Ross, you missed one:
18 Ixion 39.65 980 km
Sorry, Xopher. Here it is, the easy way: http://www.itmonline.org/arts/acuintro.htm
Faren, some systems are simply harder to understand than others. "Soft" sciences are actually the difficult ones, the studies of very complex systems that we have just barely begun to understand.
Xopher, here is a simple overview of the current WM view of how and why acupuncture works. Obviously there is still research needed, but the basic biochem work has pretty much been done.
Fragano Ledgister: You're profoundly missing my point. The only way for me to enjoy his writing is to ignore the religious elements. I know they are there if I look for them. I don't exactly want to go through the books searching for the exact elements that will ruin them for me. Yes, I know that stuff is there. He doesn't hit me over the head with the religion -- it is subtle enough that I can ignore it.
Fragano Ledgister: I've LOTR at least five times, and have never noticed anything remotely divine in the planning or the intervention. Magical, yes. Divine, no.
Susan: S,ITTCYE4CYEWASA.
[Sorry, I thought that CYE for Check Your Email was a standard abbreviation.]
Greg
GD&R
Extrapolating the universe from a piece of cake is no problem. It has basically the same dimensions -- (length, breadth, depth, duration, etc), is infinitely complex if examined closely enough, but is on a somewhat different scale. "All-space-all-time-all-at-once" sounds like it can comfily be expressed mathematically. A sentence with adjectives but no nouns is what makes for insanity.
Ok, now I'm totally befuddled. I couldn't read To Reign in Hell, partly because of how religious it seems to be. And Steven turns out to be approximately as staunch an atheist as I am. Huh?
Greg: As I told Ellen, and tweaked my definition to reflect that, strike out the word "universe", and that's probably closer. You're taking it to a material meaning. It's more like "how you relate to the eternal, and to the infinite".
I knew what you were talking about here until you took out the noun and tried to convert the adjectives to nouns. Now you've left me in some incomprehensible grammatical limbo.
Larry! You forgot Dipsy, man! The only Tubbie that really matters, the green one. The one that gets all the best lines. Geeeeeez.
By the way, why do we usually capitalize the c in "creationist"? I think it gives them unwarranted credibility.
Lexica wrote: "Unfortunately, in the US, at least, they also shape legislation and do a fairly effective job of forcing textbook publishers to conform to their notions of how the universe was created. 'Just ignore their existence' is a bad tack to take, IMO."
Yes, I know. But I think those are two separate discussions.
An analogy: An acquaintance of mine -- definitely not a friend -- is obsessed with the Beatles. Any discussion of music with him ends up as a discussion of the Beatles. If you talk about Gregorian chants, he talks about elements of chanting in Beatles songs. And so on. It is refreshing when you've spent too long in his company to discuss music in a non-Beatles context.
Creationists' weird obsession should be confronted head-to-head and squashed in political arenas, in publishing, everywhere. It can be refreshing to have discussions of early biology in an atmosphere that is free from that obsession.
When you think about music in a non-Beatlecentric way, you notice things about the music that you might not otherwise hear. When you think about fossils in a non-creationcentric way, you might similarly make connections that would otherwise be drowned out by the creationists' irrational noise.
It would be really wonderful to be able to discuss a fascinating scientific discovery like this and not have the discussion in the context of "here, this will show the crazy people." I have no interest in creationism or creationists. They shine no light on our understanding of the world -- they only create smoke.
Just ignore their existence, and the discussion morphs into something different entirely: an attempt to satisfy our curiosity, to understand the world. Sure, the feet on the fish are cool. Does the fossil show any other adaptations? What other fossils were found around it? How does it connect with earlier and later fossils? That is, does it seem to have evolved from anything we know, or evolved into anything we know? And so on and so on. Like we would look at a neat discovery in any other field of study.
Shudder! This thread is confirming lots of my life choices. I can't stand the cold, want no part of it. I also don't like being wet. I don't go outside in winter unless I really can't avoid it. I park the car indoors at home and right by the front entrance to the building at work. For the most part, I shop, dine and recreate in places where there is convenient parking.I try to remember to refill the gas tank when it hits the half-full mark, and keep a blanket, shovel, road salt, first aid kit, flares, and a corkscrew in the car. Of these, the corkscrew is the thing that get used the most often. Once I visited an author for dinner, and took a good bottle of wine with me -- and found that she didn't own a corkscrew. The trauma of that experience has taught me that a good corkscrew is the one essential piece of survival equipment my lifestyle requires.
Jo I read your comment, and went upstairs to get my copy of "Can You Feel Anything...". It fell open at this opening paragraph:
Papazian appeared, disguised as a human being. He checked quickly to make sure that his head was on right. "Nose and toes the same way goes," he reminded himself, and that was how it was.
How could anyone read that and NOT keep reading? It shimmers. His writing usually did.
I've been expecting this sad news since Robert had those health problems in Europe, but that doesn't make it hurt any less. When I was a teenager, I'd read his short stories, loving them. I'd often reread them immediately, trying to understand his technique: so clear, seemingly so simple, and so funny. I loved his style, and I loved his attitude. I wanted to be a writer, and he was the writer I wanted to be.
Abigail, that was really disconcerting. I went to check out your blog. You've used the same template I've used for mine -- I wondered for a second how I'd been thrown back into my own blog. (I'm having fun exploring yours.)
Abigail, we're both wrong. 1,1,36 is also a right answer, no? OK, I'll do some more thinking.
Neat! The key for me is the "Now I know their ages." That tells me that knowing the house number alone won't give you the answer. The only possible answers where knowing the house number wouldn't tell you which is right are 6-6-1 and 9-2-2, both of which add up to 13. Knowing there is a single eldest child tells you which of those is right.
Congratulations on your tomato success. I don't think I'm ever going to be a successful tomato grower. Much too high maintenance.
What succeeds in our backyard? Plants that grow like weeds. One entire chunk of garden is now an insanely productive raspberry patch. All we have to do is "prune" the raspberry bushes down to mere stubble in the spring, and about the beginning of July we have a steady supply, raspberries everywhere.
Then there's the mint problem. I bought a pathetic little mint plant a couple of years ago. End of the season, it was selling for 99 cents, a little fresh mint now and then might be nice... Mint should come with a label: "WARNING: THIS PLANT WILL ENGULF ENTIRE CITY BLOCKS IF NOT CUT BACK DAILY".
Our herb patch is some basil and oregano and motley other stuff trying to stay afloat in an ocean of mint. One other thing I've discovered about mint. It comes in different kinds. Well, yes, I knew that from chewing gum packages, but I didn't really understand the significance of it, mostly because I don't actually like mint. Make my chewing gum Juicy Fruit, please.
My wife, Anne, likes mint a lot. Her reaction to the 99-cent mint? "That's not mint. Maybe it is some sort of oregano or something. Yuck." It smells and tastes like mint to me. And to the three or four people I checked with. But no amount of persuasion, cajoling or disguise would get her to accept the stuff as mint.
So this weekend I'm going to embark on the mother of all weeding jobs: ridding the herb patch of the 99-cent mint. After that I'll reward myself: I'll finally finish ripping out The Stump. (Stump removal is the only part of gardening I actually enjoy, other than eating things. Whenever I plant a tree, I think, "that will be a stump someday.")
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2006 | 12 |
| 2005 | 8 |
Total: 20 comments. View all these comments on a single page.
The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Greg Ioannou:
Show all comments by Greg Ioannou.