I was late to work once because of traffic delays caused by trail riders like this coming in for the rodeo. I got to work and agreed with my boss, “Only in Houston”….

A $42,000 limited edition sculpture — one of 799, now 798.

Holy…! I’m starting to put more credence in “art is legal money laundering for the rich” theories. I could see one or maybe even a limited edition of like 5 for this price. EIGHT HUNDRED of these are a mass-produced commodity.

Oh, my bad, that’s why it was only 799 of them, not 800. eyeroll

…that’s the best name I’ve seen for him so far. I’d give you an award if I had one!

They are GLORIOUS!

That looks fantastic. Where’s mine?!

I remember looking around about a decade ago and realizing that I hadn’t heard about chickenpox in a while.

I had a very light case when I was so young that I don’t remember it, so I’ve always known my immunity is likely negligible and that I need to be wary and stay clear of people who have it. It’s much more dangerous in adults.

….and then I realized I hadn’t had a mental alert of caution! Caution! Chickenpox! in… years.

So I Google and… oh. They made a vaccine for it in the 90’s, and it’s standard now. And practically nobody gets chickenpox any more because of this.

Nice.

Come to think of it, lack of formula makes it much harder for mothers to work.

That is fantastic. From the patterns and shapes to the lighting effect… gorgeous.

Cut education spending and give more money to the military? Just means the military will have to start picking up some of the slack.

We can and do treat the two most common causes of blindness in the world:

cataracts (which everybody gets if they live long enough; treated with surgery to replace the clouded lens with an artificial lens), and

diabetes (by managing the disease so that it does significantly less damage to the body, including the eyes).

It’s awesome to know we’re making strides in retina technology too (incredibly more complicated than replacing the lens in cataract surgery!) but don’t take for granted the incredible things we already can do!

I live in Texas and feel this one personally.

That would be if the lottery were meant to make a difference. But it’s meant to make money.

They found that bigger prizes sold more tickets and generated more profits, so they changed the US lotteries a few years back to lower the chances of winning and drop the lower prizes, purely to drive bigger jackpots and sell more tickets.

There’s no pathogens in a correctly functioning system.

When something breaks — water pressure drops, or a pipe breaks in a freeze, for example — this can allow random outside stuff into the system, and now who knows what’s in your water, until they can get it sealed off, back up to pressure, and flushed through.

It might be fine. It might be lightly contaminated but good enough unless you are immune compromised or get it in your contacts or up your nose. Or it might be more heavily or dangerously contaminated. So they play it safe.

I love Half Price Books. I pity the states they haven’t expanded into.

Looking back as an adult, yes, the content seems boring and repetitive. But that’s because we know it now.

Elementary school sets foundations to build on with more detailed, thoughtful, and expansive approaches as you progress, and you need to get solid foundation in or you are building a house of cards. Repetition works (with enough variety to keep it interesting, and taught appropriately and well).

I suffer a bit in math now because my family moved a couple times while I was in early school, and each state has different standards. Interestingly enough, when we stopped in Louisiana (lucked out tremendously and landed in good elementary schools in a state notorious for terrible education) I was way ahead in reading/English/spelling/writing but a year behind in math and had to go into remedial math.

Mom was terribly embarrassed by this and pushed me to catch up. I rushed the times table, multiplication, and long division enough to “catch up” —

but, looking back, I did not get enough practice to really get those locked down solid. I am bright. I am good with math (except for being ADHD so I struggle to remember numbers long enough to do even simple math in my head). I loved high school geometry and how much sense calculus makes — it’s really just physics!

…and yet, with that rushed foundation of one year’s elementary school math, I struggle more than I should with simple math. I still don’t really remember all the times table and have to stop and work it out. 7x8 is… oh crap… I should know this… well 6x8 is 48 so plus 8, hey it’s 56, that sounds right.

I was in Gifted program and Talented Art. Honors and AP classes in high school. I won awards in academic competitions in multiple STEM and non-STEM subjects from then on, including two years of top combined scores in the state for the Duke Talent Identification Program (and it is a bit of an ego boost to start getting college recruiting packets based on your SAT scores when you are 12 years old).

I got accepted to all the universities I applied to and scholarships to most (partial scholarships— I’m clever, not brilliant). I took pre-med chemistry I & II in college as my science electives, because I like chemistry (other folks in my compsci major advised, “Take Geology, its easy, you lick rocks”) and I aced it.

And I still struggle with the friggin’ times table.

Simply because I got a rocky, rushed spot without enough repetition in my foundation to make it natural. I’m just clever enough to compensate. But it’s not fun, because I know I should be better, but only started to question why as a much older adult.

And sometimes I wonder what I could have been if I had gotten those down as solidly as I should have.

And I wonder what happens to the kids who get similar rough spots for one of so many reasons it can happen, and aren’t clever enough to compensate.

Don’t knock what looks easy to you from an advantaged perspective.

To be resigned to eventual existence as only three digital concepts — the Wikipedia page; the archive they are creating, to say, we were here, and the .tv domain.

And the residual memories of the few dwindling surviving inhabitants, who may try to impress themselves and their history on generations for whom the name is a disassociated mention in history and a fading Wikipedia site.

Oh, yes. Grim.

This is perfect! A snapshot of emotion plus commentary of society all in one.

And just makes me happy to look at it, too, the ghost looks so happy.

Well done.