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Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’

Happily Puzzled

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , , on October 4, 2024| 2 Comments »

Recently I received the most amazing present.

I found a pickup tag in the mailbox. What could this be, I wondered, I hadn’t ordered anything. After a day or so of speculation it was off to the post office. I was given a cute little box covered in international signage (expected, I am in Canada), from Germany (unexpected, I have ordered nothing from Germany!). What could it be?

I put the box in the center of the kitchen table so that I could walk past it all day, wondering what was inside. Finally, I broke down and opened the package.

A puzzle box. You may remember that I wrote a recent post about puzzle boxes. A friend did, and she sent me this.

How incredibly, unbelievably, extremely cool.

I wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years, and yet it is absolutely perfect.

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Photo by Steven Wong on Unsplash

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Genius!

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , , , on October 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »

This year’s Genius Grants were announced this week. I love this award, not just for the secrecy and drama, or because deserving artists and innovators are being rewarded (monetarily, even!) for their work, but because the scope and creativity of their ideas helps us all think more expansively.

Here’s the 2024 MacArthur Fellows list – NPR

This year’s Fellows include performing and visual artists, writers, scientists, historians, activists and one filmmaker, Sterlin Harjo. The MacArthur Foundation considers these grants as investments in people whose “ideas, experiments, and solutions expand our expectations of what’s possible.”

Here’s to genius, whatever form it may take.

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Photo by “My Life Through A Lens” on Unsplash

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Well and Truly Fall

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , on October 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

— L.M. Montgomery

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Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

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Appreciating the Moment

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , on September 29, 2024| Leave a Comment »

“Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life’s quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result―eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly―in you.”

― Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

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Photo by Drew Colins on Unsplash

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Magic, Magic Everywhere

Posted in Science!, tagged , , , , , , , on September 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes you might look at the world and see only the meh, the drab, the muddy exteriors of your surroundings. It’s Tuesday, I get it.

But when the light is just right or you’re a little less tired and you take an extra moment to look deeper, you may find magic just waiting to be discovered.

Here’s one example; click through for photos, which are amazing.

Rainbow swamp: The flooded forest in Virginia that puts on a magical light show every winter

Every winter, when sunlight hits at the right angle, visitors to Virginia’s First Landing State Park are treated to a mesmerizing rainbow light show courtesy of the park’s bald cypress swamp.

I ran across this article and immediately wanted to know more. You too? Here you go!

An Array of Colors at First Landing State Park – State Parks Blogs

If you happen to visit First Landing State Park at just the right time, you might see people transfixed at the edge of one of the cypress swamps. I’ve been there and excitedly said aloud, “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!” to no one in particular, while wearing a very silly grin. Why you ask? Because I saw this rainbow water for the first time.

What an incredible world.

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Photo by NOAA on Unsplash

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How It Feels

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , on September 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Success isn’t about how your life looks to others. It’s about how it feels to you.

— Michelle Obama

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Photo by Jacqueline Munguía on Unsplash

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Obviously!

Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Today’s question of the day: 

BBC World Service – The Climate Question, Can Science Fiction help us fight climate change?

The acclaimed US sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson is also a star in the world of climate activism because his work often features climate change – on Earth and beyond. Robinson has been a guest speaker at the COP climate summit, and novels such as The Ministry For The Future and The Mars Trilogy are admired by everyone from Barack Obama to former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. 

Now, the answer to this question seems fairly self-evident to me. I see innovation as a conversation, in a way, between what is and what we can imagine will be. And fiction is excellent at helping us imagine new and better worlds.

Other examples of sci-fi ideas made real:

Ten Inventions Inspired by Science Fiction | Smithsonian

6 scientific innovations inspired by science fiction

10 ‘Star Trek’ Technologies That Actually Came True | HowStuffWorks

Look around you. What are our technological and social capabilities? What are our needs? And what do you think we’ll invent next?

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Photo by Cody Dagg on Unsplash

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Ever Curious

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , on September 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.”  

— Stephen Hawking

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Photo by Ian Chen on Unsplash

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This Could Get Tricky

Posted in Science!, tagged , , , , , , , on September 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Mr Man and I recently went on the hunt for the perfect blue gift for a friend. We did eventually find a beautiful piece of handblown glass in a dark blue with silver flecks. Lovely.

The only issue, we later discovered, was that our goal should have been a color that was closer to teal. So not the deep blue of a falling dark sky, but the vibrant green-tinged hues of a Caribbean sea over a white sand beach.

Regardless, the piece was still pretty. And it brought up the question of whether one person’s idea of blue is the same as another’s.

And then this site came across my desk: Is My Blue Your Blue?

If you think the page color is blue, click the button at the bottom right. If you think it’s green, click the bottom left. And don’t be surprised when it starts to get tricky!

For more on this topic, check out this article on the variability in color perception, and interpretation, in humans. 

The science of color perception

A lot of factors feed into how people perceive and talk about color, from the biology of our eyes to how our brains process that information, to the words our languages use to talk about color categories. There’s plenty of room for differences, all along the way.

For example, most people have three types of cones — light receptors in the eye that are optimized to detect different wavelengths or colors of light. But sometimes, a genetic variation can cause one type of cone to be different, or absent altogether, leading to altered color vision. Some people are color-blind. Others may have color superpowers.

Superpowers? Yes, please!

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Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

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This Beautiful Dance

Posted in Science!, tagged , , , , , on September 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

How did we get the landscape that we have today? I’m talking the big stuff, geology, not horticulture. Plate tectonics. We all know what Earth looks like now, but how did we get here?

This animation starts with the world we recognize, then rolls back time to show how the planet’s macrostructure has changed. Fun, right?

Witness 1.8 billion years of tectonic plates dance across Earth’s surface in a new animation

Mapping our planet through its long history creates a beautiful continental dance — mesmerising in itself and a work of natural art.

It’s a beautiful dance.

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Photo by Drew Colins on Unsplash

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