Equinox Round-Up
What I've been up to in the first quarter of 2025
Yesterday was the vernal equinox, the nominal start of Spring (for those of us in the northern hemisphere, anyway; welcome to winter, Antipodeans…). Which is as good an excuse as any to do a big round-up post collecting stuff from the past few months:
Me on Substack:
— Carry On, Red One, Gladiator 2: Brief reviews of three recent-ish movies.
— Just Play to Win the Game: Yelling at clouds about tanking for draft position.
— Everybody Is Wrong About the Structure of Science (Part 1): First of two responses to people being Wrong On The Internet, this one about the uses of historical physics.
— Everybody Is Wrong About the Structure of Science (part 2): As it says, the second piece, about over-generalization and academic publishing.
— Musicians, Geniuses, Detectives, Killers, and Aliens, Oh My!: A bunch of short pop-culture reviews.
— Are You Ready for Some Armored Rugby?: Thoughts about the NFL playoffs.
— Quantum Waves and Their Uses: Preliminary notes checking the feasibility of a workshop I agreed to do this summer.
— Request: Recommend Me Another Reacher: Pretty much what it says on the tin.
— Luka and AD and HR and Teenage Conversation Fodder: On my kid having Opinions about sports.
— Why Does the Card Fall?: Analysis of a classic physics demo.
— A Superbness of Owls: Thoughts on the Super Bowl
— How Do We Remove Scaffolding?: On the steady creep of formal structure up through the curriculum.
— Video Physics: Ping-Pong Ball Drop: Using high-speed video to study air resistance with spheres of different masses.
— This Week in Middlebrow Takes: Brief reviews of pop culture, including this year’s Best Picture winner.
— The Elided Theoretical: A recurring issue I have with people talking about a “crisis in physics.”
— Come Together: Brief review of an Oscar-bait movie that did not win Best Picture.
— Doctor Strangeclock: This year’s version of why I’m okay with Daylight Saving Time.
— Ave Atque Vale: A tribute to Kevin Drum.
— Five Years Gone: Looking back at the start of Covid.
— Scattered Thoughts on Physics and Philosophy: Pretty much what it says on the tin.
— On Current Events: Writing about the political developments I’ve spent the last several months trying very hard not to write about.
(I’m going to skip the traditional links-dump portion of these recaps, because I’m trying to limit my time at the keyboard on weekends…)
Pseudo-Random Photo of the Week:
We had a recent burst of spring-like weather, so I did a bit of photo hiking with my fancy camera, taking pictures of birds out in the woods. They have a real gift for keeping small branches between themselves and the camera lens, though, which can be frustrating. I’ve ended up following a bunch of wildlife photographers on Bluesky, and been jealous of their pictures, which generally don’t involve obscuring vegetation.
On reflection, a lot of those photos are clearly taken on or near backyard feeders, so I decided to start buying birdseed again, re-fill the squirrel-proof feeder in our back yard, and buy a new one for the front. This cardinal is on the new front feeder, shot through the bay window from the living room. The color could be better because he’s on the shaded side of the feeder while the background is bright and sunny, but as a proof-of-principle of the idea of getting birds out in the open, it’s great.
Pseudo-Random Song of the Week:
I’m slowly building up a list of albums to purchase in the near future, and this one was recommended by Steve Hyden, who’s one of the most reliable sources for this kind of thing. I like this song a good deal, and it’s pretty representative of the album as a whole.
So, yeah, that’s a bunch of stuff. If you’d like more of any of this, here’s a button:
And if you feel so moved, the comments will be open:
Welcome to *fall*, antipodeans....
They're 20 years old at this point, but I stumbled across We Are Scientists at a music festival in 2011, intrigued by the name. They are not, in fact, scientists, nor do they make music about science, but they are a good rock band. Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt is one of their early and biggest hits, from the album With Love and Squalor. They're still active as a duo.
Also something I stumbled on around that same time, The Spring Standards. More folky vocal harmonies. Unravel Unwind and The Hush are my favorites from Would Things Be Different, but the whole album is very good. Their EP, No One Will Know, is also in my rotation; Goodbye Midnight is a good showcase for what they do. I think they still get together for shows occasionally, but I don't think they're still recording.