What you have there, Felicity, is an incorrigible geek. Why, it was barely a month ago that he immersed himself in Robocode for nearly a week (and dragged me with him, the rat-fink). And I’m sure there were many incidents before that. He has found something shiny and new that intrigues him, and he must learn and do and see. Once he has learned and done and seen, he’ll probably move on to something else even shinier and newer.

What you should do is keep a log. Note the dates and times when he begins delving into a new hobby and keep notes on him. Track how much time he spends at it. Make graphs and tables; draw pictures; throw him bits of food every few hours and see what he does. This is a unique scientific opportunity! To ignore it would be to do the world of natural philosophy a great disservice!

But seriously folks, this is why geeks are cool. Pick up a biography of Isaac Newton sometime (I recommend /0521274354/qid=1075750295//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i7_xgl14/002-5423933-8771215?v=glance&s=books&n=507846”>this one). Newton is the template from which all modern geeks are derived; he was the essence of geek. Throughout the course of his life, he became interested in thousands of different fields, from mathematics to astronomy to optics to economics to alchemy and more. When something grabbed his interest, he would immerse himself in it completely for months or years, rarely eating or sleeping, and he almost always became better at everything he studied than anyone had been before him. After emerging from his intensive study of a subject, he rarely returned to it again, having already proved to himself that he knew more about it than anyone else did (or possibly ever would). It wasn’t even important to him that other people know how much he knew, just so long as he was sure of it himself.

And that’s why geeks rule.

Ah, to be a gentleman-scholar.

Indeed, you are quite right about my habits. I seem to go off on something for a while and then drop it, not to touch it again for quite some time, if ever. I don’t see this as a problem so much as the fact that I sometimes spend two days straight on something (like robocode) and then never touch it again (haven’t touched robocode since the snow days).

If I didn’t have to work for a living (like Newton), I could immerse myself for much longer duration, and get a lot farther. I might even be able to get good at this stuff.

As it is, I spend about half my freetime in fruitless (but necessary) relaxation, and the other half is in chunks too small to consider embarking on large projects. It really limits my productivity.

Some day I’ll be retired. Then I can have real fun.

My daddy is like this, too. Although I think he doesn’t switch interests quite so ficklely as Matt. It is also interesting to note that my dad interests himself in non-scientific fields, too. I’d posit he knows more about the Earps and the gunfight at the OK Corral than anyone else in Central Oregon, if not the whole state. :) It is quite possible Matt would do so, too, if he had more time to research—you’ll note that many of his little crazes are things he can learn about or master solely from the Internet. If he wanted to unlock the mysteries of Etruscan, it would be much more difficult to fit the pursuit into the existing framework of his life and work.

I don’t know very much about Newton, but the gentleman-scholar, or “Renaissance Man” as now termed, is a pervasive type—I would hesitate to call him the ‘template from which all modern geeks are derived’ without doing extensive research on remarkable individuals before him.

In the modern age, multi-faceted gentleman scholars are not uncommon. Certainly I would qualify Dr. Robert Bakker, famous paleontologist, as such—besides having both scholarly knowledge and practical mastery of sedimentology, stratigraphy, comparative anatomy, and the other scientific tools of his trade, he’s read almost everything, speaks Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and probably other things I don’t know about. He likes to argue with Creationists and engage them on points of Biblical scholarship rather than arguing the scientific case (he used to teach Bible studies at Yale.) He also loves the Simpsons.

If your list of Newton’s interests really is complete, he seems more remarkable to me in what he didn’t study than what he did. Most of these multifarious individuals do not confine their interests solely to the technical. From Da Vinci to the historical Cyrano de Bergerac, science and art are the twin glories of the well-developed mind.

Felicity completely denies that part of the reason she wants to quit her day job as soon as financially possible is so that she can brush up on her French, reread her developmental biology textbooks, learn Latin and German, take martial arts classes, design and sew her own clothing, do home improvement, and read the sixty-two paleontology books she has sitting around unread. These are FOUL LIES spread by my enemies and detractors!

I like the stone garden panorama, and especially the beautifully knarled tree on the right. The light seems perfect in all the pictures; not too dim and not too sharp. Exactly the kind of weather preferred by many renaissance landscape painters. I look forward to visiting the Japanese Garden in early spring, when everything suddenly explodes in a delicate yellow-green splendor, coloring the light as it filters through the maple canopies and bounces off the carpets of dew-fresh moss.

In other news, and crudely off topic, here’s something that’ll undoubtedly make you go Khaaaan! :o)

If your list of Newton’s interests really is complete, he seems more remarkable to me in what he didn’t study than what he did.

My list of Newton’s interests was nowhere near complete. That was just a smattering. He also spent years studying theology and various other non-technical fields. And of course I was exaggerating when I called him the template from which all modern geeks are derived.

Extensive research is the last thing I would ever do before making huge blanket statements in comments posted on weblogs. It’s my specialty.

Well, who am I to interfere with your specialty? :)

That’s good for Isaac. I would hate to think his brain was lop-sided, especially with such perfectly symmetrical hair over it.

Thank you. It was a very overcast (in fact, raining for much of my visit to the garden) day. Had it not been raining, I might have taken a pan of the view of the city from the courtyard, which would have been cool. As it was, my camera couldn’t resolve the buildings through the haze of rain.

I like the lack of definition the shadows have. It’ll be interesting to see how different things look as the seasons and weather change.