Edward Willett's Blog, page 74

Boredom

Everyone is bored sometimes. You find yourself at loose ends, with nothing to read, nobody to talk to, and maybe not even anything interesting to look at…driving alone from Regina to Saskatoon, for example.

Yet science has carried out relatively little research on boredom. About four years ago, Richard Ralley, a lecturer in psychology at Edge Hill University in England, set out to change that. Ralley believes that boredom must serve a useful purpose, or it wouldn't have evolved. He suspects...

The Willetts on Wine: Wine – it's what's for dinner

Continuing the run-up to the release of the spring issue of Fine Lifestyles Regina, here's "The Willetts on Wine," the wine column penned by my wife, Margaret Anne, and myself, from winter issue of FLR, in which it premiered. Eventually there'll be a dedicated Willetts on Wine website to replace the old Blogger blog we haven't updated in forever. But for now…enjoy!

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It seems like cooking dinner these days is a high-wire balancing act. You're expected to perfectly balance protein, veggies...

Mike and Karla Sillinger have been everywhere…but Regina is home

The Spring 2010 issue of Fine Lifestyles Regina, for which I'm the editor, is just around the corner. In honour of that, here's my cover story from the Winter issue, which featured former NHL player Mike Sillinger.

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Mike Sillinger holds the National Hockey League record for playing with the most teams—12 in all. He was traded nine times, another record.

All of which means that in 17 years as a professional hockey player, he moved around—a lot.

In fact, the list of teams he played for after...

It's on the tip of my tongue…

How often has this happened to you?

"So I was talking to…to…oh, you know, that guy, the one in the head office, big hair, bad teeth, only listens to Perry Como records…geez, why can't I remember his name? It's on the tip of my tongue!"

It's a common phenomenon, and it's not just people's names. Sometimes you can't think of the name of a place, or a food, or a car, or…just about anything. You can feel that the information is in your head, but you can't shape it into a word.

It may be a...

Terra Insegura is an Aurora Award finalist!

Just heard this morning that Terra Insegura, my sequel to last year's Aurora Award-winning science fiction novel Marseguro, is a finalist for this year's Aurora Award for best science fiction or fantasy novel in English. Sounds like they had a record number of nominations, too, so that makes it even sweeter.

The other finalists are Wake, by Robert J. Sawyer, Steel Whispers by Hayden Trenholm, Druids by Barbara Galler-Smith and Josh Langston, and The Amulet of Amon-Ra by Leslie Carmichael. I...

Fred Morrison's wonderful invention, the Frisbee

Fred Morrison died on Tuesday at the age of 90, one of those people you may never have heard of, but really should have.

Morrison invented the Frisbee.

Since millions of these and other flying discs have been sold since the 1950s, it's perhaps a bit humbling to discover, though, that even though throwing a Frisbee well is a skill that can be acquired, nobody has pinned down all the details of the science involved.

Morrison, born in Richfield, Utah, said the inspiration for the Frisbee went back ...

A reminder about Aurora Award nominations

The deadline for nominating works for a Prix Aurora Award is fast approaching. Today is the day when mail-in ballots must be postmarked by, and the deadline for online nominations is February 15.

The Aurora Awards, for the best Canadian works of science fiction and fantasy, are nominated and voted on by fans. Any Canadian citizen or permanent resident can nominate up to three works or individuals in a range of categories in both English and French. The five works with the most nominations go o...

Spray-on liquid glass

"Spray-on liquid glass" sounds like a product you'd see advertised at two o'clock in the morning in an infomercial.

It sounds even more like a 2 a.m. infomercial product when you see headlines about it that claim it is "about to revolutionize everything."

Maybe it'd sound more impressive if I used its more formal name, which is "SiO2 ultra-thin layering," but that's hard to type, so I'm going to stick with "spray-on liquid glass."

Besides, that's exactly what it is: an extremely thin layer of...

Fuel from germs

For years, we've been turning crops such as corn, wheat and sugar beets into fuel, using yeast to convert sugar into alcohol.

But there's an obvious problem with this. That stuff we're turning into fuel is also food for humans and feed for animals.

(And as an aside, how come we always call it "animal feed" as opposed to "animal food"? And why don't we ever refer to "human feed"? Hmm?)

A lot of the plant is wasted when you grow crops for fuel or food. The leaves and stems, with their tough cell w...

My review of Globe Theatre's production of Marion Bridge…

…has already shown up online, even though it won't appear in print until tomorrow. This is the first time I've seen something I've written pop up that far ahead of the ink-on-paper version, though maybe I just haven't noticed until now.

The review begins:

I confess that I went into the opening night performance of Marion Bridge at Globe Theatre feeling skeptical.

The premise, after all, sounds like the set-up to a joke: "A nun, an actress and a soap-opera addict walk into a kitchen …"

Not only...