Chicago's Millenium park is stunning. I managed to get this night shot to turn out fairly well, looking northwest. 
Nanobacteria
Every age thinks it's attained the ultimate understanding of how the
world works on some level. I can't find the quote right now from
1890, where a scientist declared that physics was a dead field. At
any rate, work on nanobacteria may prove interesting when it
plays out. Is it alive, or is it a crystal? They are implicated in
kidney stones and ovarian cancer.
British Library Images
The British Library is providing access to a database of their images, complete with keyword search. via Neat New Stuff.
Bertrand Russell - The Problems of Philosophy
Bertrand Russell has an engaging writing style that is very accessible. As a philosopher and thinker of the twentieth century a wide variety of his works can be found, such as the excellent History
of Western Philosophy
But to the point, I ran across an online version of The Problems of Philosophy, which I assume must be out of copyright judging from its publication date of 1912.
Buon giorno
I have lots of pictures of herculaneum and pompeii, but sadly nothing
here to plug the camera into. It was pretty interesting and not very
busy, althought things are a little chilly. We almost had herculaneum
to ourselves. Pompeii is huge. When I can put up some pictures I'll
have something more interesting to say.
Neaby Quasar?
A recent conference paper has revealed a quasar with a huge redshift, normally taken to indicate great distance and age, in the middle of a nearby spiral galaxy. If indeed the quasar is located nearby, as they assert, that will certainly have some major repercussions to established theory, I would think. I had thought that quasars were believed to be the most distant objects in the universe, because their high redshifts indicate high receeding speed, and thus distance. Will this affect estimates of elapsed time since the big bang? Maybe this is determined throught the cosmic microwave background, I'm not sure.
Maybe the quasar is moving away from us at high speed, but for reasons other than that which had been previously assumed. Apparently there is some correlation between quasars and other galaxy locations, so it will be interesting to see what comes of this.
Liquid Calcium
I just saw a commercial for toothpaste which includes liquid calcium. Is this really going to improve your dental health? They've added milk to toothpaste and this is going to build stronger teeth? Why not just drink the milk, it would probably be more effective.
The Opera Orange
I was thinking about the Orange on Sesame that sang opera, years ago. I think it was something from Carmen or the Barber of Seville. As I recall, an orange rolled out of a fruit basket and then aquired a face from other odds and ends on the counter, including an elastic band for a mouth. Then the orange starts singing. It's a soprano part, and at the end the final note is so high and loud that the face bits come flying off the orange. Absolutely terrifying.
Coffee is hell, but oh, how I love it so
Having proceeded through years of undergraduate and graduate education, I developed a certain fondness for coffee, no doubt compounded by my predilection for late nights. It gets you going in the morning. In first year, I used to think it was ok to have a cup of coffee to wake up in the morning, as long as you didn’t start drinking it for fun. Imagine an alcoholic making the same argument and you’ll have some idea of the trouble in store.
By grad school, the morning cup was supplemented by the afternoon cup. With Tim Horton’s only a short walk away from my grad student office, it was hard to say no to the afternoon double-double.
Lately, having started a new job and undergone a life transition, I looked forward to using the disconnect to mend my coffee drinking ways. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
The first day of work on a new job is always slow. You aren’t in the swing of activity, and you end up spending your time reviewing company policies or similar sundry activities. In the early afternoon I inquired about whether there was coffee anywhere. I was informed that with it being a small company, only 2 of the 15 employees drank coffee, and they supplied the grind themselves. I paused for a moment to pick up my mandible from the floor and remount it in its proper location.
Going without that day, I nonetheless shortly joined this coffee cabal. Soon, I was enjoying a Styrofoam cup full of brew each morning. Not a large dose, by any means. My two collaborators enjoyed starbucks bold coffee, and brewed a pot each morning. It was damn strong coffee. But a small Styrofoam cup is such a small volume. Surely, it is harmless.
I have a long commute to reach this land of bold coffee. Thus, I sometimes ended up bringing a thermos cup in the car for my safety. Upon getting to work, who could refuse an additional small Styrofoam cup, filled with unassuming but tasty, sugary, caffeinated coffee.
Some time went by, and I began to tire of the waste of Styrofoam cups. The earth was crying. Another coffee lover and I ran across to the big-K and picked up some nice clear glass mug/cups for around $1.50. Now we could enjoy our coffee, and the breathtaking expanse of nature, which we were not doing quite as much to destroy as previously. These new cups were, of course 50% larger than their Styrofoam cousins.
Pretty soon, I was back to downing 2-3 mugs of this espresso strength coffee a day, coincidentally with almost halting all water consumption. My throat was parched in the morning, my dehydrated hands cracking in the winter cold. My joints creaked with age, and my stomach ached. It was eating me up. I say to you, young first year college student. Look at me. Know what you can become, and stay away. Coffee is hell, but oh, how I love it so.
The Art of the Joke
I've known for a long time that I'm not good at telling jokes. It's a fine art form at which not everyone is proficient. Today a co-worker told me a joke. It was as he was telling it that I realized how unusual it was for anyone in my generation to tell a joke. It was funny, don't get me wrong;
It was about a guy stuck in the hospital with Montezuma's revenge. He ends up shating his sheets, and is so annoyed with himself he roles them up and throws them out the window. There's a drunk guy down below, who gets hit with this mess, and flails around. Someone comes along and, laughing, asks what he's up to. He says he's not sure, but he thinks he just beat the shit out of a ghost.
The poor presentation of the above joke may illustrate why I don't usually dabble. In any event, I think it's funny. So why don't people my age usually tell them?
Maybe our fast paced lifestyle doesn't usually allow for the telling of jokes which contain lengthy preamble. This would be supported by the fact that I would expect more joke telling in a bar, a place where time is not usually short.
A big reason, I think, is that the joke is by definition canned. I laugh at things that are unexpected. Unexpected irony, association, shared and fondly remembered cultural history are all the stuff of day-to-day humour. The joke is not spontaneous in this way. You know it's a joke. You know you're expected to laugh at the end. With the spontaneity removed, the bar of hilarity is raised higher than it otherwise would be.
But that doesn't mean one can't enjoy a good joke now and then. I'm just not very good at telling them.
The Cadillac of Coffees
So I'm pretty tired this morning, and as I get off the commuter train on the way to work, I remember that we were about out of coffee. This won't do, so I pop into the starbucks at the quaint station. Usually my co-working coffee lovers get a pound of whatever 'bold' coffee is stocked at the time. I think they make it a bit strong, because the last pound only lasted a week and a half, and we're just making a 10-cup pot a day. Not wanting to be a freeloader, I sally over to the rack of beans.
Looking over the selection, I grab the only 'bold' non-decaf that's there. Arabian Roast. I walk up to the cash in my groggy state and wait while it is ground into life-giving powder. Then I give them my credit card and get the slip back. $16.17. I stare at the number. Is it in hex? No, that would be worse. I look up at the menu board with a bewildered expression, noting all the different varieties and observing their prices in the $10-11 range. If I was more lucid I might have said "No, no, I don't want to buy stock in Starbucks, I just want a pound of coffee." But instead I just mumble out "why so expensive?"
"That's a rare variety," says one clerk. "It's the cadillac of coffees," says another. Of course it's already ground at this point, so I just leave in defeat. It had better be fanfriggintastic, that's all I can say.
Let me see. [Takes the skull.] -- Alas, poor Yorick!
-- I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest,
of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his
back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred
in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here
hung those lips that I have kist I know not how
oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols?
your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were
wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to
mock your own grinning? quite chop-faln? Now
get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that.
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