How to Build a Planet by Poul Anderson & Stephen L. Gillett
Mar. 24th, 2026 08:57 am
A brief guide to creating plausible planets.
How to Build a Planet by Poul Anderson & Stephen L. Gillett

Via Oregon Coast Aquarium, which writes, “A special thanks to the donor who shopped our wishlist! It’s safe to say that the otters are thoroughly enjoying their new enrichment items!”
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 24, 2026 is:
cadence \KAY-dunss\ noun
Cadence is used to refer to various rhythmic or repeated motions, activities, or patterns of sound, or to the way a person's voice changes by gently rising and falling while they are speaking.
// Ivy relaxed at the beach, listening to the cadence of the surf.
// He speaks with a soft Southern cadence.
Examples:
“Urged by a fast-talking auctioneer and his familiar cadence, paddles shot up as bids climbed into the four- and five-figure range.” — Lily Moayeri, Rolling Stone, 29 Jan. 2026
Did you know?
A cadence is a rhythm, or a flow of words or music, in a sequence that is regular (or steady as it were). But lest we be mistaken, cadence also lends its meaning to the sounds of Mother Nature (such as birdsong) to be sure. Cadence comes from Middle English borrowed from Medieval Latin’s own cadentia, a lovely word that means “rhythm in verse.” (You may also recognize a cadence cousin, sweet cadenza, as a word that is familiar in the opera universe.) And from there our cadence traces just a little further backward to the Latin verb cadere “to sound rhythmically, to fall.” Praise the rising and the falling of the lilting in our language, whether singing songs or rhyming or opining on it all.



Deedeedeedeeedeedeedeedee
You unlock this bakery with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension.
A dimension of icing.
A dimension of piping bags.
A dimension of wreckitude.
You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of bad taste and even worse skill. You just crossed over into...
The Twilight Zone.
Picture, if you will... a monkey. This monkey:
I know, creepy right? [shivering] Brrrrrr. Totally.
[resuming serious announcer voice] Ahem. Now picture, if you will, five ravenous-yet-dim-witted Shih Tzu dogs:
[sternly] Let's call them Muffy, Boopsie, Precious, Buttercup and Mr. Snuggles.
Now picture, if you will, a face of terror that watches in malignant silence far beyond your present capacity to understand. A face enigmatically bizarre in terms of time and space. A face...
...of a tweety bird.
Now picture, if you will, Meerkat Zombies...raising the roof.
"What up, playah?"
This is the stuff of fantasy, the thread of imagination, the ingredients... of the Twilight Zone.
Jennifer P., Matt N., Christine S., and Melanie L., picture, if you will... a dolphin eating a Snickers bar in flip-flops and a cardigan. Then tell me what that looks like. I've always wondered.
UPDATE! LeAnna and Woobie took up the dolphin challenge and sent in their ideas.
First LeAnna's:
AWESOME! Check out the flip flop thongs on his flippers.
And next we have Woobie's
See, the snickers bar is wearing the cardigan and flip flops because I apparently have no grasp of sentence structure. ?thought Who would have
Touché!
One more!
This one's from Vanilla Smoke. Awesome!
*****
P.S. Here's one more read for you Rod Serling fans:
The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television
It's a graphic novel - so basically a long-form comic book - about Serling's career and "descent into his own personal Twilight Zone." OooOOOooh. Looks awesome, and it has great reviews!
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:
Via Alaska SeaLife Center, which writes:
Look closely. Can you see the differences between the pup coat and adult coat of a northern sea otter?
Sea otters have a different coat for the first three months of their life, with a longer loft and longer guard hairs than an adult coat. The pup coat keeps pups afloat on top of the water, just like a lifejacket.
Our rehab team has described it like “a cotton ball in water.”
Here’s a close-up look at Un’a’s coat when she was first admitted at about 2 months old, and at her coat again 6 weeks later after she molted. Notice the reduction of the lighter colored guard hairs.
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 23, 2026 is:
frenetic \frih-NET-ik\ adjective
Something described as frenetic is filled with excitement, activity, or confusion. The word is a synonym of frantic.
// The event was noisy and frenetic, which prompted us to leave early.
Examples:
“As Marty Mauser, a wannabe table tennis champion who dreams and deceives his way through his shamble of a life ... [Timothée Chalamet] injects his scenes with enough nervous energy to fuel a plane. Nowhere will you see a performance more frenetic or impressive.” — Ralph Jones, Vanity Fair, 9 Feb. 2026
Did you know?
In modern use, frenetic can describe a focused and intense effort to meet a deadline, or dancing among a hyped-up crowd, but the word’s Middle English predecessor, frenetik, had a narrower use: it was used to describe those exhibiting a severely disordered state of mind. If you trace frenetic back far enough, you’ll find that it comes from Greek phrenîtis, a term referring to an inflammation of the brain. As for frenzied and frantic, they’re not only synonyms of frenetic but relatives as well. Frantic comes from frenetik, and frenzied traces back to phrenîtis.
We were delighted by Shadow’s response to his first visitors last night. We kept him crated until they’d seated themselves ready to watch the first two eps of Slings & Arrows. He made not a peep when they arrived nor during our typically uproarious dinner. Once we let him out of the crate, he observed them closely. One guest had recently enjoyed a hot-and-sour sauce on her egg roll. She invited him closer and he licked her hands! He permitted the other to pet his back. He curled up in his bed (immediately below the TV) and peacefully admired the assembled multitude.
Early this AM MyGuy placed one of Shadow’s beds on my side of our bed. Around 6AM he tip tip tap tipped into the bedroom and curled up in it, keeping me company for 45 minutes.
He was in the breezeway with MyGuy 20 minutes ago, having just come back from his evening constitutional. Just as his lead was unhooked, the leonine March wind blew open the door to the backyard. Shadow was out like a shot. MyGuy called him back, but he kept backing up. At last, MyGuy leaned on the garage holding the door open, and Shadow scooted right back in to the breezeway.
The wisdom around rescues is a rule of 3: 3 days to decompress, 3 weeks to learn routines, and 3 months to feel fully at home. We’re on track.
(Got to get some Shadow icons!)