If you concentrate hard enough on the book you’re reading on the planeride, you won’t even hear the two women behind you discuss the fate of their souls. But you have to concentrate really hard.
Now I’m in San Diego for a workshop resembling a particle theory experiment. In this case we’re smashing together quantum algorithm people with signal processing people in hopes that this collision will produce some new particle of knowledge unknown to man.
Damn Spam
Spam has evolved to putting subjects which will trick you into opening the email. If you email me, don’t put “hello” in the subject, cus I probably won’t open the email. If, on the other hand, you put “eigenstate” as the subject, as did the spam I received today, I will open the email. Doh!
Superstition
There is a primeval part of me which thinks that if the Red Sox beat the Yankees, then John Kerry will win the presidential election. And maybe then baseball will stop their seventh inning offensive singing. Actually I guess the real matchup should be the Astros and the Sox in the world series.
Happy New Year's Eve
Today is New Year’s Eve…in Ethiopia. So go out and party like it’s 1997…because according to the Julian calendar, thats what year it is. What I like best is that neither the Julian calender nor the Gregorian calendar get the date of Jesus’s birth correct according to most historians (the Gregorian calendar is off by about 7 years and the Julian calendar is even farther off.) I also like the story of the pope who said the day after October 5, 1582 was October 13, 1582. Man, those were the days when papal authority really meant something. Not like today where the pope can barely influence a presidential election.
If I Were a Censor
Banned: use of the word “final” and “theory” in the same sentence.
Oye! Harsh!
Elections destroy any positive karma…today I thought of a new bumper sticker:
Reagan died because of research Bush denied.
Ouch! Oye!
NM Bumper Stickers
New Mexico
A giiigantic truck, like a trillion cabs, with a big sports stripe on the side, with a rainbow square bumper sticker, also a rainbow square with the words “family” in the middle of the square, and a support George Bush bumper sticker. Well, I’ll be…
also
A bumper sticker that said “bumper sticker.” Would a blank bumper sticker be the same? No. And why?
Heavenly Tasks
The young girl across from me in the Toronto airport is reading “The Five People you Will Meet in Heaven.” Which got me thinking: isn’t that nice, all these cool people who you’d never get a chance to talk to, will be your pals in heaven. But why does their eternal bliss in heaven involve a conversation with you?
Reality Propaganda
Philip Dick has a famous quote about reality. Actually on the web you can find two versions of the quote:
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
and
Reality is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.
If the second quote is correct, well Philip Dick died in 1982, and yet reality certainly exists, so Philip Dick must not have died in 1982. So I decided to stop believing in the second quote. And yet the second quote remains.
Occam
I put away Jorge Luis Borges many years ago when I wrote my Literature thesis as an undergrad. Tonight I returned to him and read Death and the Compass:
“It’s possible, but not interesting,” Lönnrot answered. “You will reply that reality hasn’t the slightest need to be of interest. And I’ll answer you that reality may avoid the obligation to be interesting, but that hypothesis may not . . .”