My friend Tom was out here in Los Angeles just a few weeks ago and began feeling unwell. He thought it was food poisoning, and opted to return home to Maine early. His illness turned out to be something much more serious; he had an inoperable, malignant tumor in his brain stem.
After his return home, Tom and I would not get another chance to speak. We traded a couple of e-mails as they struggled to diagnose his condition, but that would be all.
Today was one of those days that reminds me why I love living - and as a bonus, doing it here. The sun was shining and it was well above 80. The birds were singing away and frantically going about their springtime business. I have some (sparrows, I think) nesting on the north side of the house. I hear so many different birdsongs day and night that I’ve started checking eNature.com to try to identify them.
Dear Everyone,
I’m a year late at a true update. So, as 2007 comes to a close, it’s high time for a general update on my new scene - especially since I’ve not sent out holiday cards. Some of you have been following along here (thanks!), but most of you haven’t had the time, so here’s an abbreviation.
Forbes has the list of America’s most lustful cities. Cincinnati? San Antonio? I’m not convinced.
Egads! What is the world coming to? A man marrying for money. How totally feminist.
Reader Rick sent me this thread from NYC Craigslist, and I had to share.
new york craigslist > manhattan > rants & raves
woman seeking $500k+ earning man
Read the rest of this entry »
I love this story. Seems that Garrett Lisi, a broke 39 year old surfer from Hawaii, has stunned scientists by presenting a viable, testable “theory of everything” that unites particles and forces within the universe.
While some are calling it a “long shot,” a few top scientists are pleasantly surprised and not so fast to write it off. Lisi’s theory takes gravity into account - something that, to date, has only been accomplished by string theory. String theory, as some of you know, requires ten or eleven dimensions to really work. Lisi’s theory has higher dimensions, too - but unlike string theory, it proves out just fine in our “ordinary” four-dimensional (3d+time) existence. I just like the E8 structures, which were discovered in 1888 but not fully computed/proven out until this year.
Whoa, dude, totally intense.
Assumptions and Peak Universe.
I’m very much looking forward to PopTech 2007, which kicks off later this week. I’ll see some of you there - and those who won’t be there can catch the live webcasts, courtesy of Yahoo!
I’m also excited to meet and learn from Steven Pinker, who I’ve been grooving to recently via his new book, The Stuff Of Thought. He and his partner Rebecca Goldstein are profiled in this cool piece at Salon: Proud Atheists.
The land of the rising sun … setting yet another standard?
This article purports to offer tips to becoming an early riser. My personal experience in this is a tad tortured. I’ve always enjoyed the feeling of being awake early in the morning - up and about and doing my shizznat. But it rarely happens. I love being up early; I hate getting up early. Read the rest of this entry »
Thanks to Chris Locke for digging these up.
“My life doesn’t revolve nor has it ever revolved, around psychedelics. They enhanced my life — psychedelics can enhance the life of any intelligent, courageous person, and they might even represent our last great hope for planetary survival — but they didn’t replace my life or become its central focus. Second, it shouldn’t be implied that the acid elves sell talent by the pound — or the microgram. The psychedelic drug doesn’t exist that can make a creative genius out of a hack or turn a neurotic weenie into a happy fully-conscious human being. You have to bring something to the table, and be willing to risk your belief systems. Some people want to go to heaven without dying.”
I heard an interesting interview with James McGreevey recently where he said a lot of public figures are sort of forced/constrained into straighthood by the political class. I don’t think I buy this - I think many public figures just lack the courage to be honest about their sexuality. Read the rest of this entry »
Once in a great while, I have a very emotionally intense dream. At least one of my friends has told me that he occasionally experiences this as well. However, in my (rare) conversations with others about the topic, I’ve been tempted to conclude that this is not a very common phenomenon. Read the rest of this entry »
Based on Viking data (surprisingly), German scientists believe there is evidence for the existence of extremophiles in the Martian permafrost. Coolness.
My friend Jimmy wrote a great piece for AllThingsD, “Do You Want to Do What You Did Before, or Do You Want to Do Something Interesting?“
Ok… so supplying people with deadly snakes to handle in the name of “God” is cool - but dropping acid in pursuit of same is a 25-to-life felony? Wonder what Alan Watts would say about that.