Dan Alderson once made a map of nearby stars by mounting little colored spheres on threads strung between holes in two sheets of heavy clear plastic.
It occurs to me that, taking the stars in pairs, he could use half as many threads; each would be oblique and therefore longer, but none would be twice as long as the straight threads.
Such a design would be error-prone in execution, and thread is cheap. But I think Dan would chuckle at the suggestion.
This site might disappear for a stupid reason: when my webhost tries to bill my Visa card, something in the chain spits “address verification failure”. I’ve tried variations of my new address (as well as my old address) with no luck. My bank keeps seeing transactions “pending”, as if a restaurant had swiped the card to authorize a sale but not presented the signed slip.
Today I got the first bank statement with my new address, and copied it byte for byte into the web invoice form — with and without the Zipcode extension, with my new and old telephone numbers. Still no joy.
Patrick Henry said in 1775:
It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts.
Was he aware that he conflated two episodes of the Odyssey?
Moving, one rediscovers many miscellaneous old papers. I think I copied this down from a comic skit about spies:
“Would you care to purchase a pair of mittens?” “It depends on the yarn.” “In Italy it is illegal to record the ring of a telephone.” “Which lasts longer, silk or rayon underwear?” “How do you say ‘tooth powder’ in Portuguese?” “Cats are nothing more than effeminate dogs.” “The fireplace has flown south for the winter.” “What do you say to a centipede on opening night? Break four or five legs.”
Looking east from 49°00′08″ N by 122°28′30″ W. After taking the shot, I circumambulated the obelisk, widdershins.
I don’t know which emperor made this primitive earthwork defense against the other.
Does Spanish normally use apostrophes at all?
In Before I Hang, Boris Karloff played Doctor John Garth, a scientist seeking a serum to “cure old age”. He tries a version of the serum on himself, and color returns to his hair — but he used a multiple murderer’s blood to make the serum, and finds himself compelled to kill.
Although several characters doubt that a youth drug is possible, this movie is exceptional in giving no hint that one ought not to try it; no stern rebuke, even by an unsympathetic character, against ‘playing God’ or ‘meddling with Nature’. (Contrast Renaissance.) The final scene is about resolve to continue the effort, and hope of eventual success.
Perhaps in mitigation of this hubris, the benefits of such a drug are expressed in modest terms like “reversing, even for a few years, the afflictions of old age” — nothing about immortality or permanent youth, though one would have to be stupid to miss that implication.