Output Stream of Consciousness

As you can tell, I'm back online, after my domain departed from me briefly.

It's not a very long story, but for those of you who want to know what happened, here's the scoop.

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If this book was like a dessert, it would be like ordering chocolate cake, and having the waiter come back to the table with something that was so ornate, you almost felt guilty eating it.

It's the fervent attention to detail that feels like the same expenditure of effort that another author would have spent cobbling together six standard novels.

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When I was going into high school, I had the good fortune (though I didn't think so at the time) of being put into Western Canada High School in the International Baccalaureate program.

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If you don't know the story behind what I wear around my neck, here's the goods :)

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In the course of pursuing other questions, I ran across something in particle physics that I didn't know.

(Okay, okay, you can list what I don't know about in text and fill up a 40 Gb drive, but I digress)

I had always heard that gamma rays can produce particles "out of thin air"...

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Happy Pi Day, everyone!

Yes, it's that time of year again, 3.14.

If that's not enough of a reason, it's also Einstein's Birthday. :)

Comment by Adam:

How very geeky :) I love it!

No, we're not talking about any social friction in the US. Whitey was the original male of three mice that spawned my adorable mouse colony.

He passed away yesterday, ostensibly from cancer. Poor guy - at least he had his sons to keep him company.

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In light of a recent contest win, I am reminded of statistics, and the very human tendency to think of luck going in 'streaks', praying for good weather, and the strange rituals that purport to help one's home team win.

I'm not totally immune to such feelings. My head can override my heart, but it's interesting that the emotions are still there. I think that may provide a clue to the mystery.

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I just got a call yesterday from the folks at Garnier, with a message to call them back...

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Science has its share of philosophers. Sometimes, they have a remarkable amount of insight. One such philosopher is Thomas S. Kuhn, who is responsible for the remarkable The Structure of Scientific Revolutions back in 1962.

The thoughts still stand out freshly today.

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I'm always one for finding natural explanations for 'miraculous' phenomena, especially when some pieces of the original meaning get lost in translation.

I came across this link about the parting of the Red Sea.

Not all such things have to have a natural explanation. There are many myths which have grown over time - so by all means, investigate, but there's no need to take a list of miracles as a checklist where all items must be answered :)

Folks who pose as reviewers pretending that they would normally rate something highly, but that the material was such a travesty/so insulting/so unconvincing that they have to give it one star/zero stars if they could... just piss me off...

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Yesterday, I had a pretty weird experience with Windows XP that gave me a bit of grudging respect for the OS, despite my general distrust of things that look like Lego but aren't :)

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Every now and again, I run across peoples' pet theories that are actually pretty interesting. That doesn't make them right, but they're often good thought-provokers, and can point out a few spots where current theories fall down.

Brian DuPraw's theory on how subatomic particles may be made up of neutrinos, not quarks, is one of the more interesting ones.

See what you think

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It makes me shake my head to hear that we think we're close to solving the ultimate questions. We're not there. We're not even close. I think that's a good thing. Yet I see some signs of stagnation, in thought and in funding.

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