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NYT’s The Upshot looked at 424 holiday movies released by the Hallmark and Lifetime networks since 2017. Like most forms of entertainment, the movies look identical from a zoomed out view. There’s a protagonist female who feels lost, finds her way and love in the process.
Get in closer and you see the nuances. Sometimes a couple has to save a candy shop instead of a bakery.
Posted by in holidays, Infographics, movies, Upshot
From all of us at The Finch & Pea, we wish you and yours a happy holiday season, whichever holiday (or lack thereof) you choose to celebrate.
Posted by in holidays, Items of Interest
Photo Credit: Leo Reynolds (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
If we make the very traditionally assumption that the year is a circle (technically it is an ellipse) with a circumference of 365 days (366 on a leap year):
HAPPY PI DAY!
*14 March as Pi Day is superficial fluff that teaches us nothing about π. Tau Day is also silly, especially since τ unnecessarily complicates the calculation of the area of a circle.
from Science Caturday guru Michele Banks
We are busy with hugs not blogs. Be back soon.
Posted by in holidays, science caturday
Because that's what happens when you eat ten full plates of turkey and pie. However, Bonnie Berkowitz and Lazaro Gamio for the Washington Post go into some of the specifics of holiday eating. The last bit of the feelings section (part of it shown above) on permanently heavy:
After the first 750 calories or so, your body begins to store a larger percentage of food as fat. A 2000 study found that the average adult gains a pound during each holiday season and usually never loses it.
Wait — really?
Tags: health, holidays, Washington Post
Posted by in Health, holidays, Infographics, Washington Post
Note: What follows is pretty much fluff, like a great deal of my writing. I want the world to be a “funner” place. Over the past several days, however, events in the area (St. Louis) I used to call home have been anything but fun. I started this post last week and decided to finish it this morning as a break from staring impotently at the news in my Twitter feed.
Today marks the third anniversary of my quixotic quest to get 14 August recognized as Phi Day.
I am all for cheesy, sciencey holidays like Pi Day and Mole Day. Holidays are fun. When they are at their best, they also teach us something. Religious and civic holidays are meant to transmit lessons – think of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Passover, Memorial Day, and Christmas. Some do a better job than others (I’m looking at you Columbus Day). Why shouldn’t our sciencey holidays also convey meaning about the thing they are representing?
Think about this exchange:
Me: Happy Phi Day!
You: What is “Phi Day”?
How we respond depends on which day we choose for Phi Day.
Phi is approximated as 1.62 (it is an irrational number whose decimal points actually go on forever without repeating), which might explain why we don’t have a Phi Day. This does not fit the US date system at all. No month has 62 days, nor do we have 16 months (stupid moon). It would fit the European dating system which puts the day before the month, giving us Phi Day on 16 February.
If that is our explanation, all we have done is given a rough approximation of the numerical value of Phi and explained the European method of representing dates. It doesn’t help us understand why we should care about Phi.
Phi is a ratio. The ratio of two consecutive numbers in the famed Fibonacci sequence converges on Phi. It can also be determined by taking the ratio of line segments in a pentagram* made of five lines of equal length (aka, a regular pentagram) such as the one in the image to the right. The ratios of the red:green and blue:pink lines are both equal to Phi.
It we imagine the year as a line that is 365.25 days long, we can divide it into two segments with a ratio that is equal to Phi. As it turns out, the best general estimate of where to split the “year line” into two segments to give the ratio of Phi is August 14th.
Now, reimagine our imagined conversation from before.
*Image and description are essentially reused from this post in 2012.
Posted by in Follies of the Human Condition, holidays, mathematics, numbers, Phi, phi day, ratios
Dear Punters,
A very Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to those who celebrate, and a happy new year to all from The Finch & Pea.
Thank you for joining us this year to share science-y art, music, travel, poetry, animals, and food, along with notes and reflections on the major events and findings of the year in science. And some lolcats.
Love,
The Finch & Pea Staff (Josh Witten, Mike White, Marie-Claire Shanahan, Eva Amsen, Michele Banks, Heidi Smith, Ben Witten, and Sarah Naylor)
PS – Special thanks to our friend @itsjusttracy for decorating Chemistry Cat’s lab
Posted by in chemistry, holidays, science caturday
There’s a lot of great science-based art and craft out there, and many purveyors of geeky goodness have really outdone themselves creating special gifts and decorations for the holiday season. So show your sci pride while supporting hardworking makers. Here are a few favorites – but be sure to dig deeper into these shops for many more unique items.
Posted by in christmas, holidays, The Art of Science
