A Curious Statistical Anomaly

You may have heard by now that Arthur C. Clarke, the author of over 100 books of science and science fiction has died. Once of his best know works is 2001: A Space Odyssey though most people probably know it from the movie rather than the book. I read the book years and years ago but strangely we just watched the DVD a while ago along with 2010: The Year We Make Contact (I love the aero-braking scene).

I’m a very visual reader and see the scenes as I read them. So, often I can’t remember if I saw something in a movie or read it. These two movies, 2001 and 2010, were filled with amazing visuals of space. I think it was reading so much SF when I was younger that got me interested in the sciences and space. I’m sure he has influenced many of his readers to learn more about physics, chemistry, space travel, communications, and many other fields.

I’ve never met him at a convention just seen videos and podcasts but I feel in some ways that I’ve lost a friend because he’s had such an influence on my life and my reading.

He’ll be missed.

What better way to celebrate the Monday blues than with a blue rose. Got to thinking about blue roses in a round about way and found science has managed to create a true blue rose. Last year sometime there was a big thing about rainbow colored roses — horribly expensive and they looked more like melted crayons in all the pictures or that scene in What Dreams May Come when the Robin Williams character is in the painted landscape and the colors are being smeared as he walks through.

Today was a cool blue day. Did the minimum on the PC that I had to do. Then I curled up and read all day (with of course a break to make the traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner). Finished reading Murder is Binding by Lorna Barrett (the review will be in Gumshoe Review for the April issue). Then I started another mystery, Poison Pen by Sheila Lowe, also for the April issue. It was really nice to just sit with a warm afghan and coffee and read. I think I’m coming down with a cold or something because it was just so hard to move today to start anything — maybe I’m still trying to gather spoons.

I did manage to search some of my stash areas and find a spare bobbin for my Majacraft Rose. Now all I have to find is my Lazy Kate and I can ply my singles and finish the blue yarn I’ve been spinning up. The thing is I’ve been spinning and spinning and I’ve now got 3 bobbins full and there’s just as much wool in the basket as there was when I started. Honest, it sure looks that way anyway. I think it’s breeding in there — the problem is I’m now getting sick of all these shades of blue. However, next I have a lot of white wool that I plan to spin and then dye. Now I’m wondering if I should dye and then spin. What do you think?

I really don’t know how it happened. I’ve been doing so well. I even managed with the zine work to actually clean the upstairs bathroom, do the floors, and pick up and organize another big chunk of my fiber stash. I’ve also started the sleeves on my sweater and spun up a spool of singles (next is plying and picture will follow).

Today, we headed out to my favorite yarn store, The Yarn Garden, in Annapolis, MD. They have a sale every year with fantastic prices and door prizes. Unfortunately, today was the last day of the sale and while there was still a lot of wonderful yarn — I took a pass. Having just partially organized my stash of yarn and fiber, I just couldn’t find anything that I need just now since I have so many partial projects going. So, I touched and dreamed and walked away — it was so hard to leave without buying anything at all, not even the yarn that I fondled and priced and dithered over. Sigh. Such is the decisions of life.

Next, we stopped in to Homestead Gardens. Homestead is just a beautiful oasis of spring. They had some small areas of landscaping that were so peaceful and calm. We wandered through the displays, picked up some vegetable seeds, some seedling pots, and a few herb plants. We have a perennial herb garden to the side of the house and have been adding to it each year. But the annuals we either have to start from seed ourselves or buy as plants. I tried to winter over my scented geraniums this past winter and lost 4 of the 5. At least the lemon grass made it through the winter.

Tomorrow we plan to get outside and make a big start on clearing out the garden area to get ready to turn the soil and ready it all for the spring planting in a few more weeks. That’s where the problem starts with the missing spoons (see earlier spoon post), I have been so lucky all week and today started strong but somewhere between Homestead and home I seem to have used up all but one and I need that one to finish this and get to bed.

I’m reading Charlaine Harris’s Three Bedrooms, One Corpse so I think I’ll just go curl up and hope that tomorrow brings me enough spoons to get a start on some of my grand plans for spring cleaning.

For me, thinking can be a pretty exciting trip through my brain which tends to be filled with lots of bit and pieces of fluff I’ve collected over the years. Today, I was doing something — can’t remember what just now, probably thinking about eating a breakfast cupcake (I had cereal instead) — but as clear as clear could be I heard mom telling me to act my age. So, I got to thinking…how do you act your age?

It seems to me that if I’m my age and I’m doing something then I’m acting my age. All my life I’ve had people say either to me or about themselves — I/You can’t do that at your age. Why? If you can do it, why not? I’ve got long hair — or had, it’s growing out again from a donation to Locks of Love — but family members (female) keep telling me that at my age I should have short hair because long hair on a person my age looks silly. Why? If it’s clean and neat and I like it what’s silly about having the length of hair I feel comfortable with.

Personally, I just don’t get this thing about having to curtail activities you like because of some magic age that after or before which you’re not allowed to do this thing. Okay, I get not drinking before you’re of age and not driving before you get your license — those are laws and reasonable ones set up so that reasonable behavior can be expected. But there aren’t any laws that say after age 45 you must have short hair if you are a woman, or no white after Labor Day, or no motorcycle riding after 50, and so on. Who makes up this stuff?

I do know that I can’t do a lot of things I used to do simply because my body isn’t up to it any more. Climbing steep trails is a lot harder than it used to be (arthritis in my knees) but if I take it easy and don’t push I can usually make it to the view at the top. But, the thing is, I pretty much know my limits and I take appropriate (I think) precautions . Same with a lot of other activities — I like a lot of music that I’m told I should not like at my age — again I like it so obviously people my age do like it, or at least some do. I try to not pass judgments on others and expect the same courtesy in return.

But, the real question is where do these rules come from? Who made them up? Did the North Wind forget to blow this knowledge into my ear at the appropriate time. Is there a list? Not that I intend to follow the advice/rules, but it would be interesting to see how many of those shoulds that I’m ignoring at my age.

Yesterday, I got an ad for the Gattaca (Special Edition) DVD. I watched the trailers and spots and got to thinking about the movie and what it says about potential. Originally released on DVD in 1998, the film is about genetic engineering and its effects on society. Once people can have their children engineered to be what they want them to be, very few parents opt to have God children. God children are simply children who have not been engineered and are a random mix of the parent’s DNA. Vincent, a God child, has a dream and does all in his power to achieve his goals in a society that sees him as a lesser human. His younger brother has been engineered and is a police officer. Once, as children, Vincent and his brother had a competition/race — the result has haunted Vincent’s brother. Why? Because, Vincent won. There’s a lot more to the plot of the movie but what I want to discuss is the underlying theme of potential and capacity for growth.

Earlier, my husband and I got to talking about the big fish in a small pond phenomena for students and how it effects their college years. For example, in high school I got decent grade by just going to class and listening to the teacher. I read a lot outside of school and skimmed the textbooks and did the homework (sometimes without actually reading the books). In other words, I never learned how to study because I never had to. Then came college. All the students were smart. I had to read all the assignments, sometimes more than once to understand them because the lectures built on the readings rather than, as they did in high school, simply hit the high/important points of the readings. So, I had to learn to study. First semester was a disaster as I scrambled to keep up, with no clue how to study, outline, highlight material, pick out the important points of a lecture. I was totally lost because I was beyond my native intelligence to where I really had to push to reach my potential.

Now, in Gattaca, everyone is genetically engineered for abilities. There are no interviews for a job, they take a blood sample and see what you are capable of. So, why push yourself to go beyond what you can comfortably do? Why struggle to be more when your DNA has already given you everything and you can’t be more than that anyway.

The key to the movie is someone who pushes to grasp a dream. Someone who knows what they want and is willing to push themselves to the limit to get that dream. There is no magic bullet that can make people better, they have to strive to be better every day. You have to reach beyond yourself and push yourself to achieve. Expecting that you will have, or get, anything you want simple because of who you are or what you are — that is the first step towards a stagnant society. Right now we have a lot of people who feel they deserve things (the thing changes with the person) but they don’t want to work for it because they feel it’s owed. I’m not talking about Equal Rights, that’s just leveling the playing field and erasing the barriers, you still have to work to get the job or whatever. I’m talking about those who feel they are owed just because they exist. I’m sure we all know people who feel they are owned respect, not because they have earned it, but because they are better dressed, richer, more educated, whatever than someone else. On the other hand, there are people who are given respect from others because they just do what they do to the best of their ability while respecting others. Sort of a Golden Rule result.

Everyone has potential. Yes, disabilities can limit the range of opportunities, but there is still potential. On the other hand, there are groups, laws, etc. that limit potential. For example, people on welfare are often not allowed to own cars or can only own a car worth less than a certain amount of money (a clunker lucky to move at all). Therefore, while forcing them off welfare and to find work, they are artificially limited in where they can look and what they can do for work. There are always problems trying to live up to your potential — money, physical defects, environment, education, and location. But usually, there are ways to achieve your dreams against the odds even then.

However, there is little support for those on the lower end of the economic scale to achieve their potential. I have to wonder why. Right now higher education is out of reach for many from middle income to poverty level. Students from poor families are just as likely (and often more likely) to be motivated to succeed in education — yet their potential is limited by income. There’s something wrong with a country that has no real mechanism for those with lower incomes to attend colleges while high income students don’t even have to actually make the grades if daddy can endow a chair or building.

So, maybe it’s money more than DNA that determines potential. It’s a thought anyway.

In between all the other things I’ve been doing lately, I’ve been working on these socks. I turned the heel last night. I was going to knit plain until one inch from top but just switched to 2×2 ribbing since I want to make them a bit higher and I hope the ribbing will help them stay up.

But, alas I’m not a one project kind of person so I have a pair of traveler socks in the bedroom that I’ve done the top pattern and just started the second pattern. The pattern is by Nancy Bush in her book, Knitting on the Road. I’ve made a couple of pair of socks from this books and I just love the simple clear directions.

I’ve also finished the body of my sweater I was working on. Now I just have to pick up for the sleeves and knit down to the wrist. No finishing required since it’s top down and I used an i-cord for the bottom. Hopefully, that one will show up here in the blog with a week or two. Depends on my knitting time. I’ve about finished the follow up to all the zines going live — now it’s gearing up for the 1st of April — and that means lots of reading time. I found one of my book holders and I bought a weighted bookmark so I’m going to try reading and knitting (at least the plain knitting).

I’ve spun up a bobbin of wool/angora mix that I bought a few years ago. I’m not caring for the color as much as I did when I bought it but it spins up nice. I’m hoping to get a cardigan from it when I’m done. It’s sort of scratchy so I’m thinking outer garment not next to the skin.

Lots of plan. Little time. But full of joy at the thought that soon spring will be here.

Today, we did our weekly shopping. Normally, we do the shopping on Saturday so we can hit the the recycle center along the way (you can’t recycle on Sunday around here — big chained gates forbid it). Anyway, shopping means the warehouse grocery store, the regular grocery store, Home Depot or Lowe’s (depending on what the house needs now), and any other errands. But we usually end the day with a stop at Border’s for coffee (me) and hot chocolate (hubby). Sometimes we get a book or two. You’d think since I review books and have huge stacks waiting to be read that I wouldn’t pick up any more. What can I say? Hi, my name is Gayle and I’m a bookaholic (but I have no intention of kicking my habit).

I’ve been on a big Jane Austen kick lately. Partly, because PBS is running The Complete Jane Austen series on Masterpiece Theater. However, they are taking a break so my Sunday nights from 9pm to 11pm are now open until March 23 when Emma will be showing. What to do…what to do? Naturally, I need my Jane Austen fix. It’s been Jane Austen on Sunday nights for weeks now.

I’ve been eyeing Jane Austen: The Complete Novels (Introduction by Karen Joy Fowler) for a while now. So…today…I bought it. It contains: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan. The Introduction by Karen Joy Fowler is 7 pages long and I’ve only read the first 3 so far. As expected from Fowler, it’s witty, thoughtful, erudite, funny, and thought provoking and I’ve still got 4 pages to go. I expect that I’ll be posting reviews of the books as I read them or reread them as the case may be.

Today the staff of SFRevu, TechRevu, and Gumshoe Review got together for our monthly meeting. Along with catching up on each other and kibitzing about possible changes to our sites and discussion of ways to make our zines better for our readers, we take some time to get to know each other better and to have some fun. So, we have a meeting followed by food, whatever movie that got the highest vote, and then share our best website of the month. Well, one person’s best website was TED: Ideas worth Spreading.

I’d been to the site before to listen and watch a talk or two. If you haven’t been there and you enjoy learning about new things or getting a hit to the side of the head to jump you out of your regular thought processes — it’s a great site with some thoughtfully presented ideas. The talk we listened to was by Dean Kamen about how he came to work on the bionic arm. Normally, I’d embed the video but this one is long and I thought it would be better if you went to the site — besides, you’re probably going to want to poke around over there anyway and bookmark it for later visits.

If you’ve been reading my site regularly, you’ll know that I’ve had a couple of rants about how technology in the US has been falling behind. Well, Dean Kamen has raised my hopes. This arm was done in 13 months from the start of the project. Evidently, with a committed and eager group working on a project they believe in — work can be done and done well. This is now up for funding from what I’ve read elsewhere and I’m hoping it gets more funding for trials and then some fine tuning. This is so much better for people missing an arm or even two arms than a stick with a hook or a plastic and wood approximation of an arm but without movement.

Evidently, the spirit to invent when matched with the right task and the right people shows that we can still do some pretty amazing things. I just hope this gets down to the people who actually needs these arms.