Late last week, the day before a certain celebrity death took over front pages all around the world, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford 's face adorned the front pages of Chinese-language newspapers here in Taipei.
Like everyone else in the world, Taiwanese people do not follow the ins and outs of domestic American politics with the interest of an American political junkie. And this is as it should be. I doubt the average East Asian can name a single American governor with the exception of Schwarzenegger (and possibly Palin, maybe).
But Sanford's story is compelling. Why? Sex? Not just sex, I think. The Sanford story broke just a week after Senator John Ensign admitted an extramarital affair, and frankly I'd be gobsmacked if many people outside of the US even know who Ensign is. Or even people inside the US. Ensign's story just didn't make that big of a splash.
It's because Sanford made a great big idiot of himself. He tried to keep everything under wraps, he failed hilariously, and now he's ensured that his tenure as governor will be remembered for this one thing above all else. John Scalzi's got the situation summed up nicely in a LOLcat picture.
And so he dominated the front pages for a day in a country where the people have absolutely no reason to care what the governor of a US state is doing or who he is sleeping with.
This makes me very happy about my prospects for one day writing fiction. My idiot plotting seems so much more plausible now that I know I live in a world where Sanfordian incompetence is going on in the highest levels of government.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
He Nailed Arlington
I lived in Arlington for over three years altogether, first in Rosslyn and then off Columbia Pike.
This song nails it.
My only complaint is that the song's does an excellent job with Yuppie Arlington... but it's also a city of immigrants who speak Korean and Vietnamese and Amharic and above all Spanish among themselves, and where's the nod to their Arlington? Also, it's too Orange Line-focused. Some of my favorite bits of Arlington are along Columbia Pike. Man, do I miss the Cinema and Drafthouse.
This song nails it.
My only complaint is that the song's does an excellent job with Yuppie Arlington... but it's also a city of immigrants who speak Korean and Vietnamese and Amharic and above all Spanish among themselves, and where's the nod to their Arlington? Also, it's too Orange Line-focused. Some of my favorite bits of Arlington are along Columbia Pike. Man, do I miss the Cinema and Drafthouse.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The Future of IT
Charles Stross has some smart comments up on the near future of computing. Nominally it's all about the future of gaming, but really it's all about computer technology in general between now and, say, 2030.
But his essay on the future of IT makes me all excited and optimistic about human progress again.
Previously, when I thought of Stross' nonfictional speculation about the future, I thought of his essay on precisely why space colonization will probably never be affordable and feasible for large numbers of people. It depressed me, as I'm sure it depressed lots of people who grew up on good old-fashioned space-oriented science fiction. Especially since the bastard is probably right about everything.For the past few years I've been trying to write science fiction about the near future, and in particular about the future of information technology. I've got a degree in computer science from 1990, which makes me a bit like an aerospace engineer from the class of '37, but I'm not going to let that stop me.
But his essay on the future of IT makes me all excited and optimistic about human progress again.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
The new Star Trek
I just saw the new Star Trek. My immediate reactions, arranged in order from least geeky to most geeky:
- My god, they actually got Karl Urban to channel DeForest Kelley's ghost. That was one of the most freakishly uncanny imitations I've ever seen.
- Presumably Starfleet engineers are eventually going to upgrade from the bridge design in this movie to the bridge design in the original Star Trek. That amuses me to no end.
- The movie declared its creative sources very clearly by making lots of references to the original series and the movies, and more or less ignoring all other Trek. Uhura orders a Cardassian drink at that bar in Iowa, and other than that I didn't notice even one unambiguously TNG-era-or-after reference.
- OK, I agree with everyone who says Nero was an ineffective villain. What annoys me is that his insanity was his only motivation for going out and being evil. What would a rational person have done in his place after being thrown back in time? A rational person would fly his butt over to Romulus, tell them everything he knows, and get Romulan scientists and engineers working on how they're going to stop this natural disaster from swallowing their planet over a century hence. Nero just bellows in rage, sulks for 25 years, and then blows up Vulcan. How'd he get his crew to go along with this "plan"?
- Even by Star Trek standards, that was some magnificently silly science. Especially during the two minutes or so that Old Spock is info-dumping his story into Kirk's brain. And I liked how, when Spock was watching Vulcan's destruction from the surface of that ice planet, Vulcan looked bigger in the sky than Earth is from the Moon. Evidently everything's really close together in that region of space.
- I think they changed the rules for how stardates work. I'm not certain, but I think in this movie stardates reflected real Earth dates in Trek's internal chronology. Fine with me. Trek stardates have always been nonsensical and incomprehensible.
Overall I really enjoyed the movie, although I got the feeling it works better if you think of it as a really well-produced bit of fan-fiction. And there's nothing wrong with that.
- My god, they actually got Karl Urban to channel DeForest Kelley's ghost. That was one of the most freakishly uncanny imitations I've ever seen.
- Presumably Starfleet engineers are eventually going to upgrade from the bridge design in this movie to the bridge design in the original Star Trek. That amuses me to no end.
- The movie declared its creative sources very clearly by making lots of references to the original series and the movies, and more or less ignoring all other Trek. Uhura orders a Cardassian drink at that bar in Iowa, and other than that I didn't notice even one unambiguously TNG-era-or-after reference.
- OK, I agree with everyone who says Nero was an ineffective villain. What annoys me is that his insanity was his only motivation for going out and being evil. What would a rational person have done in his place after being thrown back in time? A rational person would fly his butt over to Romulus, tell them everything he knows, and get Romulan scientists and engineers working on how they're going to stop this natural disaster from swallowing their planet over a century hence. Nero just bellows in rage, sulks for 25 years, and then blows up Vulcan. How'd he get his crew to go along with this "plan"?
- Even by Star Trek standards, that was some magnificently silly science. Especially during the two minutes or so that Old Spock is info-dumping his story into Kirk's brain. And I liked how, when Spock was watching Vulcan's destruction from the surface of that ice planet, Vulcan looked bigger in the sky than Earth is from the Moon. Evidently everything's really close together in that region of space.
- I think they changed the rules for how stardates work. I'm not certain, but I think in this movie stardates reflected real Earth dates in Trek's internal chronology. Fine with me. Trek stardates have always been nonsensical and incomprehensible.
Overall I really enjoyed the movie, although I got the feeling it works better if you think of it as a really well-produced bit of fan-fiction. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Scopin' out the Ivory Tower
I'm 29 years old. Back when I graduated from university at age 22, I figured I'd be off to grad school in just a few short years. I took the GRE, knowing that the scores would last for five years, and I was sure I would use them.
Now it's seven years later. I wouldn't say I've been vegetating all this time, but I haven't made any steps toward graduate school either. Part of it is a fear of crippling debt. But part of it is my inability to figure out what, exactly, I would study - and my not being sure what good the degree would do me, anyway.
My father makes his living in academia. He's been a professor for as long as I have been alive, and to be honest, I figured for a long time I would pursue a similar career path. Growing up, my family seemed perfectly comfortable on his salary alone. He seemed to have plenty of free time, and when he was working he was nerdily immersing himself in topics he found interesting. I can do a lot worse for myself.
But I'm terrified of actually trying to break into academia. Once I had a tenure-track position it might be pleasant enough for me, but I've heard too many horror stories about the job market for academics and the difficulties of actually getting a decent job somewhere.
In the New York Times, Mark C. Taylor summarizes why I feel scared:
But, as an indictment of today's American academia, I agreed with most of it - and with his recommendations. Of course academics should specialize, but let's not do it to excess. I suspect one reason why some of today's celebrity intellectuals - like Jared Diamond, Daniel Dennett, and Nassim Taleb - got to be popular is that they can combine and synthesize learning across very different disciplines. This appeals to someone who is intellectually curious about the world and doesn't see everything neatly compartmentalized into categories such as "biology" and "history" and "linguistics".
It's hard to say exactly why, but somehow Taylor's article makes me feel better about academia as a possible career. Maybe it's that his piece's very existence is evidence that there is a shift going on. If I were to start a career in newspapers right now, I would of course do so in the knowledge that one major era in the history of newspapers is ending right now and a new era is beginning - and pretending otherwise would bring me no benefit. I think a similar shift is in the cards for universities. Maybe it won't be as traumatic as what's happening to newspapers (or maybe it will) but I will have to be just as aware of it.
(As an aside, lately I've been reading Neal Stephenson's novel Anathem, whose main characters are the equivalent of academic professor-types in an alternate not-quite-Earth. I'm not saying I want to go live in a concent on Arbre, but I must admit that it's kindled some wistfulness for a life of reading and learning.)
Now it's seven years later. I wouldn't say I've been vegetating all this time, but I haven't made any steps toward graduate school either. Part of it is a fear of crippling debt. But part of it is my inability to figure out what, exactly, I would study - and my not being sure what good the degree would do me, anyway.
My father makes his living in academia. He's been a professor for as long as I have been alive, and to be honest, I figured for a long time I would pursue a similar career path. Growing up, my family seemed perfectly comfortable on his salary alone. He seemed to have plenty of free time, and when he was working he was nerdily immersing himself in topics he found interesting. I can do a lot worse for myself.
But I'm terrified of actually trying to break into academia. Once I had a tenure-track position it might be pleasant enough for me, but I've heard too many horror stories about the job market for academics and the difficulties of actually getting a decent job somewhere.
In the New York Times, Mark C. Taylor summarizes why I feel scared:
GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).His entire article is well worth reading. Unlike him, I feel oddly cheered to know that I live in a world where, somewhere, a person is making it his job to write about "how the medieval theologian Duns Scotus used citations."
But, as an indictment of today's American academia, I agreed with most of it - and with his recommendations. Of course academics should specialize, but let's not do it to excess. I suspect one reason why some of today's celebrity intellectuals - like Jared Diamond, Daniel Dennett, and Nassim Taleb - got to be popular is that they can combine and synthesize learning across very different disciplines. This appeals to someone who is intellectually curious about the world and doesn't see everything neatly compartmentalized into categories such as "biology" and "history" and "linguistics".
It's hard to say exactly why, but somehow Taylor's article makes me feel better about academia as a possible career. Maybe it's that his piece's very existence is evidence that there is a shift going on. If I were to start a career in newspapers right now, I would of course do so in the knowledge that one major era in the history of newspapers is ending right now and a new era is beginning - and pretending otherwise would bring me no benefit. I think a similar shift is in the cards for universities. Maybe it won't be as traumatic as what's happening to newspapers (or maybe it will) but I will have to be just as aware of it.
(As an aside, lately I've been reading Neal Stephenson's novel Anathem, whose main characters are the equivalent of academic professor-types in an alternate not-quite-Earth. I'm not saying I want to go live in a concent on Arbre, but I must admit that it's kindled some wistfulness for a life of reading and learning.)
Monday, February 16, 2009
Rather a lazy bumper sticker
I saw a bumper sticker today that said:
I assume Katrina refers to the hurricane. Baldacci is our Governor (I'm in Maine).
Either there's a reference or a play on words here that I don't get, or this is a pretty lazy attempt at a smart-ass political bumper sticker.
Katrina barely affected Maine. Baldacci had nothing to do with Katrina. And I've been running this bumper sticker through my mind and I can't think of any way punning or wordplay could be involved.
I mean, you might as well say:
Or:
Or why not just dispense with any attempt at being a smart-ass and just slap a bumper sticker on your car that says:
Seems like it wouldn't be any less witty.
TWO DISASTERS
KATRINA AND BALDACCI
I assume Katrina refers to the hurricane. Baldacci is our Governor (I'm in Maine).
Either there's a reference or a play on words here that I don't get, or this is a pretty lazy attempt at a smart-ass political bumper sticker.
Katrina barely affected Maine. Baldacci had nothing to do with Katrina. And I've been running this bumper sticker through my mind and I can't think of any way punning or wordplay could be involved.
I mean, you might as well say:
TWO BAD THINGS
DIABETES AND PELOSI
Or:
TWO THINGS THAT HURT
CATAPULTS AND SARAH PALIN
Or why not just dispense with any attempt at being a smart-ass and just slap a bumper sticker on your car that says:
I DON'T LIKE BALDACCI
Seems like it wouldn't be any less witty.
...and I'm back in the States
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Big trip
On Saturday we leave on our jaunt from Taipei to Singapore to India (Karnataka and Kerala) to Egypt (Cairo and Luxor) to the USA and back to Taipei (on February 25). For the first time in my life I will have crossed every line of longitude.
In preparation for my first trip to India I have read up the remaining pieces of Indian fiction on our bookshelves. An Obedient Father by Akhil Sharma, the story of a corrupt low-level official in Delhi, is a difficult and often disgusting book to read. I've read short fiction with disgustingly unlikeable protagonists, but An Obedient Father is the first full-length novel I've read with such a unpleasant first-person narrator. Sharma makes it readable by making you feel pity for the main character, even though you'll never like him.
Like Rohinton Mistry and Manil Suri, Sharma's fiction depicts Indian society warts and all - particularly the warts. That's good for me. Helps me be prepared for what I'm likely to see. I've been to developing countries (Indonesia and the Philippines), but I've never seen the sort of large-scale poverty I've heard I should be prepared for.
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala won the Booker Prize in 1975. It's about a British woman who comes to India to learn the story of a relative of hers who eloped with a local ruler back in the 1920s. Jhabvala married into Indian society rather than being born into it, so she can look at India with a knowledgable foreigner's eye.
In Beautiful Disguises by Rajeev Balasubraman is the story of a girl from a small town in Karnataka who travels to The City (never named, but I assume it's Mumbai) to seek her fame and fortune. I enjoyed this book quite a bit. The main character (whose name we never learn) is immensely likeable. Balasubraman felt the need to invent a cartoony female antagonist who seems an amalgam of every Disney villainess, from Snow White's Evil Stepmother to Cruella de Vil. At first this annoyed me a bit, but then I figured it fit the book's dreamy, we're-all-characters-in-the-movies tone.
As for the actual logistics of getting around India, I'm leaving that to Rough Guide and Jenna's knowledge of the place. Should be fun.
In preparation for my first trip to India I have read up the remaining pieces of Indian fiction on our bookshelves. An Obedient Father by Akhil Sharma, the story of a corrupt low-level official in Delhi, is a difficult and often disgusting book to read. I've read short fiction with disgustingly unlikeable protagonists, but An Obedient Father is the first full-length novel I've read with such a unpleasant first-person narrator. Sharma makes it readable by making you feel pity for the main character, even though you'll never like him.
Like Rohinton Mistry and Manil Suri, Sharma's fiction depicts Indian society warts and all - particularly the warts. That's good for me. Helps me be prepared for what I'm likely to see. I've been to developing countries (Indonesia and the Philippines), but I've never seen the sort of large-scale poverty I've heard I should be prepared for.
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala won the Booker Prize in 1975. It's about a British woman who comes to India to learn the story of a relative of hers who eloped with a local ruler back in the 1920s. Jhabvala married into Indian society rather than being born into it, so she can look at India with a knowledgable foreigner's eye.
In Beautiful Disguises by Rajeev Balasubraman is the story of a girl from a small town in Karnataka who travels to The City (never named, but I assume it's Mumbai) to seek her fame and fortune. I enjoyed this book quite a bit. The main character (whose name we never learn) is immensely likeable. Balasubraman felt the need to invent a cartoony female antagonist who seems an amalgam of every Disney villainess, from Snow White's Evil Stepmother to Cruella de Vil. At first this annoyed me a bit, but then I figured it fit the book's dreamy, we're-all-characters-in-the-movies tone.
As for the actual logistics of getting around India, I'm leaving that to Rough Guide and Jenna's knowledge of the place. Should be fun.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Blog Appreciation
Now that the year's almost over, here's a quick run-through of blogs I have Appreciated this year.
My opinion of the value of political blogs has declined precipitously recently, but I still find myself compulsively reading Andrew Sullivan, Kevin Drum, and Matthew Yglesias. Marc Ambinder has lots of useful political coverage around election time. Based on his blog I'd always pictured Ambinder as this grizzled old journalist with a cigar clenched firmly in teeth; when I found out he was only a year older than me my brain imploded. FiveThirtyEight.com deserves every bit of praise it has accumulated. I'm impressed with how smoothly it's shifted from hardcore election analysis to general political analysis. Finally, the fine people at Shakesville have helped me develop my socially progressive conscience, and for that I thank them.
Moving away from American politics, Ethan Zuckerman is into all sorts of cool geeky musings, and on top of that shows a genuine interest in global issues that mainstream media tend to ignore. His blog is great, period. The cartography geek in me is fascinated by Making Maps and amused by Strange Maps. The science-fictiony geek in me reads Tor.com, every kind of geek in me reads John Scalzi for all-around coolness, and Making Light is fascinating and amusing. And of course I always keep up with BoingBoing.
For snark I rely on The Comics Curmudgeon, Passive-Agressive Notes, and of course Fail Blog.
Unfortunately, I have not been keeping up enough with Taiwanese and East Asian-centered blogs. I suppose that shall be my New Years' resolution.
My opinion of the value of political blogs has declined precipitously recently, but I still find myself compulsively reading Andrew Sullivan, Kevin Drum, and Matthew Yglesias. Marc Ambinder has lots of useful political coverage around election time. Based on his blog I'd always pictured Ambinder as this grizzled old journalist with a cigar clenched firmly in teeth; when I found out he was only a year older than me my brain imploded. FiveThirtyEight.com deserves every bit of praise it has accumulated. I'm impressed with how smoothly it's shifted from hardcore election analysis to general political analysis. Finally, the fine people at Shakesville have helped me develop my socially progressive conscience, and for that I thank them.
Moving away from American politics, Ethan Zuckerman is into all sorts of cool geeky musings, and on top of that shows a genuine interest in global issues that mainstream media tend to ignore. His blog is great, period. The cartography geek in me is fascinated by Making Maps and amused by Strange Maps. The science-fictiony geek in me reads Tor.com, every kind of geek in me reads John Scalzi for all-around coolness, and Making Light is fascinating and amusing. And of course I always keep up with BoingBoing.
For snark I rely on The Comics Curmudgeon, Passive-Agressive Notes, and of course Fail Blog.
Unfortunately, I have not been keeping up enough with Taiwanese and East Asian-centered blogs. I suppose that shall be my New Years' resolution.
Hope for Peace
Less than a month before we begin our two-and-a-half-week jaunt across Karnataka and Kerala, frightening news stories are appearing on rising tensions between India and Pakistan. And I'm frantically hoping that things simmer down again before we leave.
Because, you know, it might inconvenience us if actual war breaks out between India and Pakistan.
If tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians die it might force us to change our travel plans.
If nuclear bombs explode above Islamabad and Delhi we'll have to take our little vacation someplace else.
Unfortunately that's an accurate assessment of my thinking right now. My brain is a shallow, petty thing.
Because, you know, it might inconvenience us if actual war breaks out between India and Pakistan.
If tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians die it might force us to change our travel plans.
If nuclear bombs explode above Islamabad and Delhi we'll have to take our little vacation someplace else.
Unfortunately that's an accurate assessment of my thinking right now. My brain is a shallow, petty thing.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Merry Christmas!
Our tree:
Our cat, who plans to destroy the tree:
For Christmas music, I nominate Jonathan Coulton's Chiron Beta Prime.
I first heard Chiron Beta Prime on the Escape Pod short fiction podcast, the time they ran Greg van Eekhout's story In the Late December.
Greg van Eekhout's story is about the final battle that will occur at the End of Time between Santa Claus and the forces of Entropy. Even though they're barely related thematically, I thought the deep darkness of van Eekhout's story was nicely complemented by the cheerful darkness of Coulton's music.
You can listen to In the Late December here.
Our cat, who plans to destroy the tree:
For Christmas music, I nominate Jonathan Coulton's Chiron Beta Prime.
I first heard Chiron Beta Prime on the Escape Pod short fiction podcast, the time they ran Greg van Eekhout's story In the Late December.
Greg van Eekhout's story is about the final battle that will occur at the End of Time between Santa Claus and the forces of Entropy. Even though they're barely related thematically, I thought the deep darkness of van Eekhout's story was nicely complemented by the cheerful darkness of Coulton's music.
You can listen to In the Late December here.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Questions for the Explainer
Slate's Explainer column has dug through the bag of questions they never answered in 2008. Good fun.
When and why did the Communist Chinese change the name of their capital "PEKING" to Bazging? Sorry, I don't know how it is spelled. Thank you.
There are many opportunities for snark here (c'mon, "Bazging"?) but I just can't get beyond the fact that, with all the places to find information online, this person asked Slate a Wikipedia question. One might as well ask the Explainer what year Brazil became independent, or who was Prime Minister of Canada before Brian Mulroney.
If one gets a personal e-mail from a very famous or important person, such as the president, or the queen of England, or the Pope, or Paul McCartney, can that e-mail have monetary value? I guess not. It's just an electronic transmission on a screen. There's no original. There's no way to buy or sell it. Seems a shame tho.
I hate to be pedantic, but I'm not sure it counts as a "question" if you answer it immediately in the same paragraph. It's a shame; I'm intrigued and I can see a near-future SF short story exploring the idea.
I live in Washington, D.C., and we have very long escalators coming out of the Metro. If I grabbed the handrail when I first step onto the escalator and did not let go until I was at the top, my body would be almost prostrate across the steps. As I go higher on the escalator, I have to readjust the hand that is grabbing the rubber handrail. Why can't the companies that make escalators sync the steps and the handrails so that they go the same speed?
I lived in DC for a couple of years. This is absolutely true!! Escalators here in Taipei don't work that way. OK, this is another question I genuinely want answered.
How did early man deal with growing toe and fingernails?
Early man did not sit in an office all day long. Early man had to run around barefoot outside and find food with his hands. Early man scoffs at you and your delicate sense of personal hygiene.
If someone with DNA from the Stone Age were born today, would they be normal?
There are two ways to answer this question. The reasonable scientific answer would be to point out that the Stone Age was a really, really long period of time; it began at whatever point you want to arbitrarily designate as the beginning of the human race, and in some parts of the world it hasn't actually ended yet. If you create a child today with Homo erectus DNA (in some sort of unholy anthropological version of Jurassic Park), you're going to have yourself a poor kid who's going to be a freakish curiosity his whole life. But if you create a child who's got the DNA of the guys who created cave paintings in France, you'll have yourself a perfectly normal kid. The other way to answer this question is to refer to the excellent 1987 documentary The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones, in which actual Stone Age physiology can be compared directly with modern human beings.
During this weekend's football playoff game in Green Bay, the temperature at kickoff was 0 degrees, and by the end of the game was -4 degrees. When players get injured in such weather, do they bother putting ice on the injury? Wouldn't that warm up the injury to 32 degrees?
I'm not sure of the science involved here. I'd like to point out, though, that ice can become much cooler than 32 degrees. 32 degrees is just the upper limit, beyond which it will melt. Also, which will make your hand freeze faster: leaving your hand exposed to cold air, or sticking your hand into a snowdrift?
Burma's dictator has a chestful of bullshit medals. What's up with that, Explainer?
I like this question. Compare Burma's dictator with North Korea's Kim Jong-il, who wears the drabbest clothing ever seen on an evil dictator (assuming he hasn't died already). Someone should do a study of dictators' dress styles. I suspect the main fault line lies between (noninally) Communist and non-Communist regimes.
Can men eat the Activia yogurt that is advertised exclusively to the modern woman in khakis? Will it have the same internal regulatory effects on the male system that are promised for the female bowels? If not, why not?
I am a man and I have eaten Activia yogurt religiously for the past year. My bowels have never been more regular, although I do menstruate.
Can an average person not in politics get a pardon from the president of the United States? (Possession of forged instrument, October of 1989.)
Can you see what I'm doing? I'm making the "rubbing coins between thumb and forefinger" gesture.
Please explain the method of formation and origin of black holes. Are they located at the Bermuda Triangle area and why there?
The question that launched a hundred made-for-cable sci-fi movies.
Who made up the rule that if you wore a shirt all day, went home, and washed it, you can't wear it the next day?
This law was passed by Congress in the fall of 1882 and signed by Chester A. Arthur in the Oval Office.
Hi, I am Anna. I am only 11 years old! My friend told me about this black hole, and I have gotten really scared. I don't want to die! I thought if it didn't happen today, it wasn't going to happen. I did not know nothing about it happening in Spring! I find it unfair that scientists are making a machine that could possibly destroy the entire human race. Me and my friends have cried about the black hole, and I find it really upsetting. There has been barely nothing about it on the news. I am so nervous. I just think I am too young to die—is there any way we could stop it happening?
I'm leaning towards the assumption that "Anna" is male, a physics major, about 21 years old, and thinks this letter is the funniest thing ever. I also assume "Anna" is referring to CERN's Large Hadron Collider.
Now, as I understand it, the scientists at CERN are trying to create a black hole in order to drop the Earth into a wormhole which will enable us to access parallel Earths at earlier stages of chronological development, enabling us to revisit bygone periods of our history. For example, a temporal assassin can kill Hitler while he is still a struggling artist in pre-WW1 Vienna, thus preventing the rise of Nazi Germany and saving the Jews who would have died in Holocaust.
I am 79 years old. I bring this up first to help explain my question. In the late 1930s or early 1940s, I was looking through an old stack of Life magazines, and there was a picture of an old couple sitting on the porch of a cabin (or shack) up in the mountains somewhere in Appalachia, with the notation: "The King and Queen of America?" The small article with the picture stated that if George Washington had become king of the U.S., these two would (under the usual custom) be our king and queen. I have thought of this from time to time, even doubted it. (It might have been part of the propaganda of the time, the Depression years, that we were all equal, etc.) I am dimly aware that George Washington had brothers, and that it is possible that the descent is known. As I remember, it was a lovely picture, the old couple looking out over a valley, with mist, and smoking their corncob pipes. Can you find the picture? Can you tell me whether there was truth in the assertion?
I love this idea. I have no idea how much truth there might be in it. But it inspired me to go to Wikipedia to look up:
The current German Kaiser. He's 32 years old.
The current Tsar of Russia? There are two claimants, this lady and this elderly gentleman.
The King of Italy is apparently a rather infamous figure in his homeland.
Ever wondered about the heir to the throne of the Qing Dynasty in China? I get the feeling he's led a relatively modest life. Living in the PRC, you can't blame him.
The French throne has lots of claimants, thanks to the multitude of royal houses they had in the 1800s. There's this guy if you're a fan of the House of Orleans; there's also this guy for you Bourbon fans. And of course there's a head of the Bonaparte dynasty.
Is it just me, or do all national anthems the world over, no matter how rich and exotic the culture, seem to sound like European marching-band music? Wouldn't one expect China's national anthem be more "plinky"? Shouldn't Iraq's national anthem sound a little more "Arab-y"?
I hope they pick this one to answer, because I've noticed the same thing. Years ago I had an Encarta encyclopedia on CD-ROM which let me listen to every country's national anthem, and they all sounded disappointingly similar.When and why did the Communist Chinese change the name of their capital "PEKING" to Bazging? Sorry, I don't know how it is spelled. Thank you.
There are many opportunities for snark here (c'mon, "Bazging"?) but I just can't get beyond the fact that, with all the places to find information online, this person asked Slate a Wikipedia question. One might as well ask the Explainer what year Brazil became independent, or who was Prime Minister of Canada before Brian Mulroney.
If one gets a personal e-mail from a very famous or important person, such as the president, or the queen of England, or the Pope, or Paul McCartney, can that e-mail have monetary value? I guess not. It's just an electronic transmission on a screen. There's no original. There's no way to buy or sell it. Seems a shame tho.
I hate to be pedantic, but I'm not sure it counts as a "question" if you answer it immediately in the same paragraph. It's a shame; I'm intrigued and I can see a near-future SF short story exploring the idea.
I live in Washington, D.C., and we have very long escalators coming out of the Metro. If I grabbed the handrail when I first step onto the escalator and did not let go until I was at the top, my body would be almost prostrate across the steps. As I go higher on the escalator, I have to readjust the hand that is grabbing the rubber handrail. Why can't the companies that make escalators sync the steps and the handrails so that they go the same speed?
I lived in DC for a couple of years. This is absolutely true!! Escalators here in Taipei don't work that way. OK, this is another question I genuinely want answered.
How did early man deal with growing toe and fingernails?
Early man did not sit in an office all day long. Early man had to run around barefoot outside and find food with his hands. Early man scoffs at you and your delicate sense of personal hygiene.
If someone with DNA from the Stone Age were born today, would they be normal?
There are two ways to answer this question. The reasonable scientific answer would be to point out that the Stone Age was a really, really long period of time; it began at whatever point you want to arbitrarily designate as the beginning of the human race, and in some parts of the world it hasn't actually ended yet. If you create a child today with Homo erectus DNA (in some sort of unholy anthropological version of Jurassic Park), you're going to have yourself a poor kid who's going to be a freakish curiosity his whole life. But if you create a child who's got the DNA of the guys who created cave paintings in France, you'll have yourself a perfectly normal kid. The other way to answer this question is to refer to the excellent 1987 documentary The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones, in which actual Stone Age physiology can be compared directly with modern human beings.
During this weekend's football playoff game in Green Bay, the temperature at kickoff was 0 degrees, and by the end of the game was -4 degrees. When players get injured in such weather, do they bother putting ice on the injury? Wouldn't that warm up the injury to 32 degrees?
I'm not sure of the science involved here. I'd like to point out, though, that ice can become much cooler than 32 degrees. 32 degrees is just the upper limit, beyond which it will melt. Also, which will make your hand freeze faster: leaving your hand exposed to cold air, or sticking your hand into a snowdrift?
Burma's dictator has a chestful of bullshit medals. What's up with that, Explainer?
I like this question. Compare Burma's dictator with North Korea's Kim Jong-il, who wears the drabbest clothing ever seen on an evil dictator (assuming he hasn't died already). Someone should do a study of dictators' dress styles. I suspect the main fault line lies between (noninally) Communist and non-Communist regimes.
Can men eat the Activia yogurt that is advertised exclusively to the modern woman in khakis? Will it have the same internal regulatory effects on the male system that are promised for the female bowels? If not, why not?
I am a man and I have eaten Activia yogurt religiously for the past year. My bowels have never been more regular, although I do menstruate.
Can an average person not in politics get a pardon from the president of the United States? (Possession of forged instrument, October of 1989.)
Can you see what I'm doing? I'm making the "rubbing coins between thumb and forefinger" gesture.
Please explain the method of formation and origin of black holes. Are they located at the Bermuda Triangle area and why there?
The question that launched a hundred made-for-cable sci-fi movies.
Who made up the rule that if you wore a shirt all day, went home, and washed it, you can't wear it the next day?
This law was passed by Congress in the fall of 1882 and signed by Chester A. Arthur in the Oval Office.
Why don't humans have a mating season?
I think this is my favorite question of the lot of 'em.Hi, I am Anna. I am only 11 years old! My friend told me about this black hole, and I have gotten really scared. I don't want to die! I thought if it didn't happen today, it wasn't going to happen. I did not know nothing about it happening in Spring! I find it unfair that scientists are making a machine that could possibly destroy the entire human race. Me and my friends have cried about the black hole, and I find it really upsetting. There has been barely nothing about it on the news. I am so nervous. I just think I am too young to die—is there any way we could stop it happening?
I'm leaning towards the assumption that "Anna" is male, a physics major, about 21 years old, and thinks this letter is the funniest thing ever. I also assume "Anna" is referring to CERN's Large Hadron Collider.
Now, as I understand it, the scientists at CERN are trying to create a black hole in order to drop the Earth into a wormhole which will enable us to access parallel Earths at earlier stages of chronological development, enabling us to revisit bygone periods of our history. For example, a temporal assassin can kill Hitler while he is still a struggling artist in pre-WW1 Vienna, thus preventing the rise of Nazi Germany and saving the Jews who would have died in Holocaust.
I am 79 years old. I bring this up first to help explain my question. In the late 1930s or early 1940s, I was looking through an old stack of Life magazines, and there was a picture of an old couple sitting on the porch of a cabin (or shack) up in the mountains somewhere in Appalachia, with the notation: "The King and Queen of America?" The small article with the picture stated that if George Washington had become king of the U.S., these two would (under the usual custom) be our king and queen. I have thought of this from time to time, even doubted it. (It might have been part of the propaganda of the time, the Depression years, that we were all equal, etc.) I am dimly aware that George Washington had brothers, and that it is possible that the descent is known. As I remember, it was a lovely picture, the old couple looking out over a valley, with mist, and smoking their corncob pipes. Can you find the picture? Can you tell me whether there was truth in the assertion?
I love this idea. I have no idea how much truth there might be in it. But it inspired me to go to Wikipedia to look up:
The current German Kaiser. He's 32 years old.
The current Tsar of Russia? There are two claimants, this lady and this elderly gentleman.
The King of Italy is apparently a rather infamous figure in his homeland.
Ever wondered about the heir to the throne of the Qing Dynasty in China? I get the feeling he's led a relatively modest life. Living in the PRC, you can't blame him.
The French throne has lots of claimants, thanks to the multitude of royal houses they had in the 1800s. There's this guy if you're a fan of the House of Orleans; there's also this guy for you Bourbon fans. And of course there's a head of the Bonaparte dynasty.
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