An Approximation? Exactly!

Posted on 14 July 2023 by Isabel Gibson

Soon there will be nothing left of my education. Not because I’ve forgotten what I was taught, mind you, but exactly because of what I was taught. I’m thinking here of Rutherford’s model not being what an atom is actually like, and of the whole conspiracy to hide the key linguistic fact that the-French-qui-is-not-the-same-as-the-English-who.

“What now?” you sigh. “Pi,” I reply. OK. Let’s do this.

Pi, perhaps the first mathematical constant I ever heard of, is the ratio of any circle’s circumference to its diameter. Or as Sesame Street’s singing monsters might present it:

π = around/through

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Posted in Laughing Frequently, New Perspectives | Tagged , | 14 Comments

All the Way Down

Posted on 08 July 2023 by Isabel Gibson

“Turtles all the way down” is an expression
of the problem of infinite regress. – Wikipedia

Yeah, that’s definitely how I’d explain it: infinite regress.

Anyway, the week before last I was out on a blessedly finite errand and came across reflections all the way down.

The first layer is the building in front of me; the second layer (and first reflection) is the building in back of me; the third layer (and second reflection) is the reflection in front of me of the building in front of me in the building in back of me. Kinda fun.

As is the fun-house of optical distortions from angled reflections.

Thank goodness for errands, eh?

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Built Stuff | Tagged | 8 Comments

Whatzit Face

Posted on 08 July 2023 by Isabel Gibson

I walked past this guy in the Farm Boy parking lot (which phrase reminds me of a line in this great song) but had to double-back. What he lacks in beauty, he makes up for in startlement.

Or is it dismay? Alarm?

I don’t know: He wasn’t talking. Neither was the person who left him there, and that’s a shame because I had two questions:

  • Where’s he from?
  • Where did you learn that it’s OK to throw stuff on the ground?

 

Posted in Laughing Frequently, Photos of Faces | Tagged | 14 Comments

Your Place or Mine?

Posted on 08 July 2023 by Isabel Gibson

The spread of forest-fire smoke? No.

The price of dairy? Yes.

The spread of Saharan dust storms? No.

The power of police states? Yes. Well, sometimes. We’ll get to that.

What are we doing? Thinking about borders: what they matter to, what they don’t.

An anecdote I can’t now find online tells of some German (French?) intellectual in the 1930s who argued that national borders were passé, an outmoded way of thinking about the world, a hindrance to the true brotherhood of man . . . right until he crossed the border into Switzerland, a step and a prayer ahead of the SS after he ran afoul of the Nazi regime.

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Posted in New Perspectives, Thinking Broadly | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Loony Tunes and Others

Posted on 02 July 2023 by Isabel Gibson

Except for an internet outage at The Lake, this would have been posted on Canada Day. It was all done on Canada Day, and it’s hard to see how you could spend a more Canadian day than putting about on a Canadian Shield lake, observing loons from a respectful distance.

Loons ride low in the water. It’s lucky their heads are so distinctive or you might miss them altogether.

The regular view. Is that guy on the right treading water?

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Fauna, Through Canada | Tagged , | 8 Comments

An At-home Failure

Posted on 29 June 2023 by Isabel Gibson

That can’t be right.

She looks up from what she’s reading and looks around the studio for help. OK, I don’t know that: It’s a radio show. I’m inferring from her tone of voice.

The Elks haven’t won at home for 4 years?
That can’t be right.

But the help she wants–to restore meaning to the universe–is not forthcoming. Her incredulity, while understandable, is misplaced, as the sports guy on the phone makes clear.

The last time they won at home
was October 12, 2019.
It’s not *quite* 4 years.

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Posted in Feeling Clearly, New Perspectives | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Good Job, Buddy

Posted on 25 June 2023 by Isabel Gibson

Good job.

I have been distracting a bored and slightly whiny two-year-old as we stand in the line at the drugstore’s postal outlet. I gave her two letters to put through the mail slot, one at a time, and she held out her hand for a third. She can see I have something in my hands.

Sorry. This one needs a stamp.

I get that impassive look that the age specializes in–so much of the world makes no sense–and figure it’s time to change the conversation, so I compliment her on her handling of my mail.

Good job.

I hold up my thumb with my fingers curled into my palm and smile. She looks at me.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Day-to-Day Encounters, Language and Communication | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Who Shops Here, Anyway?

Posted on 24 June 2023 by Isabel Gibson

Can I help you find something?

Now that he has spoken, I look again at the presumed geezer on greeting/directional duty at the Home Depot entrance. He is, perhaps, less old than I. Sigh.

But I recover quickly (Experience tells: almost every worker I meet these days is less old than I) and enquire, brightly,

Garden centre?

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Posted in Day-to-Day Encounters, Laughing Frequently, Thinking Broadly | Tagged | 8 Comments

Fishbreath

Posted on 18 June 2023 by Isabel Gibson

os•prey (noun)

a large fish-eating bird of prey with long, narrow wings and a white underside and crown, found throughout the world

The definitions vary. Some offer all the nicknames (sea hawk, river hawk, fish hawk). Some feel the need to throw in the Latin name (Pandion haliaetus, from which we can see the likely origin of our word, halitosis, or “fish-breath”). Some choose to make the definition harder to read by adding more leading adjectives (a broad-winged, fish-eating, diurnal hawk). Some prefer a less-adorned approach (a large bird of prey that eats fish). And some go with leaving  that whole “bird of prey” thing unsaid, presumably because they trust *their* readers (Britannica types, don’t you know) to get that concept from the basic definition (a large bird that eats fish).

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Laughing Frequently, Photos of Fauna | Tagged | 8 Comments