No, that’s not some strange code. Those are the symbols I haven’t been able to type for the past week, for reasons that I finally sorted out with Apple tech support people. (There seems to be an incompatibility with some LaTeX font packages.) So, I haven’t given up blogging, and haven’t been suffering from clinical depression since the inauguration; it just took so long to … Continue reading 2@WwSsXx~`[tab]

Combining the insights of two friends at a meeting yesterday: Bureaucracy is the best argument against both intelligent design and the theory of evolution. There’s nothing intelligent about it. And it’s not the fittest but the most spineless who survive and reproduce. Continue reading Bureaucracy

Well, maybe you are…. If space-time is a grainy hologram, then you can think of the universe as a sphere whose outer surface is papered in Planck length-sized squares, each containing one bit of information. The holographic principle says that the amount of information papering the outside must match the number of bits contained inside the volume of the universe. Since the volume of the … Continue reading Are we living inside a hologram?

I’m thinking of accepting this challenge (HT: Lefty): This is The Challenge – Record an album in 28 days, just because you can. That’s 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material recorded during the month of February. Go ahead… put it to tape. It’s a little like National Novel Writing Month, (NaNoWriMo.org) where writers challenge each other to write 1,700 words a day for … Continue reading The RPM Challenge

Slate lists the twenty most gerrymandered districts in America.  All but one of the top thirteen are Democratic.  I’ve lived in 17 and 19! I’ve often wondered how people like Barney Frank, Jack Murtha, and Alcee Hastings get elected.  This explains it. Continue reading Gerrymanders

The Austin American-Statesman just sent out an email update on the first day of the (thankfully, biennial) session of the Texas Legislature. The top headlines are baffling to the uninitiated and even to the initiated: 81ST LEGISLATURE Craddick enters from the lobby Session’s start means babies, food and drink Tweet off at high noon Pomp and circumstance Straus begins historic day by walking his dog Continue reading Huh?

Condi Rice abstains on a cease-fire resolution, which she later says the U.S. “fully supports,” apparently because Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called President Bush and complained about U.S. plans to vote ‘yes.’  Whose side are we on?  Voting in favor of a “cease-fire” that prevents a nation from defending itself while continuing to be a target of missile attacks is an outrage.  We should … Continue reading For Shame

including mine: Behold the power of intellect: Someone who wasn’t even on your romantic radar suddenly becomes the target of your affection when you find out he or she is intelligent — or at least could be. Being a professor doesn’t make anyone an automatic genius, but chances are these academics have expertise in at least one field, can speak a second or third language … Continue reading Ten Sexy Careers…