Nasty, Brutish and Short

Spotted in a Lincoln pharmacy. About five foot two:

Screw this flying car shit. I want scratch-and-sniff photography.

The Web is turning my brain to mush

Had an interesting, possibly pivotal experience today. I accompanied my sister on her morning commute, about 25 km out of town to Lincoln University. While there, I spent about ten minutes in the university library. I love book carts - snooping on whatever other people are reading never ceases to be entertaining.

Anyway, by just picking up books at random, I immediately gained insight into questions I'd had about a couple subjects - some things concerning Petri nets, and the effect of CO2 on radiation transport in the atmosphere. These issues are notable because I had specifically pursued them on the web with unsatisfactory results. Yet here they were, laid out very clearly in books I picked up by browsing through a completely unorganized pile.

I realized, much to my shame, that it has been nearly a decade since I spent any time in a university library. The Web is too seductive - it's all information candy, in contrast to the solid, um, fiber of a real bookshelf. Apparently the good stuff doesn't come easily or for free, and I've lost sight of that fact in a big way.

This comes on the heels of a short article that had already gotten me thinking along these lines - The Beauty of Settled Science - which contained this gem of a quote:

A steady diet of science news is bad for you: You are what you eat, and if you eat only science reporting on fluid situations, without a solid textbook now and then, your brain will turn to liquid.

So true. The time has come to hit the books again, and stop paying attention to fluff at the margins.