How to lose a nuclear weapon

Over the course of the Cold War, the United States lost nuclear materials and weapons all. the. time. There’s even a term that refers to the loss of a nuclear weapon: “Broken Arrow.” How, you might ask while you’re sipping your scalding morning coffee, does anyone lose something so important? Well, chances are, that you’d […]

Do you know about the nuclear exercise “Snowball” or Снежок?

In the days after, Soviet scientists’ reports detailed the impact of the nuclear blast on everything: vegetation, animals, shelters, vehicles, houses. And a small part on human lives.

Sunday Showcase: Whistler’s “Nocturne: Blue and Gold…” is melodious and harmonious

Since when does aesthetic consideration take precedence over realistic observations? Well, since Whistler. He painted the commonplace with mood, color, and form.

Oak Ridge’s radioactive mist

Swim naked in the local lake with Oak Ridge native Megan Fox, the mist caressing both of their faces would be radioactive.

Yeltsin’s close nuclear call

It’s January 25, 1995 and you’re President Boris Yeltsin activating the “nuclear briefcase”.

The tragic actor departs: a poem paired with oil paintings

And they are right, I think.
We all hate home
And having to be there.

Carl Sagan on the dumbing down of America and how science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time.

Temptations while rich

Don’t brag about morals until you have money to fund your temptations.

Billy Collins on the arbitrary distinction between revision and writing

And when I revise, I’m writing, aren’t I?

Billy Collins on how no man is lonely while eating spaghetti

This time, I was at a corner table at Pasta Vivace!
on that side street next to the old music store.

What does surveillance look like?

When everyone is watched, every behavior becomes dangerous.

Sip your coffee and open the door to “Beer Mode”

Beer mode is a state of unfocused play where you discover new ideas. In contrast, coffee mode is a state of focus where you work towards a specific outcome.

The Great Silence, The Fermi Paradox

It’s an entirely new situation, emerging from the physical possibilities that will face any species that can overcome the natural interstellar quarantine of its solar system.

Carry on: an epitaph to a bag

Epitaph to a bag with a face.

Pulitzer Prize winners Will and Ariel Durant on the lessons of history

The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it.

Pythagoras and Hepatia

Pythagoras vs. beans and Hepatia vs oyster shells.

Hotter than ever

Is it hot in here or is there another wildfire? Links to articles about wildfires, climate change, environmental alarmism, and cattle.

Weeklinks – Edition 3

This week’s links on creativity, social media, distractions, tips on writing and drawing, art, Lady Lilith, and Max Ernst. PLUS! Unusual inspiration for unusual times.

Weeklinks – Edition 2

This week’s links on the secret wanderings of 900 cats, saving like a pessimist, observing the toxic clouds from fire and rockets, and plants!

Sunday Showcase: Expansion by Paige Bradley

The Sunday Showcase, not to be confused with “The Sunday Scaries”, literally zooms in on a piece of artwork and shares videos and/or quotes from the artist.

Weeklinks – Edition 1

This week’s links on the causal relationship between Vitamin D + COVID-19, the vaccine-autism myth,+ PBA cards!

Happy Birthday Lou Doillon

Life is a very challenging project.

Merriam-Webster’s Words of the Day Quiz for August

11 new words, brought to you by Merriam-Webster

Harvest

It’s harvest and I ask for more time without pressure.

Vespers (End of August)

And some things have the nerve to be getting started…

To be a scientist is to be naive

What is the cost of lies?

Yordi As Seen By Yordi: #1 in an interview series

This is the first “interview” (it’s very short, only a few quotes from each conversation) with friends and family members who are Deaf. My 25 year-old brother, Yordi, is using photography as a way to escape from his three other roommates, not counting the kitten and the Dalmatian, all of which are Deaf, except for […]

What I love is blue

What I love about you is blue.

Weather to vaccinate, or not.

Whether the weather weathers the whether.

The Marriage of Romeo & Juliet by Death (1967-1975) by Salvador Dali

Daniel Coyle on The Talent Code: Greatness isn’t born, it’s grown.

Skill is insulation that wraps neural circuits in reponses to certain signals.

The Great Mathematician Paul Erdős on Possessions and Coffee

Between scientific conferences, universities, and the homes of colleagues all over the world.

Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic

Now hear the sailors cry

The only difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist – Salvador Dalí

The Temptation of St. Anthony (detail), 1946 Oil on Canvas, 89.5 x 119.5 cm (35 1/4 x 47 in.) Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique

Henry Miller on the mystery of attention

Indescribably magnificent

What Charles Bukowski didn’t say

Charles Bukowski didn’t say you should find what you love and let it kill you.

Daniel J. Levitin on Organization: Chapter 1

Categorize to save yourself.

If you inherently long

Become it first.

All of Life is Practice

All of life is practice.

August 29 News Download: Pacific Light Undersea Cable

A data pitstop on the way to China.

Don Draper’s Brand

Change the conversation and you control the brand.

Fear and Circumstance in Las Vegas

I came home to a cat, her white paws delicately dancing past the typewriter, mine. Tucked inside the typewriter was a sheet, long dead, with the words I wrote by hand: “Place yourself in circumstances of want, and ask yourself, “is this what I fear?”

Wages in Cuba and a quote from my former Professor of Latin American Politics

Cuba announces increase in wages as part of economic reform by Associated Press Thursday, June 27th 2019 The beginning: “Every Cuban has the right to a salary increase,” said Dariel Tejeda, a 28-year-old tour guide. “The country and all the state workers have needed this for a long time.” and the end: Ending the dual-currency […]

The Gallery Inn

San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Frame control on why gun control is political in the U.S.A

You were on your own.

I’ve decided on Tolstoy’s Decision Making Matrix

You’re never at the beginning of some event.

How do the Chinese get calcium when they barely eat dairy?

What to eat after giving birth. Oh, and also your calcium intake.

I’m alright. Sometimes I’m wrong.

Why didn’t I learn this number, earlier? Why do I still know nothing about anything?

Nuclear incidents in the 1950s

Excerpts below from the Nuclear Files Org. Update on 4/27/2021: inexplicably, this link is broken. I can access other decades, but for some reason I cannot pull the file on nuclear accidents in the 1950s from the archived nuclearfiles.org 13 February 1950U.S.A., Pacific Ocean- A B-36 which developed serious mechanical difficulties on a simulated combat […]

Soviet Spy Klaus Fuchs

…not until 1949 that decrypted cables from the United States Army Signal Intelligence Service (SIS)’s “Venona” project revealed Fuchs was a Soviet spy.