours per day, leaving 2.5 hours for meals and resting and a solid 8 hours of sleep per night, I could make that time at a nice 3 mph average jaunt.
I assume Fedex is sandbagging on this one, but every now and then they really do take that kind of time. At some point you have to figure (given it actually left Hutchins) the cost of warehousing a larger item would overwhelm any benefit of sitting on it.
As of sometime next week, all my yard equipment will say “na na na na na” rather than “waaaaa.” Nice gas blower on sale today from Woot/Amazon plus a $30 rebate. Thanks, Slickdeals!
I’m going to attempt to construct a high impedence diffuser fitted to the guts of the current electric blower to make a high-powered garage fan, but that falls pretty low on the ol’ priority list in these hectic times.
But man, I could really use a garage fan in these unseasonably warm times.
