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| date | 2001-04-09:08:51 |
| Physics |
I started out writing this last week to test the new colors, so I put in this link, stolen from Jaffo's weblog, to recent work on extra-solar planets. I wrote a few days ago about how the broken promises of the technological optimism of my childhood were all coming true, and this is one of them. There are certain things that I distinctly recall being told, quite smugly and authoritatively, would never happen. Why anyone should be smug about our inability to do something is beyond me. The purposes of evil are hard to grasp. There were several that stand out in my mind:
Now that all of these have been done, one wonders what the smug little people whose self-image seemed to depend on denying their possibility are doing. Have they come up with a new list of "impossible" things? Or did they greet these with joy, delighted in their secret hearts to be wrong? |
| Creatures |
Many deer all over the place. Wild animals are individuals, and after a few years you get to know some of them. The doe with the broken right hind leg that healed so the foot is twisted almost at right angles to the leg has thrived through another winter. She walks a little awkwardly, but seems to have very little trouble getting around. And last year's fawn still hangs out with her, having come through the winter nicely as well. One of the deer came right up to the house the other day, just outside the fence of the dog run, not ten feet from the kitchen window. There are days when I'd really like to live in a city, but that wasn't one of them. The squirrels are finally out in full force, the last of the snow now being properly off the ground. And the neighborhood cats are prowling again, including ours. Nut the Cat is getting noticeably old, but still likes to get out in the sun. One of the neighbors has a tawny cat that is huge--I had to look twice before deciding that it really wasn't a small cougar. |