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First in Our Brains, Secondhand in Our Hearts

I don’t want to give the impression that while I was on my *ahem* “holiday” break, I was just sitting around doing nothing

Yes, I was sitting around doing mostly nothing. But I did find time to carve out a different site, and start writing over there. So, “yaaaaay“.

Or “someone burn the internet; it’s finally tainted beyond repair“. Depending on your point of view.

Anyway, in my real life, I’m a scientist. Sort of a scientist, at least. I was trained in science, and then left to pursue a different, more rewarding career.

Which mostly involves being told by scientists — actual real scientists, this time — where to put numbers in giant spreadsheets and databases and intranet web pages, and how many digits in each are significant, and which particular ones should be colored in which way.

Because we all have different definitions for the word “rewarding”. Apparently.

The point is, I’m pretty well soaking in science at the office, which is great. Biology, chemistry, genetics — it’s all wildly interesting, and I’ve got at least a few years of too-long-ago classes to help me understand it.

“Or rather, what I know about science, which is mostly hand-waving and questionable analogies and some curse words I read in the margins of an Intro to Physics textbook.”

And to display it on internet pages. In rainbow colors. Apparently.

At the same time, I’ve always been fascinated with other sorts of science. I used to read books — gentle, friendly books, with the big words broken down and lots of pop-up pictures — about cosmology and quantum physics and the the nature of consciousness. I never took any classes on those things, so there’s no guarantee I understand any of it. But I’m interested. I must have picked up something.

I just hope it’s not the thing Stephen Hawking came down with.

All of this is to say that I’ve started a new site, and it’s about science. Or rather, what I know about science, which is mostly hand-waving and questionable analogies and some curse words I read in the margins of an Intro to Physics textbook.

The site is called Secondhand SCIENCE, and there are a few topics live already. To give you an idea of the tremendous quality of discourse I’m fostering there, I’ll just share the first sentence of the very first post, on the sobering topic of black holes. I hope it’s not too technical for the curious layperson:

“In science, “black hole” means something very specific; it’s not just a catch-all term for scary, life-sucking things like Congressional speeches or a trip to the DMV or Lindsay Lohan’s vagina.”

Yeah. It’s pretty much all downhill from there.

So feel free to stop by for a visit. Every Sunday — including tomorrow! — I’ll pick a new bit of science, carefully dissect it under a microscope, and then do it absolutely zero justice. In 600 words or less.

But only one color. Because this might be science. But it’s not my day job. Word.