May 2, 2008
Category: Ethics
Senator McCain thinks the effort to preserve our horticultural record and a potential treasure trove for medicinal science is a waste of money.
This morning, I went to Senator McCain’s town hall meeting at the Jewish Community Center in Denver. The Rocky Mountain News made it sound as if I was part of some sneaky infiltration:
"The mainstream media has basically given McCain a free ride so far by not asking him tough questions," wrote Michael Huttner, president of ProgressNow. "So it’s important for citizens to ask those questions ourselves."
The group became concerned, however, when the McCain campaign switched from an online reservation system to one that required people to RSVP by telephone.
Alan Franklin, a ProgressNow member, made reservations first online and then called to make sure he and his wife and a friend were on the list. [link and emphasis added]
Franklin discovered that the online system had been taken down. When he asked why, he said he was told there was a concern about "some group."
But, actually, I wasn’t there with "some group"--on the other hand, I went in as a swing voter. I honestly felt that I could go either way in this election. While I didn’t agree with all of his platform, I sort of liked McCain. He was moderate and charming. I’d heard Obama and Clinton each speak last summer, and while they were likable, they hadn’t necessarily won me over. I was keeping an open mind.
I’d seen McCain speak, once before, too. That was when he made such a charming impression on me. "Colorado, I’ve come for your water!" he declared as he came on stage. The crowd roared with an amused chorus of boos. Of course, that time, he spoke in between Ann Coulter and George W. Bush; most likely anyone would have sounded charming placed in between the Wicked Witch of the East and Mr. Nuk-yuh-ler.
So I was a bit tickled this morning when the senator from arid Arizona started off by joking about the water again. This time, he was a little more gracious. "Thank you for the water," he said, "thank you, thank you thank you." Then he complained that California had been stealing some. It was a good opener... it brought a good chuckle, and showed concern about preserving our precious liquid resources.
Then he blew it for me.
Read on »
Posted by Karmen at 4:36 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 26, 2008
Category: Poetry
So, here I am, with a huge backlog of things to post--science news and lab reports, fractal art, tips for green living--you know, the usual stuff. And, so, with all that ready to go, what do I do when I get my computer functioning? I write something else. I guess that’s not too unusual. Poetic inspiration comes when it does--the wise writer shouldn’t argue with it. Yet, it wasn’t the fluidity and ease of writing that surprised me--it was the topic.
"I don’t write stories about the war," I said on Monday. Five days later, I’m going over the third draft of a story about war. It’s a subject I usually don’t like to talk about. (But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been listening.) "It isn’t my issue," I answer when the war is brought up during those all-too-frequent political debates. "Sure, war is bad, but I’m not qualified to give advice. I choose my candidates based on their science policy, not their foreign policy." So I said.
Writing about the war made me realize something. It isn’t an isolated issue. None of these are. War is connected to resources, which are connected to our ecosystems and urban infrastructures, to our pollution and transportation systems, jobs and homes, to the choices we make or are allowed to make, to our right to choose our words and actions, to our liberties and our futures. Of course, that’s just skimming the surface. (I like the occasional superficial generalization of complexity--can you blame me? For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost, or so they say.)
So, the following poem is about that realization; it is my confession of attempted ignorance.
Read on »
Posted by Karmen at 1:03 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 20, 2008
Category: Fractals
For some of my friends, today is a holiday. So, to celebrate, here’s a fractal:
Fractal 420
(Click the image for a desktop sized version, or here for an alternate version.)
Note: If you’re wondering where I’ve been, or why this post is so brief, don’t worry. I’ve just been having some issues with my keyboard (it keeps typing the wrong things or jumping a "page up") which makes any writing a serious pain in the wrist. I’m going to try to clean my keyboard out with canned air later today, or, if all else fails, I’ll just buy a new one.
Fractal created by the author using ChaosPro.
Posted by Karmen at 4:20 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
April 11, 2008
Category: Fractals
What if you could escape this busy world, rise above the clouds, and see everything from a new perspective? From that astronauts-eye-view, you could see the greenhouse effect in action: Sunlight pouring in, some reflected off of clouds in the upper layers of the atmosphere, some filtering down below. The light that does manage to reach the earth is absorbed or reflected by the surface below. That reflected earth shine bounces off the clouds as well, in colors imperceptible to you or I. Would it be an alien sight? Colors we can’t see, our homes obstructed by that foggy greenhouse roof, with the only solidity in sight--the quiet moon--as cold and distant as ever. Would it change the way you felt about the Earth?
Would you wonder about the complexity of the patterns which make the world what it is? Would it seem like a fractal?
Top of the Atmosphere in Fractal Form
(Created using fractal Brownian motion and a 3-D sphere fractal)
Or a photograph?
Read on »
Posted by Karmen at 7:09 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 16, 2008
Category: Their Odd Creations
Now, this is the way we ought to be testing our children:
Questionaut: A Point-and-Click Quiz Adventure by Amanita Design and the BBC
One of the most talented names in the casual gaming business, Amanita Design, creators of the delightful Samorost series, have just teamed up with the BBC to come up with this absolute gem of a game. It’s so cute, you won’t realize it is supposed to be educational... that is until you find yourself completely stumped on a math* question.
The questions are aimed at 11-year-olds, but that may not keep you from scratching your head a few times. Even finding the questions can be a little tricky. The game begins with two friends lazily lounging on a tiny pastoral planet. As you click around and explore, you’ll set off little chain reactions. One of these will lead to one of the friend’s hat being blown away. The other friend promptly chases after it in his hot air balloon. Now, this is where you come in. The little aeronaut needs enough hot air to keep the balloon lifting. As he reaches new levels, he’ll find himself stuck in different environments. The only way to move on is to catch the attention of the local residents. Once they notice the little guy, they’ll start asking a series of questions in areas we ought to all know: geometry, physics, English, biology, and much more. If you answer correctly, they’ll give the balloon a lift.
As with other games by Amanita Design, the biggest drawback on this game is that it does not continue forever. Alas, I suppose all great games must end, someday. Luckily, since the game seems to have a fairly large pool of questions, it is worth playing through more than once.
To read more, check out Psychotronic’s review at JayIsGames.
*--Actually, for me, the worst came when I reached the grammar level. I may be able to write, but the standard "Laws of Language Arts" eludes me.
Posted by Karmen at 12:03 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 15, 2008
Category: Riding the Waves
Well, I’ve probably set a new record for myself--2 weeks without a post. As you might imagine, I’ve been a little busy lately. For some reason, midterms really snuck up on me and hit me hard this spring... suffering a head cold and an internet outage in the middle of it didn’t help much. Throw in the fact that I’m in the middle of redecorating my living room, and you’ll see that I’ve barely had time to sleep, let alone blog.
Not that I’ve had much exciting news to blog about--the highlight of my last week was sorting through my massive book collection, trying to pare it down to the point where they fit neatly on the bookshelves. The purged books are all now waiting to be packed up and given away, lining an entire wall of my bedroom. (They’re lined up cover-to-cover, stacked two layers deep... perhaps hundreds of books... I’m afraid to count.) So, sadly, this isn’t much of an update, so much as a preview of future posts.
My planned ponderosa post petered out... after missing the trip to the trees, I was hoping to at least summarize what the lab was about. The data analysis portion sounded quite interesting, and I was ready to get into it, but it turned out that the biology department hadn’t renewed their licenses on the software that does the statistics. We ended up just toying with the results in Excel, which only gave us a vague description of ponderosa growth rates. The only thing I could tell you for sure is that the height of a tree correlates with its width (big surprise) and that larger trees seem to have grown a little faster. All of our data regarding elevation and density ended up being pretty ambiguous. Since then, we’ve abandoned forest dynamics for praire dog population studies. I’m writing a report for that lab, which is turning out to be rather interesting. So, rather than ponderosas, I’ll soon be blogging about praire dogs instead. (That will also give me an excuse to use some of the many dogtown photos I’ve taken over the years.)
However, since the next two weeks are shaping up to be as busy as the last two, I might not get to it right away. Don’t worry; this time I’m trying to prepare. A friend of mine will be doing a short guest blog series here next week. Also, as spring begins to emerge here in the Rockies, my shutter-button finger is beginning to itch, so expect to see a little nature photography over the coming weeks. That won’t be the only art, of course... I have a few fractals waiting in the wings... I just need to find time to polish them up and hang them here.
Please, accept my apologies for this most recent absence and my thanks for your patience.
Posted by Karmen at 2:33 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 29, 2008
Category: Their Odd Creations
It is rather fun to have a birthday on February 29th. Today is my 8th birthday, which is pretty weird, considering my young son will have his 8th birthday later in the year. For him, it’ll be the same old birthday. For me, it’s, well, the same old birthday, but it only happens once every four years. Other leap babies, who are today turning 16 on their 4th birthday or 84 on their 21st birthday or just 4 on their 1st birthday, have their own opinions. For me, it is simply an excuse to post a themed collection of otherwise random links.
So... what’s the deal with Leap Day?
Read on »
Posted by Karmen at 1:15 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Fractals
Leap through Labor to Leap through Labor to Leap
Read on »
Posted by Karmen at 11:13 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 28, 2008
Category: Ecology
Oh, that fresh Rocky Mountain stream water... sparkling snowmelt, flowing from the ancient peaks to the broad plains, teeming with hermaphroditic fish. Hermaphroditic fish, you say? Like, fish with male parts and female parts, all in one? In our streams? Ok... well, maybe not everywhere... just downstream from where we use the bathroom.
Hormonal disruption seems to be in the news quite a bit lately. Endocrine disrupters have been found in our food containers, and by proxy, our food. Every once in a while, a report on these hormonal substances is highlighted in the mainstream media, stirring a little panic and raising many questions. This week, it was reported that intersexual trout were found in five different Rocky Mountain National Park lakes. It is becoming a well known fact: endocrine disrupters are in our water. But that fact just raises more questions: How high are the concentrations of these chemicals? How much is too much? Is there a safe amount of endocrine disrupters to have in your water supply? And, while we’re at it, just what are endocrine disrupters? Where do they come from? Finally, the one everyone wants to know: are they harmful to humans?
Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder has turned up some interesting answers to these questions over the years. As a student in the environmental studies program, I don’t need to wait for a slow news day to hear about the subject... this is one of the professors’s favorite studies to cite. A study on the reproductive systems of invertebrates in Boulder Creek revealed high levels of common endocrine disrupters alongside an unusually large number of female and intersexual fish, downstream from the municipal treatment plant.
I can’t blame my professors for liking this one.. what better way to get your students interested in the effects of pollution than to make it personal? "Your pee is making the fish turn female!" For students who strive to reduce, reuse, and recycle, this can come as sort of a shock. Now, before you start to snicker at the excess hormonal output of college students, you should realize this same situation is quite possibly happening downstream from your water treatment plant, too.
Today, I’m attending a guest lecture by Dr. Alan M. Vajda, one of the researchers who found anomalous intersexual fish in Boulder Creek. Here, I’ll be live-blogging the lecture, and sharing some of the images and data available on the Boulder Area Sustainability Information Network (BASIN) website. At the end, I’ll offer my own thoughts on some of the new questions being raised: Are these substances harmful to humans? To our ecosystems? Should we stop using products which contain these substances?
Read on »
Posted by Karmen at 7:57 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
February 20, 2008
A student in Colorado, looking for some sort of synthesis--the big picture, encompassing all the strangeness in the universe--but willing to settle for the philosophic or poetic lens.
