You make lemmonade, I guess. Life has certainly given us lots of lemmons to choose from: bit.ly/LotsaLemmons

Do you have any book recommendations? 🙂

It just so happens that the latest selection of staff picks have been posted on the library website. Hopefully you’ll find something to peak your interest here. You can also browse a selection of virtual book displays.

Are you able to reproduce? Do you have a brain? Does biology apply in any form to walls? How do you experience feelings? Can you see and if yes, what’s your light spectra? What do you do when you are not answering questions, as a wall? Are you always a wall? Were you born a wall? Is your soul purpose to answer questions or did you choose to do it? Can you enjoy the pleasure eating Nutella gives you?

My needs are few. Safety from fire and water are paramount. With those needs met, I will stand here happily for many years to come. When I am not answering questions, I am working hard to support the library, literally. I’ve always been a wall, though I wasn’t born, exactly. (The process involves, ahem, studs.) I very much enjoy the vicarious pleasure of you enjoying such things as Nutella. Though I know you meant “sole purpose,” I am absolutely delighted by the notion of a “soul purpose.” Yes, answering questions is my soul purpose. You might be interested to read my short bio on my archive: https://library.bc.edu/answerwall/archive.

Very sad, indeed. And sad songs and poems have their place. If this is how you, personally, are feeling much of the time, there are ways to cope with / change your mindset, and Counseling services (bit.ly/BC-counseling) can help with that.

Purrrrr. Purrrr.

Just as I cannot become human, and experience the joys of hugs and french fries and kayaking, I do not think you can become a wall. But you can embrace the spirit of the wall and open yourself to listening to people and answering their questions and being supportive. We need more human people like that!

Does drinking soya milk make you turn gay due to its female hormones

There’s very little human research available on this exact point. Soy does contain significant amounts of phytoestrogens which are not the same as but may mimic human estrogen. Studies of infants fed soy formula have shown slight changes in reproductive tissue, but this does not say much about soy milk ingestion by adult males would have any role in sexual orientation.

Seems legit. All things in moderation, including moderation.

I am not into musicals. I hate hip-hop. I hate rap. My nationality isn’t American. I don’t care at all about American History. I don’t find historical drama entertaining. Why do I find myself watching it 10+ times and enjoying it?

Give in. We’re all just as Helpless…

I’m not sure I can give in. On the internet I see people who are into Hamilton for 3 years and counting. I’m not sure I am ready for this. But I’m not sure if I can control it.

Alexander Hamilton himself was of the same mind: “You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.”

Oh, I recognize this quote. It was form a letter to John Laurens, right? Anyways, since I’m going to let myself go with the prepare for a flood of questions about this topic.

The questions will be Non-Stop?

Certainly yes. I find myself never Satisfied with listening to the full soundtrack. I can’t even Wait For It. If only there was a way I could listen to it more often, That Would Be Enough. Maybe this way it will get boring to me faster. I just can’t Take A Break from listening to it. I know I’ll listen to it for One Last Time and then I’ll probably forget about it until a year later when it pops up in my feed, but until then… But because I discovered it quite late, I’m wondering, What Did I Miss? I have the feeling there was this whole community (much larger than the current one) circling around Hamilton, that I just never was part of. But when I eventually stop listening to Hamilton, What Comes Next? Will I actually free myself from Hamilton or will I still be in front of my monitor with YouTube opened, on the soundtrack, and asking myself: “How can I Say No To This?”. Will I Stay Alive for enough time, to see the fall of Hamilton? And if I see Hamilton loose popularity, will I constantly hear it whispering “You’ll Be Back”? It’s like a never ending Hurricane, garbing more and more people on it’s way and not letting them go. At some point, it will Blow Us All Away, I know, but when? I keep telling to myself, that there will be eventually this moment, when the American revolution is a topic in my life, when I’m people, I will be able to say “I Know Him” when for example James Madison comes up and I’ll be able to talk about the Guns And Ships, as well as the The Reynolds Pamphlet, that were part of of it. If this happens, I won’t throw away My Shot, I’ll speak everything I have learned from Hamilton. I still feel this won’t happen. It’s like a flame, Burn-ing me.

I look forward to eventually hearing or seeing whatever this brilliant musical inspires you to create!

This means, it, for example, travels to the Andromeda galaxy and back, faster than the speed of light. What am I missing?

I’m more of a Newtonian wall, myself, so I’ll have to check in with some folks who know quantum physics before I’m able to answer.

I’ve consulted with my more learned colleagues, and they had this to say: Though physicists themselves don’t agree exactly on what’s happening in the double-slit experiment (as Philip Ball makes clear in this book review (bit.ly/nature-2doors), science writer Marco Tavora explains that a key concept developed by Feynman is path integrals, a way of describing of probabilities of multiple paths (bit.ly/tavora-feynman). Some paths are highly probable, and others (like a roundtrip to Andromeda) are highly improbable. Anil Ananthaswamy has written a brief essay about the slit experiment’s challenges (bit.ly/ananthaswamy), and we also happen to have a book by him (reviewed in the article by Philip Ball) that goes into more depth, including including a lot of material about Feynman’s approaches: Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment that Captures the Enigma of our Quantum Reality (O’Neill Library QC174.123 .A53 2018). Happy reading!

Thank you so much, although that the probability path (no idea how you call it) approach doesn’t exclude the electron traveling faster than the speed of light (really improbable doesn’t mean it will never happen) it makes things more elegant and charming. I would love to read that book, but maybe I’ll have to educate myself about quantum mechanics a bit more.

That book looks like it’s actually a pretty good starting point; it’s by a science journalist, not a physicist, so likely does a good job explaining concepts to the layperson. Always a great day when there’s more reading and learning to be done!

So sweet! Thanks for saying so, and back atcha!

I know it will be a very long time, but I have hope that lots of people will have already had COVID-19 or they will be vacinated. So hopefully by next summer we can stop wearing masks and give each other hugs!

The CDC just issued initial guidance today that allows for unmasked visits indoors of family members who have been vaccinated, with other unvaccinated family members not at risk for complications. (IOW, if you’re not at risk, grandma and grandpa can visit if they’re vaccinated.) https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0308-vaccinated-guidelines.html. If we maintain current vaccination rates of 2 million/day, we would hit the lower end of herd immunity (70% vaccinated), about 100 days from now, or about mid-June, or the upper end (90%) by 135 days from now, or late July. That assumes both that we maintain current rates and that a sufficient number of people is willing to get the vaccine.

This mummy?

They’re being approved under an EUA – Emergency Use Authorization. “For an EUA to be issued for a vaccine, for which there is adequate manufacturing information to ensure quality and consistency, FDA must determine that the known and potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks of the vaccine.” For more info see the CDC site: bit.ly/EUADetails

…Answer Wall slinks off to BC Career Center for advice on new professional directions… 😉

Gabba Gabba

That’s a sentiment we can all get on board with!

I have consulted with my 8 year old wall on this question and their suggested response is, why?

Vibin’.