long. rambling. ultimately pointless. you have been warned.
really. this is gonna make it seem like i watch a lot more tv than i actually do. in this episode, though, some of it is educational. that's ok, right? suuuuuuure it is. fine. let's get to it, eh?
first of all... ok, first of all, a mythbusters tangent. sure, why not? in the toast show, where kari says "my toast always lands butter side up" i thought, "oh THAT is diabolically cute". and theeeeen i thought of brinker/umrguy42. he's doomed, he really is. i can't imagine why he hasn't mentioned it yet. *grin*
anyway. i was watching "unfolding universe", and they had a segment about the effects on the human body of falling into a black hole. some guy (neil tyson, director of hayden planetarium, to be more precise) started to explain the process and they cut to... a clip of bruce campbell/ash, his chainsaw arm and the tree being sucked into the evil vortex! yay! beautiful, it was (and it doesn't hurt that i'd just picked up 'army of darkness' on dvd for five bucks the day before). the icing on the cake was neil going on to say "...sometimes called 'spaghettification. i think of it as just extruding toothpaste through a tube. that's what would happen to your body's atoms. *pause* i think about that often." heh. s or m? you decide, but judging from the little 1/2 giggle that accompanied it, i'd say he's edging toward evil but witty space villain.
from another show on the science channel, "parallel universes". three scientists are on a train to london (no, this isn't a cheesy joke - although it COULD be. hmmmm...) having synergistic epiphanies about m theory and its singularity implications, and i thought how wonderfully analogous that is to how einstein flashed onto relativity, so i already loved this bit (quite apart from the idea of membranes themselves, 'cause come on, how cool is that?) in a connectivity sort of way. then i started thinking of some reading i've been doing lately from disparate sources that seems to all emphasize the prevalence of intuitive leaps in mathematical breakthroughs and how that doesn't seem as odd to me as it likely does to most people and maybe SHOULD seem. at this point, paul stinehart says "i think people get the wrong impression about scientists, in that they think in an orderly, rigid way from step 1 to step 2 to step 3. what REALLY happens, is often - you make some imaginative leap, which at the time may seem nonsensical. when you capture the field at those stages, it looks like poetry, in which you are imagining without yet proving."
splendid. even all by itself, that is great. go, paul.
this show also gave me the gem "it is actually safe to create a universe in your basement", which i would credit but i couldn't ever find the name of the physicist who said it.
later, i was watching "ripley's believe it or not" because there was really not much else on and, i mean... dean cain. yummers. ahem. i had, the day before, seen (yet another) show in which they'd showcased a little girl who'd had the entire right hemisphere of her brain removed. yikes. (i'd actually be fascinated with some kind of thesis on if/how that changed her personality, if the left 1/2 took over those more esoteric functions as well as taking over control of the left 1/2 of her motor skills, etc... yeah.) i heard from the other room that they were doing a segment on ripley's about a girl who'd had a hemispherectomy and i thought "omigod, the little girl with 1/2 a brain is following me around!" and came in to watch it. and it was... a different girl. daaaaaaaamn. i dunno. it was just neat that they can do this. twice. and it gives me another "obsessively find information on until i get bored" subject. juuuuust what i need. heh. (well. three.) (update: ok, apparently, there are quite a few of them, and there is some information on the resultant personality stuff out there. research at your own risk.)
but also, it reminded me of what i wanted to be when i grew up (ok, when i grow up) as a kid. i never went through the whole "i wanna be a fireman, i wanna be a ballerina, i wanna rule the world" thing (although superheroism crossed my mind). i always just kinda remember wanting to be a generalist. *shrug* however, one thing i do remember is that i used to devour the old ripley's books and wanted to go to all of the places and see all of the things in the books. paris would be nice, but it'd be fantastic to visit the island where it sometimes rains beads, ya know? stuff like that.
(arguably just as enjoyable... the shot of dean kendoing around with his little geek glasses and his cute scruffy little beard and... unnnnh. hehe. sadly, even then part of my mind is going "i wonder if he's really doing that right?" i hardly think i have to say which part won, though. *wipes a little drool off the corner of her mouth*)
token connectivity link: wil and csi. anyone playing along knows by now i'm all about the referency shit, which i so hope they play up.
"it's just a legend. like paul bunyan, babe, the loch ness monster, the pope."
first of all... ok, first of all, a mythbusters tangent. sure, why not? in the toast show, where kari says "my toast always lands butter side up" i thought, "oh THAT is diabolically cute". and theeeeen i thought of brinker/umrguy42. he's doomed, he really is. i can't imagine why he hasn't mentioned it yet. *grin*
anyway. i was watching "unfolding universe", and they had a segment about the effects on the human body of falling into a black hole. some guy (neil tyson, director of hayden planetarium, to be more precise) started to explain the process and they cut to... a clip of bruce campbell/ash, his chainsaw arm and the tree being sucked into the evil vortex! yay! beautiful, it was (and it doesn't hurt that i'd just picked up 'army of darkness' on dvd for five bucks the day before). the icing on the cake was neil going on to say "...sometimes called 'spaghettification. i think of it as just extruding toothpaste through a tube. that's what would happen to your body's atoms. *pause* i think about that often." heh. s or m? you decide, but judging from the little 1/2 giggle that accompanied it, i'd say he's edging toward evil but witty space villain.
from another show on the science channel, "parallel universes". three scientists are on a train to london (no, this isn't a cheesy joke - although it COULD be. hmmmm...) having synergistic epiphanies about m theory and its singularity implications, and i thought how wonderfully analogous that is to how einstein flashed onto relativity, so i already loved this bit (quite apart from the idea of membranes themselves, 'cause come on, how cool is that?) in a connectivity sort of way. then i started thinking of some reading i've been doing lately from disparate sources that seems to all emphasize the prevalence of intuitive leaps in mathematical breakthroughs and how that doesn't seem as odd to me as it likely does to most people and maybe SHOULD seem. at this point, paul stinehart says "i think people get the wrong impression about scientists, in that they think in an orderly, rigid way from step 1 to step 2 to step 3. what REALLY happens, is often - you make some imaginative leap, which at the time may seem nonsensical. when you capture the field at those stages, it looks like poetry, in which you are imagining without yet proving."
splendid. even all by itself, that is great. go, paul.
this show also gave me the gem "it is actually safe to create a universe in your basement", which i would credit but i couldn't ever find the name of the physicist who said it.
later, i was watching "ripley's believe it or not" because there was really not much else on and, i mean... dean cain. yummers. ahem. i had, the day before, seen (yet another) show in which they'd showcased a little girl who'd had the entire right hemisphere of her brain removed. yikes. (i'd actually be fascinated with some kind of thesis on if/how that changed her personality, if the left 1/2 took over those more esoteric functions as well as taking over control of the left 1/2 of her motor skills, etc... yeah.) i heard from the other room that they were doing a segment on ripley's about a girl who'd had a hemispherectomy and i thought "omigod, the little girl with 1/2 a brain is following me around!" and came in to watch it. and it was... a different girl. daaaaaaaamn. i dunno. it was just neat that they can do this. twice. and it gives me another "obsessively find information on until i get bored" subject. juuuuust what i need. heh. (well. three.) (update: ok, apparently, there are quite a few of them, and there is some information on the resultant personality stuff out there. research at your own risk.)
but also, it reminded me of what i wanted to be when i grew up (ok, when i grow up) as a kid. i never went through the whole "i wanna be a fireman, i wanna be a ballerina, i wanna rule the world" thing (although superheroism crossed my mind). i always just kinda remember wanting to be a generalist. *shrug* however, one thing i do remember is that i used to devour the old ripley's books and wanted to go to all of the places and see all of the things in the books. paris would be nice, but it'd be fantastic to visit the island where it sometimes rains beads, ya know? stuff like that.
(arguably just as enjoyable... the shot of dean kendoing around with his little geek glasses and his cute scruffy little beard and... unnnnh. hehe. sadly, even then part of my mind is going "i wonder if he's really doing that right?" i hardly think i have to say which part won, though. *wipes a little drool off the corner of her mouth*)
token connectivity link: wil and csi. anyone playing along knows by now i'm all about the referency shit, which i so hope they play up.
"it's just a legend. like paul bunyan, babe, the loch ness monster, the pope."