Monday  28 Jan 2013           1 comment

An update on coëducation at Deep Springs College (previously discussed here and here): by court ruling, "The Trust can not be construed as giving the Trustees discretion to admit female students." This is not the end of the legal process, but it does mean that plans to admit female students this autumn have been called off.

The college prepared a form letter advising male applicants who might have been anticipating female classmates that Deep Springs will remain a sausage fest for now. (OK, it wasn't phrased that way.)

I've read and heard a number of views about Deep Springs' all-maleness, ranging from nuanced consideration to "it's discriminatory". The judge in this case had a nontrivial job to do. I'm biased, but I think he made a good decision. I think the founder's intentions were clear enough and deserve to be honored. Those who would like to see a similar but coëd college can found a new one.

Saturday  26 Jan 2013           comment?

Clearing storm look today.
Snow on Mt. Williamson Beavis.

Wednesday  23 Jan 2013           2 comments

It's been a while since the last ploy to encourage reader participation, so...

Feel free to add to this list of stock phrases that become entertaining when used in reference to a pet snake:

• he has a lot of time on his hands
• he's lying down on the job
• he's back in the saddle

and my favorite so far—

• he's been keeping a low profile

Saturday  19 Jan 2013           1 comment

I watched a movie today with a scene where Steve McQueen's character opens a Swiss bank account with a shitload of (stolen) cash, doesn't give his name or address, and as he's leaving he tells the bankers,

then there's a pause, during which I imagine him saying it's gotta be on the nineteenth, then he says,

and then it occurs to me, today is the nineteenth. If you've ever wondered why 19 is the Tommy number, it's a long story but this kind of thing happens every so often. Deciding whether or not it's dumb luck is left to the reader as an exercise. The movie, The Thomas Crown Affair, has its moments but struck me as weak overall. It was worth watching once, and would've been even if it didn't have the line about the nineteenth. Happy nineteenth, everyone.

Thursday  17 Jan 2013           comment?



Does this not have Japan written all over it?

I mean, even if you haven't been following news about where a certain airplane type has made emergency landings, isn't the scene in this pic somewhat reminiscent of a zen garden with its uniform texture and spare arrangement of objects?

Should I ever visit Japan, I'd want to see a dry landscape garden (枯山水)—where, as Wikipedia tells us, the stones should not form a geometric pattern (in accord with the stochasticity of nature) nor should an arrangement have an even number of stones.

I get the preference for odd numbers, although I would've gone farther and specified primes.

Tuesday  15 Jan 2013           1 comment

To keep a person on the Scientology path, feed him a mystery sandwich.   — L. Ron Hubbard

Me personally, I'd rather write a mysterious song lyric or make a mysterious sculpture (or, sticking to what's more likely to happen, write a mysterious blog posting) than start a religion. But I wouldn't want to be a politician, either.

It's one thing to recognize the potency of mystery, but another to be skilled at evoking a sense of mystery in one's work.

If I analyzed passages of music that strike me as mysterious to better understand why they have that effect, would that spoil the mystery? My guess is no, any understanding would open the door to yet more mystery. I suspect that for all practical purposes, mystery is an endless well.

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And, wholly unrelatedly, I have ditched the web hosting service I had been using for the past eight years. In general things seem OK on the new server but please let me know if you notice anything that looks to be amiss.

Friday  11 Jan 2013           comment?

Square bokeh, used (tastefully, sparingly) in a movie (A Bronx Tale, 1993).

Details of cinematography are a big part of what makes a movie delightful (or not) to me. But for whatever reason, visual style is not as crucial to me as writing style in prose fiction. I can watch a movie whose cinematography isn't to my taste, but if the style of a novel or short story rubs me the wrong way I'll quit after a few pages.

Anyhow, the movie I watched tonight had the first instance of square-aperture bokeh I can recall ever having seen in a film. I suspect it was a deliberate choice and I found it quite apt for the scene.

Wednesday  09 Jan 2013           comment?

It's not remarkable that someone signs their name as shown to the right, nor is it remarkable that a person who signs their name that way works in government.

But when he-who-signs-like-that is likely to be Treasury secretary, the question arises: will such a signature appear on US currency, or will he succumb to pressure (internal or external) and produce a legible signature for the purpose like Secretary Geithner did. I trust you know which I would prefer.

Tuesday  01 Jan 2013           3 comments

As part of a new look for 2013, I wanted to make changes to the patterns that fill the left edge of the window. They are not in effect today because I left too much of the work for the last minute and I hit a snag in rebuilding the server-side program that renders the patterns as PNG images.

In failing to get my act together before midnight on December 31, I have something in common with the US Congress. Scary.

I may need a new web hosting provider. If you have a recommendation, please let me know. I need to be able to run the usual Linux tools (gcc, libraries, ...) on the server.

Speaking of new looks on January 1, my snake picked today to shed his skin.

Happy New Year, everyone.