It's Guy Fawkes night. Burn something innocent.
WORD COUNT: 8,098
No, I don't think so. What really IS innocent, anyway?
Besides, I expect the only people who remember what Guy Fawkes Day is are either British -- it's from there, you know -- or V For Vendetta or Alan Moore fans. You can look around for much more than I'm sharing here (I did a larger post last year on this spectacular celebration with fireworks and "Guys" burned in effigy; by the way, it's where we get the word guy -- and it's commemorating a failed attempt to blow up Parliament, of all things) but I know I've got to catch up on what the heck I've been doing. Finished two books last night that I've been reading, Terry Hall's How The Bible Became A Book (ISBN 0896935893, which is pretty much about what it says) and the collaboration among (important here, between is two, among is more than two) Bruce J. Hillman, Birgit Ertl-Wagner, and Bernd C. Wagner, The Man Who Stalked Einstein (ISBN 9781493010011, which may not be so obvious).
At the end I want to tell you that I hope that you will not think of me as an adversary of Einstein, as sometimes is stated. I am far from it, as this would be much too little. It would be too low a goal.
It is not a mystery. In a true story where truth is stranger than fiction, The Man Who Stalked Einstein is about the subtle and overt and lifelong rivalry, at least in one man's eyes, between himself and Albert Einstein. Now even non-scientists know who Einstein is, theory of relativity Einstein, photoelectric effect Einstein, Nobel Prize in physics winner Einstein, and not a bad violin player ... Philipp Lenard, though, is a different tack. Also a Nobel Prize in physics winner, but more practical in his pursuit of science than Einstein ever was, and once he felt slighted never forgot it. First Roentgen who he felt unduly got credit for X-rays (and a Nobel Prize), and from there such pettiness got picked up by the Nazis who worked with that -- oh, did I mention the bulk of this takes place in late 19th/early 20th century Germany? -- and Lenard became one of the Hitler regime's top scientists. Pitting "German science" against "Jew science", practical against theoretical, apples against oranges.
You invited her? She's a person, not a thing.
Hey.
What. What are you going to say? "Don't talk about her that way?" I'm stating a fact. She's not even alive!
But what does "alive" even mean?
Also I found the third volume containing issues eleven through fifteen of Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn's Alex + Ada (ISBN 9781632154040), a story which deals with near-future humans and robots becoming sentient and not everyone's happy about that. But are they ever? Back in my own world (I guess that's my OWN own world, when I'm not reading), Tuesday night after work I got to Christ Lutheran where our area Scout troops are meeting the first two Tuesdays of the month, and I forgot to bring the materials a den leader (CO-den leader) should have. Fortunately another Scout had brought his Bear Handbook so we reviewed the requirements for earning their Fellowship and Duty to God belt loop -- there's seven a Scout has to earn to become a Bear -- and played some musical chairs and I came out not feeling like a complete idiot. Jeffrey and I were there and waiting with another Scout until his ride got there and we picked up Sarah, then got home.
Wednesday got the kids to school, went to work, got home and Martha had bought up all Totino's pizzas, the ones I used to complain about being cardboard but not anymore. And when I make my own pizza it's deluged with pepperoni; works for me. This morning came our first light snowfall of the season; I say light because it's pretty much melting as fast as it hits the ground, but it's still overcast. Tonight all the popcorn brochures from Scouts need to be in so the popcorn people have ordered can actually be ordered, and after I pick up the kids -- Martha's at league bowling now for the third week in a row -- we'll get home to chicken drumsticks in barbecue sauce which I've had in a crock pot all day! Melts off the bones, melts in your mouth, this will be FAN-tastic! Meanwhile here at work today I've got a salad to chow down on for lunch. But when my wife Martha went grocery shopping last night she did get me some bleu cheese dressing she knows I love, so I won't complain.
I'm no Lenard, David
No, I don't think so. What really IS innocent, anyway?
Besides, I expect the only people who remember what Guy Fawkes Day is are either British -- it's from there, you know -- or V For Vendetta or Alan Moore fans. You can look around for much more than I'm sharing here (I did a larger post last year on this spectacular celebration with fireworks and "Guys" burned in effigy; by the way, it's where we get the word guy -- and it's commemorating a failed attempt to blow up Parliament, of all things) but I know I've got to catch up on what the heck I've been doing. Finished two books last night that I've been reading, Terry Hall's How The Bible Became A Book (ISBN 0896935893, which is pretty much about what it says) and the collaboration among (important here, between is two, among is more than two) Bruce J. Hillman, Birgit Ertl-Wagner, and Bernd C. Wagner, The Man Who Stalked Einstein (ISBN 9781493010011, which may not be so obvious).
At the end I want to tell you that I hope that you will not think of me as an adversary of Einstein, as sometimes is stated. I am far from it, as this would be much too little. It would be too low a goal.
It is not a mystery. In a true story where truth is stranger than fiction, The Man Who Stalked Einstein is about the subtle and overt and lifelong rivalry, at least in one man's eyes, between himself and Albert Einstein. Now even non-scientists know who Einstein is, theory of relativity Einstein, photoelectric effect Einstein, Nobel Prize in physics winner Einstein, and not a bad violin player ... Philipp Lenard, though, is a different tack. Also a Nobel Prize in physics winner, but more practical in his pursuit of science than Einstein ever was, and once he felt slighted never forgot it. First Roentgen who he felt unduly got credit for X-rays (and a Nobel Prize), and from there such pettiness got picked up by the Nazis who worked with that -- oh, did I mention the bulk of this takes place in late 19th/early 20th century Germany? -- and Lenard became one of the Hitler regime's top scientists. Pitting "German science" against "Jew science", practical against theoretical, apples against oranges.
You invited her? She's a person, not a thing.
Hey.
What. What are you going to say? "Don't talk about her that way?" I'm stating a fact. She's not even alive!
But what does "alive" even mean?
Also I found the third volume containing issues eleven through fifteen of Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn's Alex + Ada (ISBN 9781632154040), a story which deals with near-future humans and robots becoming sentient and not everyone's happy about that. But are they ever? Back in my own world (I guess that's my OWN own world, when I'm not reading), Tuesday night after work I got to Christ Lutheran where our area Scout troops are meeting the first two Tuesdays of the month, and I forgot to bring the materials a den leader (CO-den leader) should have. Fortunately another Scout had brought his Bear Handbook so we reviewed the requirements for earning their Fellowship and Duty to God belt loop -- there's seven a Scout has to earn to become a Bear -- and played some musical chairs and I came out not feeling like a complete idiot. Jeffrey and I were there and waiting with another Scout until his ride got there and we picked up Sarah, then got home.
Wednesday got the kids to school, went to work, got home and Martha had bought up all Totino's pizzas, the ones I used to complain about being cardboard but not anymore. And when I make my own pizza it's deluged with pepperoni; works for me. This morning came our first light snowfall of the season; I say light because it's pretty much melting as fast as it hits the ground, but it's still overcast. Tonight all the popcorn brochures from Scouts need to be in so the popcorn people have ordered can actually be ordered, and after I pick up the kids -- Martha's at league bowling now for the third week in a row -- we'll get home to chicken drumsticks in barbecue sauce which I've had in a crock pot all day! Melts off the bones, melts in your mouth, this will be FAN-tastic! Meanwhile here at work today I've got a salad to chow down on for lunch. But when my wife Martha went grocery shopping last night she did get me some bleu cheese dressing she knows I love, so I won't complain.
I'm no Lenard, David
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