Things Really were Different Back Then

Show most people in my generation the pics below and they will tell you what album this is from a distance with ease (well, the cool kids from my generation anyway!).

At the risk of sounding like an old nostalgic, obsolete guy who just doesn't 'get it', let me tell you about a huge difference in experiencing music that my kids have with what I experienced when I was their age:

They get a music recommendation from a friend; they open another tab on their device and bring up a song or video or whatever; they listen while multitasking; they like it; they branch out and find other similar songs.  Cool.  Very cool - it's all there, just a click away.  Easily accessible and always available. 

When I was maybe 13 or 14, one of my friends (sorry guys, I can't remember which one of you!) introduced me to Pink Floyd.  The next time I was at The Mall, I bought the album below:

The paper insert was inside the shrink wrap because the album was only identified in tiny letters on the spine

I went into my room, closed the door, peeled off the shrink wrap and the record was revealed as a double album.  With art.  With artistically crafted lyric sheets.  I felt like I had just won the lottery.  I put the first album on and played the entire double album through in one sitting, alone, in my semi-dark bedroom reading the lyric sheets over and over.  It was intense.  It was cathartic.  It was enlightening.  It was like going to concert with no crowds to bother me.  It was like watching a movie, reading a book, and listening to great songs all at once.  

I'm not saying instant, easy access has ruined The Experience.  But I am saying it was different.

P.S. Yes, I still have most of my teenage records but no longer have a record player.  My kids will have to deal with those records after I'm dead because even if I never use them again there is no way in hell I'm parting with them!  (for the record (see what I did there?), my collection includes two Bob Dylan albums (Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited) from my father who carefully pulled them out of the bottom of a drawer when I was sixteen and handed them to me in a way that let me know they were sacred.  Don't worry, Dad - they're still safe!

Dreams within Dreams

Generally, I don't put too much stock into dreams or dream interpretations.  Not that I don't find it interesting, I just think some put a bit too much faith into those neural firings getting stirred up by your brain deciding which short term memories to jettison from your day and which ones to lay down as permanent memories.

A lot of my dreams are so quotidian that, if I remember them, I think they are simply memories of an actual day's event.  One time (years ago) I dreamed I was exploring the edge of the school property and there was a gate with a lock on it in front of a path that was a short-cut to my house.  After several weeks of avoiding that particular path, I went to check out the path to see if someone had removed the lock.  Turns out there never was a gate, much less a lock. "Idiot!"*

Over the years, I've had a few lucid dreams but the only really long and intense ones were in my teenage years (which I think is a common experience).  If I start to have one these days I pretty much wake myself up right away and spoil it.

This vacation week I've been doing a lot of reading and a lot of movie watching.  So, unremarkably, I've had dreams in which I am reading and dreams in which I am watching movies.  Remarkably, I've had two lucid dreams this week involving these mundane activities.

Lucid Dream #1:  a few nights ago I was dreaming that I was reading a book.  I became somewhat self-aware and thought "Hmmm... I wonder if my brain would fill in actual text if I concentrate on the book".  So I did and I started to read a book in my dream that my brain was making up the plot and dialogue for.  It was some kind of murder mystery and the protagonist was starting a conversation with a housemate in order to get some clues as to whether they could be the murderer.  I got so excited by the fact that my mind was making up a story to read to itself in a dream that I was aware I was having that I woke myself up.

Lucid Dream #2: last night I had a dream that I was watching tv from my bed.  Not my actual bed of course, but some other bed in a house we had recently moved into that was suspiciously similar to my actual bedroom but different.  You know, dream world stuff.  Anyway, I realized I was dreaming and decided to actually watch the movie carefully to see what my brain made up.  The movie was getting crazier and crazier so when the protagonist was trying to run over the head of the evil biker gang sent to kill him with the motorcycle he stole by pushing one of the other gang members off of it (a sudden fog had descended to give him a fighting chance!) and the gang leader reacted by pulled out a gun and calmly shooting at him after declaring "I'd like to see you try" and then the protagonist turned into a werewolf as he was being shot on the stolen motorcycle as he was bearing straight onwards towards the gang leader... I woke myself up with the thought "this movie is ridiculous".  Hmmm...

For the record, no movies this week about motorcycle gangs or werewolves and none of the books have been murder mysteries.  I guess it's complicated up in the old KR noggin when the dream state descends...

Other people be like:  Chris Nolan films be, like, whack, dude.

Me:  Don't you have dreams just like his movies?

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* Recently showed the kids "Napoleon Dynamite" in case you couldn't tell.

Seeing Clearly from Afar and Knowing what to Look for

Every 'picture' you've seen of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, in its entirety is an artistic rendition.  It's as if you've never been able to look into a mirror.

Sure we recognize the faults or suspicious motivations in others pretty easily.  Harder though when it comes to ourselves or those that we have already accepted as trustworthy or righteous.  That's why it's so hard when our heroes fail us or are revealed to be all too human.  That's why it's hard to admit we're wrong.

In astronomy, we know less about our own galaxy, the Milky Way, than we do other galaxies.  This somewhat surprising result is simply because we can't see the entire Milky Way in detail because we live in the middle of it.  Other galaxies we can scan with surgical precision from afar and get a relatively unoccluded view.   In fact, a lot of our conclusions about our own galaxy are formulated by looking careful examination of similar galaxies and drawing some inferences.

Recently, I've been struggling with a student's name (NN).  Not uncommon for me but for whatever reason I've been struggling especially hard with this one (getting older seems to make it harder to change a firmly lodged wrong idea it seems (something about 'old dogs' and 'new tricks' ?)).  Anyway, I found myself covering for my embarrassment (or rather not admitting to myself that I was embarrassed) by making a light joke when NN calls me on the continuing mispronunciation ("Oh, I was mislead by your friends purposefully mispronouncing your name when I ask").  Just last week I realized that I was making excuses for myself and I quietly apologized to her for being so bad at something so basic.  So easy for me to recognize when a student blames everyone and everything but their own study habits for their lack of academic success, but it takes me so long to realize I am doing the same thing.

Just recently, astronomers have sighted the first solo black hole in our own galaxy:

We've known that they are there, but they are hard to see.  Unseen but not unknown. We first spotted them in other galaxies, of course.

First you have to know a thing exists.  Then you have to look for it elsewhere.  Finally, you will be able to see it within.  

Even when you know something exists and you can identify it, it is still hard to turn the lens so close to home, huh?

Literal Flexing

A day in the life...

Pictured below you will see my victory pose after describing how I was the only one in my high school physics class to get this 'bonus' problem correct (it's the classic 'slide a mass down a track through a loop-de-loop and determine the ratio of release height to radius of the loop' problem (2.5 is the answer for the record)).  After my rather lame brag, most of the class was busy rolling their eyes over their masks and hoping I would just move on, but after I did a little faux-flex, SX asked me to 'do it again' which I obliged, resulting in this pic:

Sure, my students could have a better physics teacher, but it is highly unlikely that they would get one who would so proudly faux flex with such pretend gusto...

After all of this, CC quietly remarks (mocking one of my common refrains in class), "Wait a second, if all student success comes from the physics teacher whereas the student failures are their own, shouldn't your high school physics teacher be flexing rather than you?"  Touché, CC. Well played indeed.

P.S. After looking at the board work in the pic, I realize that I told this entire story, flexing and all, BEFORE I even worked through the problem with them (the pictured problem is a different conservation of energy problem).