As a practitioner of several arcane technical and scientific arts, I do my share of using jargon; indeed, I often appreciate hyperpolysyllabicsesquipedalianism. In the proper setting, precise terminology conveys something very specific to my audiences, so I understand how useful such jargon can be. I have to scratch my head, however, when I come across such terms as “controlled flight …
Assumptions
Take a look at this short video called, appropriately for this post, Assumptions: Entertaining, to be sure. But there’s more here than entertainment. As much as I try to avoid it, I find it virtually impossible not to go into a situation without preconceived notions or assumptions. Such poor going-in positioning may have to do with the person or people …
Perspective
I’m sure you’ve heard some version of the old phrase, “not being able to see the forest for the trees”. There are many such aphorisms, so—clearly—one’s inability to see big pictures owing to focus on details is not a new phenomenon. I came across an inverse view of this recently. A two-gigabyte image of Mt. Everest and its environs recently …
Should It Be Done?
If you’ve been following these posts, you know I’m a technophile. Over time, I’ve become interested in technological utility in addition to loving technology for its own sake. That’s why when I found this, describing the provision of information from a car’s computer onto the windshield, I found myself stopped. I faced a conundrum: While understanding how the information presented …
Art vs. Reality
I’m a long-time fan of science fiction. Hard science fiction. This means made-up stories that are based in the physical reality as we know it, or within reasonable extrapolation of the boundaries thereof: Magicians, trolls, witches, warlocks and vampires need not apply! (Oh, I enjoyed The Tolkien Trilogy ‘way back when, but that’s not sci-fi.) One of my favorite activities …
Reading
Just a quick one for today, while I compile material for a more-extensive post: “A man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” –Mark Twain, American writer Questions: None. Just think about the ramifications.
More Signal, Less Noise
News this week included a report that planet-searchers have found a “super-Earth” orbiting a star just 42 light years from “regular “(but still impressive) Earth. [Given that distance, Bob Murphy, a colleague and friend, has suggested that we name the planet “Douglas Adams”, author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which that number has keen significance as the “Answer …
Another “Giant Leap…”
Felix Baumgartner’s October 14, 2012 leap of faith from 128,000 feet above the Earth is already history, but I’m moved to comment on it from several perspectives. I had followed his odyssey from its inception, when I originally thought that it was simply a stunt to advertise the sponsoring organization, Red Bull. OK, it was an advertising stunt, but as …
Overdesigning
SpaceX has done it again, albeit with a bit of difficulty. They launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon module to resupply the International Space Station (ISS). The launch itself was perfect off the pad, but just about 90 seconds into the flight, one of the vehicle’s nine engines malfunctioned. The Dragon docked successfully with the ISS today, but …
Communications(?)
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 …