Louis Agassiz is fairly awesome. In particular, he was the first to propose ice ages, and to identify glacial deposits. But I wonder, what if science hadn't happened during an ice age, when there wasn't a Greenland ice sheet to take as a model: Would we have ever imagined ice sheets, if we hadn't been able to see them? Geology is such a breathtakingly speculative science.
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11:03:23 PM,
Saturday 9 July 2011
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Experiments are ongoing, but I think I might abandon the blogmass for Google Plus. Facebook was too slimy, and twitter too constrained, but Google+ lets me do everything I do here, and the controls make it feasible for both more personal stuff and more generic web-presence.
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(20)
03:34:27 PM,
Friday 8 July 2011
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While I was sick, I more or less lived on gatorade, bread and bananas. An unintended consequence of this is that I've gone completely off caffeine for about 10 days. I think I'm sleeping better, at least, I'm getting up earlier. I also have been getting very tired, but fewer headaches. I'm tempted to continue with this to seperate out the effects of recovering from being sick from the effects of not taking any caffeine.
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09:48:45 AM,
Thursday 7 July 2011
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I dreamt that my dream contained sections that could not be understood using present dream tectonics.
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08:52:12 PM,
Sunday 3 July 2011
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Yesterday I watched NASCAR. It is, fascinatingly, entirely different than it was a year or two ago; they made some changes to the tracks and the formula, which has resulted in the optimal way to win to form 2 car drafting units, it is now informally a pair sport, whith the pairs varying throughout the race. Radios are essential. Interestingly, this is directly related to better enforcement of the body shape regulations preventing them making the cars even vaguely aerodynamic. The main limiting factor to this strategy is the need to keep the drafting car from overheating, due to the lack of air flow. No one seems entirely happy about this outcome, and it wasn't intentional, the main trigger was repaving the tracks, which made them less bumpy, so staying in contact in turns became feasible. It does result in close races with lots of passing, and spectacular accidents, because, well, the pushing car can't see much, and sometimes lifts the back of the pushed car and turns them. I wonder how long it will take this to be reflected in video games and highway accidents.
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11:09:07 AM,
Saturday 2 July 2011
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If you were the spouse of a cousin at a country-club wedding with gastrointestinal distress on a 90 degree muggy midwestern summer day, would you attend the ceremony, or nap in your hotel room? In theory, I feel better today, I actually experienced hunger for the first time in 5 days, and ventured to eat two entire eggs But I feel undeniably wan, with a pronounced tendency to shamble and prop myself up against the architecture. I think I might go for the ceremony, and then skip out before the reception. We'll see how I feel after a few naps.
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(1)
10:58:07 AM,
Saturday 2 July 2011
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So, on top the airport adventures, my intestine decided it didn't want to absorb liquids for about 48 hours, which incidentally kept me from sleeping. Vomiting was also involved, the second time nothing but bile, which caused my uvula to swell to disturbing proportions. If I exhale too hard it gets stuck between my tongue and the roof of my mouth, which was extremely frightening when it first happened. The intestine seems to be working again, at least, so if the oatmeal stays put, I'll be officially recovering. We've got a 7 hour drive tomorrow. Spent today watching Murder By Death and Triumph of the Will, being too tired to read.
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(9)
08:59:03 PM,
Wednesday 29 June 2011
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In trying to work out why 2 of the 3 flights we tried to take this weekend were cancelled, I found that it may be because of the changes in rules about delays: after all the press about passengers being stuck in planes for hours on the ground, they instituted very stiff fines to prevent this. The way to prevent this is, instead of delaying the flight, just cancel it. The DOT publishes statistics; American Eagle cancels 5% of it's flights now, American 2.8%. Other major airlines hover around 1%. So, if you want to get there, don't fly American. Even so, there's only a 5 in a 1,000 chance of hitting two cancellations on the same 2-legged trip, less on a sunny summer day, so we're still pretty lucky. First flight saturday, cancelled at 1:30am. They rebooked us on the same flight Sunday; only earlier option would have got us in past midnight. The Sunday flight to Chicago goes fine, but the connecting flight is cancelled while we're in the air: rebooked on a flight Monday at 8:30pm. Only same day option to get to Minneapolis? Via Dallas. We rented a car and drove, it being faster and more reliable. Then, Monday, they couldn't give me an estimated delivery time on our luggage, so I ended up driving to the airport to get it.
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05:03:25 PM,
Tuesday 28 June 2011
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I'm not sure I entirely recommend Mrs. Brown, it's very much like any other Judi Dench film, in that it consists primarily of her registering various emotions and being adorable. However, I have rarely seen an actor have as much fun as Antony Sher had as Disraeli.
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07:48:43 PM,
Saturday 25 June 2011
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My division is being valued, by the stock market, at 1 billion dollars. It employs roughly 2,000 people, all or most of whom are at-will employees. I feel something is wrong here.
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01:04:18 PM,
Saturday 25 June 2011
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This is fascinating. Why have modern fonts gone so wrong? I love the apostrophe and the half-brick period in the original, and the way the spacing echos the line. And compare the G's. Granted, the original was probably hand-done. I think I may object to the whole idea of typeset fonts.
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04:19:57 PM,
Friday 24 June 2011
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I wonder if it's summer somewhere.
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(9)
04:16:15 PM,
Friday 24 June 2011
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site & script courtesy of Moss