Georeactor Blog

Notes

• I was planning to keep a weekly schedule of science videos but I had a little trouble choosing a topic, scripting, and recording on Saturday. I'm about halfway done with a video on Missouri challenging the reversal of the Chicago River (reaching the Supreme Court in 1901 and 1906). Typhoid bacteria had just been identified in the 1880s, so this was cutting edge science and both sides tried field experiments and statistics to convince the Court. The first case also takes a detour into the Articles of Confederation (they can do that?).
  There's possibly a larger, relevant point to be made here about the modern Court accepting amici curiae and sticking to legal argument.
  One of my other challenges is that 3-minute videos aren't going to get boosted? I need topics which will have a staying power closer to 10 minutes.
• I'm 1/4 of the way through a memoir by Biruté Galdikas, a primatologist protege of Louis Leakey alongside Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. I engaged Wikipedia's article-renaming process because editors have been spelling Biruté with a dot (ė) across all articles and languages. I have her book in front of me from 1995. I can see her Instagram posts signed "Dr. Biruté". Let's be real.
• NPR spoke to nuclear experts about House of Dynamite. How did I do? https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/nx-s1-5580534/house-of-dynamite-experts-review

On characters

• One time I asked someone who their author is… like maybe every hobbyist reader will have a go-to (in their case, Orwell). Mine could be Kafka, but what have I actually read through from him? Instead I have excerpts, concepts, a visit to the museum in Prague, a graphic novelization, and then I find out most of Kafka's books were never finished anyway. In this century, it's always neat to get a Werner Herzog update… but Fitzcarraldo has gone unwatched on my list for a long time. What I am really picking up on is not the art, but the place of the artist in the modern canon. In the same way I have heard about 'Andy Warhol at Studio 54' but could not really elaborate on this concept.

• Lyle is a content creator who gives advice while dressed as a gecko. This guy keeps it consistent, it's weird to do in public, and yet it's became his job. He posted a video where he asks people whether they'd prefer to be a gecko (popup museums should be explored more, but I find it distasteful to include live animals in one).
  When Lyle is set up in Washington Square Park with a costume and a camera, people are drawn to him. But people also will talk to other people there with just a table and a sign? So it's a little mysterious.

• I also follow the "Café Anne" newsletter, where Anne interviews people about niche NYC things. She has a gift for approaching strangers, solving mysteries, etc. She also has a uniform daily outfit and wrote about being perceived differently with a thrifted outfit. Is this one way of being a character? You could meet her and have no idea!

• Being an Airbnb nomad was part of my 'character' for a while, as an extension of a more common 'exhaustive traveler' archetype. Leaving it behind was going to be difficult, but I was deliberate about giving myself a few months to adapt, and still travel often.
  Fun facts should be relatable. There's something alarming about being a nomad which sticks with people. I did well not pointing to other rabbitholes (Myanmar, Sark emoji, Vegas caucus, Kurdistan and Chinese maps) to new people at work. I came up with other relevant stories, or reinterpreted IAEA as "I made a presentation about quantum computers". There are specific types of people who like to hear that I worked at MoMA or dropped out of school, but if I don't know someone I'm not going to wing it.