Saturday night, all smiles

[cleolinda]

Finished! Eight hundred and eighty-eight pages of Ray Bradbury, and I'm finished. And there's a ton of stories they didn't even include. Amazing. No idea what I'll read next, though. Possibly the nonfiction one about William James investigating Spiritualism.

Oh, and something I should have mentioned about "The Universe" show with the "dumb" astronomers: I was writing pretty flippantly about people who are way smarter than I can ever expect to be. I was in a mischievous mood, what can I say--and I don't get those moods a lot. My impression of the astronomers was colored, however, by the fact that one of them even said at one point that he was "embarrassed" that the scientific community had believed something or other (I can't recall what) back in the fairly-recent day. Did anyone see this? Can you remember what he was talking about?

Meanwhile, I've been feeling really good the last couple of days, and I think it's because I'm back on my medication. When I was down with the norovirus, I didn't take my antidepressants for about five days--first, because I couldn't keep them down, and second, because taking them on an empty stomach is a bad idea, or at least it always has been for me. I'd wanted to stop taking them early in the afternoon and move them to mid-morning, so this gave me an opportunity to retrain myself. I'm sure there were side effects (usually I get lightheaded and a feverish feeling), but I was so miserable with the flu that I clearly didn't notice them at all, so in a way, it was ideal. So I've been feeling pretty good now that I'm back on them.

"The road network [in Cleoville] has suffered several damages after riots last night." Uh. Riots?

Strike tarnishes Globes' glamour; Writers offer to give NBC's Ben Silverman the prom of his dreams; Miss The Golden Globes Song? We’ve Got ‘Gimme Globes’ With Some Help From Britney. The funny thing is, I actually sat there last week wondering which current-ish pop song they would have butchered had the show aired as usual. I actually remembered this and wasted thought on it.

More Images from Gilliam's 'The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus.'

First Look: Speed Racer's Rival Race Car Revealed.

Liev Schreiber Cast as Sabretooth in 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine'?

Is Ang Lee a Tyrant on Film Sets? Aww--they liked him on the Sense and Sensibility set, right? I have Emma Thompson's set diary that she published, and Lee seems kind of overly sensitive at times, but surely they all got along, right? "This is the man Hugh Grant dubbed 'Fang Lee.' " Oh.

Comments

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of dumb astronomers. We joke at work that once you get your PhD, you lose the ability to work AV equipment. We had one guy who couldn't figure out how to turn the TV in the lounge off. So I got up and pushed the "off" button. But then I only have a BS in astrophysics, not a PhD.

Then there is the guy who accidentally printed a binary file to the printer - it just kept printing gibberish, and he kept feeding it paper until it jammed instead of turning it off. He called the computer help desk to report a paper jam. He wanted them to unjam it, so he could keep feeding it paper. You know, instead of just asking them to kill the job. We still make fun of this guy for it. He literally printed out *two* reams of paper fill of gibberish before it jammed.

So yeah. There are plenty of dumb astronomers. ;-)

[christwise.livejournal.com]

I knew a lot of engineers in school who could build killer robots or death lasers or whatever but you ask them what 2 + 2 equals and you'd have to give them a second to think. The more advanced you get, the more you lose the real world knowledge I guess. I'm was a film major, I don't know anything.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I think it's not that Ph.D.s are any dumber at "real-life" things than anyone else, it's that non-Ph.D.s somehow expect that the receipt of a degree makes you stupidproofed against simple mistakes, silly responses, accidents, slowness, and failure to get the point (whatever the point happens to be).

Regarding math, it's strange, but arithmetic uses completely different brain cells than calculus and higher math, as far as I can determine. I've been slow at arithmetic since I was a kid, and I didn't get "good at math" until late high school, when I picked up a calc text and started reading it one day. I'm still very slow at mental arithmetic.

[word-herder.livejournal.com]

My sister hated math in high school, nearly failed college algebra, and then whizzed through Calc I, II, and III with alacrity. It must be a different part of the brain. Didn't Einstein fail algebra?

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

He didn't, but that was an urban legend for a long time.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

It works in reverse, too, by the way — my dad was great at math right up to calculus, but he could never get beyond that point.

[christwise.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that's interesting. I've heard that really advanced mathematics is more about finding patterns than anything. Then again, I did hear that from Ron Howard on the commentary for A beautiful Mind so who knows.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

That's completely right. It's about noticing patterns and being able to pull out the common elements.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Well, I do think there's a difference between common sense and intelligence--my mother is as sensible as they come and can kick your ass on a daily-activities basis (finances, benefits, real-world responsibilities), but she can't deal with computers at all, and she claims that I'm more "intelligent" than she is. At the same time, she's very quick to tell you (and me, all too frequently) that I'm "brilliant," but I "can't take care of myself." Which is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, really.

As for math--I had serious trouble understanding how to borrow numbers in subtraction when I was younger, but once I got past that, I'm actually pretty good at real-world math--adjusting amounts in recipes, the price to charge for something you make based on how much the bulk components cost you, which product is cheaper by the ounce, that kind of thing. (I can never calculate a tip on the fly, though. I think I panic and freeze up more than anything, because "Ten percent of the check plus half of that ten percent" isn't hard, or even "Two times ten percent and call it even.") I even use basic algebra a lot if I'm trying to figure something out, and algebra just about gave me hives in school. Once it moves into the realm of any kind of theory, though, the words stop sounding like English to me. That's why I always had so much trouble, because I couldn't even go to a teacher and tell her what it was I couldn't understand. It would have been me just sitting there repeating, "I just... don't get it. At all," over and over again.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

There's definitely a distinction between common sense and intelligence, or if you like, between different types of intelligence. My mom is like your mom in that respect, by the way, although she hasn't told me I can't take care of myself (really, what kind of a thing is that to say?).

Once it moves into the realm of any kind of theory, though, the words stop sounding like English to me.

I went through a phase like that in late middle school. I could NOT understand word problems and how to extract an equation from them. In the end, what helped me a lot was learning to program, because once I started to think about problems as computer programs, they made more sense and I could see how to solve them. (Also, I had one great math teacher who pointed out that "is" means "equals," "of" means "times," and so on.) The other big help was learning to think of functions in terms of their graphs. Being able to visualize the difference between
f(x) = x and f(x) = 2x
was a real eureka moment.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Well, usually she says it as, "I'm just afraid that when you move out on your own"--which she definitely wants me to do; she's not trying to convince me otherwise. In theory, anyway--"you won't be able to take care of yourself." We're very comfortably codependent at this point, I think.

[edda.livejournal.com]

Pardon for butting in, but I've heard that the easiest way to calculate a tip is to double the tax and round up to the nearest dollar. Unless your state/community has absurdly low taxes, it's pretty foolproof.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Huh, that really is a good idea.

[elisa0984.livejournal.com]

I was taught to divide by five and subtract the change. And then I always alter that total depending on how the service was.

[maetang.livejournal.com]

Regarding math, it's strange, but arithmetic uses completely different brain cells than calculus and higher math, as far as I can determine.

I've just been reading about the neuroscience of this (a chapter on "The Neuroscience of Creativity", by Todd Burley, from a book about creativity in Gestalt therapy, Creative License: the Art of Gestalt Therapy, Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb and Nancy Amendt-Lyons (eds).)

[... Simple] artimetical problems such as 1+1=2 are verbal problems, which can be performed by the left temporal lobe. However, as the addition problem becomes more complex (for example, adding columns of numbers), and the person has to "carry" numbers from one column to the other, the parietal lobes, where space is represented, are called into play. In still more complex mathematics, which becomes more abstract, the right parietal lobe is called in to assist. (p. 80)

So yes, more advanced math uses different regions of the brain.

[Editing this comment to fix my spelling!]

[glyphs.livejournal.com]

Wow, that makes me feel a whole lot better. I always did really well with math once I got into geometry, trig, and calc. However, give me basic addition and subtraction and half the time I still count on my fingers. My brother is the same way. My mom gives us a ton of crap about it. She has no problem with the basic stuff, but give her a trig or even simple geometry problem and she's lost. Interesting...that definitely explains some things. :)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Wow, I had no idea you were in astrophysics! I assumed, pretty stupidly, that you did something clothing-related. You know, because people don't have hobbies or anything.

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

LOL! I do mostly web development (which makes sense) and education/public outreach. I'm not a research scientist. But astrophyics/physics is what my degree is. And I work with lots of scientists. Of varying intelligence. ;-)

Costumes are nice and totally unrelated to my job. :-)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

God, I'm such a mess at the moment, career-wise--struggling writer! grad student who keeps meaning to finish the MFA! which is also in creative writing! Well, actually, come to think of it, I had a Spanish major/French minor (specialty: literary translation) for my BA, so I guess I did do something that isn't technically what I do (or "do") now.

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

And now it looks like a factory's exploded due to criminal acts. Oh dear. I think you might want to work on security next. :)

[pygmymetal.livejournal.com]

To assist your development, do we visit the pages with the extensions, like /sec for security? I put that in my browser but I ended up at the main page.

I r confuzzed

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you do--it just redirects you automatically to the main page, that's all.

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

'And there's a ton of stories they didn't even include.'

Hells yeah — no 'The Fog Horn'? No 'Mars Is Heaven'?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

"The Veldt"! "Small Assassin"! "A Sound of Thunder!" Tons of them not in there! I was really, really hoping to find Everything Short That Ray Bradbury Wrote, and that book was pretty much the best I could do. I did end up reading dozens that I'd never seen before, so that was pretty good.

[theendofallthat.livejournal.com]

I don't want to plug a friend, but The Bradbury Chronicles (http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780060545840-1) was written by a former teacher/friend of mine named Sam Weller, and it's excellent, if you feel you'd like some more Bradbury.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

You know, I think I might read that. There were so many motifs constantly repeated in the stories that I actually found myself wanting to read some kind of biography--even fairly early on in his career, Bradbury seems to write about old/older men a lot. And of course, all those glowing stories about old-fashioned childhoods. And I'd love to know if there's anywhere particular he got his love of books and libraries and authors from--I mean, how many stories does he have about going back and meeting an author, or someone bringing story characters to life? I can think of at least five or six offhand. It's not an unusual or uncommon passion, certainly, but it's always fun to see how it developed for a particular author.

[valancy-s.livejournal.com]

Aww. Ang Lee mean? No, I can't believe it. He's so adorable in Emma's diary. "No more sheeps. Never again sheeps."

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heeee, yes!

[meredith-mae.livejournal.com]

If you are at all interested in Spiritualism, you should read (if you haven't) Christine Wicker's book. (http://www.amazon.com/Lily-Dale-True-Story-Talks/dp/B000C4SRCC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200193378&sr=8-2) She's a journalist who travels to Lily Dale, NY (about 45 minutes from where I grew up) - the oldest Spiritualist colony in America. (In order to buy property, you need to join the Church of Spiritualism.) She wavers between believing in the spirit world and thinking it's just a grand hoax several times throughout the book. I've also read this biography (http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Dead-Kate-Maggie-Spiritualism/dp/0060566671/ref=sid_dp_dp) about the sisters who began the Spiritualist movement.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved the Lily Dale book! How was the Fox sisters book?

[meredith-mae.livejournal.com]

A little more dry than the Lily Dale book. But interesting none the less. Something fun to talk about at parties - the origins of Spiritualism. It also talked a little about the religious revival in Western New York in the 1830s and 1840s. The Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Shakers, and Spiritualists all got their start at that same time and place, and it was pretty much a wilderness at the time, which is interesting.

[brainchild129.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, why did no one tell me about this new Terry Gilliam movie? Because I might have to have a little squee over the the fact that one of my favorite actors (Christopher Lee) is working with one of my favorite directors. Seriously, that just put my brain in "zomgyey!" mode.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

The Cassie Edwards situation seems to have gotten more serious. The SBCN crew and friends have unearthed similarities to a Pulitzer-winning novel from 1929. I want to know how she's going to respond to this one.

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/cassie_edwards_remarkable_similarities_to_pulitzer_winning_novel_laughing_b/

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

Glad you are feeling better!

I am so psyched (is that spelled right? I think so but it looks weird) for Wolverine.

Apparently, unemployment is pretty high over in Shenanigan. *sigh* My city has no jobs!