Sunflowers 72

 It's above freezing to start the day, and that's not bad, although the local forecast is still for a decidedly wintery turn tomorrow. Yesterday, doing necessary things, driving here and there, I had no problems. Traffic, yes, but generally sane. Maybe the 20 to 30 somethings were hiding in their parent's basements. Who knows? I neither know nor care. What thrills me, is that the Webb telescope has reached its L2 point with minimum fuel expenditure. It should be good for 20 years of amazing discoveries. I'm old (and my feet are cold-- I wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled) but I suppose I'll live long enough to learn at least a little. Also interesting to find that string theory is finding a bit of validation, although it's a stretch (ha ha)-- more of a logical consistency thing but better than nothing. If someone could find a way to drag it out of AdS space and into our actual geometry, that would be significant. Failing that, it would be remarkable to discover that we actually do inhabit an AdS geometry!! Could an infinitesimal region within an infinite AdS geometry look and act like the spacetime we know and love? The whole thing is way beyond my pay grade, but it's still fascinating. And in a day or two the US will have exceeded 870,000 Covid deaths. Eric Clapton should have a brain that works as well as his fingers...

I continue to hunker down. I like hunkering down; living with the animals, and all that. 

Sunflowers 71

 Well, well, well, this is set to be an even nicer day than yesterday, although it starts to go a bit downhill tomorrow. So today I'll do what I need to do and prepare to be shut in for a couple of days. As usual I will need to take extreme care driving. 

Of course, even today, it won't be warm enough to suit me, but that's winter for you. And our drought continues!

Sunflowers 70

 I took my usual Sunday morning drive and thought I would not see any hurrying half-wits, no pod people behind the wheel, but no, there were quite a number, actually. On a Sunday morning?? What's to hurry for? What is there to hurry to?? Are the pod people incapable of relaxing? Do the pod people have no concept of leisure? It seems they do not. And I feel sorry for them. When I have a destination with a scheduled appointment time, I leave EARLY, and I find that I arrive in plenty of time, despite the fact that I've never exceeded a posted speed limit at any point, and have not run any lights. It could be that the pod people are chronically severely disorganized or distracted. I would recommend tossing the "smart" phone, but many feel they must have such a device and are in fact addicted to their devices. And I feel sorry for them. Of course, some people really do need such a device but I would reckon that they are smart enough to manage their time and do not have addictive personalities. I think most people are NOT smart enough to manage their time, prioritize, place things in perspective. And most people do seem to be easily addicted to this and that. How did that come about? I can't explain it. I can only deplore this state of affairs, and try my best to avoid the various traps people fall into.

Life has become very strange, because people seem to be getting strange. Stranger and stranger.

Social Media Addiction

Sunflowers 69

 The weather improves day by day. I took a little drive around town yesterday and noted again lots of speeders and rather frenzied driving on the part of what seemed to be 20 to 30 year old males. Don't people that age WORK anymore? They should have been on the job at that time of day, around 2 PM. It wasn't a holiday. Where the heck could they have been hurrying to? What were they even doing on the streets at that time? I sometimes have the feeling that I'm surrounded by pod people. Or perhaps it's a case of Attack of the Brain Eaters. You want to see a brain eater? Try Facebook. Or Twitter. Or maybe an iphone. The "i" is for idiot. Just my rather jaundiced and elitist opinion...

Math and science forever, man. Say, let's have a revolution! A SCIENTIFIC revolution!

Sunflowers 68

 Yes, yes, clear skies and plenty of sunshine on the way, with very little wind and temps will be back above freezing today. Time to thaw out a bit. Although it was 17 degrees F this morning, I was out before sunrise tending to the animals and it did not feel bad at all, unlike the last couple of days when wind chills were single digit. 

Over 860,000 Covid deaths in the US now.