Cantina Quote o' The Week: Archilochus

The fox knows many tricks, the hedgehog only one.  One good one.

Archilochus, Iambi et Elgi Graeci

This will always and forever be one of my favorite ancient Greek quotes of all time.  Of course, I knew bugger all about hedgehogs when I first heard it.  Now I know what he was referring to:



Much later, thanks to Terry Pratchett, I also learned that the hedgehog can never be buggered at all.

You may remember Archilochus from one of his more famous poems on battlefield valor:

Some barbarian is waving my shield,
since I was obliged to
leave that perfectly good piece of equipment behind
under a bush.
But I got away, so what does it matter?
Life seemed somehow more precious.
Let the shield go; I can buy another one equally good.

An eminently practical man, rather like the hedgehog he admired.

Cantina Quote o' The Week: Archilochus
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Los Links 4/29

It’s been another week in which there’s just way too much awesome stuff.  I need to find someone who will pay me to do nothing but sit around and read it all.

Let’s get right to it.

Doctor Oz Gets His Arse Handed to Him

Science-Based Medicine: A Skeptic In Oz.  In which Dr. Steven Novella describes the experience of appearing on Dr. “Woomeister Supreme” Oz’s show, and why Dr. Oz is so very, very, horribly wrong about, well, everything.

Respectful Insolence: Steve Novella on The Dr. Oz Show: Dr. Oz has become Kevin Trudeau.  For those who just can’t get enough, Orac’s not-so-respectful insolence is just the thing.

Science

About.com: Where Things Come From: Rock Materials.  Something not many of us think about, but probably should do.

Science-Based Medicine: Without Borders.  In which Mark Crislip kicks the arses of quacks without borders as only he can. 

Throught the Sandglass: Sunday sand: Easter ooids.  Geological eggs.  Too awesome!

NeuroLogica Blog: Consequences.  All those who think there’s no harm in folks falling for alt med, magical thinking, and anti-vaccine silliness, or who know those who think there’s no harm, need to read about the consequences.  It’s important.

Glacial Till: Meteorite Monday: Stony-Iron Meteorites, or space rock bling.  Meteorites are beautiful!

Geotripper: Rockslide on Highway 140 Near Yosemite (Video).  Okay, too cool – Garry caught a slide in the act!

jfleck at inkstain: Is it about the alfalfa? Thinking Like a River Basin…  We’re going to have to think big to solve water issues.

Boing Boing: Meet Science: What is “peer review”?  I love this “meet science” idea.  Great way to introduce folks to the basics!

Research at a Snail’s Pace: We don’t need no stinkin’ sieves.  You need a good giggle, don’t you?  Yes, you do.  Go watch the video and laugh.

Wired: Space: Medicine’s final frontier.  Ed Yong’s fabulous feature.  Read it!

The Guardian: Backwards step on looking into the future.  In which Ben Goldacre takes the science journals to task.

JAYFK: Hell to the no! Chemical-free chemistry kit.  The latest and greatest in childhood toy dumbfuckery.

Context and variation: #scimom and me.   Kate Clancy is a superwoman.  No, seriously.

Not Exactly Rocket Science: Individual neurons go to sleep while rats stay awake.  This will make you look at sleep deprivation in a whole new light.  Also, for those sick to death of the royal wedding buzz, this.

New Scientist: Push to define year sparks time war.  Lessee, learn something important about dates, get a Doctor Who reference, and watch physicists vs. geologists.  What’s not to love?

Pharyngula: The true story of the Archaean genetic expansion.  This is what creationists do with scientific research.  Researchers and public, take especial note.

Laelaps: Apples and Orangutans.  Science bloggers, journalists, and interested bystanders need to read Brian Switek’s tale of two conferences.

Earth Science Erratics: Impact and Geology: spherules rule.  It’s not just craters that tell us about the Earth’s impact history.

Highly Allochthonous: Hydrologist + professor = Anne’s answers to career profile questions.  Loved learning about Anne’s career and the routes that can take a person there.

Politics

AZCentral: Gabrielle Giffords’ doctors, husband share details on her progress.  It’s remarkable how far Gabby’s come.  Round of applause for the doctors who not only saved her life, but her mind.

Mother Jones: The Right-Wing Network Behind the War on Unions.  You didn’t think it was a coinky-dink that so many Con governors and state houses were attacking unions, did you?

My Left Wing: Revolution 2.0 Outline RFC.  Woozle’s got some ideas for getting power back in the hands of the people.  Comments desired.

Angry Black Lady Chronicles: Dear Media: Fuck You with my Trusty Rusty Pitchfork; An Open Letter to the MSM.  Best rant of the week.  Stay for the “Fuck You Symphony.”

Atheism

Almost Diamonds: The Support of New Atheism.  In which Stephanie Szvan explains to the thick why New Atheism supports all atheists.  Also, this.

The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Emperor’s New Nakedness.  In which David Barash puzzles over why, now that everybody knows the emperor’s nekkid, so many are trying to shut up the folks who aren’t afraid to say so.

Advocatus Atheist: R. Joseph Hoffmann Needs to Apologize to Atheists.  In which Hoffman’s ass is thoroughly (and deservedly) whupped.

Cosmic Variance: Hell.  In which we’re reminded that hell is one of those horrific ideas that only becomes socially acceptable when religion’s involved.

Choice in Dying: The Shoals and Shallows of Easter.  Eric MacDonald reflects on Easter, and all of the ridiculous nonsense involved.

[weird things] so how is all that accommodating working out?  This post pokes accommodationism so full of holes it’s a wonder anything’s left.  Oh, wait – nothing is.

Why Evolution is True: Murders: God vs. Satan.  The tally might surprise you.  Then again, maybe not.

ABC: With friends like these: Atheists against the New Atheism.  Russell Blackford’s response to Ruse and other haters of the Gnus.

AlterNet: One More Reason Religion Is So Messed Up: Respected Theologian Defends Genocide and Infanticide.  No, seriously, he does.  And people wonder why Gnus are so impolite to religion.

Women’s Issues, Society and Culture

Steve Cuno: How a single word change can make cruelty seem OK.  Even when it’s really not.

The Tightrope: On gender roles and pink toenails.  It’s not just about the appropriate shade for boys’ toenails, but about society’s hatred for girly things.

Slate: Nervous Nellies.  Feeling anxious, ladies?  You might want to give nurture a piece of your mind.

Harvard Gazette: The secret lives of boys.  And while you’re at it, nurture has a lot to answer for in the stereotypical male department, too.

Faruk Ateş: Translation of General Misogyny to Uncomfortable Truth.  One of the most masterful takedowns of white male idiocy I’ve seen in a while.

Slate: Beware the In-Laws.  Christopher Hitchens on the royal wedding.  Brutal and refreshing.

A Gay Girl in Damascus: My father, the hero.  Harrowing and inspiring, all at once.

Writing

Dean Wesley Smith: Think Like A Publisher #9.5… The Secret of Indie Publishing.  Hint: it involves writing a lot.

Writer Beware Blogs: The Interminable Agency Clause.  Know it. Hate it.  Have it stricken.

A Brain Scientist’s Take on Writing: An Experimental Psychologist’s Take on Beta Reading Part IV: Results and Conclusions.  Livia Blackburne’s conclusion contains lessons for us all.

Los Links 4/29

Sedimentary Sentiments

Right.  So, Callan Bentley’s pointed out that we in the geoblogosphere haven’t had a good meme in a while.  My Doc Holliday instincts kicked in.  “I’m your huckleberry.  That’s just my game.”  So let’s have a meme.  Love and sediments.  Give me a sedimentary rock or structure you’re sentimental about.

I’ll begin:

Sedona in miniature

That rock there is a microcosm of Sedona.  I’m not sure what formation it came from.  Could be the Schnebly Hill Formation, or a fragment of sandstone from the Supai Group.  I picked it out of a creek bed during that memorable physical geography field trip many years ago.  It delighted me because it looked like the contact between the deep red rocks of the Schnebly Hill Formation and the blazing white of the Coconino Sandstone.  More likely, that white bit at the top just represents a long soak in the creek, but still, a girl can dream.

It’s a piece of my history.  It represents scientific discovery, and childhood, and ancient worlds.  Just a tiny thing, fits in the palm of your hand, but it stands for something enormous.

This is the place I once called home:

My Valley

If you look to the left, down in the dip, you’ll see the red tile roof peeking through the trees.  That’s my old house on Mountain Shadows Drive.  We didn’t have much of a view down there, but if you walk up the hill a bit, opposite the steep bit where my idiot dog slept in the road one night and ended up at our friend the vet’s office with my dad and the vet sewing her up while drinking beer (true story), you’ll find yourself facing a panorama that has made many a photographer scream for joy.

That little round mound in the foreground is Sugarloaf, a lump of the Schnebly Hill Formation that looks a bit like a flying saucer landed in the middle of the West Sedona suburbs.  UFOs are big in Sedona, but for some reason, the UFO freaks didn’t hang round Sugarloaf.  They all thought the aliens lived in Bell Rock instead.

The enormous mass on the left is Grayback, imaginatively named because the back of it is mostly gray, or so I’ve been told – I’ve never actually seen the back of it.  To the right is Coffee Pot Rock, which looks remarkably like one of those old coffee percolators.  I spent a good amount of my time in the shadow of those rocks, scrabbling around at the base of Sugarloaf, sliding down the loose and crumbly walls of a deep gully cut in the shales and mudstones of the Hermit Formation, upon which Sedona is built.  Where I’d grown up, in Flagstaff, dirt was tan or brown.  Down here, it was a deep, dark red, so very red that it could stain white clothes rust.  I’d come home coated in the stuff.

Those rocks were the only solid thing in my world back then.  We’d just moved down from Flagstaff, where I’d spent the vast majority of my young life.  My parents had almost gotten divorced, and while we were there, my mom had her first bouts with bipolar disorder.  I had very few friends.  I was surrounded by people even stranger than my mother (at least she had the excuse of an actual psychiatric disorder).  Little wonder, then, that I spent so much time alone in the wilderness, sometimes with my friend Crystal in tow, exploring every nook and cranny of those old red rocks with their white Coconino Sandstone hats.

They were alien to me, in a way: I identified with the volcanic peaks of the San Francisco Volcanic Field, where I’d spent the happiest years of my life to that date.  There was something almost too beautiful, too surreal, about those magnificent red rocks.  I didn’t know what they were back then.  Didn’t know I was surrounded by ancient beaches and dune fields and floodplains.  But I knew they were something special.  Sometimes, they were even friendly.  Their texture, slightly rough, gave my sneakers good purchase as I scrambled up steep cliffs on impossibly narrow ledges.  Some of the finer-grained sandstones made for good nail files in the field, for those times when I broke a fingernail climbing.

Those red rocks loomed.  They were solid, stolid, and steady, and yet could change in an instant: in the angle of the sun, in a passing cloud, in a dusting of snow or a soaking of rain.  Their colors shifted through a million shades.  I don’t know how to describe the intensity of that color, how it’s never quite the same from one moment to the next.  It doesn’t feel like a human setting.  It’s something primal and almost painful.  You are this drab little thing among it, until the colors soak in to you, and it makes you a part of it, some little wild thing scurrying in the shadow of monoliths.

Some people got interested in geology, living there.  Some people turned to crystal magic.  And some got obsessed with UFOs.  It can be hard to tell whether the local business folk are laughing at or with the UFO nuts, but they do take full advantage:

Moi avec UFO fountain at the diner

Holding that little lump of stone in my hand brings it all back: the taste of Permian dust in my mouth, gritty on my skin.  The deep red earth, in turns silty-soft and sandy.  The ancient-world smell of wet slickrock after a high desert rain.  So many long drives down from the Rim, watching as gray basalts turn to cream-colored sandstones and finally, dramatically, to rusty-hued sand and siltstones.  The coolness of that crack in the earth, tracing the Oak Creek fault, as the creek ran alongside the road, soft sound of wind and water through the open window, and the scent of all that boisterous green life – something you don’t get in many places in Arizona.  Blackberry brambles and sycamores and ferns, earthy and sweet, demanding you fill your lungs to the bursting again, again, again.  And under it all, the slightly-sharp, hot, impossibly old smell of lithified landscapes.

Sentimental?  Yes, I should think so.  How could I not be?

There’s one word for landscapes like this, and it’s the name of
a road in Sedona:

Inspirational Drive

Those are some of the sediments that I love.  What are yours?

Sedimentary Sentiments

Not For Wise Readers Only

I’ve got the outline for ye olde geology book posted for Wise Readers only.  If you’re regretting your decision not to be a Wise Reader about now, there’s still time!  Just send a request to dhunterauthor via Yahoo. 

Even if you don’t take that plunge, though, you’ve still got a chance to shape the book.  Isn’t that exciting?  And all you have to do is let me pick your brain.

I’ve got questions, you see.

Geology professionals and students: 

What are words used commonly in geology that trip laypeople up?  What terms do you find yourself having to explain (or at least sum up) every time you discuss this stuff with a layperson?  What are terms, phrases and words you believe the public at large should be aware of?  What words do you find laypeople misunderstanding because their common usage is completely different from the way they’re used in geology or science in general?  What stumped you when you first started studying geology?  Favorite geology words?  That sort of thing.

Interested laypeople:

What scientific or geologic words really throw you off?  Confuse, confound or otherwise baffle you?  Are there words you’ve heard that you don’t quite know the meaning of, but would like to?  If scientific language is a stumbling block for you, why?  Don’t be shy about admitting it – believe me, I’m among those interested laypeople who stop dead at certain words and says, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Half the fun is in finding out.  Hence, this book. 

Right, then.  Hit me.

Not For Wise Readers Only

Dana's Dojo: Time Dilation

Today in the Dojo: When it’s appropriate to give “show” a right proper boot in the arse and let “tell” have the floor.

“My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.” 
     -Elmore Leonard

Show vs. Tell has become one of those sacred commandments of writing, and there’s plenty of folks out there who would burn you at the stake for disobeying it.  Dramatize, we’re told.  Show don’t tell.  Every writer’s magazine and book rack will have copious words devoted to this golden rule of writing, so I imagine it’s going to shock the hell out of you when I tell you to sod showing.  Tell vs. Show, how’s that for anarchy?

Let me explain.

In the midst of George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series cum tree-killing monstrosity Song of Ice and Fire,  I finally pinpointed why it irritates me so.  He dramatizes bloody everything.  In fact, he’s so busy dramatizing scenes that he’s had to cut other scenes and present them after the fact in very brief summaries or in character dialogue/memory/flashback/what-have-you.  The poor man probably does not even realize he’s slave to the Show vs. Tell rule, and it’s making me suffer.

Of course, he’s a damned good writer otherwise, so I have to keep reading.  Damn him.

But back to our program.

In a large and complicated book, and often even in smaller books that have to keep a quick pace, the Show vs. Tell rule is going to strangle us if we follow it too closely.  It’s something I learned while writing the first book of the trilogy (which has been shunted aside due to realizing this is a series, not a trilogy with a few prequels).  At first, I was picking scenes out one-by-one and dramatizing them.  No flashbacks.  No narrative summary.  No out-of-sequence.  Then one day, I realized that with all I had to dramatize, the trilogy would end up being a trilogy in 42 volumes.  This is bad for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because readers aren’t generally immortal, and neither am I.  Something had to be done.  In desperation, I turned to a trick I’d seen Robert Jordan use: time dilation.

I spent a whole chapter summarizing events, with only a few tiny dramatized bits.  When I got done with it, I shuddered.  “Oh, gods,” thought I, “this is wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  It skims too much.”  But I gave it to my Wise Reader anyway, and she came back with nothing but praise.  “I loved how this chapter covered so much,” she said, and went on to cite several of the events in it she’d liked just fine, even though I’d broken the Show vs. Tell rule.  I began to think I could get away with this on rare occasion.

So can you.

WHAT IS THIS TIME DILATION?

Simply put, Time Dilation takes a sequence of event and boils them down to a narrative essence.  It summarizes.  It makes the choice that, for the sake of the flow, full scenes will be forsaken for itsy bitsy scene fragments set like rasins in a bread of narrative summary.  It skims.  It samples.  It takes a chunk of time – days, weeks, months or years – and telescopes it.  It gets us from one huge event or set piece to another with a minimum of fuss and bother, but without the jolt of a line break or short transition.  It’s almost an extended transition, but whereas most transitions are only a paragraph or two at most, time dilation can cover several pages up to a chapter or more.

SOUNDS DANGEROUS

Well, it is.  It’s so easy to use, one could end up writing the majority of their book that way, and that is no way to write a book.  Think of time dilation as bridges.  You need bridges.  They’re useful.  But you can’t build a city out of them.  Not even if you make them really big and put houses on them.

It’s also damned easy to muck up.  There’s a huge difference between being able to dilate time gracefully and making a total hash out of it.  You have to make wise choices as to what you dilate, where, for how long, and in what sequence.  You also have to make sure to get enough dramatization in there to make the dilation feel like showing even though it’s not, but not enough to make it a choppy sea of mini-scenes.  We’re back to rasin bread again.  You can have too many raisins and you can have too few.

SO IF IT’S SO DANGEROUS, WHY SHOULD I DO IT, DANA?

I guess you won’t accept “Because Dana says so” as a proper response, so…

You should do it because it smooths your reader’s path through your book.  It gets them quickly through the bits where not much is happening but a few important things need to be covered.  It keeps you from overdramatizing scenes not worthy of dramatization, and from relying too much on flashback, interior monologue, and really silly “As you know, Jeeves, this happened last week” sorts of dialogue.  And it makes you look like a pro.

ALL RIGHT, I’LL DO IT.  BUT HOW?

It will be my pleasure to tell you.

There are several elements to consider when doing time dilation.  Let’s take it from the top: knowing where it’s needed.

Time dilation is perfect for those times between major scenes, when several things are happening that are dwarfed by what comes before and after.  It’s also quite useful when you’re going from an arc following one set of characters and heading back to a subplot that needs to catch the reader up with another set of folks.  If you’ve got a handful of stuff of minor interest that can’t be shuffled around because of chonology, format or what have you, time dilation could be your alternative to having a string of tiny scenes that catch the reader up or get him from A to B but bore him to death in the process.  Last thing we want is dead readers, right?
It can also be damned useful when you need to build a major plot point in blocks.  What I’m talking about here is, your character must connect some dots to have a major breakthrough.  Time dilation can help you accomplish that with elegance.

Time dilation in its essence needs to do one thing: get the reader from A to B with a few points of interest (mini-scenes) along the way.

Now that we know what it is and what purpose it serves, let’s have a look at some of the varieties of time dilation.

TIME DILATION: CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

This is the simplest form, appropriate when you’re just getting the story from one major event through a series of little events up to the next big event.  It can begin something like so: “The rest of that day ended in a blur for Dave, and the next few weeks weren’t much better.”

We then go on to summarize what happened to Dave over those weeks.  We might begin with a bit of narrative summary leading us to the next afternoon, when Jones comes up to him with a mini-crisis: the computer ate the budget files again.  Instead of fully dramatizing this event, we’ll take the gems from it: the bits of witty dialogue, Dave preventing Jones from attacking the computer with a baseball bat, and then quickly on through the next few days, with only brief diversions into other mini-scenes: the argument with the landlady over rent, the car breaking down, etc.  All of which will eventually lead us to Dave putting all those little bits and pieces together at the end of the sequence and realizing that the computer problems are the answer to his problems: with the budget in such a mess, he could so easily skim a little money out of the company accounts without anyone noticing a thing.

That’s the secret to time dilation: you build toward a crisis with those mini-scenes that is going to end the dilation chapter with a flaring match being touched to a fuse.  You’ve taken the reader through a critical time in Dave’s life, showing all of the little straws that finally broke the camel’s back, and you’ve managed to do it in chronological sequence so the reader can see each straw being placed just so, without being bored to tears with in-depth descriptions of each damned straw.

TIME DILATION: CENTRAL THEME

There’s another form of time dilation that happens to be my favorite: the out-of-sequence dilation that builds around a central theme or event.  This is what I used in my own successful foray into time dilation, and it’s a powerful tool.

In this version, you’ll still be dilating time, but you’ll be chopping it into bits and recombining those bits into a mosaic that forms a pic

ture by the end.  This is best used when you have several things happening around the same time, but which have more power if they’re grouped together by meaning rather than chronological order.  It will only work if you have a central theme to be illuminated.

Your central theme has to be powerful enough to carry the mosaic.  In my case, it was three words: faith, hope and trust.  At the beginning of the dilation, we see Ray arguing with Luther against trusting Dusty with any of their secrets.  Luther ends the scene by telling him to place his faith, hope and trust in her hands and see what she does with them.  Those words begin to echo through Ray’s mind, and the dilation begins.  The narrative takes us through his next several days, all out of order, with every mini-scene placed to reinforce that theme.  Each mini-scene shows him another aspect of what faith, hope and trust in her hands will mean, and brings him closer to the moment in which he realizes that Luther was right.  By the end of the sequence, chronological order is restored, and when that happens, Ray’s confusion has cleared.  He understands her better, and is starting to trust in her the way Luther does.

USING TIME DILATION WISELY

Time dilations need to be used sparingly, and they should be placed for maximum power.  A book of time dilations interspersed with a few big scenes won’t read well: neither will a book where some of the most important events are dilated rather than fully dramatized.

So here are some handy pointers to take away with you:

1.  Place time dilations between powerful scenes or sequences.  This serves two purposes: it gives the readers a chance for a breather, and keeps scenes with little dramatic potential from being overshadowed by very dramatic scenes.

2.  Choose your mini-dramatizations carefully.  If you have to write everything as fully-dramatized scenes in order to pick out the shiniest bits, do it.  It’s worth the time you spend.  You want the little fragments of dramatization to shine with as much brilliance as possible in order to keep up an illusion that you’re showing more than you actually are.

3.  Make your prose narration gleam.  Do not set your beautiful gems in brass.  You’re a writer, damn it – write your heart out in this prose.  Tell the story with all of the wit and wisdom and sheer power you can.  Don’t skimp.  You don’t want to over-polish your sentences, of course, but make sure they’re sparkly.

4.  Use concrete detail when possible.  Days of rain?  Tell us how gloomy the rain was.  Draw pictures with the scenery, the weather, the dragging days, whatever’s to hand.  You’ve read narrative passages where the description was superb.  Go back to those and see how the author managed to summarize without you noticing by putting the background to work.

5.  Rising action is as much a rule in time dilation as in fully-realized scenes.  The dilation is building to something, otherwise, you could just skip all of that and use a transition like “After a few days of blissful boredom, the world blew up in his face.”  Both the narration and the mini-scenes should build that rising action.  There has to be conflict, or it’s meaningless.

6.  End with a punch.  This is important.  Time dilations need a climax, a cliff-hanger, a flame-to-fuse just like every other chapter.  Provide them one and they will not fail you.

And please do remember, while showing is important, our business is called storytelling for a reason.  Time dilation will help you tell a better story.  Know it, love it, make it work for you.

Dana's Dojo: Time Dilation

Seattle Area Folks: Come to Science!

Friend and fellow Pharyngulite Andy McMillan is giving a talk this Wednesday night at UW.  It’s called “Shining a Light on Protein Shapes,” and is bound to be enthralling:

Proteins are responsible for most biological functions, and understanding their shape can tell about how they work (or don’t work in the case of illnesses). A common way of studying proteins is to look at changes in fluorescence from the protein when it changes shape, but the reason why this fluorescence is affected is not always obvious. I am using a combination of experiments and computer simulations to try and understand how changes in a protein could result in changes in fluorescence. 

You know howI know it’s gonna be enthralling?  Because when we went to Blind Guardian last year, Andy was talking about his work.  Had to shout out the details over some very loud heavy metal, and I almost didn’t want Blind Guardian to come on until he’d finished, even though I could only hear about half of what he said and understood about a quarter of it.  People: he made fluorescing proteins more interesting than my favorite metal band

Okay?

So I’m gonna go see him, and if you’re in the Seattle area, you should do it, too. 6:45pm.  Johnson Hall, Room 102.  Be there or be sad you weren’t.

Seattle Area Folks: Come to Science!

Accretionary Wedge #33: Now Available!

Okay, well, it has been for days now, and I’m only just getting to announcing it.  But just in case you hadn’t heard, Accretionary Wedge #33: Geology and the Built Environment: Past, Present, Future is up at Geological Musings in the Taconic Mountains.  Excellent stuff.  Get over there and get your geo build on!

Accretionary Wedge #33: Now Available!

Tomes 2011: About Bleedin' Time I Finished a Book" Edition

I know it doesn’t seem that way, but I’m still reading.  It just hasn’t been much.  There are these times when the Muse takes over, and I can’t concentrate on anything other than my own work, and maybe the show or movie or what have you that prompted the outburst of creativity.  I read a page or two of someone else’s work, and then I can’t read any more, because it makes me want to jump back on the computer and get on with things.

So it’s taken half of forever to finish some books, but finish them I have, and here they are.

Source

Dreaming in Hindi

I don’t usually read travel books, or memoirs, or travel books that are memoirs.  But I’d decided I’d best read a few travel books on other countries, because my perspective gets locked down in America too often, and this one acted like the proverbial puppy in the window.  It jumped up and wagged its tail and gave me those big gooey eyes and said, “See? I’m a travel memoir, but I’m also about the science of language acquisition!”

Okay, so that’s not something you’d expect from a puppy.  But neither is this book what you’d expect from a travel memoir.

Reality warped when I read this book.  It made me think in completely different ways.  I started treating words differently.  It’s hard to explain, but you can’t walk away from this book and see language and human relationships in the same way again.  The science included is utterly fascinating.  There’s adventure, and intrigue, and a bit o’ danger, and confusion, and hilarity, and humanity. 

This is the book that inspired the idea for the geology book I’ll be working on this summer.  Whodathunkit?  A travel memoir inspiring a geology tome.  But it happened, and that’s not the only way this book affected me.  It made me think about issues that had only ever been abstract before.  It gave me a window on the reality of a different part of the world.  And the writing’s just delicious.

So, if you only ever read one travel memoir in your life, it should probably be this one.

Source

The Science of Doctor Who

Yes, my obsession with Doctor Who really has gotten that bad.  But I love science, and I love books that explore the science behind shows, and so this seemed a good choice.

It was a fun read.  Mind you, the author has an inordinate fondness for Ray Kurzweil, and the science is at times questionable at best.  (I should have marked out the bits that didn’t mesh with what I’ve learned from other, more reliable, sources, actually, but too late now.)  And some of the science herein is no more than speculation.  But it’s still a hell of a good time, and a lot of the science in here is solid.  Doctor Who fans who also like science should be enjoyably entertained.  It’ll leave you hungry to learn more about fields you didn’t even know existed.

It’s obvious the author loves his Doctor Who.  That passion comes out on every page, even when he’s poking fun at the so-shoddy-it’s-not-even-science bits of the show.  That’s another thing I liked: that he wasn’t afraid to call the frankly impossible flat impossible, and present the science saying why.  The book’s salted with quotes and references and suchlike that will delight those in the know and intrigue those who aren’t.  That’s the power of good science fiction: to make us fall in love with science, real science, not just the made-up variety.  The dramatic license taken gives us a license for the real deal.  It’s about exploring the what-ifs, because that’s how we make discoveries.

And there’s nothing more valuable than that.

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Darwin’s Dangerous Idea

I’ll have to read this one again when I’m older.

It’s an excellent book.  Dan Dennett’s one of the best thinkers around, and this is one of those books you see quoted extensively and in many places, for very good reasons.  But it’s not an easy read.

I have to admit something: when it comes to science, I’d rather be reading about actual science rather than the philosophy of science.  I’d rather see the results of real experiments than engage in thought experiments.  But it’s important to come to grips with evolution’s impact on philosophy.  Especially since so many people haven’t, and therefore still fear it, and misunderstand it. 

Not to mention the chapters dealing with Steven J. Gould helped me understand why the man could be so brilliant in some respects and such a bloody pain in the arse in others.  That, alone, was worth the reading.  And a second and third and probably fourth reading of this book will uncover a lot of facets I’ve missed this first time round.  It’s one of those books that repays revisits.  If you want to improve your philosophy chops, this is the crash course.

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Living With Karst: A Fragile Foundation

This is a very handy little booklet from the American Geological Institute that far more people should read.  It’s got everything you need for understanding karst: what it is, how it forms, and why living on it can be so damned difficult.

I have to admit this book actually scared me in a few places, especially the bits where they talk about groundwater flow through karst aquifers, and how very easy it is for human beings to fuck everything up.  Too much pumping leads to things falling apart.  Screwing up the drainage leads to contamination and flooding.  And much, much more.  A fragile foundation indeed.

I read it because I wanted to understand karst landscapes better for the world I’m building.  I ended up wanting to be a karst crusader.  We have such a tendency to do horrible things to gorgeous landscapes because we’re short-sighted morons.  At least this book gives some very good ideas on how humans and karst can get on better in the future.

Everyone from government officials to landowners to folks who just appreciate beautiful places will find something useful in here.  It’s inexpensive and an easy read.  What more do you want, a free pony?

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Unseen Academicals

I’ve learned, over a great many years, to trust Terry Pratchett without reservation.  So when I found out his latest Discworld novel would be all about sports, I didn’t groan.  I knew he’d do something awesome with it.

And he definitely did.

If you haven’t yet read a Discworld novel, let me put it this way: this is the only author who can make a flat circle of land on the backs of four elephants standing on a space turtle utterly plausible.  There’s quantum wizardry and issues of interspecies diversity.  And football* isn’t just football in this world, especially not when patronized by the tyrant of Ankh-Morpork.

And you’ll get to see Lord Vetinari drunk in this one.  Quit
e the sight, I assure you.

One thing about Terry Pratchett’s books is this: they are side-splittingly funny, and yet there’s depth and wisdom and so much that makes you stand back, squint a bit, and realize that yes, the world can and very probably should be seen that way.  You never did before, but you do now.  And life is better because of it.

Oh, and the Librarian.  Playing football.  An orangutan Librarian playing football.  You shouldn’t need any other reason to read this one.

*That’s soccer for all you Americans in the audience.

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Sedona Through Time

Now I want to go back to Sedona.

I lived there for two years, spent all my life living near it and visiting it and getting my white socks dyed red by its rust-red soils.  I loved the scenery and didn’t know a damned thing about it.  When I went home in 2009, I took a trip through Oak Creek Canyon and could appreciate its geology a bit better, but damn it, I should have read this book first.

Wayne Ranney is one of Arizona’s best science writers.  He teaches geology and leads field trips and ensures that people who crack open one of his books or takes a course or a field trip with him can appreciate just how incredible Arizona’s geological history has been.  He’s done the field work and the hard thinking, and he’s friends with some of Arizona’s premier geologists, and he writes with clarity and enthusiasm about what they’ve learned, studying one of the most remarkable places in the world.

If you ever plan to visit Sedona, have this book in hand, because otherwise you’ll be where I am now: cursing voluminously over the bits that I missed by not having this book in hand.  If you never plan to visit Sedona, read this book and then book your trip, because you won’t put it down without wanting to go see for yourself.

And did I mention the lavish photographs of some of the most photogenic scenery anywhere?  Ron Blakey’s paleomaps making visual sense of it all?  Bronze Black’s diagrams making the complex seem almost simple?  Utterly wonderful.

You can buy direct from Wayne at his site.  And if you do, don’t forget to look at the title page.  Put a grin on my face from ear-to-ear, I can tell you that.

Thank you, Wayne!

Tomes 2011: About Bleedin' Time I Finished a Book" Edition

Los Links 4/22

Okay, yes, late.  Stuff happened.  Better late than never, right?

Seeing as how it’s Zombie Jesus Day, let us begin with Atheism for once.

Choice in Dying: Self-Examination and Confession…..  This is how Eric MacDonald writes when he’s sick as a dog.  He can still think complex critical circles around theologians.  Fear him.

Why Evolution is True: Forgive me, Father, for I have touched myself.  Jerry Coyne took on Holy Week as only Jerry Coyne can.  And while you’re at it, don’t miss his Sin of the Day series: Blasphemy, Divorce, Homosexuality, and Fornication.

Metamagician and the Hellfire Club: How I see the “New Atheism” Parts One and Two.  Attention New Atheist bashers: read these before you bleat on and on and on.  It will save you some embarrassment.

And now, on to the Science!

Neuron Culture: The Allure of Gay Cavemen.  In which Eric Johnson gives media hype the proper boot to the arse.  Also, Ariel casts out Caliban is not to be missed.  Shakespeare and science, people, need I say more?

Hudson Valley Geologist: Do scientists and creationists simply look through different glasses?  I’d say theirs are Groucho Marx glasses, but I don’t want to disrespect Groucho Marx.  Seriously, though, this is an excellent post on why, as Steve puts it, “Interpretations of evidence, like glasses, aren’t all equivalent.  Some are just nuts.”

Science-Based Medicine: The World Has Moved On.  In which Mark Crislip gives HuffPo homeopathy-for-radiation-poisoning shite the fatal beating it deserves.

Mountain Beltway: Explore the DGMR rock garden.  Want this rock garden.  WANT!

Glacial Till: Meteorite Monday: Iron Meteorites.  You know what I love about Meteorite Mondays? There’s always something there that makes me sit up and go, “I did not know that!” 

Neurotic Physiology: Experimental Biology Blogging: Getting Scientists to Speak Up in the Animal Research Debate.  Some powerful stuff on how to respond to animal rights insanity.

Speaking of Research: Waking up the Neighbors: A Neighborhood Response to Animal Rights Extremism.  Excellent advice as well.

Bad Astronomy: Gorgeous galaxies celebrate Hubble’s 21st birthday.  Hey, Hubble’s old enough to drink!  Get drunk on some beautiful science with it.

The Lay Scientist: Planet of the Apes. Not monkeys, apes.  This is seriously one of the funniest things I read all week.

Science-Based Medicine: Suffer the Children.  Harriett Hall reviews a book every parent should read.  Like, now.

Eruptions: Certainty vs. Uncertainty: What “Supervolcano” teaches us about science and society.  And here you thought you couldn’t learn anything from cheesy Hollywood films.

Looking for Detachment: Mirage on the Desert.  Mirages are cool.

Reading the Washington Landscape: More to Ponder Regarding Tsunami Risk.  I hope officials are listening to Dan McShane, because if not, we could get horrifyingly wet.  Plus, video that will make your heart plunge.

Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week: The World’s Largest Dinosaurs @AMNH.  A fascinating inside look at the new sauropod exhibit.

And now, let us talk about Writing.

Punctuated Equilibrium: In Your Own Write: The ten rules for excellent writing.  Aimed at science writers, supposedly, but definitely relevant to every writer’s interests.

Sam Harris: How to Get Your Book Published in 6 (Painful) Steps.  Advice from someone who’s been there.

Jim C. Hines: Comic Amusement.  Print and post on your wall.

A Brain Scientist’s Take on Writing: An Experimental Psychologist’s Take on Beta Reading Part III: Data Collection.  Now we’re down to the nitty-gritty.  All writers planning to make use of beta readers (and that should be all of you), take note.

For once, let’s not bury Women’s Issues down near the very bottom.

Life is Thrilling: Au Contraire.  Etiquette, Aunt Mary, and what might be lurking in a lady’s pocket.

Richard Dawkins Foundation:  Woman, know thy place.  Paula Kirby’s no-holds-barred approach to the way religion treats women.

After that brutal smackdown, I think we’re ready for our Politics, wherein Paul Ryan’s plan to fuck the country up the arse gets the respect it deserves.  Which is to say, none.

Daily Kos: A Truly Sick Part Of Ryan’s Kill Medicare Plan That You May Not Have Heard About.  Those who aren’t yet seniors but planning to become one someday should take especial note, because you are one among many the Cons are trying to fuck up the arse.

Paul Krugman: Let’s Not Be Civil.  And you thought it was only Gnu Atheist bashers who were all about teh tone.  Paul Krugman gives the tone argument the short, sharp smack it deserves.

The Atlantic: Undoing Me
dicare: The Real ‘Death Tax’
.  Speaking of tone, did that title sound too harsh?  Tough.  It’s accurate.

Ezra Klein: The scariest thing I’ve ever heard on television.  The depths of Michele Bachmann’s stupidity are truly, truly astounding.  Ezra explains why we should all be afraid.  Very afraid.

Balloon Juice: Albert Einstein was a Friend of Mine, and I Can Tell You, Representative: You Are No Albert Einstein*.  Tom Levenson absolutely destroys the dumbfuck Con who tried to recreate Einstein in his own sick, twisted image.

Think Progress: Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer Blocks Tea Party Legislation With ‘VETO’ Branding Iron.  The title says it all.

Grumbleweed: Return To Sender (Shredded).  Perhaps the greatest letter ever written to Gov. Scott “Fuck all y’all” Walker.

Think Progress: Florida’s GOP House Speaker Pushing Court-Packing Plan To Neutralize Democratic Justices.  Cons are really outdoing themselves on this whole naked power grab thing.

And, finally, ye olde Miscellany.

Comics Alliance: Ask Chris #53: Batman vs. Harry Potter.  Anyone who’s ever played the “Which awesome character would win” game will love this.

Geek Dad: GeekDad’s daughter remakes the game of chess.  I want to play by her rules, but she’d kick me arse.

The Pleonastic Rants of C.S. Daley: What’s With The Geek Hate?  It appears the premiere of GoT really brought the haters out of the woodwork.

I Am Establishing A Position On The Internet: Untitled.  For all those who wanted to see NYT reviewers with dumbshit ideas about fantasy and women get the smackdown just one more time, here ye go.  Thank you, Woozle, for sending us there!

My Fair Scientist: The Deep Well of Major Clinical Depression, Part Eleventy-Four.  This is a rant everyone should read, especially if they want to understand something about racism.

Slobber and Spittle: Sunday Photos(s).  You know you want more cherry blossoms.

Los Links 4/22

Fossil Freeway Redux

So last year, remember, one of the first adventures we engaged in was a little jaunt along the Fossil Freeway.  What?  You don’t?  You don’t recall every single word I’ve ever written?

Sigh.

Well, go read that post, then.  And then click this link and listen to the song “I Am A Paleobotanist,”  because yea, verily, it is teh awesome, and you all deserve a chance to get your science geek on with rock and roll.

And for extra science singing madness, if you haven’t already, don’t miss Christie Wilcox singing “Extinction’s a Bitch.”  Then immediately go follow her on Twitter, because if she hits 2,000 followers by May, we’ll get more songs!

(Tip o’ the shot glass to @Laelaps.)

(And yes, for those who were wondering, I don’t expect you to recall every single word I’ve ever written.  It’s just that the opportunity for melodrama was knocking, and I answered the door thinking it was Jehovah’s Witnesses.  There I was, expecting entertainment… le sigh.)
Fossil Freeway Redux