About Wyrd Smythe
The canonical fool on the hill watching the sunset and the rotation of the planet and thinking what he imagines are large thoughts.
It’s starting to feel as if I’m posting only Friday Notes posts (or the related Science Notes posts), but I do have some other things up my sleeve. In fact, some amount of water has been building up behind the dam, and I’m hoping to open the spillways soon. Or soonish, anyway.
In today’s post, I have some news about my Minnesota Twins, a couple of graphs, a bit about Reacher, season three, a whole bunch of pictures, two memes, and a funny thing I hadn’t noticed for a long time.
So, let’s jump right in…
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2 Comments | tags: 420, Bill James, Minnesota Twins, oranges, parks, Reacher (TV series), sabermetrics, Twins 2025, walking | posted in Friday Notes
My usual breakfast — literally breaking the short fast that begins for me before midnight — isn’t until at least noon to ensure a minimum of 12 hours without food. If I get busy doing something in the morning, I might not break-fast until much later. “Lunch” therefore takes place around 4:00 or 5:00 PM, and “dinner” somewhere around 9:00 PM. I try to not eat after 10:00 PM, but definitely not after midnight.
Which isn’t particularly relevant here, but what does apply is that I typically read while I eat my two slices of breakfast toast. What I usually read is the latest issue of New Scientist or, more recently, Popular Mechanics (which is where Popular Science went when it died).
All of which is to say, here’s another issue of Science Notes.
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Leave a comment | tags: Betelgeuse, Lee Smolin, New Scientist magazine, Popular Mechanics magazine, Roger Penrose, Sabine Hossenfelder, Science Notes, social media | posted in Friday Notes, Science
Besides being Tax Day in the USA, for baseball fans April 15th is Jackie Robinson Day (because 4/15 was opening day in 1947 — the first season Jackie Robinson played in the MLB).
To honor him, every MLB player today wears a jersey with his number: #42.
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2 Comments | tags: 42, Jackie Robinson, Mariano Rivera, Minnesota Twins, Torii Hunter | posted in Baseball
In yesterday’s post, I wrote about Bruce Sterling, one of the founders of cyberpunk (along with William Gibson). I mentioned being underwhelmed. I enjoyed two of his novels, but the third one, The Caryatids (2009), is among the worst books I’ve read. I skimmed many, many info dump pages in search of a plot.
I make no pretensions of being a fiction writer, and my problems with the book may say more about me than the book. I may well have failed to appreciate some aspect that makes it great.
Regardless, I found it one of the most pointless science fiction novels I’ve read in recent memory. So, this post is a rant to vent my frustration.
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1 Comment | tags: Bruce Sterling, cyberpunk | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday
Given everything going on these days, blogging seems more pointless than ever. My disgust and ennui have reached new levels, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m witnessing the downfall of democracy and society. We seem in the last stages of a trainwreck I’ve been bystanding for 50 years.
The Dumpster fire rages so hot that it trivializes ordinary pursuits. Add a bushel of minor personal concerns, and my will to write is all but gone.
All but. And of course I have Notes…
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9 Comments | tags: AI, Bruce Sterling, color, Danger Man (TV series), grammar, John Drake, Studio Ghibli | posted in Friday Notes, TV
I’ve written here before about the Libby app I use to access the local library’s ebook catalog. Over the years, I’ve read hundreds of library books without ever having to actually visit the library. (Which is a pity in some ways. I’ve always loved libraries and even was a student librarian in high school. And there is value in being able to wander and browse.)
A while back the Libby app seriously expanded access to periodicals, so I’ve been reading the British magazine, New Scientist.
Which has turned out to be yet another reason to take notes…
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2 Comments | tags: assembly theory, dark forest, Earth, Fermi Paradox, Libby, New Scientist magazine, Science Notes, solar system, three-body problem | posted in Friday Notes, Science
Happy Pi Day! Also, happy 146th birthday to Albert Einstein. (I love that his birthday is Pi Day. Seems appropriate and makes it so easy to remember.) Over the years, I’ve written quite a bit here about the weirdly omnipresent transcendental number we call pi (p) — 3.14159 (roughly speaking).
As such, I won’t go into it again here today. (Though I do plan something for my Substack blog — where there is a fresh audience for old posts.)
This is actually a Friday Notes post, although — change for the new year— I’m dropping the standardized title format I’d started using for day-based category posts.
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1 Comment | tags: Albert Einstein, Bewitched, Elizabeth Montgomery, Nikita (TV series), pi day, social entropy | posted in Friday Notes
It’s funny, sometimes, the twists and turns of life. When I first heard of The Three Body Problem (2006), a science fiction novel by Liu Cixin, it didn’t grab my attention because I’m a little weary of “alien invasion” stories. But I’d read and enjoyed Ball Lightning (2004), so I watched Three Body, the Chinese adaptation of the first novel.
I posted last year about how much I liked it. So much so that I recently watched and posted about it again. And re-read the first novel (I read the trilogy last year). I even watched the first season of the Netflix adaptation.
To my eyes, it demonstrated everything that’s gone wrong with modern writing for TV and movies. The contrast between the Chinese adaptation and the Netflix one is stark and revealing.
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1 Comment | tags: 3 Body Problem, adaptations, Barbie, Liu Cixin, Netflix, three-body problem | posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday
I turn 70 this fall, and in the meantime, I’ve decided to step up my efforts to get rid of stuff I’m hanging on to for no good reason (except memories, a non-trivial reason but a topic for another day). A Clearance Deal — All Items Must Go!
Over the last few years, I’ve donated a lot of books and DVDs to the library. I think this year I’ll try to get rid of all (or nearly all) of the DVDs and a lot more books. I have some collections I may put up for sale on craigslist or Nextdoor. There’s a lot of stuff I’ve just tossed, which breaks my heart a little.
For example, a while back, I tossed a lot of old-but-beloved tee-shirts…
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3 Comments | tags: beer, Bruce Springsteen, city of Boston, DisneyWorld, Florida, Los Angeles, Winnie the Pooh, Yin and Yang | posted in Life
Not quite a year ago I posted about watching the Chinese adaptation of The Three-Body Problem, a 2006 science fiction novel by Liu Cixin. At the time, I’d only seen the adaptation. Since then, I’ve read all three books of the trilogy, re-read the first, re-watched the Chinese adaptation, and now, holding my nose, am watching the Netflix adaptation.
Having read the book, especially having recently re-read it, I enjoyed the Chinese adaptation much more than I did the first time seeing it cold. It was a much richer experience, and that adaptation is very faithful to the book.
I thought for Sci-Fi Saturday, knowing much more now, I’d revisit the topic.
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2 Comments | tags: adaptations, Liu Cixin, three-body problem | posted in Books, Sci-Fi Saturday, TV
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