On Vulnerability

Early last week on Twitter, some National Security Agency posters showed up, reminding NSA employees to watch what they said. @AnnFinkbeiner: Do NSA people really need that much reminding? They’re not reminded, they run around singing like birds? @father_kipz:  To be honest, humans are social animals and easy to hack. The constant reminders probably do […]

Home/Not-Home

I grew up near stands of what passes in northeast Illinois for old-growth forest.  The definition of “old-growth” is apparently a work in progress.  I take it to mean a forest that was there before a particular part of the country was cleared and settled, and in northeast Illinois that was pretty late, around the 1830’s.*  […]

Redux: The Problem with Good People

This first ran March 1, 2017. I recently had dinner with the woman in this post.  I wish I could have dinner with her every week — I can’t, she has too many other friends who also want to have dinner with her — because I want to study her, I want to see how […]

The Last Word

April 16-20 For much of the country, spring warmth is too long in coming this year. Much too long. But we are well past the equinox and the days are getting longer, and that means the running and buzzing and frolicking is under way. Some of the heightened activity means animals are getting busy, Ann […]

Redux: Oh Spring!

This first ran May 17, 2013. The running kids are thinking about college now and going to proms.  I don’t see them running any more, not in that way that looks like they’re powered by lighter-than-air energy sources.  That’s fine, they’re still astonishingly beautiful. And any racing around that needs to be done, the juiced-up […]

My March 2 Nor’easter

March 1, from the data-driven, unexcitable Capital Weather Gang: “On Friday and Saturday, a powerful storm will lash the Northeast with destructive coastal flooding, wind and heavy snow. It is shaping up to be the most destructive nor’easter of the season, perhaps the most destructive in decades for some along the coast. The National Weather Service is calling […]

Science Metaphors (cont.): Sub-Virial

A neighborhood kid, maybe 10 years old, doesn’t have the usual relationship with gravity.  I know it’s her even when I can’t see her clearly by the way she moves through space: even when she’s not running, just walking, she looks like she might re-connect with the earth but also she might not.  She reminds […]

Following the Fall Line

Winter’s here, maybe forever, and we’re having the usual Fall Line storms.  We have Fall Line storms in the summer too but winter’s are more dramatic.  Because Baltimore is perched right on the Fall Line, colder to the left, warmer to the right, our normal storm is snow, then ice, then rain, then ice, then […]