I can’t vote in this election

… but I’m interested in the outcome nevertheless.

John Scalzi: My Endorsement for President, 2016: Hillary Clinton.

“[L]ook at the 2016 election, in which a racist, sexist, ignorant boor of a straight white male, with no experience in public service and no policies he could personally articulate beyond “it’ll be great, believe me“ went up against a woman who spent the better part of four decades in and around public service, including occupying some of the highest positions in government, and who had exhaustive, detailed policy positions on nearly every point of public interest — and was ahead of her in some polls on the day they had their first debate.

If that tape in which Trump bragged about sexual assault hadn’t hit the air, the polls might yet still be close. It literally took “grab ’em by the pussy“ to get some air between arguably the most qualified candidate ever to run for president, who is a woman, and inarguably the worst major party presidential candidate in living memory, who is a straight, white man. I cannot know that fact and not be confronted by the immense and absolutely real privilege straight white men have — and just how much better a woman has to be to compete.”

Link via MetaFilter.

From a catastrophe to a new theory

Physics Girl: The Ultraviolet Catastrophe.

“How did the field of quantum mechanics come about in the first place? The Rayleigh-Jeans catastrophe, also known as the ultraviolet catastrophe was a prediction by the Rayleigh-Jeans law that a blackbody would radiate infinite amounts of ultraviolet light. It wasn’t until Max Planck came along and predicted that light came in packets or quanta that the field of quantum mechanics emerged and unintentionally solved the ultraviolet catastrophe.”

Wood Wide Web

Peter Wohlleben auf SWR4: Das geheime Leben der Bäume. (YouTube, knapp 18 Minuten)

“Bäume sprechen miteinander, sie haben ein kollektives Gedächtnis. Klingt unglaublich, ist aber wissenschaftlich belegt. SWR4 Redakteur Lars Michael Storm und Filmemacher Beat von Stein haben Förster Peter Wohlleben in seinem Wald getroffen.”

Das gleichnamige Buch habe ich vor einer Weile gelesen und fand es sehr informativ und interessant. Leseempfehlung!

Siehe auch Peter Wohlleben im Dialog mit Michael Krons am 08.11.2015 (YouTube, 35 Minuten).

Looking forward to three more books

Osten Ard: An Interview with Tad Williams, Part 1.

The other parts are here: part 2, part 3, part 4.

The interview was published a year and a half ago, but I just found it a few days ago and think I’ll have to re-read the Memory, Sorrow & Thorn trilogy before the sequel trilogy will be published in 2017.

Blast from the past: André and I went to see Tad Williams reading from his then-new book “Otherland 3 – Mountain of Black Glass” in October 2000 in Bonn, Germany.