Friday, February 28, 2025

Here we are, finally closing the book on a frankly horrible February 2025. We have no particular reason to think March will be any better, but keep in mind that surprisingly good things do sometimes occur. Who knows, maybe that thing you have been hoping would finally happen will actually come through. You know the one. Consult your actuarial tables.

Item 1: a link

Acclaimed speculative fiction author Neal Stephenson has a newsletter where he talks about lots of different things. He's recently embarked on a series of posts about the concept of "wrongness", and his most recent entry delves into the history of the word, which dates back quite a long time but started out in a less judgmental rhetorical space:

In its oldest form, the word was applied in a literal sense to physical objects, such as a piece of wood. For example, one old source describes a shepherd's crook as being “wrong at the end.” Meaning not that something was wrong with it in the modern sense—as a shepherd's crook, it was perfect—but merely that it was bent. Another source describes someone as having a wrong nose; perhaps it had been broken, and not healed straight.

We can infer that from this older, more concrete sense of the word, people began to extend its usage in a metaphorical way to describe abstract states of affairs that had in some way lost their straightness, gone awry, become crooked. Sometimes that is a moral judgment and sometimes it has to do with facts and reasoning. This series of posts is mostly concerned with the latter kind of wrongness.

I won't bother elaborating further - he's a good writer and did all the work, so just read it yourself if you're so inclined (I recommend the rest of the series too). Unless that thing you have been hoping for happens, it seems like we'll be confronted with all sorts of wrong stuff for the foreseeable future, so it might come in handy to learn a little more about this topic.

Item 2: a list

Extinct Animals Some Blog Post Says We’re Trying to Resurrect, Ranked:

1. Steppe Bison
2. Dodo
3. Auroch
4. Moa
5. Wooly Mammoth
6. Saber-Toothed Tiger
7. Lena Horse
8. Tyrannosaurus Rex
9. Dire Wolf
10. Cave Lion

Item 3: a media recommendation

Item 4: word of the week

Psychopomp

Welcome! Take my hand and follow me to the valley of ghosts. Oops – I meant your desk. Sorry, I moonlight as a psychopomp and I always mix those up. Anyway, I'm sure you'll love working here. It's definitely not a thinly-veiled illusion distracting you from learning you now walk the land of the dead.

Item 5: a photograph

See ya!

Thanks for reading. I'll see you back here again in March when, as a reminder, anything could happen.