At times unfortunately for those with whom I communicate by any of several channels, I tend to be something of a purist in things grammatical, punctuational, and just about every other kind of -al that might apply. I acknowledge that English (and particularly American English) is a living language, but I still insist (quixotically, at times) that there must be …
Do It Differently
I came across this interesting item last week, which describes how a person’s world view was changed by way of technology. It got me thinking about how wedded many of us are to doing things the way we have always done them, or how others have always done them, or, in some cases, not doing something at all because to …
Sci-fi? No; reality!
This video/animation of the launch-through-landing of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), aka Curiosity, was initially produced in 2011, long before the successful landing of Curiosity on Mars. Except for the juvenile need to include sounds where no sound could carry (i.e., outside the two planets’ atmosphers), this is exceedingly well done, and worth about five minutes of your time. The …
Can’t Do A Thing About It
Living as I do within 100 miles or so of Yellowstone National Park, its geological instability is very present to me. Loosely speaking, the volcano upon which Yellowstone sits erupts—on average—every 640,000 years. The last such megaexplosion was…just about 640,000 years ago. Statistically, we can expect another such megaexplosion any time now. Geologically speaking, “any time now” covers a lot …