2011 — 8 January: Saturday
As I was leaving Roger yesterday, I made a mistake.1 I asked to borrow his copy of "Not even wrong" (the 2006 book by Peter Woit) that nicks Wolfgang Pauli's acerbic "Das ist nicht einmal falsch" and examines "the failure of string theory and the continuing challenge to unify the laws of physics". Recall the wicked XKCD comic frame I used last time I got all unstrung.
It's a page turner :-)
But now, at 05:47, I'm left vaguely wondering how long it will take for my "normal" sleep pattern to re-establish itself. I remember my chum Cathy telling me2 the advice she, in turn, had received when coping with some of those long, black, marches of the night: get up, make a drink, and potter around for a bit.
Nice cuppa! :-)
I'm shocked...
... to be able to say "Happy 63rd birthday" to 'Ziggy Stardust' today. I shall have to tune to a less exciting radio channel. But return to it in time for "Sounds of the 60s", of course. Let's see if sleep is back on the agenda...
I was amused to learn that IBM employs an "expert on online identity and persona" as an "innovator in residence". Whatever next? Programmers? (Source.)
Yesterday's "incoming" goodies, by the way:
- World's Greatest Dad
Effective study in bigotry and hypocrisy, darkly sugar-coated - Bobby
Excellent ensemble re-creation of that dreadful event - Interstate 60
By the chap who produced "Used cars" and "Back to the future"
Time (09:55) for a bit of breakfast. The sky outside has been an interesting mixture of some pretty heavy-looking clouds so far this morning.
I thought I knew...
... pretty well all the cartoons of the late, great, B Kliban. I was therefore quite surprised to find the caption to one I didn't know buried in an interesting article about hi-res audio, here.
What do you mean, you've never heard of B Kliban? Start here!
More from Mr Postie
If I ever had a rival for Christa's affections, it was (I suspect) Paul Newman :-)
- Rachel. Rachel
He directed his wife in this, back in 1968 - Confidence
Again, a promising ensemble cast - Don't tempt me
I live in hope!
I've mentioned before the skill of some graphic artists. And I still think the cover of this Hofstadter book was cool, too. So, given the plot of the Spanish film, the typography struck me as crafty:
Is it time for a cuppa, Mrs Landingham? There's a somewhat blue sky up there at 15:13. Still cool, though. And there's the small matter of an OSX upgrade (to 10.6.6). Might as well load it, I guess. What's 120MB these days? [Pause] I see the flood of spam email has just resumed. I knew it was too good to last.
Next time I look...
... it's already 22:27 and I've just finished watching "Inception" again, this time from Blu-ray, and with my subwoofer back in the sound system to give me the illusion of protecting my main stereo speakers from some of the meatier low frequency effects on the DTS lossless audio signal. As I dug once again into the manual for the AudioLab pre-amp (to see exactly how to re-instate the subwoofer) I also discovered that I can in fact delay audio by up to 500ms relative to video which means I can easily compensate for the dreadful lip-sync problem on the DVD3 extras documentary. (Last time, I'd been trying to adjust this only within the DVDO scaler, which has a smaller range of adjustment.)
Meanwhile, I'd asked Big Bro to send over a nice shot he'd taken of the ladies he refers to as "Team Mounce" or "the sister act". I might myself choose (with the greatest affection, of course) to characterise my four nieces as a coven of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, but — in Bro's words — The sister act continue to amaze and thrill us with their strong bonds... any man entering the equation takes on all 4!!! Who am I to argue?
Heather, Claire, Rachel, and Michelle