I’m Still Learning To Play

It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.
—   Dr. Leo F. Buscaglia,
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On This Day In:
2020	All You Can
2019	No Wall And Not One Dollar
	‘Cause It Makes Me Scratch
2018	Mirror, Mirror
2017	Keep On Keeping On
2016	Reflections
2015	Is It Time Yet?
2014	Ask Any Follower
2013	Cornered Or Surrounded?
2012	Escape
2011	Achievement
	Not Unreasonable Enough

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But That’s Certainly Irrational

There can be an infinite number of polygons, but only five regular solids.  Four of the solids were associated with earth, fire, air and water.  The cube for example represented earth.  These four elements, they thought, make up terrestrial matter.  So the fifth solid they mystically associated with the Cosmos.  Perhaps it was the substance of the heavens.  This fifth solid was called the dodecahedron.  Its faces are pentagons, twelve of them.  Knowledge of the dodecahedron was considered too dangerous for the public.  Ordinary people were to be kept ignorant of the dodecahedron.  In love with whole numbers, the Pythagoreans believed that all things could be derived from them.  Certainly all other numbers.
So a crisis in doctrine occurred when they discovered that the square root of two was irrational.  That is: the square root of two could not be represented as the ratio of two whole numbers, no matter how big they were.  “Irrational” originally meant only that.  That you can’t express a number as a ratio.  But for the Pythagoreans it came to mean something else, something threatening, a hint that their world view might not make sense, the other meaning of “irrational”.
—    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2020	The Butterflies Are In Trouble
2019	The Deep Center
2018	Oh, Heaven (Too)
2017	Now Pausing Makes Sense
2016	Just Spicy
	Only One Part
2015	Positive Acts Of Creation
2014	One Thing Is Clear
2013	Corrections
	See Greatness
2012	Gemutlichkeit
2011	Back On The Asphalt

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One Month In: Learning To Play Guitar

He who learns to play music in his eightieth year will play at the resurrection.
—    Turkish Proverb
[About a month ago I convinced my wife to let me buy a guitar (Orangewood acoustic dreadnought: Austen (model) for $195).  I’m playing it almost every day for 10 minutes to an hour.  Most days about 40 minutes.  It’s coming along slowly, slowly, but I’m enjoying it.  I’m just watching videos on YouTube and then going off to practice…    —   KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2020	Working On My 2019 Tax Returns
2019	Three Beliefs
2018	He Found Them On-Line
2017	Maybe In A Future World
2016	Largely A Mystery
2015	Tools And Weapons
2014	Likes And Dislikes
2013	Pillars Of Learning
2012	Another JCoM Review
	Move It
2011	Expected Value

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That Was A Shot In The Arm

This afternoon, my wife and I both got our first COVID vaccine shots!  We’re also scheduled for our 2nd shots towards the end of March.  Two weeks after that we should be “fairly” safe from COVID.  So far (after 6 hrs), the only after-effects are a little shoulder soreness at the injection site.
It is important for everyone to understand: the vaccines do NOT prevent you from getting COVID or from developing long-term  COVID related illnesses OR transmitting COVID to others.  The vaccines are only supposed to prevent you from getting “seriously” ill and dying.  We got the Pfizer version which is 95% effective at preventing “serious” illness and was 100% effective preventing deaths during trials.  We still do not know how long the vaccines remain effective and / or if we will need periodic boosters (like the annual flu shots).
The bottom line is that even after we have reached some level of local / state / national / worldwide herd immunity, we will probably need to keep wearing masks and maintaining “some” social distancing.  We just don’t know enough yet and we will have to follow the science / data when it becomes available…
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On This Day In:
2020	Decide, Support, Vote
2019	Aware Some
2018	Know Any Christians?
2017	The Only Thing I Can Give…
2016	Wiser But Less Cocksure
2015	Not Today
	Wicked
2014	…Am Too
2013	Credible?
2012	Both
2011	Risking Hidden Linkage

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Emergent Novelty

The man who is striving to solve a problem defined by existing knowledge and technique is not, however, just looking around.  He knows what he wants to achieve, and he designs his instruments and directs his thoughts accordingly.  Unanticipated novelty, the new discovery, can emerge only to the extent that his anticipations about nature and his instruments prove wrong.
—     Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book: “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
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On This Day In:
2020	A Steep Price Ahead
	Möbius
2019	Eureka!
2018	Learning About My Humanity
2017	Laugh Or Shake Your Head
2016	The Expected Cure
2015	Of Two Minds
2014	Pride And Remembrance
2013	Repeating Bad Memories
2012	No Sooner
2011	Just Cheesy!
	Are You Illin’?

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Is Science Cumulative?

Cumulative acquisition of unanticipated novelties proves to be an almost non-existent exception to the rule of scientific development.  The man who takes historic fact seriously must suspect that science does not tend toward the ideal that our image of its cumulativeness has suggested.  Perhaps it is another sort of enterprise.
If, however, resistant facts can carry us that far, then a second look at the ground we have already covered may suggest that cumulative acquisition of novelty is not only rare in fact but improbable in principle.  Normal research, which is cumulative, owes its success to the ability of scientists regularly to select problems that can be solved with conceptual and instrumental techniques close to those already in existence.
—   Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book:  “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
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On This Day In:
2020	Where #45 Is Leading The Republican Party
2019	Your Own Blog Posts
	The Man With A Code
2018	Choose Goodness
2017	Developing Translations
2016	Think Like A Hero
2015	Reductionism
2014	Gravitation, n.
2013	Ups And Downs
2012	Nerd Heard – And Good-Bye
	Your Continuum
2011	Career Tips (Part 2)

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Democracy, Pandemic, Economy And Climate Change

In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.  It is up to us.
—    Carl Sagan
[An Inauguration and rejoining the Paris Climate Accords are just a start.  —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2020	Hoping For #46 In January 2021
2019	Interesting, But Not Fascinating
	But Try To Eat The Low-Hanging First
2018	Me, Too
2017	Apt Enough?
2016	Now Or Ever
	21, Pause, Restart
2015	I Am Shocked, Sir, Shocked…
	Lucy & FSND-2
2014	Less Difficult
2013	The Spirit Of Liberty
2012	The Essential Freedom Of Aloneness
2011	A Problem Of Scale
	Fred Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
2010	Another Book, Another Jog…

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(Hopefully) Good-Bye To The Trump Dark Ages

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
—    Carl Sagan
[Perhaps, having seen the corruption and malevolence of the Trump Administration, the next four years can see the beginning of an American renaissance…  I hope so.  As I prayed four years ago:  “I may not agree with all (or any) of this President’s policies, but I pray he makes America a better place.”  Hopefully #45 was the “just” the darkness before the new day’s dawn.   KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2020	Posting As A Continual Exercise
2019	Border Security – Yes, Border Wall – No
2018	Supporting Survival Values
2017	Inauguration Day 2017 [Sometimes, I hate it when I’m right! — KMAB]
2016	Or A Pot Of Gold After The Storm
2015	One, Two, Three…
2014	Lend Your Hand
2013	Amnesty, n.
2012	Best Resolv’d
	The Clock Is Running
2011	Magic

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Have Republicans Figured Out Biden Won Yet?

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
—   Abba Eban
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On This Day In:
2020	Careful About Myth Telling
2019	My Irish Diet
	Fighting With Oneself
2018	Feeling Both
2017	Just Start
2016	Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall
2015	Restraint At The Inn
2014	To Not Discovering
2013	I Have Less To Say
2012	Not The Best Prediction I’ve Ever Read

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Our Fate Is Up To Us

Since this series’ maiden voyage, the impossible has come to pass:  Mighty walls that maintained insuperable ideological differences have come tumbling down; deadly enemies have embraced and begun to work together.  The imperative to cherish the Earth and protect the global environment that sustains all of us has become widely accepted, and we’ve begun, finally, the process of reducing the obscene number of weapons of mass destruction.  Perhaps we have, after all, decided to choose life.  But we still have light years to go to ensure that choice.  Even after the summits and the ceremonies and the treaties, there are still some 50,000 nuclear weapons in the world — and it would require the detonation of only a tiny fraction of them to produce a nuclear winter, the predicted global climatic catastrophe that would result from the smoke and the dust lifted into the atmosphere by burning cities and petroleum facilities.
The world scientific community has begun to sound the alarm about the grave dangers posed by depleting the protective ozone shield and by greenhouse warming, and again we’re taking some mitigating steps, but again those steps are too small and too slow.  The discovery that such a thing as nuclear winter was really possible evolved out of the studies of Martian dust storms.  The surface of Mars, fried by ultraviolet light, is also a reminder of why it’s important to keep our ozone layer intact.  The runaway greenhouse effect on Venus is a valuable reminder that we must take the increasing greenhouse effect on Earth seriously.
Important lessons about our environment have come from spacecraft missions to the planets.  By exploring other worlds we safeguard this one.  By itself, I think this fact more than justifies the money our species has spent in sending ships to other worlds.  It is our fate to live during one of the most perilous and, at the same time, one of the most hopeful chapters in human history.
Our science and our technology have posed us a profound question.  Will we learn to use these tools with wisdom and foresight before it’s too late?  Will we see our species safely through this difficult passage so that our children and grandchildren will continue the great journey of discovery still deeper into the mysteries of the Cosmos?  That same rocket and nuclear and computer technology that sends our ships past the farthest known planet can also be used to destroy our global civilization.  Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil.  It is as if there were a God who said to us, “I set before you two ways:  You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars.  It’s up to you.”
—    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2020	Still Willing
2019	Another Prayer
2018	After Silence
2017	Are You Looking Forward To A Trump Presidency?
2016	Three Errors From Eureka
2015	Limiting Choices
2014	Praise The Lord And Pass The Hypocrisy
	That Sound
2013	Still Waiting For Answers
2012	Informal Leadership
2011	A Little More Progress
2010	Bec’s Gone Again…

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So, You Think You Know The Answer?

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.
—    Daniel J. Boorstin
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On This Day In:
2019	His Promises, OUR Hopes
2018	Where I Write
2017	At Last, An Honest Philosopher…
2016	Fake It ‘Til You Make It
2015	Hell Toupée
2014	Corrected And Amended
2013	Too Few
2012	Three Characters
2011	Universal Payment
2010	Privatizing the TSA? (An old – and long – post, but still relevant!!)

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And Most Adults Don’t Either

Many scientists deeply involved in the exploration of the solar system (myself among them) were first turned in that direction by science fiction.  And the fact that some of that science fiction was not of the highest quality is irrelevant.  Ten-year-olds do not read the scientific literature.
—   Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2019	Happy Thanksgiving (2019)
2018	And Smiles…
2017	Or Savor A Little Longer…
2016	Sometimes I Just Want To Smell The Flowers
2015	One Truth – Done Well
2014	Now In Imagination, On The Other Hand…
2013	No Plan, No Map
2012	Singing About Love
2011	The Awesome Power Of Truth

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Still In School

Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.
—    Daniel J. Boorstin
[This education thing is taking a lot longer than I was told it was going to take back in kindergarten / grammar school.    —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2019	Will John Bolton Testify?
2018	Just Maybe
2017	Police In My Review Mirror
2016	Full And Rich
2015	Go Deeper
2014	Intentional Mapping
2013	The Sweet Path
2012	Living Free And Abolition
	Morning Wood
2011	I Resemble That Remark

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Like Belief In Truth And Facts

America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments.  Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.
—   John W. Gardner
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On This Day In:
2019	Many Forms
2018	Serenity Prayer
2017	But The Clock Says It’s Already Two Minutes 30 Seconds to Midnight
2016	Towards No Regret
2015	109 And Beyond
2014	Are You Waiting?
2013	Traditional Human Sacrifice
2012	A Division Of Men
2011	Miles, Legends and Superwoman
	Got Tragedy?
2010	My Company For A Prince!!
	On The Shoulders Of Titans

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Precarious Fools

Since man is a moment in astronomic time, a transient guest of the earth, a spore of his species, a scion of his race, a composite of body, character, and mind, a member of a family and a community, a believer or doubter of a faith, a unit in an economy, perhaps a citizen in a state or a soldier in an army, we may ask under the corresponding heads — astronomy, geology, geography, biology, ethnology, psychology, morality, religion, economics, politics, and war — what history has to say about the nature, conduct, and prospects of man.  It is a precarious enterprise, and only a fool would try to compress a hundred centuries into a hundred pages of hazardous conclusions.  We proceed.
—   Will and Ariel Durant
From their book:   “The Lessons Of History“
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On This Day In:
2019	How #45’s Father Raised Him For Incompetence
2018	Describing #45 – “The Loser” – As A Successful Businessman
	Raking – #PresidentIdiot Proposes Full Employment For California
2017	Federal Deficit, National Debt And Tax Cuts For The 1%
2016	Picky, Picky, Picky
2015	Another Limitation On Religion
2014	Enduring
2013	Tell Me More…
2012	Passing…
2011	Fake It ‘Til You Make It

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