Usually Susan just runs away when the sheets-changing process begins, but not today.

Also, I may be falling in love with Joseph Leyendecker.

In the spirit of celebrating random connections, I give you, The Equestrienne:

Read.

Listen.

Look.

But why’s that big rock in the way?

Asteroids… vermin of the skies. *grumble grumble*

Greg Craven – What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

It’s an interview with high school science teacher Greg Craven, who created a massively viral YouTube video which presents a somewhat different way of looking at the global warming debate, which is to acknowledge that science will never provide THE TRUTH, or an absolutely certain answer to whether global warming is happening, whether it’s anthropogenic, etc. and so deftly side-step the “yeah-but-als” of the climate-change denialists.

So, consider both sides: What if it’s right? What if it’s wrong? Moreover, consider both responses: What if we do nothing? What if we make the drastic changes required to reduce our atmospheric carbon output?

Which response carries the greatest risk?

And remember, we’re already running the experiment by doing little to nothing to reduce our carbon output.

The first video is pretty simplistic (you can skip it without missing much):

This followup (which responds to criticisms) is better:

I’m struck by the fact that he considers only the possible negative outcomes. A lot of the kicking and screaming about carbon reform makes me think of this cartoon:

I’m not saying Craven’s argument is as bulletproof as he seems to think it is, but I like how he urges you to gather your own information, make your own assesements and come to your own conclusions. I also respect a guy who’s willing to put something up on YouTube and actually read and respond to the comments.

I’m going to subscribe to his newsletter check out his book, which, it is claimed, is about how to make big decisions with limited information. As suggested in the interview, this could be a great part of a freshman seminar course.

This year, Team Ithaca representation was weak, but we had a lot of fun with Dan, Amy and Zach.

New games played:

• Galaxy’s Edge Previously unknown to me, yet not a new game. We kinda liked it. The military control resolution is kind of brain-hurty and neat.
• Darjeeling Tea! Yay!
• Pack & Stack An all-too-eerily-accurate simulation of moving, including not being able to get the right truck from U-Haul.
• Steam Excellent new track-building, goods-delivering game.
• San Juan All the best elements of Race for the Galaxy and Puerto Rico, in one convenient package.
• Le Havre OMG too effing long.
• Race for the Galaxy: Brink of War Prestige can bite me.
• Nautilus Neat underwater exploration game with a a pretty board. Unfortunately, it just barely surpassed the fiddly-bits limit.

We never did quite manage to get into a game of Martian Rails. It was not available at Origins 2009, and we’ve been trying (in a half-hearted way) to get a copy for a while, though I’m deeply disappointed by the fact that the cities are drawn from fiction, unlike Lunar Rails, which awesomely uses actual lunar geography.

Acquired:

• Darjeeling, Assyria, Street Illegal and Dragon Parade (You get two randomly selected free games you get when you first visit the Board Room with your ribbon. This is the first time we got bumpkis in the Board Room raffle, which was a disappointment. :( However, Rio Grande Games provided free lunch and dinner for the Board Room, which was pretty extravagantly generous of them! Thanks, Rio Grande!).
• Powergrid China and Korea boards, RftG:BoW (at the Rio Grande Booth)
• Steam, Fredericus and Oriente (at the Mayfair Booth, the last two at deep discount)
• Suitors.

(Can’t wait for this week’s boardgame night: Origins Swag Edition!)

On the not-spending-all-my-time-inside front, I did manage to go running three times along the Scioto and Olentangy Greenways that follow the rivers through downtown Columbus. (Yay for Google maps, without which I would never have known that they exist.) The Olentangy Trail was especially nice.

Here you can see our new bench, and the very attractive pillows we used as the inspiration for our color palette.

And here you have the best feature in our whole house, the awesome woodwork by the staircase. The new paint is much brighter than the gray that was previously on the back wall. And I think the cool color of the paint really makes the warm color of the woodwork pop.

So, the net result is that the woodwork stands out more and the foyer is a lot brighter, in a kinda chilled out aquatic way. Worth the effort, for sure.

I just listened to this old ep: Aloha Astronomy from Are We Alone, the SETI podcast.

And saw this on Facebook. It really captures the flavor life on an observing run. “You can close the dome any time you like, but you can never leave…”

J and I are finally tackling our front hall, where we had some water damage that necessitated the replastering of a section of the front wall, which has been naked since, like, last summer.

We have chosen a color scheme and we may, one day soon, actually be able to paint. But with the all the stuff you have to do before you paint, I’m wondering if we ever actually will.

Today, we’re finishing up stripping off the wallpaper.

This is an activity which seems to tap strongly into certain not-always-positive personality traits of mine, namely the compulsion to work systematically through tedious, detail-oriented tasks. This can, under certain circumstances, be a good thing, of course. I think pretty much any scientist, or even every academic, has to have this tendency to some degree—otherwise you don’t end up with a PhD thesis, and you quit graduate school and do something stimulating and fulfilling with your life.

But the same tendency can also cause me to spend two hours hour grinding through a sudoku, despite the fact that I really don’t like doing sudokus. (No offense to people who like sudoku. For me they’re a noxious cocktail of un-put-down-ability and uninteresting math that doesn’t lead to the solving of a physics problem.)

See also my unhealthy relationship with my Christmas tree.

Luckily, J is around so that I don’t forget to eat. I think at this point we are going to have to set a timer, and after it goes off, declare the walls Clean Enough. Otherwise I’m going to spend the rest of the week scratching at sub-millimeter-sized gobbets of wallpaper paste. Last night J had to physically take the scraper out of my hand while I protested, “But there is still stuff on the wall.”

Wish us luck. Next: patching and priming.

The pattern is the Wildflower Sweater from Handknits For Kids by Lucinda Guy.

The yarn is Shine Sport from Knitpicks in Green Apple, Marmalade, and Butter.

This was my first real intarsia project (with large blocks of color) and it was not, in retrospect, a good choice to learn a new technique because of the complex shapes and multiple colors. I thought I had enough experience in colorwork, because I’ve done quite a bit of Fair Isle… but then again, I’ve always kinda sucked at Fair Isle. :)

I left off the additional embroidery on the flowers, because I thought they stood up just fine without it. The puckers that are due to my bad technique actually don’t look too bad in a flower-like context. And I love the faux smocking at the top.

It was a lot of work, but I’m better at intarsia now, all the ends are worked in, all the seams are seamed, and the sweater is delivered to its intended recipient, who, thank heavens, did not outgrow it in the year I spent knitting, unraveling, and re-knitting it.

I want to be made into a box of pencils. Distribute these pencils to my colleagues.

Derive away, ladies and gentlemen. Derive away.

Also, feel free to give them to your students to use when taking the Physics GRE.