A week or so ago, I griped to myself about a science writer confusing velocity with energy in a context where even a simple check of wikipedia would have made the difference abundantly clear (hint: when the velocity of a beam line is already 0.999c, ie. for all intents and purposes streaming at the speed of light, an upgraded beam line on earth is very unlikely to have a velocity 10 times that of the current source...)

Then I pop open my current issue of an important science journal and find someone writing that there's 500C (i.e. 500 Celsius) summer temperatures at the site of an archeologic dig, right here on the Earth. Umm, probably not. (Meaning, that should have read 50C, so it's a transcription error, and none of us can cast a stone here, now can we?)

Gentle reminders to be humble.

***

Oh, oh, now here's an idea for a mystery novel or a thousand of them: environmental DNA. Basically, there's enough DNA floating around in natural water systems, from animals and algae and all and sundry, to do meaningful surveys on. Or, to implicate just about anyone the killer wants, in the right circumstances. Can you say spray bottle? I knew that you could...

***

Ah, naming conventions.

Mineralogy does this -> all romantic Greek/pseudo-Greek derived names. Up to the point where everyone realizes they're running out of possibilities and moves to "Screw this we're just counting elements and going with it"-name conventions. (monohydrate, half-hydrate...)

Assuming this is a general pattern, movement from human-memorizable names to category-memorizable names (i.e. from specific examples to a classification system with a certain mechanistic taxonomy) may be indicative of a type of maturity of a field. Not "We know everything there is to know about this" maturity, rather simply "We can describe the broad types to our students in a systematic way that everyone can understand even if they don't agree with or use it systematically" maturity.

You know, like the SI units system. Useful as common language, if not for any given area of application.

Vis a vis organic chemistry and the naming conventions. More honored in the breach than the execution, admittedly. Astronomical assignments, I suspect, have a similar issue, though occasionally we still get little joys like Ultima Thule. And if you really want some entertainment try and figure out proteins and biomolecular systems of naming generally...

Just for anyone out there thinks I'm picking on them: theoreticians [waves hand] are worse. Once an equation gets to a certain status or level of use, the fights begin over who thought it up first... That may be why you end up with Maxwell-this and Einstein-that and Boltzmann-other, because it's an occasionally useful way to head off the part where everyone gets out their knives and starts carving up the literature and whoever else gets in the way in the process.

***

On a completely different subject. Listening to the radio the other day, and I discovered I want something.

Actually, I want two somethings.

Now, wanting is a good thing, right, because it teaches us what we can't always have. Still, I have hope. I hope, really, for two little somethings.

I'd like Tom Morello to play lead guitar, or maybe Vernon Reid, I can't decide which. Ok, let's say I hope for three things.

Tom Morello and Norah Jones, say.
Vernon Reid and Rhiannon Giddens, say.

Or any combination or whatever, covering the song "What am I Gonna Do (With the Rest of my Life)", by Merle Haggard.

See, what happened the other morning, listening on my commute to the day gig, I caught "What am I gonna do" for the first time in a while, and what caught me was Roy Nichols' lead guitar (Roy was lead for The Strangers, Merle's backing band for years). Roy is precise, stylized, clean.

Tom Morello and Vernon Reid, in their own very distinct ways, are also incredibly precise and clean players. Which is why it struck me: I would love to hear what they do with that piece. The lyrics, the style, adult, very mid-century American songbook, but they demand a primal scream of a solo, constrained in some intimate way.

Poor description, perhaps, but Tom and Vernon are the two who jumped to mind; besides, seeing that type of pairing, with Norah or Rhiannon, oh wow would that be a good gig.

That's two. Counting on my fingers and finding I'm one short.

But those two covers would be the appetizer.

The final one I'd really love to hear cover "What am I gonna do"?

Brittany Howard. With the Alabama Shakes, by herself, don't care either way. I just think that there's a song and singer and guitar player pairing I'd very much hope to hear someday.