chaoticutopia
Posts by this author
January 13, 2008
Something about climate change makes people want to argue. Take Greenland, for instance. A few weeks ago, I posted a photo essay about the recent acceleration of melting in the Greenland Ice Sheet. Not only is the entry is still getting comments, but it also spurred a discussion on a political…
January 10, 2008
Citizens of Colorado seem to enjoy pointing out the fortuitous nature of the state’s climate. "Don’t like the weather?" they say, "don’t worry, it’ll soon change." If it is difficult to predict the weather on a day-to-day basis, how could anyone hope to predict the effects of climate change in the…
January 9, 2008
The snow looks like couscous:
That is all.
January 8, 2008
For those who know my blog well, you might think this is going to be another apology for a lack of posts. Surprise... it isn’t. No, honestly, I’m just pondering the nature of time and complexity again, or at least how it applies to this thing we call life. It seems like we’re obsessed with being on…
January 2, 2008
So, here we are, in another year. I found 2007 to be something of a wild ride, and I don’t have a very strong desire to look back and review the year. Then again, I don’t really care to make a bunch of predictions and promises about the coming year, either. I can say it will probably be a little…
December 28, 2007
It is nearly a magical sight to wake up to the gentle snowfall on Christmas morning. When the snow is still falling two days later, the magic starts to fade. Eventually, while poking at several inches of ice, buried beneath ten inches of snow, in hopes of finding your car, what was once magic soon…
December 23, 2007
Here’s wishing you the very best this holiday season, with a fractal Christmas tree:
Now, wait.... shouldn’t the lights on the tree be blinking?
Merry Christmas!
Update: A few people have expressed interest in decorating their own pages with this tree. (It certainly is easy to put up!) For ease…
December 20, 2007
I’m beginning to think I should have been born a bear. I keep fighting the urge to hibernate. It must be seasonal effective disorder. I’d always attributed the stress I get this time of year to holiday plans and cramming for finals--you know, poor timing. This year, in hopes of curing those winter…
December 12, 2007
Are you looking to tell someone to "adapt" this Christmas? Or perhaps you’ve been seeking the perfect gift for the nerd in your life, one that merges science and art. In either case, you’re in luck.
The Chaotic Utopia Curio Shop has just opened, after much anticipation. Just in time for the…
December 12, 2007
Oh, the hustle and bustle of the holidays... Here, I was psyched and ready to go: prepared for finals, term papers either written or outlined, Christmas shopping done, baking ingredients bought... and what happens? I get sick, naturally. So, instead of writing and responding to comments, I’ve spent…
December 7, 2007
Is it just me, or are the holidays getting more and more high tech and environmentally friendly? Maybe it is me. I haven’t used real pine to decorate for the holidays in years. There may be some bits among the potpourri in the centerpiece, but just about everything else has been replaced with paper…
December 4, 2007
The winds are blowing off of the Rockies, hitting the Front Range with brute force. The winds make walking around campus either fun or near impossible, and shake my townhome with enough force to rattle the ornaments on the mantel. The odd thing about the winds is the warmth.... it isn’t the…
December 3, 2007
Roots Camp turned out to be pretty fun; I enjoyed talking to people about the causes and effects of climate change, and showing them how to defend the science when dealing with denialists. (A link to the presentation can be found at the end of this post.) Over a dozen people showed up in the…
December 1, 2007
Some time ago, I gave instructions for making your own paper fractal. I’ve decided to do another today. This time, instead of ending up with a crumpled paper ball, you’ll have a design worthy of becoming a holiday decoration.
Remember those old paper snowflakes that we would cut as children? We’re…
December 1, 2007
I've been trying to find a snowflake to photograph for this week's fractal, but our skies are clear. Maybe this is it:
Via Kevin & Kell by Bill Holbrook.
December 1, 2007
If you’re in the Denver area this weekend, with nothing better to do, then come check out the Rocky Mountain Roots Camp. I'll be giving a presentation on climate change and defending predictive science today at 1:30 pm in the chapel room of the First Unitarian Church in Denver (at 14th &…
November 27, 2007
I last left this blog on an ambiguous note. Followed by another unannounced absence, this might have seemed strangely ironic. It was for me--that post was written the day before my Thanksgiving break, and I had absolutely nothing planned--except to write. That, as you might have guessed, is exactly…
November 18, 2007
Sorry for the delay, folks... I’ve been bogged down with homework this past week, and now have a sick kid on my hands. So, the Friday Fractal was bumped to Saturday, and then Sunday. I’ve said it before; I ought to just call these the "Weekend Fractals".
When two people see the same thing, do they…
November 15, 2007
Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to bite off more than you could chew? Apparently, such behavior is appropriate among some species. Even so, it isn’t necessarily healthy, as this case shows:
A fish whose eyes are bigger than its stomach meets an untimely demise.
Dead fish floating on the…
November 11, 2007
I wrote this one over a year ago. I wasn’t weirding out about educational choices, as I described in a recent post, but aging. Even though the circumstances are different, however, I’m still in a similar mindset. So, while terms like "yesterday" and "this week" are irrelevant here, I think it will…
November 10, 2007
Speaking of unpredictable climate changes, there was always that surprising storm on Jupiter that started brewing last year (and still blows strongly.) I figured now would be as good a time as any to repost the fractal I made in tribute. (This works out especially well, as I didn’t have anything…
November 10, 2007
All these sets of knowledge were laid out before me, like packages tied in brightly colored papers and curling ribbons, each as enticing as the last. These weren’t just ideas, like the pictures on the pages of catalogs, but complete structures; laws and theories and all the understandings that led…
November 10, 2007
It’s been quiet around here, lately... partially, I’ve just been too busy to post, but it would be inaccurate to say I haven’t had any free time. On the other hand, I’ve been lost in deep thought, trying to understand the path I’m on... what I’m studying in school, both the content of my current…
November 3, 2007
It’s time to set clocks back an hour again, if you are in an area that practices daylight savings time. I sometimes wish we didn’t use it here in Colorado; it always manages to confuse my schedule somehow. At any rate, I figured I’d honor the turning of the wheel of time, and the changing seasons…
October 31, 2007
...or, what happens when pagans skip biology class:
Happy Halloween!
Comic by Shivian Montar Balaris at Oh My Gods
October 30, 2007
Lately, I've been pondering our use of models to predict the future conditions of our planet. However, it is also nearly Halloween. Together, it seems like a good time to pull out this old post of mine, which asks if a deck of Tarot cards can be a useful tool for modeling a person's life.
Don't…
October 29, 2007
Shelley tagged me for this one some time ago, but it was poorly timed. But with Halloween just around the corner, what better time could there for morbid quizzes?
$3675.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.
So, there you have it... my corpse is worth over three and a…
October 27, 2007
It’s getting to be that time of year again, when I pull the severed heads and oversized rats from the crawlspace... a time to deck the halls with ultraviolet, spider webs and witches brooms. My passion for the night of fright even bleeds into my blogging. For instance, there’s the fractal in my…
October 24, 2007
Last week, I discussed the difficulty of creating a perfect model of our environment. Once, I toyed around with the idea of a perfect simulation... wouldn’t it be indistinguishable from reality? What if we created the perfect model--and it turned out to actually be reality? As advanced as our…
October 20, 2007
After questioning how easily we might create useful models of our environment the other day, I started to wonder if I could even mimic our planet with a fractal. I’ve played around with spherical fractals in the past, for instance, my Paper Ball and my Harvest Moon. As with most of my fractals, I…