The Quantum Mechanics of Kennedy and Khrushchev

There is a peculiar notion among some people in the hard sciences that they practice the purest, surest forms of knowledge. Biology is just applied chemistry, chemistry is just applied physics, and physics is just applied mathematics, and mathematics is axiomatically true (probably). All of these fields' laws and theories can be tested empirically with quantifiable data, or with basic logical analysis as in mathematics. A historian like me, on the other hand, only has sketchy qualitative data with which to work, no way to ethically repeat experiments in the field, and constant interference from politics seeking to assert historical narratives favorable to themselves. (And the less said about literature majors, the better.)

But this notion coyly pays tribute to the truth of the matter when it mentions how each field just applies knowledge from another. Every field does this, at least if it prospers in scientific discovery. Sometimes a new set of eyes is needed to see what's in front of them. Sometimes a bit of knowledge locked away in the advanced section of one field can help drive fundamental discoveries in another. History owes a lot to other fields. Radiocarbon dating, for one, has made mute stones sing like canaries at long last; so thank you, nuclear physics and chemistry. Linguistics has given us a lot of evidence for human migration throughout history, as has DNA sequencing. The hard scientist chauvinist might rebut, well, these are all hard sciences or soft sciences giving to history. What has history ever given to us?

My answer would be: understanding the nature of existence itself. Thank you, Khrushchev and Kennedy.

That time I was stuck in a desert for a week

The car battery may be a humble, uncomplicated piece of technology; a long-known bit of acid and base bolted together, but it demands our respect. Everyone talks a big game until they turn those keys to the sound of inadequate electric whimpering under the hood; then we are all equally powerless before our Maker. Some people have been stuck in grocery parking lots, others at the mall, others on vacation.

I was stuck at home for a week last year, but "home" is a desert, with little help. Make the jump and I'll elaborate on the story.

Repairing the solar system, finally; also spring planting begins!

I used to have a solar panel system (as well as a hot water tank) on the top of my van. It, and the days of design work that went into it, were wrecked in a Nevada windstorm. I decided to keep things simpler this time.

I went to the stores here in Omaha trying to find those metal bars that people put on the top of their cars. You see them out in the wild all the time - the ones that make it hard to tell what vehicle's a civilian and what vehicle's a cop when you peer through your rearview. They're all over the place, but apparently no merchandiser in this town has ever heard of such arcane wizardry. So I improvised with ratchet straps, galvanized fencing wire, and some bungee cords on top for good measure. After a couple trial runs through the interstates of the Omaha metro on relatively windy days, I'm comfortable with their performance. They slid around and sailboated a bit up there before I added the bungee cords, but the straps held them firmly to some piece or another of the roof, because they're wired to the straps.

Some updates on what I've been up to: working on Missions to Mars

I've been busy in reality lately. The winter wasn't as keenly felt in Nebraska as Texas, but I did do a lot of shoveling for it. I also rebuilt the solar power system in my van, but that's significant enough that it'll have to be the subject of its own post.

Besides that, I've been drawing my greatest work since Carta Caela, a map of Mars. I already put the title in the work, it's going to be "Missions to Mars: 1971-2021." We've been doing this successfully for fifty years, and I've compiled a lot of information about it that's never been in the same place before. I think I might try a showing for some of this work eventually. If I can get a couple companions to this piece done, as well as a zodiac star chart series i have planned, I just might hit up the contacts i have for one. (I don't believe in astrology, but people do, and this series would just provide scientific knowledge about the stars in a given constellation; these maps can unite believers and skeptics, an instance of the artist's class need to appeal to the broadest possible paying audience.)