February 29, 2020
Check out the link below for more detailed explanations and a neat video.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1184/why-is-nasa-sending-dragonfly-to-titan-here-are-five-reasons/
January 4, 2020
Hi, everyone. I guess I should have planned a little better — should have written a “new year’s post” and then saved it before the holiday season began, scheduled the post, and then enjoyed overeating, overdrinking, and sleeping in.
Except of course that’s not what actually happened. Continue Reading
October 15, 2019
“What is the evidence against the possibility of life on Mars?” Levin wrote. “The astonishing fact is that there is none.”
Uh, no, sorry. That’s an illogical fallacy called “begging the question.”
Often phrased like this: “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Or, as a friend once joked, “Just because you haven’t found any aliens doesn’t mean there aren’t any!”
Well, yeah, but that doesn’t prove anything except that we just don’t know.
See, science doesn’t work like that. It demands skepticism, careful theorizing based on positive evidence.
And replication.
If findings can’t be independently confirmed and reproduced by an outside observer, then the evidence isn’t strong enough.
Sorry. No smoking gun. Yet.
(Believe me, if scientists knew that Mars had life, we’d hear about it ad infinitum. Carl Sagan put it best: Scientists are terrible at keeping secrets.)
June 7, 2019
One minute I’m blogging along, the next minute…
No, I don’t mean Theresa May, I mean the actual May…er, May, as in the month of. I missed the entire month of blogging!
Right. Well, I have some catching up to do. A few more interesting science tidbits, more about family history and possible story ideas for historical fiction (and/or fictionalized history).
And there’s that SF novel I keep meaning to finish…
More soon, I promise!
November 29, 2018
So WordPress tells me I started blogging here nine years ago today.
Really? I should have more far more posts by now 😅. What was that New Year’s resolution again?
November 18, 2018
Hi, everyone. I know it’s been a while since I blogged here. But I have been writing.
And editing. And then writing again. And, yes, in multiple genres. That’s my philosophy. That’s what you get if you read my writing.
I think I’ve probably written about this before, but I find myself increasingly disliking current writing styles. Short paragraphs. Bad grammar. No internal monologue. Things blowing up. Continue Reading
October 30, 2018
May the roads bring success to you,
May the winds be forever at your back,
May the sunshine be warm on your face,
May the rains fall lightly upon your fields, until we meet again.
And may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
Go n-éirí an bóthar leat
Go raibh an ghaoth go brách ag do chúl
Go lonraí an ghrian go te ar d’aghaidh
Go dtite an bháisteach go mín ar do pháirceanna
Agus go mbuailimid le chéile arís,
Go gcoinní Dia i mbos A láimhe thú.
Good bye, Mom. Your final journey awaits, and I cannot follow. But your memory will here linger still, until I have the courage to go on.
April 22, 2018
On a lark, I signed up for a “BrandYourself” account a few weeks ago.
I’d read about it via a Quartz link and was curious. I’ve been living outside the US Culture Bubble for about two decades now, so I’ve largely missed the “OMG my employer is checking my SNS posts” terror that (apparently) has been sweeping the nation.
My first BrandYourself warning: You have 738 Risk Factors!
OMG. What were they? Was I really putting myself at risk? Continue Reading
April 2, 2018
My friend, you died on Easter morning.
We all knew it would happen sometime soon. But still it seemed sudden.
My grandfather also died during Easter weekend, many years ago. Good Friday, in fact. I was 10. We had to have the wake and funeral right away. The Church said they wouldn’t allow him to be buried on Easter Sunday.
My mother told us that Grandpa went straight to Heaven, because he died on Good Friday. That we would one day see him again.
Terry, you died on April 1st. But it was no Fool’s. It was Easter. You were sleeping, and did not wake. Continue Reading
March 17, 2018
This past Monday, city workers came to cut down a cherry tree near our house. It had been there for years.
We found out later that a neighbor had complained that leaves falling in her backyard were a nuisance to clean. The fact that local children (and adults alike) treasured the cherry blossoms each spring seemed to escape her.
And cherry blossom viewing season is just around the corner. What a shame. A waste.
More’s the shame, I only have two pictures of the tree in full bloom.
Fleeting moments, lost in time and memory.
My children wrote a heartfelt letter to the tree, and I taped it as best I could to the stump:
“To the Cherry Tree,
For always showing your cherry blossoms to us until now, thank you.
We miss you, but we’ll never forget that this stump is the stump of a cherry tree.
If this stump ever grows, we want to see cherry blossoms again.”
Stories are made by fools like me…
Come inside, pull up a tentacle or seven.
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