redhueds

Photo finalist: Natural World competition, Animal Antics

Chaotic Good: Two points (ordered) define a plane by describing its normal vector

I really enjoyed this video by Angela Collier as someone who is of the "Feynman Bros" generation without being a member of the thing itself. I was of course part of the "XKCD science nerd culture" of the 2000's where he was a valorized figure, but never read any of his books, and generally just wasn't a science person in general so the whole vibe didn't appeal. I certainly noticed the 2010's culture shift where people - rightly so in my opinion - noticed that many of his "anecdotes" were casually misogynistic or harassing. I know both sides of the track here decently well without having any stake in it.

So it was quite shocking to me to learn - spoilers - that Feynman never wrote a single book. Every one of those texts with his name splashed on it is by someone else, and sometimes with quite minimal involvement by him! He had this weird coterie of fans who just loved his stuff so much they collected his anecdotes, recorded lectures, and so on, and made books out of them, often well after the fact. And of course at certain point "cashing in" on the brand took over.

Which leads, inexorably, to the fact that it is a little difficult to glimpse the "real" Feynman, because half of the published stuff is just made up. Surely You're Joking is the exaggerated stories of a 50 year old man trying to impress a 20-something dude with how cool he is, telling tales decades after they happened. I had never read the book, so hearing direct quotes from it of Feynman "pretending to speak a language he didn't and being So Clever he tricked his audience" are just...obviously not true? What the fuck are you talking about??? The best part for me is that the book, of stories from the life of a physicist, never involves...other physicists. It is always random people at a bar or hotel. Because, you know, they can't contradict them? The one time he did name someone, Murray Gell-Mann, in a story, Murray objected on the grounds that it was false and they were forced to change it! You had one job and you fucked it up, person-who-isn't -Feynman-pretending-to-be-Feynman-while-writing-the-book.

This is very much a video in my wheelhouse of cultural history - Feynman is just a guy. His brand, like all brands, is manufactured, and so there is a story behind how it was manufactured & why. I think I can see Feynman's rise as part of the general rise of "nerd culture" that accelerated in the 1980's, and the very deep need to both be "pure" nerdy (something finally dropped in the late 2000's) but also cool, to fight back on the rep. A womanizing scientist deeply appealed at that time, one who can Have It All. The idea of being the Smartest Guy In The Room was admirable, not insufferable. Then times changed, and the whole edifice can be a bit cringe. With, of course, a real person behind it all that one has to sift through to see.

Fully meme'd, I remember this quote: how endearing, how adorable, how pure nerd! And adding the context that this quote is from a legal filing (since no-fault divorce was not yet the law), and is sharing only half the comment:

When she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into a violent rage, during which time he choked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about, and smashed the furniture.

Leviathan Wakes- For this one you need to know what a Leviathan is and why it's waking up. The Leviathan it's referencing is Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. This guy:

In the 17th Century, the big political controversy was Monarchy vs Democracy. Rule by One vs Rule by Many. One of the proponents of the monarchy was Thomas Hobbes (yes, that's where the stuffed tiger gets his name) who wrote about The Leviathan which was the big monster that would be created if we let all these uneducated peasants vote. Hobbes fears the collective will of many people. In the story the Leviathan Waking references a couple different things: It references the Belter revolt (a bunch of people arguing for self-rule) but it more literally creates the Leviathan when the protomolecule infects eros, turning everyone into a collective group-mind monster.

Caliban's War- Caliban is the primary antagonist of Shakespeare's The Tempest. He is a grotesque, deformed, feral, disgusting, man. This is a reference to the protomolecule soldiers ProtoGen tries to make.

Abaddon's Gate- Abaddon is a place that appears in the Hebrew Bible alongside Sheol as a place of rest for the dead. It is a place of destruction in the afterlife. It is not the Jewish concept of hell. It is also used in the Christian Bible in Revelations, where Abaddon is personified as an angel who is the king of an army of locusts. So the void inside the gates as a reference to a void-like afterlife but also, the things that killed the protomolecule creators I believe are described as locusts a handful of times so there's a bit of foreshadowing.

Cibola Burn- Cibola was one of the fabled seven cities of Gold in Pre-Columbian North America but it was also just a real place and a fairly large city inhabited by the Zuni Pueblo. When the (militarily) technologically superior Spanish found it they burned it to the ground. The book references this both in the human's fear of the technologically superior ring builders and this is the book where we start to get hints as to what wiped them out (an even more technologically superior civilization).

Nemesis Games- Eh, the Earth and the Belt are enemies I don't think there's more to it than that other than poor people constantly being used as pawns in the games of their generals.

Babylon's Ashes- Babylon was a once great city but it's been dead for over two and a half millennia. There's a lot of anxiety here if Earth can even survive the asteroid strikes.

Percepolis Rising- Percepolis was the capital city of the First Persian Empire. It's a reference to the Laconians coming to power.

Tiamat's Wrath- Tiamat is a five headed dragon in the popular tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons and this is a reference to the most recent campaign played on the Rocinante. Here's what everyone plays:

Holden- Human Fighter and everyone gives him shit for it.

Naomi- Aasimar Rogue. Naomi wasn't sure she wanted to play at first so everyone else made her character and agreed that Naomi 100% had a touch of the divine so she had to play Aasimar.

Alex- DM. And y'all he's good at it. He puts so much into his stories but makes sure never to railroad. He knows when to let the party win and when to let the party fail. Best of all he's apparently good at art so you're going to get a drawing of your character.

Amos- Halfling Druid. Amos sometimes has a hard time with the RP aspect of the game but he tries. It's really been a learning experience for him and gives him more context for what the right thing to do in a situation is.

Clarissa- Kenku Warlock. Clarissa absolutely uses D&D as therapy when she really just needs therapy. Alex rolls with it and gets advice from some therapist boards when he can.

Bobbie- Goliath Martian Marine. Listen, I want to be clear here, Bobbie did not threaten Alex until he homebrewed a Martian Marine class for her. Why would you suggest that? She simply found the relevant PDF in her inbox the day before they were set to play. Weird. Anyway, Betsy has an AC of 20 and a minigun for an arm.

It's kinda weird that this whole book was about a D&D game and not a reference to Tiamat, the mother of the gods in Babylonian mythology. That would be a good reference to learning more about the things that killed the ring builders but oh well. Missed opportunity.

I'd like to see the ocean before I leave.

thats a PRIORY GARDEN WITH MONKS

IT EVEN TEACHES YOU HOW TO MAKE ALL THE TOOLS ABD BASKETS AND POTS AND PLANTS

LOOK AT THE SOME OF THE FOLIAGE

Problem is, he has mental health & drug issues and couldn’t afford to get them all spayed & neutered, so now there are 6 grown bitches with 15 puppies total, and they’ve dug under his fence in multiple places but he can’t afford to fix it so they go roaming all around town. (When I say can’t afford it, I mean his house is currently running on a generator because he can’t afford his electric bill.) He’s also a day laborer so he cannot take multiple full days off work to take them to the vet an hour away. He’s in a really rough spot.

He’s not a bad person. He’s just overwhelmed.

And this little conservative town with 6 churches for 300 people, have they tried to help their neighbor? Have they adopted the puppies he’s been trying to give away? Have they offered resources?

NOPE! All they wanna do is talk shit about him and complain about the dogs but never lift a finger of their own. And they come to his house to yell at him and cuss him out about the dogs, which does not exactly engender in him a cooperative attitude, as you might imagine.

So after a while of this going on, my mom gets fed up with all the NIMBY bullshit and starts talking to the guy, because she’s done animal rescue for 20-odd years and has Connections. He’s resistant at first, but when he realizes she’s not being an asshole to him on account of his addiction or the dogs, he decides to let her help.

She gets to work organizing and networking. Finds a non-profit that will cover vaccinations, spay/neuter, and flea treatments for all the dogs. Talks the next-door neighbor into paying for materials to fix the fence, since this guy can do the work of it himself. Gets him in touch with another non-profit that will adopt out the adult dogs.

Less than 2 weeks after she decided to do something, all puppies have been to the vet, 10 puppies and 4 adult dogs have been adopted out, and the second non-profit is coming by next week to pick up the remaining 7 dogs to ship them out for adoption.

I was driving along a mountain road with a person I kinda knew in the passenger seat (like a roommate of a roommate or something). The road was very narrow, very twisty-turny, steep cliffs on both sides. I came around a blind curve to see a huge tree branch in the road. I managed to swerve just in time to avoid it, and also not veer the car into the sheer cliff face going up on the left, or of the sheer cliff face going down on the right.

"That's so dangerous. Someone should move that." I said.

"You're someone." said my passenger.

I very slowly pressed the brakes, my car slowly rolling to a stop as what he'd said started to sink in to my brain.

It had never occurred to be before, in all my life, that I could be the "someone" who could fix the thing. Not ever.

It was dangerous to stop here. If another car came, they could easily hit me, as it was a blind curve. We talked about it, decided it was worth the risk to possibly save a life, and we quickly ran to the branch and moved it to the side as best we could, then hurried back to the car.