Experiments in Madness

I appear to be missing a bunch of stuff since the takeover.   My feeds have not updated since 4/3, what gives?

A good video explaining why a friend/relative's personal testimony isn't worth as much as rigorous research.   Nothing is perfect, we've learned some research in science is difficult to replicate.  But research builds a knowledge base, while anecdotes have the built in biases the video describes.

I was pretty sure the Sun rotates about it's axis, there's not much in the universe that doesn't rotate.   What I didn't know was one Solar day is 24 Earth days.  Neat!

No new posts from yesterday, guess everyone was partying a day early.

I listen to Pandora at work, and don't have a ad blocker.  So I get to hear the ads.   There's a Verizon ad that is a shining example of deceptive advertising, the voice actor being sped up at the end of the pitch so you can't understand a word she is saying.

Just finished Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.   This is a Great Michigan Read selection from the Michigan Humanities Council, so there were lots of copies at my local library.  Emily is a good writer, her prose described as understated in the wiki for this novel.  There's also a certain nostalgia and melancholy that she evokes that works for her subject matter.

Ms. St. John Mandel tells the story of a collection of survivors from the "Georgian Flu", which wipes out most of humanity.  The main characters are part of the Traveling Symphony, a collection of people who travel the post apocalyptic Great Lakes area entertaining the small collections of people that have survived.   The narrative bounces between different viewpoints and times, though unlike other authors, she manages to keep it from getting confusing.  Much of the story is set in the current world prior to the collapse.   The post collapse society part would likely be a short story if told by itself.

This story will slip into you quietly, then wake you in the middle of the night.  There's nothing here all that new, and I have my quibbles about why the Center for Disease Control and their counterparts failed so miserably.  But understated is accurate, and the characters feel like real people.   She adds just the right amount of detail to flesh out her world and characters without bogging down the story.

Anyone who can handle a story that's carved up into chunks of different character perspectives and past/future will love this story.   There are several scenes of violent death and hints of other terrible events, but Emily doesn't glamorize these, sparing the reader the gorier details other authors might revel in.  

I read someone was planning to develop this as a movie.  I think with the right screenplay writers this could also be a good TV series.

Ms. St. John Mandel denies this is science fiction, but I feel it is in the best tradition of speculative fiction.  It feels a bit like a Clifford Simak story, in that much of the story takes place in pastoral scenes, rather than in a tin can in space or some megapolis.  It also evokes Margaret Atwood, though she avoids the creeping doom feeling in much of Ms. Atwood's fiction. 

A tornado comes to visit the hundred acre wood, leaving a trail of broken crockery, uprooted trees, and bits of flotsam and jetsam littering the area.  Luckily for our characters, a sharp needle, fresh stuffing, and a trip through the dryer is enough to set things right again.

Lifted from wednes, Iran ready to help out the President, Republican Senators.

You know, this is not going to help get you more contributions, Mr. Wales.

I still like Wikipedia, but this political bullshit is just that.   Wikipedia is going to the dogs.

Sarah and I read the twelve stories in the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to each other out loud.   The characters have this way of talking that can be a bit of a challenge to read outloud, they end up sounding a bit like Yoda.

The stories were fun and I'm pretty sure all of them have been adapted for television, as there were none that were completely unfamiliar.   I liked that some of the stories had no "crime" that the police had to intervene in.   I've always appreciated that Holmes was a champion for the less fortunate and was empathic to the situations poor folks find themselves drawn into.  These stories also have some interesting words that definitely are ancient and/or distinctly British.   Gasogene was just one example, for a seltzer bottle.