Small.Island.in.World.Three

Friday was eventful, in a sorta average class-day way. I happened upon Ed Minar at the coffee shop. He was my first mentor in philosophy.

After classes, some quick, but planned and well-executed, packing, then the roadtrip began. Driving, driving, driving. The drive down was dominated by a game Eileen suggested (I think she actively collects such word games). Game = movie titles that are suggestive of defecation, or at least funny if thought-of from that angle. Ask any one of us for the next few days, and you will likely get to hear more such titles than you really wanted to know when you do this hypothetical asking. As Brian, Sean, Heather, and Heather's Brian found out.

Texas was windy, and the wind was often cold in the bitter way.

After some time (and samples of E's birthday present from Sean) at Brian's Plano digs (pretty nice apartment), we drove the requisite 20 minutes to get somewhere, which in this case was The Flying Saucer. Nice place, tasty potables. Then back to crash.

Next "morning", we went to a very Plano "village" area for their Mexican food. The area is much better than most of Plano (and Dallas in general), as the buildings are sane distances apart. Still a bit too "modern overstuffed rustic missing nothing" for my taste. Then staging at Brain's and the trip into Dallas.

First stop, the Dallas Museum of Art (my second time there). Mountain Landscape with Approaching Storm is a good one to get lost in. And I was reimpressed with a painting of a windy cemetery by a sea (I don't see it online), for its ability to repeatedly send a particular shiver of cold down my spine. Not enough Monet's, but of course, plenty of nice phallic and yonic representations from those older, strightforward cultures. Some wonderfully gawdy furniture for those with great style and either no or perfect taste (I go back and forth on the matter). Also a nice little multi-angle short-film about death (and life) starring a couple dozen tops; very nice and laugh provoking. Ah, the funny noises we make as we all spin our energy away and wind down.

Then we found a place to crash later, and hunted down an Indian restaurant (score++ for my 770), as was the wish of the B-day boy John. It is a quite good place. I recommend.

Then back to the Ramada to digest, then out to the West End where we found many places closed or closing. Then one open (post-cold-walk). Predictably from there.

This morning, after our fill of the Ramada, we went back to the West End, to locate some food. Heather and her Brian made a very welcome entrance. Happily, she appears to be doing quite well. Although they have lately taken up the risky hobby of a X-tian connected religion.

After dropping Brian back in Plano, we got a flat tire just before the freeway. John and I attached the spare, while Sonia got the, close by, location for the Sam's Club (she had a warrantee). I tried to take the forced delay as a chance, among other things, to look at the artifacts of my own culture with an eye similar to the one(s) I had used the day before in the museum. Only moderate success.

Then the road, and home to Fay-ville. Overall, nice adventure-type weekend, but Texas needs to figure out proper weatherstripping and wall insulation (every other building was drafty in some way).

Classes yesterday went boringly for the most part. The two I have tomorrow both have stuff due. So that is my today.

Went to Dave's place last night. Watched Dr Who's X-mas invasion episode. Then we threw ourselves against the seemingly hopeless task of rolling up the King of All Cosmos. Rumor has it that 3500m will be enough. Dave's previous best was 2800m. After we did individual runs (in which he up-ed his record), we noticed that I did better than he at getting to about the 300m mark, while he did better than I after the 500m mark. So we tag-teamed on the next try. That got us up to 3300m, more than I was really hoping for on our first night of the task. So the once seemingly hopeless task now seems possible, but it will require a near perfect run (roll) from both of us. A map of the large-scale layout wouldn't hurt.

Planning to go to Dallas this weekend (tomorrow). More than plenty to do today.

Sunday was SuperBowl Potluck. Finger food, mostly of the dip type, was the norm. Dave had lots of neighbor-types over, so it was all best behavior and such. Which, happily, doesn't preclude a bit of yelling. A new girl brought little pizza things, and Lance brought some bean dip. Potluck winner was a tie between them, imho.

After an email last night, I'm feeling better. More sane. Which is nice. It is somewhat self-disappointing that I would have felt un-sane to begin with, but we don't get to choose our own workings. And it wasn't altogether surprising. Life will move on.

I missed a class today, by a self-appointed minute. Bad Phil, do better.

Then more dreamy nanotech. The only problem with the class is that questions aren't really welcome. If one asks, "is X possible?" then the answer is "no one knows". It doesn't play as a comfortable answer, so the question turns out to not be comfortable either. It shouldn't be that way, but so it goes.

Monday night fun was nice. Talk of Dune. Talk of Dave's mill. Me volunteering to look into some logistics for this upcoming weekend. Talk of how life has crushed the dreams of everyone and thus made everyone who has lived bitter, but there is no need to speak of it. Oh, and a famous basketball player showing up in the pub. All in all, very nice.

Now home. And Colbert is on. Stuff to do tomorrow, but happily, no miles to go before I sleep. Just a few steps.

Although the benefit is obviously dubious in retrospect, I spent the day in reclusion. I haven't felt good since my errand Friday.

Part of the theory is that by doing little today I will store up more motivation for the future. As opposed to dragging through something today and still dragging more tomorrow. It makes sense, I'm sure. It's validity is unknown.

Just finished up some archiving. I need more HDD space on this machine.

Sean is right. Those glasses at the end of Casino are great.

Going back to an older version of xscreensaver worked.

So my second and last class of the day was cancelled. Which left me the task of trying to get some paperwork done with someone who is perpetually so busy as to make scheduling time near impossible. Quite aggravating.

Usual friday type night in mind. Sci-fi Friday.

This after I do a bank stop, finish the lingering property exchange, and get staples and supplies.

My massive "emerge --deep world" quest is over, and yet xscreensaver is blanking my screen in a most unhelpful and undesirable way. So I guess I'll move back a couple of versions and see if that works.

I've been reading Partially Clips - A Webcomic for Grownups. It reminds me of another great webcomic strip that I remember sharing with David D, but can't remember the name of --or find a link in my vast bookmarks--. I even tried looking through all the our IM logs for all the links he and I have traded (lots).

Oh, well, time to move around and do some things.

Class cycle today (Wed, yesterday by the blog date).

Did some more SW:Battlefront over at Dave's after class.

Today's Nanotech class was fantasy inducing. Heck, they pretty much all are. There are a few clear things that it would be nice for us to know how to do with carbon nanotubes, CNT. And right now there is a great deal of Monte Carlo in the search. But that is really how it should be, I suppose.

• To the point, fine-grained control of the functionalization of the CNT. Like the order of whatevers that are down the length, bonus points for their relative orientations. Perhaps something that walks down the length of the tube letting things on. If it can just walk a bit, cut the tube, and close up the end, then we can call it a drug packing bot.
• And personally, I'm curious about a functionalization that will induce repeatable bending on command. When a tube bends then the inter-carbon distances in the bend region change. So it stands to reason that some arrangement which would force those same distance changes might bend the tube.
• Can they be nicely cut open for the release of what is in them?
• Further, if the overall curvature can be controlled, and a short tube formed into a torus, might a chain of such toruses be useful? Or what about using such toruses to hold bundles of straight tubes together. Or using it like steel ties. I dream of little tied-carbon frames in plastic. Or just alone.
• Basic question: what is the friction between a CNT and one nested inside?

My dad has a nice idea for a business, which entails, as a first step, me needing to do some researching. He needs interweb. As does Dave.

Fayetteville needs a few tunnels through some mountains. Where is an army of programmable robotic ants when you need them? Cause I want a tunnel and a livable cave on/in the moon.

My daily sleep cycle has definitely shifted about +3.5 hours relative to some "norm". It seems fairly stable. But I might see about shifting it to about +2.5 instead.

I figure if I do three loads of laundry each cyclic visit, I can have the backlog disappeared in two weeks.

Then there was potluck, which turned into a typically atypical sunday night. Out at Tim's. Topics I heard: Dave's mill's power supply, hymns, superpowers, D-train against the magician, where Sam's hands have been, culture after cheap oil, and Dave's obsession with mill related thoughts.

Jon's doing his first Sudoku.

That is about the shape of things today.

Drip Drop.

I think my motivational neurons are taking the day off. There are several things that I feel like I could do, in a sort of academic, "I suppose", kind of way. But the moving part... that is another matter.

Jon was over again last night. We watched Battlestar and then some other random t.v. world. Then we resumed a bit of research into "catchy-ness".

One possible test that we tried was to pause a song abruptly and see what about the song continued to echo in our brains.

I also tried to get his linquistic processors to catch on to some Stereolab lyrics. They are rad cause they are so hard to hear until your mind loosens up its syllable constraints just right and WHAM, you hear them better than the music.

Speaking of words. I came across a neat one while reading some Popper (the source for my blog's name).

• hypostatize
  • v : construe as a real existence, of a conceptual entity

After Jon left, I watched some Miami Vice. This clears up a minor mystery that came up over the X-mas break. While home, I read a little song that evidence suggests was written by my much younger self. It contained several references to "selling stuff" and getting busted and those sorts of things. The mystery was where my young brain had gotten these terms and their dynamics which I seemed to only have a half-grasp on in the lyrics (or at least a rather happy-go-lucky grasp on). Seeing Miami Vice last night reminded me that I used to watch that show quite regularly. Checkmark that solved box.

The episode also featured that great "Smuggler's Blues" song (maybe they all do), and the plot almost seemed to be built from the very lyrics (maybe all of them were). Or it could have been the other way around. In the end, I don't suppose I care much to know the real causal relationships. But Tubbs is super smooth. As was Edward James Olmos, now the seemingly ever exhausted, don't make him raise his voice, Adama.

Addendum: The sun is out, and Dave and Kathy are here. Maybe I will find some motivation after all.

Yeah, so this nanoblogger is smooth. One question, why does it use pico as its default editor? Why not nano?

Jon and I watched the daily show and talked about what makes a song catchy. Near the top of our example song list, The Cardigans cover of Iron Man.

Thanks to Bowman, for the motivation to get to that Professor Cube. Now I'm thinking I need a 2-cube and a little 1-cube to round out the collection.

Until I hear differently, I'm going to believe that the "make it a 3-cube emulator" strategy can work for the n's above 5, and leave it at that. Which means I'm declaring a, perhaps premature, victory in Rubik's cube space. Project done. Nice to know that I do finish (some) things.

I hope the days of those that read this are going well.

Addendum: I forgot to mention something else that happened today. It was my last day working at Parson's Dispatch.

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I hope this first entry shows up well.

Hello agian world.