During the two years that I was active on Substack I never managed to quite find my “voice” there. I never fixed on exactly what I wanted my Substack blog to be beyond being just a version of this one. That ended up feeling like a dilution.
With a view towards re-concentrating my efforts, I decided to reprise (with minor edits) some of my Substack posts here. I started this last month with The Noise is Deafening, and I’ve got two more somewhat related posts for this week.
The first one is an elucidation of my basic metaphysical stance:
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2 Comments | tags: idealism, physicalism, realism | posted in Philosophy, Science
I wrote about Project Hail Mary (the 2021 book by Andy Weir) back in February [see this post]. Last month I wrote a few paragraphs about the movie (written by Drew Goddard and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller).
Project Hail Mary (the 2026 movie) was released to theaters on March 20th. I wanted to be sure to see it on the big screen, so I went to go see it on the 22nd. And loved it.
I need to see it again before I can write about it, but for Sci-Fi Saturday I thought I’d post some links to videos that dig into the actual science behind the book and its adaptation.
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2 Comments | tags: Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary, science fiction movies | posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday
Last September I posted a bunch of meme images — mostly things I’d done for Substack Notes but a few just because I wanted a nicer version of something I’d seen. Other than occasional comments to interesting blog posts, I’m no longer active on Substack, but I do have some more memes…
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Leave a comment | tags: Between the Bridge and the River, Craig Ferguson, Elizabeth Montgomery, memes, Schrödinger's Cat | posted in Society, Writing
It has been a minute or two since the last Science Notes — this subset of Friday Notes where I share bits and pieces of science news that have caught my eye.
In fact, the last of these was back in October, and the reason I didn’t post sooner was that not many articles have caught my eye since. In part because I’ve found myself skipping more and more articles due to lack of interest.
I fear it’s also in part because science has become so broken these days, so lost in fantastical speculation that I’ve begun skipping articles in which the word “might” or “could” plays a prominent role.
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Leave a comment | tags: beer, conservative, education, liberal, Science Notes, sleep | posted in Science, Friday Notes
All my life I never noticed that, when February has 28 days (non-leap years), the dates in March line up exactly with the dates in February. It took writing this TV Tuesday post for March 24 and realizing last month’s edition was also on the 24th to notice it.
Seventy revolutions around the local star, yet I can still find new things lurking in what is by now a vast pile of ordinary. It’s a double-dip pleasure: firstly, the delight of the new thing; secondly, the delight of still being delighted by delightful things (and wordy whimsy).
More to the point, I’ve been delighted by some things I’ve been watching lately, including actually going to the movies this past Sunday.
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11 Comments | tags: American Gods, Andy Weir, Bewitched, Japanese anime, Project Hail Mary, Rurouni Kenshin | posted in TV Tuesday
We live in a noisy world. It was never quiet, but what used to be a natural background has become an artificial assault constantly seeking to capture and at all costs hold our attention.
Rather than wind, waves, or animals, the modern blare comes generally from two sources: The sellers and each other. The internet granted upon us — for better or worse — the ability to be noisy on a global scale.
Modern technology grants us one and all the ability to easily contribute to the din.
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2 Comments | tags: advertising, commercials, noise | posted in Society, Sunday Sermons, The Interweb
Winter, that is.
Except for some small piles in shaded areas, the snow was gone.
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16 Comments | tags: Minnesota, snow, snow storm, weather | posted in Life
Pardon me for going momentarily meta, but these three-paragraph opens (hopefully with a pithy cliffhanger punchline for the third) are sometimes a real challenge. The intent is a recognizable style that acts like a watermark.
Some opens are more challenging than others, though. The right half-dozen or so sentences comprising three thoughts (with a hoped-for haiku-like third) can take forever to whip into shape.
Friday Notes are among the hardest because there isn’t much to say other than “here we go again…”
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11 Comments | tags: adaptations, AI, Bentley, Dogma (movie), opinions, seconds are long, Substack, weather | posted in Friday Notes
Something old and something new collided last week in a way that I found very engaging. The old was a science fiction series I read long ago, the Heechee saga by Frederik Pohl (1919-2013). What’s relevant here is that the alien Heechee used a number system based on prime numbers.
The new was this recent Substack post by Richard Green, a math writer and teacher. It, too, features a system based on primes, and I realized it solves a problem that has long bothered me about the putative Heechee number system.
Let me explain…
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2 Comments | tags: Frederik Pohl, Heechee, prime numbers, science fiction books | posted in Math
Recently, I learned an interesting new math trick involving what are known as dual numbers. These are compound numbers similar in form to complex numbers but with a different kind of “magic” element enabling their behavior.
What makes them interesting to people like me is the surprising way they provide a fast and easy technique for software to generate the derivative of a given function.
As an unrelated bonus, a simple explanation of why zero-factorial is equal to one rather than zero (which might seem more intuitive).
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1 Comment | tags: computer programming, derivatives, dual numbers | posted in Computers, Math
Logos con carne 