I am … unhindered by talent

We’ve been lucky enough to have a very nice chippy up the road. Peggottys was a neat family operation, one of that dwindling pool of old-school independent shops. We’ve gone there roughly once a week all year and gotten to know the folks there, so we were sad to learn that they were selling up to a group that runs several chippies in Colchester.

The hand over occurred a few days ago, and tonight was our first chance to frequent the establishment under their new ownership. Sadly, it wasn’t nearly as good as before. They had definitely changed either their suppliers and/or their processes. The fish was hard and rubbery, and the chips were pale and greasy. All in all, not the win.

Very sad, really. Luckily there are other chippies within ready walking distance, and we’re only here another month, so this isn’t catastrophe it might have been. Still, we will miss the Peggottys folks, their hospitality, and their food. If I’d thought of it sooner, it would have been really cool to have taken a photo of them all at the shop, but that moment has passed.

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If you’re never been over to BibliOdyssey I highly recommend a visit. The sub-title for the blog is “Books~~Illustrations~~Science~~History~~Visual Materia Obscura~~Eclectic Bookart” which, well, sums it all up rather nicely. Lots of neat old illustrations, often (but not always) on scientific themes. The themes are interesting, the background info excellent, and the images are frequently just too cool.

The image above is from some of the earliest high quality mapping of Mars in the late 1800’s by Giovanni Schiaparelli, and is part of a really neat set of early modern maps of the red planet. Peacay (BibliOdyssey’s curator) has once again pulled together some great images that are really wonderful to look at in and of themselves, as well as being really cool historic and scientific documents.

Schiaparelli’s (in)famous ‘canali’ turned out to be a kind of optical illusion caused by interactions between light, dust clouds that form in the martian atmosphere, the orbital location and background interference from the planet’s surface itself. If a sketch is made of something that wasn’t really there but you believed it to be there at the time, can you call the result abstract art I wonder? I guess so.

I concur.

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We just got back from a really fine week at Methwold Old Vicarage, a wonderful Landmark Trust property. The house dates to 1490-1510, and is quite beautiful inside and out. For an American like me, the idea of sleeping in a house constructed in the time of Columbus’s voyage is just too amazing.

The brick front is a veritable sampler of ornate brickwork from the period and remains a real show piece. There are gorgeous carved beams inside, and cool remnants of late 16th century wall paintings in the main bedroom upstairs that are museum quality. And we slept in that bedroom.

Wow.

We’re totally hooked, and definitely planning another Landmark Trust stay before we return to the States this summer!

I have an utter ton of photos. I’ll be posting some to my “main” Flickr account as I have time process them, and I’m also dumping a bunch of unedited shots to my events account. The shot above is a panorama constructed from six different photos of the house. The brick front faces almost due north, so it’s difficult to get any good light on it. This is in the late evening when the sun had almost swung far enough around.

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A mentioned earlier, our friend Jane stayed in Peake’s House, a wonderful old Landmark Trust property here in Colchester. This photo is Jane, Sub-Evil Boy and WeatherGirl as they walk towards Peake’s House (the half-timbered building on the left) in the evening.

We were so inspired by that great house, and the wonderful collection of properties being preserved (and made available) by the Landmark Trust that we promptly booked a stay in one during Sub-Evil Boy’s term break. So soon we’re off to Methwold Old Vicarage, which should be really fun. Between that and some looming deadlines, though, not much on-line time for a week or so. Just thought I’d warn you.

Back soon, though!

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We just finished two consecutive day trips to London (Friday and yesterday) and I’m thoroughly tired, and full of undigested photos. This fellow, one of the few I have processed, is from the Egyptian mummification exhibit at the British Museum (Rooms 62 and 63).

On Friday we started down in Greenwich. It was our first time through the Docklands on the DLR — it would be nice to walk those canals and take photos — and our first time to the Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian. I wish we’d had more time there - it was a beautiful day and there was a ton of cool stuff one could see. Time was tight, though, so we zoomed off to the British Museum before rush hour hit, and spent the rest of the evening there.

While WeatherGirl wandered the museum, however, Sub-Evil and I snuck off and bought tickets for Avenue Q at the Noël Coward Theatre for the following night. He’s been keen to see that ever sense we got here, and it was nice to finally make that happen, but it did mean two consecutive days into London, which is frankly pretty tiring.

Yesterday Sub-Evil and I started at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology on the UCL campus. Sub-Evil is very into Egyptian history, writing, artifacts, etc., so he really wanted to see this. It’s a very cool collection, but pretty desperately in need of a new home, with the collection crammed into old victorian cabinets and spilling down an emergency exit staircase! Next was the British Library, which was just tremendous! The King’s Library alone was worth the (free) price of admission, and the display of the treasures (Magna Carta, illuminated manuscripts, handwritten scores, drafts, diaries, and letters by amazing folks) was really wonderful.

After all that we grabbed some dinner and then headed off to Avenue Q! We both had listened to the soundtrack about a zillion times, so there weren’t a lot of surprises. The production was tons of fun, however, and watching the puppet masters sing, dance, act, and run the puppets at the same time reminded me of the line about Ginger Rogers doing everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels :-).

Now we pack and organize, for tomorrow we’re off to Methwold Old Vicarage for our first stay in a Landmark Trust property!

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Our friend Jenny Nellis had a really nasty fall recently, and Jess Larson suggested we send her a happy photo or two. I thought a few shots of WeatherGirl and Jess when we were at the Tate Modern might help :-).

The photo above is the two of them being silly and fun with their hard sweets. The one below is WeatherGirl (on the right) photographing her bare foot with Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo, while Jess is photographing WeatherGirl. We had way too much fun with Shibboleth, which is a wonderfully experiential piece of sculpture, and took a gazillion photos. As you can see, WeatherGirl even took her shoes off in the name of art :-).

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Every science nerd hopes to get something named after them, with the mostly likely candidates being small invertebrates or small celestial bodies as there are lots of both still without names.

As further proof of how cool PeeZed is, he just got an asteroid named after him! The little rock formally known as 153298 is now “paulmyers”, which is certainly easier to remember for the test. Visit MPR for an interview.

(The asteroid in the photo isn’t “paulmyers”; it’s a photo of the Toutatis asteroid from JPL.)

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Just did a pile o’ dishes and listened to a SciAm podcast featuring the remarks of Robert Rosner (head of Argonne National Laboratory). The short version is that science (and, I would argue, education in general) is a matter of necessity plus vision. First, science is not a luxury, but instead a necessity:

Without the science base, you cannot build an industrial base.

Second, science requires long term vision and public and private support in in basic research. It typically takes decades for culture changing technologies to move from the basic idea to ubiquity; Rosen gives as examples railroads, airplanes, transistors, computers, the internet, and lasers. The question then is

How do you convince the politics and the public that that lag in fact is real and that if you don’t make the investments … today … we’ll be lagging things that other folks that are making the investments

Rosen is (quite reasonably) focussed specifically on the question of support for science, but points out that this is part of a larger trend of irrationality in the U.S.:

But we all know that in the United States there are long traditions of anti-intellectualism, of what the Times today also refer to as anti-rationalism, the idea that there really are no facts, it’s all opinion, the idea that scientists [are] just playing their sand box and don’t connect with anybody.

What it really comes down to is a distressingly common failure for Americans to see any form of education (science or humanities, K12 or university) as a necessary investment in the strength and future of our society and country. For me this has become a useful litmus test to separate sensible conservatives (who understand the economic necessity of investment in key areas) from the wingnuts that have come to dominate the Republican party (who spout anti-intellectual nonsense while shredding schools and lining the pockets of themselves and their friends).

Eisenhower understood the practical necessity of an interstate road system, and encouraged and supported that investment. All Shrub can seem to invest in is Halliburton and their ilk.

Things to think (and ask) about in this happy election season.

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Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Damn :-)

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On Friday after the EvoStar/EuroGP events wrapped up, Bill (Langdon), Riccardo (Poli), Tyler (Hutchison), and I spent a couple of hours being tourists in Naples, starting at Castel dell’Ovo ("Egg Castle"). This castle sits on a little island just off the shore right in front of our hotel and the conference center, so we saw it the whole time we were there. Most of our time there was gray, and often wet, but happily Friday afternoon turned clear and blue (if blustery). So we walked over to the castle and wandered about chatting and admiring the many views.

Here we have Tyler and Bill being blown about a bit, with Vesuvius dimly visible across the bay in the background. I love what the wind’s done to Tyler’s hair and Bill’s clothes :-).

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