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Have a Happy Thought: A few weeks ago I shared this year’s winners of the “Green Nobel Prize.” And that got me thinking a little bit about the names of prizes – how some prize names are… a bit uninspiring (let’s be honest – “Goldman Environmental Prize” doesn’t resonate with most of us); others have become inspiring (I’m betting the Nobel Prize didn’t have the same ring to it 100 years ago that it does now). Meanwhile, other names just sound inspiring from the get-go. India has the Bharat Ratna, or “Jewel of India” Kenya has the Order of the Burning Spear. Its highest honour is to recognise someone as the Chief of the Order of the Golden Heart of Kenya. Malta, holding to Catholic traditions, recognizes Knights Grand Cross of Justice Professed of Solemn Vows. Japan brings botanic poetry to its decorations with the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum and the Order of the Paulownia Flowers Image: Paulownia imperialis (Syn. Paulownia tomentosa) from Siebold/Zuccarini, Flora Japo...

  Have a Happy Thought: Have you ever been frustrated with a thing, or surprised that someone else hasn’t already solved some issue? So you spend like 10 minutes knocking together just the bare bones of a solution that will work for you… And then put it out to the world, only for it to be taken up by an entire field of researchers. (I’ve definitely done the first part, but maybe not the second part!!) That’s what John C. Wells did in 1982, when he was trying to help define vowel sounds in the English language.   Now, anyone who has ever spoken with an English-language speaker from another country, or perhaps even a different part of the same country, is aware that vowels in English are… slippery, at best. What Wells was trying to do was come up with groups of words that, as long as they are said by someone with the same accent, use the same consistent vowel sound. While someone with a different accent would use a different (but still consistent) vowel sound across those words....

  Have a Happy Thought: Some of us learned proper cursive writing in school. I would venture to say that none of us fully remember how to write in cursive. Fewer of us can probably easily read something written in cursive from over 100 years ago. Calligraphy from around the time of the invention of the printing press is... even worse. It was difficult enough to understand that in 1655 an author brought together a bunch of examples of over-the-top calligraphy into one book, so that centuries later we could marvel at just how unintelligible it was.   Here’s an example of “easy to understand”: Advanced calligraphy readers may be able to decipher these: But I can pretty much guarantee that you can’t say for sure which letters these are:   What I can agree on is that these were artists, experimenting with a fun medium.   And leaving us all baffled as to what they were writing.   Speakin...

Have a Happy Thought: For Earth Day (March 22 nd ) this year, six women were awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, long called the “Green Nobel Prize”. The Goldman Environmental Prize honors the achievements and leadership of grassroots environmental activists from around the world, inspiring all of us to take action to protect our planet. The prize goes to six people each year, representing the six inhabited regions: Image: representation of the six regions for prize consideration: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands & Island Nations, North America, South & Central America. Source: Overview of the Prize - Goldman Environmental Prize While this is the first time that all six winners are women, this prize has a much more equal gender ratio than the Nobel Prize: Goldman (Green Nobel): 112 women out of 239 total Nobel Prize (all fields): 64 women out of 967 total   All that aside, the real story is the amazing ...

  Have a Happy Thought: We live on an incredible planet, in an incredible universe. And I have pics to support this claim, from the very large to the very small: Image: The Vela Supernova Remnant, an expanding nebula of cosmic debris left over from a massive star that exploded about 11,000 years ago. This image was taken with the Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam), at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA, Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF NOIRLab) Earthset captured through the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41 p.m. EDT, April 6, 2026, during the Artemis II crew’s flyby of the Moon. A muted blue Earth with bright white clouds sets behind the cratered lunar surface. The dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime. On Earth’s day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Austr...

Have a Happy Thought: Sometimes you hear a phrase and think it must have come from a philosopher, or famous author… And then you look it up and find out it has a way more mundane (and possibly therefore more interesting) origin story. Some of these are amazing no matter their context, sometimes it is the context itself that makes the phrasing so incredible. Some phrases that have struck me thusly lately:   And what is the purpose of a living man if he lives not for the ones he loves?           ~from a silly youtube skit about playground drama   I was happy in the eyes of a drunken owl. ~misheard lyric from Heaven Knows I’m miserable Now by The Smiths   The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are. ~ Pokemon (cartoon character) Mewtwo.   Luck favors the prepared. ~ Edna Mode in The Incredibles (kids movie)   Thi...

Have a Happy Thought: Sometimes the only way to keep your sanity (or hearing!) in a noisy environment is to wear noise-cancelling headphones. Sometimes you just want to wear noise-cancelling headphones to hear your music/podcast/phone call/whatever more clearly. Either way, if you are out and about while wearing these, you may find that you are missing some important noises that you wish you had heard. This is increasingly a problem where bicyclists and pedestrians share spaces.  One car company (yes, you read that right) has come up with a solution: a two-toned bike bell that can cut through the noise-cancelling technology and let you hear the “ding” anyway. Without making the bell louder. You see, Noise Cancelling headphones work in a couple of different ways. First, the big foam earcups or well-fitting silicone or foam earpieces. These physically insulate your ear canal from sounds coming from the environment. Then, you can have Active Noise Cancelling – and th...