One such term is the “Rube Goldberg machine“–I’d say that less than 10% of the people who I drop that term around in Real World conversation¹ have any idea what I’m talking about.

This was recently brought to mind in some discussions of one of the OK Go videos–I found myself explaining the Rube Goldberg reference a lot.

If it comes up again, instead of pointing people at the Wikipedia entry, I shall instead point them to the recent Golden Age Comic Book Stories entry which has lots of examples of Goldberg comics–including some from the Stupid Questions series, and some of the classic machines.

Like this one:

1. As opposed to my online associates, who tend to have a more eclectic pool of general knowledge.

But, those Googlers have nothing on the groups of mostly-German-but-hey-England-and-France-also-get-a-look-in researchers who recently performed the mother of all “drop it from a great height” experiments.

First of all, it turns out that ZARM has a 150m tower built expressly for researching dropping things. Right there we’re into awesome.

Second of all, though, is what they dropped. Their drop capsule was a Bose-Einstein condensate produced by cooling a gas of rubidium atoms to nine billionths of a degree above absolute zero. (Don’t worry, they aren’t going to splat it, at the bottom of the drop is an eight-meter-deep pile of polystyrene balls breaks the capsule’s fall.)

Now, they will tell you that there are very important and serious reasons for doing this, like these:

The experiment could lay the groundwork for BEC experiments in the weightless environment of space, where the quantum wave nature of the condensates might be used to create ultrasensitive matter interferometers, in much the same way that atoms are already used in such devices to probe minute physical effects. In the optical realm, interferometry usually relies on lasers; BECs are often compared to lasers in the way that they each represent a coherent collection of quantum objects—photons for lasers, atoms for BECs. Interferometers based on BECs could one day reach orbit to probe the intricacies of spacetime curvature predicted by general relativity and perhaps shed some light on the interface between quantum mechanics and gravity.

(That’s from the Scientific American quick writeup. Those with journal access can read the paper itself wherein reasons include “During the expansion over 1 second, the atoms form a giant coherent matter wave that is delocalized on a millimeter scale, which represents a promising source for matter-wave interferometry to test the universality of free fall with quantum matter.” Admit it, you wish you had a job that allowed you to say “a giant coherent matter waye” as part of your working routine.)

Those are all good and valid reasons for researching Bose-Einstein condensates in microgravity, but let’s admit it–the biggest reason to drop a ball of super-cooled rubidium down a forty story shaft is because you can.

1. Hotels build on the “rooms around the perimeter of a large open atrium” plan are excellent for this–a quality superball dropped from the 8th floor can easily make it back up as high as the 5th floor.

Yeah, I can add that to my “drinking songs”¹ playlist along with Dave van Ronk’s Last Call, Moxy Fruvous’ Drinking Song, Rob Lute’s Alcohol, Rob Szabo’s We’re All Alcoholics, and… well, lots of others.

This tune puts me in mind of my old pal Chef Paul, and many nights out late with the OEP gang, back in the day.

1. The quotes are part of the title: my “‘drinking songs’ playlist” is very different from my “drinking songs playlist”.

When we are surprised by a particular outcome or event, we should consciously acknowledge that there must be a gap between our perception and reality. A surprise should be a signal inviting us to realign our intuition and our thinking so that they conform to actuality. One of the life lessons that mathematical thinking offers us is that we should always reexamine a surprising situation from various angles and points of view until that surprising feeling is replaced by a rock-solid intuitive understanding of the truth.

—from Coincidences, Chaos, and All That Math Jazz by Edward B. Burger & Michael Starbird.

As a picky and pedantic point I’d argue that “the truth” there in the last line is a problematic phrasing–I know what they’re getting at, obviously, but the point here is that the surprise is an invitation to move to a more useful paradigm, which is not necessarily the same thing as moving to, or even toward, The Truth.

Still, that’s a lovely paragraph, and I was quite pleased to hit in the middle of a work of popularization.

I’m not holding my breath, but I am crossing my fingers.

Le Bloc québécois estime que le premier ministre Stephen Harper pourrait être passible de 10 ans de prison. Selon la députée Carole Freeman, en donnant ordre à son directeur des communications, Dimitri Soudas, de ne pas comparaître en comité parlementaire, le premier ministre s’est peut-être rendu coupable d’entrave à la justice.

If so, then you will want to read Jeff Madrick’s review of Michael Lewis‘ new book The Big Short: Inside The Doomsday Machine.

It’s the best kind of review–it not only gives you a sense of why you would want to read the book, it also places the book in a context, and it functions as one of the better articles on the entire mess I’ve read.

I’ll be getting Lewis’ book, and I’ll comment on it when I read it. In the mean time I suggest you read the article. (And right after I finish posting this, I’m going to go read the online excerpt from Lewis’ book.)

Here’s one bit I quite liked:

But Goldman actually transferred its obligations to naive traders at AIG, the insurance giant, by buying insurance far more cheaply from them to cover Goldman’s liability on the insurance it sold to Burry. As noted, it charged Burry 2.5 percent a year for insurance on the triple-B bonds, but it packaged most of those triple-B bonds into CDOs, turning them into triple-A securities. It then bought, according to Lewis, insurance from AIG on the supposedly less risky tranches for only 0.12 percent, or 12 cents per $100 of bond.

Yeah, there’s a way to make money–sell at $2.50/$100 what you’re buying at $0.12/$100. That’s a bit of a profit margin, for sure.

And here’s a slightly longer quotation to show you what I mean about the review putting the book in a critical context:

Had CDOs been better understood and regulated, the extent of financial collapse would have been mitigated. Had credit default swaps been traded in plain sight and the counterparties like AIG been forced to put up capital, the crisis would have been far less costly. Had the conflicts of interest of credit ratings agencies been dealt with, the tranche system would not have been so abused.

In their new book, Crisis Economics, Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm would require that all derivatives, such as credit default swaps, be traded openly. They would consider prohibiting CDOs altogether on grounds that these derivatives are far too risky and complex. They would demand that investors pool funds to finance credit-rating agencies, removing the major conflicts of interest that derive from issuers paying for their ratings. They would also break up Goldman Sachs and the other big banks into relatively small pieces.

By comparison, the current finance reform legislation before Congress may well turn out to be tame. The provisions of the bill that is passed will probably provide for only a minor breakup of the banks and they may, for example, allow some derivatives not to be listed publicly. Moreover, the bill doesn’t adequately address the conflicts of interest and market-rigging that have discredited the ratings agencies.

Sandra MacDonald has taken that kind of effort to a whole new level, creating a periodic table of fabulous women writers in genre over the last 75 years. It’s kind of a cross-promotion for her new book, but it’s a pretty impressive thing in its own right. (And nice that she left three spaces for adding more, since my list of 20 includes three authors that aren’t on her list).

And, I see on my pal Gwenda’s blog (among others), that it’s become one of those “what have you read” memes. Since I was bugging Gwenda about her picks, I guess it’s only fair that I put mine out there too.

Following the rules, I’ve bolded the ones I own books by, italicized the women I’ve read something by, and starred those I’m unfamiliar with. For the editors, I’m assuming this means owning books they’ve edited, reading work they’ve edited, etc. I guess that means plain text is people I’ve heard of, but not read. As usual, I’ve also added some comments of my own. Results after the jump, in the interest of attention conservation.

Andre Norton–I’ve got a lot of her paperbacks, mostly read them in my teens
C. L. Moore–I just started reading her recently, and just tonight I heard Jack Vance say she was one of his biggest influences, which makes me want to find more of her
Evangeline Walton–I have only her Mabinogion books, read during my high school period of fascination with all the Celtic myth cycles
Leigh Brackett–I only have the Skaith books, and the one she wrote with Hamilton, but I think I’ve read a ton of her short work
Judith Merril–I don’t think I’ve actually read anything by her, I know her as the patron of the Merrill Collection.
Joanna Russ–Assigned reading as a text book in university
Margaret St. Clair*
Katherine MacLean*
Carol Emshwiller–Small Beer Press rocks.
Marion Zimmer Bradley–I have linear feet of her books.
Zenna Henderson
Madeline L’Engle–I suspect that very soon I’m going to be rereading some of these books, this time with my daughter. We’ll have to read A Wrinkle In Time before Hope Larson’s comic book adaptation comes out.
Angela Carter
Ursula LeGuin
Anne McCaffrey–I used to have a lot more of her books, but I got rid of all the Dragon ones several moves ago.
Diana Wynne Jones–Linear feet here too. I am greatly saddened by the news about her health, but look forward to reading many of her books with my daughter over the next few years.
Kit Reed
James Tiptree, Jr.–SFBC collections to the rescue here.
Rachel Pollack–Some comics and a book about tarot cards here.
Jane Yolen–There should be something like double bold for authors with whom you’ve danced, in their kitchen.
Marta Randall*
Eleanor Arnason*
Ellen Asher–Let’s just say I bought a lot more stuff from the SFBC when Ellen and Andrew were running the show.
Patricia A. McKillip
Suzy McKee Charnas
Lisa Tuttle–only her GRRM collaboration, I’m afraid
Nina Kiriki Hoffman–I’ve had her stuff since the very early days of Wildside Press
Tanith Lee
Pamela Sargent
Jayge Carr*
Vonda McIntyre
Octavia E. Butler
Kate Wilhelm
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Sheila Finch*
Mary Gentle–May be the author on here I have the strongest range of feelings about. Some of her books are brilliant and well-beloved-by-me, and at least one is absolutely dreadful.
Jessica Amanda Salmonson*
C. J. Cherryh–Linear feet again. Hell, just the four series of Foreigner books take up a good amount of space, and that’s the tip of iceberg.
Joan D. Vinge
Teresa Nielsen Hayden–as both editor and author
Ellen Kushner
Ellen Datlow
Nancy Kress
Pat Murphy
Lisa Goldstein–I believe I have “the complete works” on my shelves, including pseudonymous. Love her writing.
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Mary Turzillo*
Connie Willis–Complete works, including quite a few fancy editions
Barbara Hambly–Linear feet again, including both works in genre and out
Nancy Holder–I’m actually kind of loathe to admit what I’ve read here
Sheri S. Tepper–Linear feet again, I’ve got about 20 of her novels, but for some reason I don’t seem to have bought anything after the mid-90s.
Melissa Scott–Linear feet, “the complete works”, love her stuff. Wish she would put out something new.
Margaret Atwood–My antipathy is strong.
Lois McMaster Bujold–Working on replacing my Miles books with NESFA editions as they come out.
Jeanne Cavelos*
Karen Joy Fowler–Gwenda put me on to her years ago, and I have most of her novels now
Leigh Kennedy*
Judith Moffett
Rebecca Ore
Emma Bull–Complete works. And there should be a triple bold for authors with whom you’ve both toured Machinery Hill, and drank MacAllan 25 directly from the bottle.
Pat Cadigan–Complete works. If you were paying attention you’d know her book Mindplayers was quite important to me.
Kathyrn Cramer
Laura Mixon*
Eileen Gunn
Elizabeth Hand
Kij Johnson
Delia Sherman
Elizabeth Moon
Michaela Roessner
Terri Windling
Sharon Lee
Sherwood Smith*
Katherine Kurtz
Margo Lanagan
Laura Resnick
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Sheila Williams
Farah Mendlesohn
Gwyneth Jones
Ardath Mayhar*
Esther Friesner
Debra Doyle
Nicola Griffith–Complete works, I think. (And Kelley’s novel and collection)
Amy Thomson*
Martha Wells–Complete works, I think. And I’ve probably given away a dozen copies of The Death Of The Necromancer over the years
Catherine Asaro
Kate Elliott
Kathleen Ann Goonan
Shawna McCarthy
Caitlin Kiernan
Maureen McHugh
Cheryl Morgan
Nisi Shawl*
Mary Doria Russell
Kage Baker–Complete works, I think, including a couple of small press and swanky edition
Kelly Link–Complete works. Double bold for authors who you’ve played Mafia with?
Nancy Springer
J. K. Rowling
Nalo Hopkinson
Ellen Klages
Tanarive Due
M. Rickert*
Theodora Goss
Mary Anne Mohanraj
S. L. Viehl*
Jo Walton
Kristine Smith–I believe I have all her novels
Deborah Layne*
Cherie Priest–I believe I have all her stuff, including some small press/limited stuff
Wen Spencer
K. J. Bishop
Catherynne M. Valente–Just got Palimpsest, but haven’t actually read it yet.
Elizabeth Bear–Complete works. Got into her via the Emma Bull – Shadow Unit connection, and ended up buying/reading everything to date, including some swanky limited editions (same thing happened with Monette)
Ekaterina Sedia
Naomi Novik–Complete works, including the swanky limited editions
Mary Robinette Kowal
Ann VanderMeer

First, from the category of absolutely appropriate pairings and the unlikely beauty where it’s not expected, we’ve got Tom Waits doing a reading of a Bukowski poem:

Secondly, from the world of cool ideas that are really pretty damn depressing if you think about them, I’ve got this clip of Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about why we might not be as smart as we think we are, and the possibility that we might just be too dumb as a species to understand the universe:

I’d love to see Dr. Tyson sit down over a beer with (Dr.) Peter Watts and talk about some of the intelligence/consciousness stuff from Watts’ book Blindsight.

(That clip, by the way, is from the end of Cosmic Quandries, and the whole program is on YouTube–it’s a fun 90 minutes, if you have them to kill.)

Thirdly, from the category of “sometimes advertising is like your dad trying to talk street”, we have this absolutely magnificent vintage IHOP ad:

Fourth, and finally, we have Noam Chomsky being interviewed by Israeli media, shortly after he was denied entry to Israel. I don’t think there’s much point in adding commentary to this one–for anyone interested in listening, the interview speaks for itself. I will say, though, that Chomsky’s a much more patient man than I am–although I expect he’s had a lifetime of practice with these kinds of questions, and this kind of tone.

I may also have mentioned over the years that I tend to prefer stouts in the 4-7% a.b.v range, although for certain particularly well-crafted imperial stouts and strong porters (and, of course, Unibroue products) I have enjoyed things up to around the 9% range.

Anything above that, I tend to think of as a stunt beer–you might drink some once, just to say you did, but they tend not to be delightful taste experiences, at least to my palette.

Frankly, once you qualify as “malt liquor”, the odds are quite good I’m going to think you taste like a particularly poor hooch, not a particularly bold beer.

However, the lure of the occasional stunt beer still remains, and there’s always the possibility that a particularly talented brewmeister might craft something worth drinking at the higher alcohol levels…

But, when we jump into ranges higher than 40%, and are racing to 50%, then I’m fair certain this is a “because it’s there” project, and not a “for the beauty of the view from the peak” one.

The story, though, of the way this “extreme beer” race developed, and continues to develop, is pretty interesting though–especially the UK-vs-Germany aspect of it.

The Gizmag folks have a pretty lengthy writeup on the whole thing that you might find interesting, even if–like me–you think that freezing is a kind of distillation, and hence the product is not-really-beer, and like me you have no intention of trying to drink a bottle of the stuff.

The strongest beer in history had a 27% alcohol content in January 2009. By December, the record had risen to nearly 40% alcohol by volume – a 50% rise in potency in 12 months, despite 10,000 years of history.

“I don’t think 45% is the limit for alcohol content, though I suspect that once we get to 50% we may begin to find issues with the drinkability and taste – it’s uncharted territory. I am confident we can get to 50% with all the right qualities. After that, we’ll see. Also if we go much higher, we might be getting only 40 to 60 bottles from an entire batch. It’s not about the money – like people chasing any record, I just want to see what the limit can be.”

On a different axis of extreme–this time age, not strength–I should also note that the writeup referenced above lead me to information about Sumerian poetry and the history of recorded beer recipes.

I was quite cheered to read the nearly 4000 year old Sumerian beer recipe embedded in a poem, and to read that the Anchor guys actually brewed some of this. There’s an extreme beer I would try–hell, I tried the ‘Phrygian cocktail‘, and this is somewhat in the same line.

Of course, this doesn’t really make me feel any better. Criminal charges might, though. Or I could find some way to help.

1. The designer’s site is worth a peek as well.

I can, though, point out a few things that might help people really understand the magnitude of the spill–when you start talking about millions of gallons, in the context of an entire ocean, it’s hard to picture it. And when it’s all very far away, it’s easy to ignore it.

For most people, looking at something like this doesn’t really help you understand the magnitude of the problem:

So let’s try to first put the size of the problem in context: the people at IfItWasMyHome.com¹ have whipped up a little Google Maps application to allow you to overlay the current size of the spill on a map of anywhere, which can help make the size of it more real.

So, if the spill were happening at my house, it would cover an area that would encompass all of the most populous parts of southern Ontario, and would also stretch into the US, essentially covering Buffalo and a good chunk of the U.P.

More disturbing is looking at what this spill would look like if it were happening in my former home of Halifax–the spill covers an area on the same scale as the entire province of Nova Scotia…

I’ll put a couple more examples after the jump, for places where I know some people who will read this are.

Maybe that’s helped with understanding the size of the spill, but what about the “if I’m not in Louisiana why should I care?” problem. We could discuss the ecological impacts, and the interconnectedness of ecology, etc. Or we could look at more direct personal reasons for people to care.

While the major media is just starting to really get interested in questions like “how will this effect Florida“, I think that’s actually a bit near-sighted, and I’ll show you a single image which I think explains why quite concisely–visualization to the rescue again:

There’s another way visualization can help people understand the problem, of course, and it’s both simple and effective, and speaks perfectly well for itself.

And here it is over Melbourne, Australia:

1. Yes, I am exactly enough of a language pedant to be disappointed that it isn’t IfItWereMyHome.com. I can live with myself.

If you haven’t read this yet, read it.

I’m going to need some time to take this all in, but I’m going to have to go along with Dyson on the importance of this.

Oh, and yeah, this is REALLY one of those “we’re living in science fiction” moments.

What you’re looking at there is apparently around $613 million.

(And yes, it is very odd when you think about the difference between owning digital copies of the images, which is free… and owning the originals, which are apparently somehow worth over $600 million. But that’s not the point.)

Those five paintings were stolen last night from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.

When you hear about a museum robbery for that kind of money, you kind of hope that there’s an incredible caper story there.

This time… not so much.

A broken window and a smashed grille were the first clues that led to the discovery early today that five paintings worth $613 million, including a Picasso and a Matisse, were stolen sometime overnight from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.

A surveillance camera later showed a single, hooded and masked man climbing into the museum and stealing the artwork

Yeah, that’s not exactly my idea of a madcap caper–anything you can pull of without any planning that you’d need George Clooney to do in the movie, where the total set of gear you’d need is covered by “rock, knife, and stepladder”, is hardly a caper.

The part of the article I just quoted that made me laugh the most though:

The Museum of Modern Art in Paris, which opened in 1961, has the reputation of being one of the most secure in the world.

Yes, that’s some serious security, there. Who could have predicted an assault by a single man carrying a rock? Next thing someone might come at the museum with a board-with-a-nail-in-it.

Also, am I the only person who’s always a little disappointed when burglars cut art out of the frames? It just seems kind of disrespectful, right?

There are areas I’ve kind of shied away from for one reason or another until, almost without fail, the universe comes along to point out to me that I’m being an ignorant ass and missing some of the good stuff.

One such area for me historically has been the gospel/spiritual area–probably because as a cocky atheist, I don’t generally have a lot of use for songs with a lot of deep religious conviction in them. I’ve had my nose rubbed in the fact that there are some great, great songs that arise from or embrace religious traditions and sincere belief enough over the years that I think I’m pretty open-minded about it now. I certainly don’t need to share the beliefs to enjoy the good music, and letting that stuff get in the way of enjoying the good stuff is just being silly.

Even so, gospel/spiritual stuff is a relatively small part of what I listen to regularly. There are only so many times I can listen to Curtis Mayfield in any given week.

This week, though, some pretty spiritual stuff has been in heavy rotation. I can’t seem to stop myself from just hitting play over and over. It’s kind of weird feeling.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the seriously spiritual sounds of the Vancouver-based (but from backgrounds widely strewn across America) trio, The Sojourners:

Play these two tracks while you read the rest of this–and play them loud!

I think it was actually Penguin Eggs that started this off. There was a short profile of the group in the latest issue, which was enough to raise my interest a little–the connection to Jim Byrnes also piqued my interest; I’ve enjoyed his blues albums over the years¹. Then in the reviews section the trio’s second album was reviewed, and the review started off with these words:

“Joy is seldom something that can be purchased but this second release from Vancouver’s Sojourners comes close. The combined talents of Ron Small, Will Sanders and Marcus Mosely have the soulful firepower to bring mere mortals to their knees…”

It doesn’t exactly get less enthusiastic as it continues, either. Joy being something that I could always do with a little more of, I was now interested enough to remember to Google the band when next I was at my computer/

That was enough to get me to their web site and take a poke around. The music page there has a couple of MP3 tracks to tease–the first one I have up above, and their rendition of People Get Ready (which is pretty damn awesome). That was enough to sell me, and I ordered both of their discs–yeah, I still do that²–pretty much immediately.

Since they arrived, late last week, they (along with the new Byrnes CD, which they appear on) have been in heavy rotation. I just keep hitting play. (I know this isn’t going to win me any points with the cool kids downtown–and by the way, that one song at the club on Friday night sounded like a damn fire alarm³–but I’m old enough now that I don’t have to care about that anymore.)

There’s actually quite a breadth of styles and emotions across these two discs–the songs above are meant to be representative samples, but they only define a small part of the area these tracks cover. I’m liking it all–every one of these tracks is infused with something wonderful. I don’t know if I’d say “joy”–some of the songs are beautiful renditions of things that aren’t joyful, although I guess there’s a kind of joy in turning sorrow into beauty, but there’s something magical going on here. The kind of something that happens when you get people who have been doing what they love for a long time (according to the bio page “each member of the group has been in the music business for around fifty years”), and who have both the passion to sustain that kind of long-term interest and the craft that comes with that kind of experience, and find a synergy between them.

I don’t know if you’ll have the same reaction I did (and do), but me… I’ll be over here, hitting play.

1. Although I admit I first bought them out of Wiseguy and Highlander related curiosity, they’re pretty good discs, and I keep buying more.
2. ..and then I rip them, and put the discs in the big “keeping these until it’s time rerip everything lossless” box
3. “Hey, you kids. Get off my lawn!”