“Being kind isn’t always easy. Or convenient. But it has the potential to change everything.”
— Cap Watkins
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Posts Tagged ‘Thoughts’
You Have So Much Potential
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, #alittlepickmeup, Thoughts, writing on September 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Astronomical Fall
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, astronomy, autumn, equinox, fall, fall equinox, seasons, Thoughts on September 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Yesterday, we headed out into one of the many beautiful trail systems dotted around Ottawa. The day was bright and the paths were carpeted in a lovely array of gold, orange and red leaves. It felt like a perfect way to usher in fall, but it turns out we were a day early.
Today, however, we can celebrate the Autumn Equinox, when night and day are (more or less) equal, and the sun shines directly down streets set east to west, as they do in places like Chicago.
Autumnal equinox 2024 brings fall to the Northern Hemisphere today
When is the first day of fall in 2024?
A carefully worded answer is that on Sunday, Sept. 22, at 8:44 a.m. Eastern daylight time (5:44 a.m. Pacific daylight time) autumn begins astronomically in the Northern Hemisphere, and spring in the Southern. At that moment, the sun would be shining directly overhead as seen from a point in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, 461 miles (743 km) south-southwest of Monrovia, Liberia.
10 Things About the September Equinox
Here are 10 facts about the first day of astronomical fall (autumn) in the Northern Hemisphere.
Welcome to fall!
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How It Feels
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing 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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A Low-Key but Actually Kinda Fun Rant (Warning: Involves Language!)
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, language, Thoughts on September 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Ever had one of those low-stakes issues that are like a tiny splinter, not a serious problem but still annoying? Of course you have. We all have triggers that bug us, some shared (fingernails on a chalkboard, anyone?) and some a little more niche.
For example, I hate the corporate buzzword “learnings.”
It’s not a real word! It is a solution to a non-existent problem, designed only to signal in-group status for aspiring wielders of upper-level business speak.
Note: The word was published in the 15th century by one Geoffrey de La Tour-Landry, but later fell out of fashion. It is now considered “an erroneous plural form of the colloquial term ‘learning’”.
That 15th century author said “the thre enseygnementes or lernynges whiche Cathon gaf to his sone.” Dear business buzzword types, will you also revert to other spellings from half a millennia ago? Giveth me a break.
Seriously, what is wrong with the word “lessons”?
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Ooh, this gives me an opportunity to use the internet for its highest and best purpose, looking up random weirdness and reveling in possibly correct but certainly entertaining results. Let’s translate a modern-day sentence into Shakespearean English.
English to Shakespearean Translator
If thee necessity to inventeth a new tongue to feeleth bett’r about thy occupation, art thee certes t’is the c’rrect occupation f’r thee?
While we’re having fun, here’s a version for Mr Man. He has a soft spot in his childhood heart for the cultural icon that is The Swedish Chef:
Iff yuou hefe-a tu infent a nuo luonguoege-a tu feel better ibuout yuour jub, ire-a yuou suore-a it is zee-a right jub fur yuou? Bork Bork Bork!
And finally, an article assuring me that I’m not the only one who finds bizspeak annoying, and also helps me find a bit of chill.
Why business speak is so irritating — and what we can do about it
It’s normal and useful for people within a company or field to have their own names for specific kinds of tasks or projects. But when overused, Sokolowski notes, buzzwords can become a code for a kind of professional language that is “substituting for authenticity.”
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“We should be generous with others and recognize that maybe the words we hate aren’t the same words that other people hate, and that we should allow words to have their own power and to carry meaning,” he added.
Fine, fine. Like I said, it’s a pretty low-key issue for me.
It’s true that language is ever-evolving and that we all have fun shaping it to our current needs. (Please see my aforementioned use of the portmanteau word “bizspeak” above.) I’ll try to be reasonable about it.
And that concludes my language-related learning lesson* for the day!
* Nope, sorry, can’t do it!
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More, Please!
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, genre fiction, speculative fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on September 19, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Today, a super-sized interview on the future of speculative fiction from Reactor Magazine.
What do some of the biggest names in SFF have to say about current bookish trends, or what the future might hold?
The authors:
- Amal El-Mohtar
- Arkady Martine
- Catriona Ward
- Constance Fay
- Em X. Liu
- Holly Black
- K. M. Szpara
- Kathleen Jennings
- Kerstin Hall
- Joe Abercrombie
- John Scalzi
- Naomi Kritzer
- Neon Yang
- Nghi Vo
- Samantha Shannon
- Sarah Beth Durst
- Sung-Il Kim
- T.L. Huchu
They had me at cozy fantasy. And also “very interesting, complicated, messy, ruthless female protagonist.” And dragons. And Scandinavian werewolves!
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Obviously!
Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, climate change, creativity, environment, genre fiction, innovation, inspiration, Kim Stanley Robinson, science fiction, technology, Thoughts, writing 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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Ever Curious
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers 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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This Could Get Tricky
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, art, biology, color, inspiration, perception, Thoughts 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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This Beautiful Dance
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, geology, inspiration, science, Thoughts 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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To Remembering the Past, and Building the Future
Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, 9/11, Thoughts on September 11, 2024| Leave a Comment »
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