A tale of exorcism. (Linked by Jim March, who is doing good RKBA work here in California.)

I sent Dad a pretty piece of meteorite, without explanation, knowing that he and his missus would have fun guessing what it is. I had never seen stuff like it: lumps of olivine (a translucent silicate rock) in a matrix of nickel-iron, nicely polished. When I saw that it had been delivered, I called, and Dad asked: “So what kind of monsters can I repel with this talisman?” (That suggested kryptonite, but I found no smooth way to slip that hint into the conversation.) Kid Brother had been visiting and it seems he exposed them to DnD-style gaming, which they had never done though they’re big fans of Myst and the like.

Stop me if I’ve mentioned this before: Some weeks ago my One True Ex took me to a gem show in San Mateo. (She goes to these things every n months and buys pearls which she flogs at SCA events.) We spent an afternoon feasting our eyes on pretty rocks, fossils, rocks, netsuke and of course meteorites. I spent like a sailor, tsk tsk.

The above delightful phrase is the title of a new “mostly political (libertarian), mostly link-hound, mostly for my amusement blog.”

Oops! For those of you whose Latin has gone rusty, that means I Think, Therefore I Cannot Sleep.

Average life expectancy for a population is normally given from birth; but it seems to me more useful to distinguish youth mortality (e.g. from birth-defects or malnutrition) from that of adulthood (violence, accidents) and age (heart disease &c).

I’d like to see life expectancy stated in the form of two numbers: the age at which future l.e. stops increasing (which measures childhood mortality; if c.m. is very low I guess the critical age is negative), and the l.e. at that age (which measures what we usually think of as longevity).

This train of thought was prompted by the mention on some blog or other (sorry I’ve now forgotten whose; the background was a pale buff, I think, if that helps) about two brothers who are in business together at ages 100 and 91. The bloguist mused about how it feels to celebrate a centenary birthday and know that one is unlikely to see another. (I commented that a centenarian is more likely to see 101 than he had ever been before!) I’m musing about what it’s like to know somebody for that long. How old can a ‘kid brother’ be, i.e. do people outgrow such hierarchies? (We know that High-Elves don’t, at least not in 2739 years!)

Later: Steven Gallaher shares some pointers and observations. The second derivative starts to look more interesting than the first.

successful test of Leonardo’s parachute design of 1483. (found, oddly, by “related:www.ogre.nu”)

Results of searching for each of 26 letters. (Found at Aaron Swartz’s Googlog)

Would you like to know just what cracks me up about Drew Barrymore? Well I’ll tell you, if this is a convenient time. The funny thing about Drew Barrymore is that when she smirks she looks strikingly like Stephen Fry. (Whose website happens to be rather useless, by the way.)