Finding the latest information about COVID-19 is sometimes tricky. Here’s why… As you might recall, last week I was planning on visiting a friend’s house for a very small outdoor garden dinner party. But there was a conc…
I’d planned on spending a few days…. … at the Sonoma Valley Author’s Festival in beautiful downtown Sonoma. But, as you’d expect, that’s not happening this year. The organizers have moved everything online. So… I’m giving my talk about “The Joy…
I had a personal information challenge the other day… and I failed! Maybe this has happened to you as well. We were about to visit a friend’s house for dinner–socially distanced, of course! The plan was to go to their hou…
As I said, I was thinking about gomphotheres… … as one does, and realized that they were native to North America, but also show up in South America. Likewise, other animals (such as opossums, armadillos, etc.) were native to one continen…
The other day I was thinking about gomphotheres, as one does on nice spring afternoons… … remember them? They’re a kind of elephant-like animal that lived in North America during the Pleistocene? We mentioned them in an earlier SRS…
I couldn’t resist… … an addendum to my previous post about Collections.The thing about collections is that there are so many of them. And yet, if you don’t think about searching for a collection, you might miss a huge treasure trove…
While collections are fundamental… … the organization of them is just as important. AND, for our purposes, searching for a collection that contains the stuff you seek is just as important. What’s a SearchResearcher to do? …
Collections are fundamental. People seem to have a primordial urge to find things, put them into an organized arrangement, and then share them with others. You just can’t stop them from doing this! Engraving of the Museum Wormianu…
To tell the truth… this Challenge started with an interesting observation. This is one of my bean plants, growing quite well up the bamboo pole last week. Eventually, it will make it to the top (12 feet, 4 meters), and maybe a b…
I’m growing some beans… … in my garden, and I’m slightly amazed at how they grow. If you’ve somehow never seen the way a bean or a pea plant grows, it’s truly remarkable. You put them in the ground, and after not very long, they lo…
We’ll always remember Bruddah Iz, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, for singing what has effectively become a touchstone of ukulele performance… Bruddah IZ, from the Google Doodle in his honorHis version of Somewh…
I had trouble using double quotes in my search… … or, more precisely, it was when I switched OUT of Google to another search application that caused the problems. I’d searched for a particular lyric (one I’ve used before) “When Venu…
This week’s Google Doodle is about Bruddah Iz, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, Bruddah IZ, from the Google Doodle in his honor…showing his life in a quick, beautiful video with his most famous song (Somewhere Over the Rainbow) playing in…
Ay yi yi yi yi! This week’s Challenge was to find any: extramusical sounds and yells that happen during a performance. For examples, gritos are common in mariachi&nbs…
“That’s crazy! How did I not know that??”That was the reaction I got from a friend when I switched into Google Maps 3D mode. If you’ve seen it before, it’s all very straightforward and obvious, but as I learned from my friend, not everyone …