"I specialized in explosives because they were fun, and I liked doing things that got results in a hurry."- Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, recalling chemical experiments he'd done at age 11.
Saturday 05.27.06
movie review review review
Today, Tommyjournal reviews Language Log's review of The New Yorker's review of, well, a silly film.
This review will be mercifully brief.
Language Log delights in sharing the jargon of their field with a wide audience, and they pull it off so well. I mean, no one slips a phrase like "anarthrous occupational NP preposed to a proper name" into an otherwise normal-looking sentence with quite the aplomb that the Language Log folks do. There are two kinds of people: those who read Language Log every day, and those who don't--and for the life of me, I can't understand why the latter group is larger than the former.
Evidently, people can also be divided into those who find The New Yorker's review screamingly funny and those who don't. Tommy likes it, although I'd say their earlier review of Revenge of the Sith was better.
Monday 05.22.06
F.B.I. Contends Lawmaker Hid Bribe in Freezer:
The F.B.I. accused Representative William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, on Sunday of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from a Kentucky businessman and stashing $90,000 from the scheme in his home freezer in Washington.My grandmother used her freezer as a stash. Every time I saw her take money out, I'd say "cold cash" and she'd say "frozen assets".
She thought it was strange that men had nipples. I guess it clashed with the biblical account of creation, where Adam was made first.
Thursday 05.18.06
I'm so glad to be home. I missed the sky, the mountains, my friends, the jackrabbits, the ravens, ...
While passengers were taking their seats on the plane yesterday, one flight attendant said the same silly phrase to just about everyone she helped out. I thought to myself, "if I hear her say 'no worries' one more time, I'm gonna scream" (OK, it wasn't that annoying, but it was getting there).
The flight was uneventful until the descent, at which point a bunch of banging noises came from the right engine. The captain told us it was a compressor stall, it rendered that engine unusable, and for a safe landing we would be diverting to an airport with a longer runway.
Passengers were generally calm. I figured we were probably OK, but it occured to me that I ought to have a will.
A certain flight attendant assured us everything was under control. "No worries."
It was a jetBlue flight. Recalling an emergency landing a jetBlue plane made last year, the pilot told us "the good news is, we're not on TV" (by which I assume he meant that our situation hadn't been dire enough to warrant TV coverage). There were fire engines stationed near the runway when we came in, though.
Tuesday 05.16.06
A young man working at the deli section in the grocery store a few blocks away was wearing a t-shirt today with the number
17 on
the front. To most people, the shirt just looks
like an athletic uniform; to me, the shirt not only
bespeaks jock but also makes me recall a
bunch of things about the number 17:
- 17 is a Fermat prime; Gauss' construction (at age 19) of a regular 17-gon by straightedge and compass (or, equivalently, his expression of cos(2π/17) as an algebraic number) was a significant advance in mathematics
- 17 is the age of consent here in New York
- I was 17 years (and one day!) old when I first had sex
- 17 and 19 are twin primes, and therein hangs a tale (but it seems to not interest many people I tell it to, so I won't go into it here)
I am confident that the young man at the deli counter didn't know I thought all that when I saw his shirt. But I suspect he did notice that I made eye contact with him for just a little longer than most people would. (Yes, he is hot, in that unaffected guy-next-door way that I find characteristic of many New York guys, that I so like.)
I'm going home tomorrow (the 17th).
(followup: this 17-related item appeared on May 18)
Wednesday 05.10.06
From Larry King's interview with Mary Cheney this evening:
| King: | How do you feel about--this question bothered many Americans--the torture aspect? |
| Cheney: | You know, I am not an administration official. So I can't really speak on behalf of the administration. |
| King: | Just for yourself? |
| Cheney: | From my own perspective, I think that there are some pretty awful people out there who will stop at nothing to hurt this country. And I think you should be clear that we're not really talking about torture, we're talking about types of interrogation. |
Apparently the policy on torture of Alberto R. Gonzales and the Bush administration can be summarized in a single sentence: This administration does not engage in torture and will not condone torture - and besides, they deserve it.
Monday 05.08.06
About 27 years ago, some friends and I arranged to meet up again on a date that, at the time, seemed a long ways off: January 5, 2000. We agreed to meet at the Cloisters, a museum near the northern tip of Manhattan. I'd never been there; my friends chose the location.
Over the intervening years, I remained in touch (to varying degrees) with the friends in that group. I looked forward to the 2000 meeting, I thought it would be nice to see them all again.
Then, in 1987, one of the friends (hereinafter referred to by his initials, PJ) and I had a falling out. Long, ugly story. After I became HIV+, PJ told me I was no longer welcome to visit him and his wife. That pissed me off (understatement); enough was known about the epidemiology of HIV to conclude that staying in the same house wasn't a significant risk. I won't go into the rest of the details, but I learned a bit from the experience. For one, it was humbling to find out that I'd been mistaken about who I thought my good friends were.
I was bitter about it, and time didn't much heal the wound. There's more to the story than just PJ's saying I couldn't visit him, but I don't feel like writing about it here.
So. 2000 rolled around. Several of us no longer lived on the east coast; a suggestion was made to have a meeting online rather than in person. I thought that wasn't as much fun as the original idea, but it was practical. In any case, I was still annoyed enough with PJ that I said I didn't care to be a part of the gathering if he was. A friend who was organizing the meeting sympathized with me and decided not to invite PJ. I said that wasn't necessary; I was fine with not participating, I didn't think everyone else should miss chatting with PJ just because I thought he was a jerk. Even so, the organizer's choice was to invite me and not PJ. This may have lost him PJ's friendship.
I participated in the online meeting in 2000, and I don't recall a word being spoken about PJ, nor about my experience with him.
I no longer get as bitter about troubles in friendships as I did with PJ. Part of what sucked about that experience was the timing; it was hard enough for me to come to terms (in 1987) with the news that I was HIV+; to have a friend shun me felt like I was being kicked while I was down.
Anyway. Here I am, in New York in 2006. Last Friday, I went to the Cloisters for the first time ever. I was curious to see the place; I figured it wouldn't have been selected for the planned 2000 meeting if it wasn't special in some way. The Cloisters also has a famous tapestry that I wanted to see, to wit: The Unicorn in Captivity. I wasn't disappointed. The Cloisters is a great building, in a great setting--and the Unicorn tapestries are rad.
Wednesday 05.03.06
My hat is off to Stephen Colbert for putting Bush in his place at last week's White House Correspondents Dinner. (Yeah, I'm late with my response; the rest of the blogosphere has already weighed in on this. So sue me.) Colbert's talk had several priceless lines, e.g.:
I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.Thanks for saying that, Mr. Colbert.
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