National Donut Day

It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And I'm sure we can all think of organizations and groups, and even individuals that have done terrible things with the best of intentions. On the other hand, I'm not sure where the road paved with donuts goes, but it isn't hell.

Building Books

Getting a book published can be difficult. It took years before J.K. Rowling found a publisher for her Harry Potter books. And many other authors have told stories of wallpapering rooms with their rejection slips. Down in Bakersfield the Writers of Kern writing group regularly starts meeting by asking who's been rejected since the last meeting. And I'm a member of “The Failure Club” on Facebook. This isn't to rub noses in our failures but to celebrate our attempts.

Twin Studies

When scientists want to understand something they will often use an experimental “unit” and a control “unit”. And when studying something if you have a second copy around then you can control for more kinds of factors. And when it comes to people identical twins are the closest you can get to a second copy.

Getting There

A few weeks ago I took part in an outing that took the MetroLink from Lancaster down into Downtown Los Angeles. On the weekend you can ride unlimited for $10. This includes not just MetroLink, but the other rail lines in the L.A. area. (It also includes some of the bus lines down there as well.) So you could ride from Lancaster to Oceanside then back again all for $10.

Pi Day

Mark your calendars! It is almost Pi Day! What is Pie Day you may ask? Well, it a bit of fun based on math. The number pi (the Greek letter π) is the ratio of the length around a circle (the perimeter) to the distance across (the diameter). So to calculate pi you just need to measure around the edge of a circle then divide by its width. The number you will get (depending on how well you measure) will be about 3.14. So just for fun people have started to call March 14th (3/14) Pi(e) day.

Colonel Allensworth

Having gone to school in Oklahoma I learned about the state's many “historically black towns”. At least that was what they were called when I went to school. There were many such towns in Oklahoma. And while some are still in existence, there are many that no longer exist. And sometimes the town names tell us about the people that lived there, names like Bookertee and Liberty.

Monoculture

Wikipedia says that monoculture is growing a single crop over wide regions. This provides advantages since the farmers can concentrate on developing techniques to maximize yields for only one crop. So they can develop machines that can efficiently harvest one type of fruit or grain. And crops can be developed that are specifically designed to do well in a specific area.