Wednesday  27 Feb 2013           2 comments

Tuesday  26 Feb 2013           2 comments

Friday  22 Feb 2013           1 comment

Commonly cited examples of macroscopic quantum phenomena include superfluidity and superconductivity. I submit that package shipment also belongs on the list, although I am too chicken to edit the Wikipedia article to reflect this.

Whereas details about the origin and termination of a photon's travel are obtainable, its whereabouts in between are another story. Remarkably, the same is true about packages shipped by UPS. A package's acceptance and delivery can be directly observed, but in-transit tracking reports can be at odds with classical notions of time and tense. E.g., at 7:06 PST on a recent morning, UPS reported a package as having been observed leaving a facility at 8:18 PST. Writing to UPS for clarification elicited a response consistent with the uncertainty principle: "I do not have any further information available."

Whereas 20^th century demonstrations of macroscopic quantum phenomena required very low temperatures, package shipment now exhibits anomalous behavior at temperatures above freezing. Progress.

Thursday  21 Feb 2013           comment?

From a 1973 manual for a FORTRAN compiler: I recall another edition of that manual having something amusing in its index, but I couldn't find a copy of it online.

In 1989, after several reviews of The Andy Warhol Diaries lamented that the 800-page book didn't have an index, SPY magazine compiled one and included it as a 16-page pullout in their August '89 issue. I wanted to see whether the 2006 history/anthology SPY: The Funny Years had anything to say about that project, but it doesn't have an index.

The index of Paul Trynka's 2011 biography of David Bowie lists the pages that deal with Bowie's fear of flying (204, 327) but not those that mention the size of his dick (90, 128).

Movie credits aren't closely analogous to book indices, but this is as good a time as any to say that I'd love to have a part in a movie described as potentially evil guy on train.

Tuesday  12 Feb 2013           comment?

You can vote on names for recently-discovered moons of Pluto.
Cerberus the lovable three-headed canid is in the lead.

Sunday  10 Feb 2013           comment?



This guy has been gloating today.
As he is wont to remind me, there is no year of the human.

Friday  08 Feb 2013           comment?

Details like this Q are why I like The New Yorker. And they use a diaeresis for more than just a handful of words (e.g., naïve). And, well, they have good writers.

Thursday  07 Feb 2013           3 comments

Clouds this afternoon.
See also 40× time lapse video on YouTube.

Saturday  02 Feb 2013           3 comments

I remember a surprise 30^th birthday party for my brother, where, as usual, I was five years younger than he; and I thought wow, 30 seems a lot older than 25 and I'm glad I'm 25 and not 30. In particular, I was glad to look 25 rather than 30 (for the usual reason).

30 seemed to come really soon, as if time had sped up just to get even with me for having been so smug about being 25.

30 elicited more curious reactions than any other age. Someone would ask how old I was, I'd say 30, they'd say they didn't think I was that old, then feel the need to say something like "not that 30 is really old or anything".

40 was no big deal, at least not to me (some people seemed to think words of reassurance that 40 wasn't so bad were in order). Not being young had already ceased to be an issue, partly because there is no being young again so move on and partly because being not-young turned out to have worthwhile features that were all the more endearing because I hadn't anticipated them.

50 was cool by virtue of sheer fifty-ness. I mean, it's the last age I'll probably attain that's writeable as a single-letter Roman numeral. And 50 had more of the it's-nice-just-to-be-here feel than 40 had. 50 is starting to feel like it's beyond the model's intended lifespan.

These are of course only arbitrarily round numbers, i.e. artifacts of our having settled on base 10. Considering numbers qua numbers, I appreciate being 53 because prime ages come along less often now. And on the way to Death Valley there's a 53-intensive road sign that I like.

The WSJ once had a cartoon with two kids in a schoolyard, one says, "you have a birthday coming up" and the other says, "yeah, the big 1-0".

Tommyjournal is 10 today.