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Welcome to our first ever salon discussion thread. Wander in, invite a friend along, and chat! Tangents, side conversations, and new topics totally allowed. (Not sure what's going on? Here, have a brief FAQ.)
Feel free to talk about anything: my topic of the day is just to get us started.
Topic of the day
I am currently part way into a book called My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs by Brian Switek (Amazon link for additional data).
Now, I liked dinosaurs a great deal as a kid (as many people do) and I am still fond of them (though maybe a tad more fascinated by prehistoric megafauna these days), but this book is only partly about dinosaurs. It's also hugely about "How do we know stuff?" and "How does the process of science work?" and "How do we deal with the fact that what we know changes all the time, and it contradicts stuff we used to know?"
(Hence the title: there is no such thing as a Brontosaurus, it turns out, even though - as Switek points out, if you do word frequency searches, it still appears just as frequently as Apatosaurus, the correct name. That's because - as he did, and I just did here - everyone ends up saying "Apatosaurus, you know, that dinosaur everyone thought was Brontosaurus" a whole lot. Which points out a whole lot of things about language and humans and communication, not just dinosaurs.)
Anyway. I do not have tons of examples from the book yet (see also 'part way in'), but here's my question; how do you deal with the ambiguity of knowledge? What stuff makes you want to go and learn more, and what feels overwhelming? Do you have any awesome stories about sharing stuff? And do you have any Ten Thousand moment stories? (The last is a reference to an XKCD cartoon.)
Music in the background: I've been listening to a bunch of Adiemus recently: I love how it plays with known (and mostly classical) musical forms, while experimenting with melody, instrumentation, vocal sounds, and harmony). If you have other stuff along this line, feel free to rec in comments!
In my mug: I adore a particular blend of herbal tisane from a place in St. Paul, MN, Tea Source. Specifically their Red Berries blend, which has apple, elderberries, currants, rosehip peels, blackberries, raspberries, flavoring, hibiscus, and sour cherry. It is very good iced, which means I make a large batch of it and stick it in the fridge regularly this time of year.
A few final notes
As noted, the basic thing here is 'leave the conversation better than you found it, or at least not worse'. The FAQ has more help if you need it (help with commenting, help with what I mean by that, etc.) We'll figure stuff out as we go!
Feel free to talk about anything: my topic of the day is just to get us started.
Topic of the day
I am currently part way into a book called My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs by Brian Switek (Amazon link for additional data).
Now, I liked dinosaurs a great deal as a kid (as many people do) and I am still fond of them (though maybe a tad more fascinated by prehistoric megafauna these days), but this book is only partly about dinosaurs. It's also hugely about "How do we know stuff?" and "How does the process of science work?" and "How do we deal with the fact that what we know changes all the time, and it contradicts stuff we used to know?"
(Hence the title: there is no such thing as a Brontosaurus, it turns out, even though - as Switek points out, if you do word frequency searches, it still appears just as frequently as Apatosaurus, the correct name. That's because - as he did, and I just did here - everyone ends up saying "Apatosaurus, you know, that dinosaur everyone thought was Brontosaurus" a whole lot. Which points out a whole lot of things about language and humans and communication, not just dinosaurs.)
Anyway. I do not have tons of examples from the book yet (see also 'part way in'), but here's my question; how do you deal with the ambiguity of knowledge? What stuff makes you want to go and learn more, and what feels overwhelming? Do you have any awesome stories about sharing stuff? And do you have any Ten Thousand moment stories? (The last is a reference to an XKCD cartoon.)
Music in the background: I've been listening to a bunch of Adiemus recently: I love how it plays with known (and mostly classical) musical forms, while experimenting with melody, instrumentation, vocal sounds, and harmony). If you have other stuff along this line, feel free to rec in comments!
In my mug: I adore a particular blend of herbal tisane from a place in St. Paul, MN, Tea Source. Specifically their Red Berries blend, which has apple, elderberries, currants, rosehip peels, blackberries, raspberries, flavoring, hibiscus, and sour cherry. It is very good iced, which means I make a large batch of it and stick it in the fridge regularly this time of year.
A few final notes
As noted, the basic thing here is 'leave the conversation better than you found it, or at least not worse'. The FAQ has more help if you need it (help with commenting, help with what I mean by that, etc.) We'll figure stuff out as we go!
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