ravings

I was reading a bunch of the entries in here from twenty years ago and feeling annoyed at my younger self. I was in a strange place at the time. Literally and figuratively. Then again, maybe I always have been.

One thing my son (age 4.92) and I like to do together is watch the washing machine, and occasionally the drier. This last Sunday we did for two hours.

For the first load, we imagined that we were the clothes in the washer, and how much fun we were having getting spun around, and how bored we were whenever it paused.

Then the first load went into the drier, and a second went into the washer, and things really got exciting.

You see, both washer and drier have an "estimated time remaining" display, and so we imagined that the clothes in the washer were racing the clothes in the drier to see which team could finish first.

In the first matchup, Load 2 in the washer started out three minutes ahead of Load 1 in the drier, but Load 1 slowly chipped away. Then, with an estimated ten minutes to spare, Load 1 pulled ahead and ultimately beat Load 2 by three minutes. It was all very dramatic.

We did notice some ways in which the respective teams' approaches could be improved. In the washing machine, for instance, the tendency was to go very fast at some points and then stop completely at others. We felt a more consistent effort, as we saw in the drier, would be more conducive to success.

The performance of the drier team was not without flaws, however. While the washing machine team did an excellent job of staying hydrated throughout, the team in the drier didn't seem to consume any water, and in fact became progressively more dehydrated over the course of the race. So, we had some concerns about the drier team's ability to maintain their performance, as well.

We came up with a theme song, too:

we are the crystal socks
we'll always sock the sock
and if you think we sock
we'll always sock a sock
that's why the socks of this sock
believe in
sock, sock, sock, and sock
and sock!

The next matchup was Load 2 in the drier versus Load 3 in the washer. This time Load 3 managed to start out with a 5-minute lead. While Load 2 managed to narrow it to 4 minutes in the first half of the race, ultimately they lost the thread in the back half (my opinion is that it was the hydration issue) and ended up losing by a full 8 minutes.

So, unfortunately, Load 2 lost both of their matchups, while Load 1 and 2 both won one each. I suppose if we had to pick a single winner for the day, Load 3 won by the largest margin, but it doesn't feel right to pick a winner without a head-to-head matchup. Maybe a tie-breaker next week?

Finally, we watched Load 3 in the drier for a while and took the opportunity to encourage Load 2 (now sitting in the collapsible clothes hamper) to stay positive and continue practicing for next week. Any given Sunday, right?

There are four books I've read in the last five years or so that together have clarified and crystallized a lot for me. As a whole I'd say they constitute an excellent guide to making good choices, both as individuals and as societies, and I hope that someday, in some form, what they impart will be accepted as basic wisdom across our species. (Though I have no delusions that everyone will read or agree with them.)

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While we're all holding our breath waiting for me to finish the nominated novels, I thought I'd write up some thoughts on those of the other categories (besides Best Short Story, Novelette, Novella, and Novel) that I have opinions on.

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Like last year, this is once again a really strong slate [1]. I enjoyed all of these.

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Before we get started on this year's Hugo Awards, I thought I should finish out thoughts about last year's.

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I'll get back to finishing out my Hugo posts, but something else is on my mind. Last week may be when I finally gave up hope that we're going to weather climate change without major damage to our civilization. Maybe that's a good thing. ( Read more... )

I didn't like these quite so much, unfortunately.

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SPOILERS FOR GAME OF THRONES BELOW (specifically, on everything before the last two episodes, and maybe for those, as well)

( It's about to get Veruca Salt up in here. )

Enzymes are cool. There's lots of reasons why. Strings of amino acids that fold up automagically [1] into nanomachines that carry out plethorae of crazy amazing chemical reactions in water at room temperature, it's hard for me to imagine a more astounding piece of tech. We've still only scratched the surface in figuring out how that happens [2]; biology is over the river and through the woods beyond us in terms of technical chops.

But today (as on many days), I'm thinking about thermodynamics, particularly the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that whatever happens, the disorder of the universe must increase. Sooner or later the stars will poop out, the planets will 'splode, everything you love and cherish will be torn into its smallest constituent pieces [3].
( Click to see where I'm going with this. )