| Nobody wants an exciting life, but some people get one anyway |
[Aug. 6th, 2011|02:47 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Austin, Texas | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Devendra Banhart - My Dearest Friend | ] |
I was recently infected by a Facebook meme that begins, "It's National Book Week." The origins of the meme and the nature of the event upon which it allegedly hinges have surely been lost to history, but the announcement came at a good time for me, because my copy of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight just arrived in the mail!
I was going to say something about how I'd rather be reading a gripping memoir than studying for qualifying exams, but then I realized I'm trying to memorize the life's work of a brilliant but troubled mathematician and student activist who died at twenty in a duel fought against an unnamed opponent for unknown reasons that may or may not have involved a beautiful woman, a political conspiracy, or both.
Still, I wish he'd just written a memoir. |
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| Captain Ahab wants a candy mold |
[Jul. 31st, 2011|01:48 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Austin, Texas | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Bicycle - Colorfreak | ] |
One of my classmates just moved into a new house (well, half a house) with her boyfriend, and they invited everyone over for a barbecue. It was a great excuse to try making these coconut jellies, so I decided to wake up early and pop over to HEB for some agar, coconut milk, and silicone candy molds. Unfortunately, HEB didn't have any silicone molds... but I'd expected that, and I'd already looked up a Bed, Bath, & Beyond nearby. After a friendly game of "cross the highway," I entered the promised land of housewares, only to discover that they didn't have any silicone molds either! :( Thankfully, the friendly BB&B clerks tipped me off to a restaurant supply store just a block away. It was closed. I tried some other stores in the shopping plaza (including a Home Depot, where the greeter looked at me funny when I asked for housewares). No dice. But look! There was a Target just a little way up the road! By the time I verified that Target did not carry silicone molds, it was already after 1pm, and I was starting to get the feeling I should go home. Too much biking in the sun, however, is not good for one's judgment—by that time, I was a man obsessed. Over the phone, a worker at Wheatsville pointed me to Breed & Co., and the Breed & Co. housewares clerk gave me a lead on a store called the All in One Bake Shop. One more phone call, and—paydirt! It would be a nasty ride, but I wasn't about to turn back. One grueling bike ride and one bubble tea later, I finally had my hands on some actual silicone candy molds. After so much dehydration and disappointment, it was heaven... but, truth be told, there wasn't much of a selection in the size that I was looking for. Shallow, soft-edged squares were pretty much the only option, and they didn't exactly steal my heart. It was then that I remembered something else one of the BB&B clerks had mentioned. She said she knew for a fact that the Hobby Lobby up the highway had candy molds, and it was just one exit away. Too far, I'd thought, at the time... but I'd actually passed it on the way to the bake shop. After ripping the lock bracket clean off my bike (it got caught on a pedal, don't ask me how) and making a brief but exhausting excursion in the wrong direction, I arrived at what I knew would be my last stop. Although the Hobby Lobby did have a deliciously cold water fountain, it didn't have any molds more enchanting than the ones at the bake shop... so, that was that. I rode home down Lamar, stopping at Wheatsville along the way to pick up ingredients for an easy fruit jelly. I'd been out for six hours and biked fifteen miles, carrying my bike lock in a plastic bag for the last six. I saw the overpasses and the shopping plazas the way Cabeza de Vaca must have seen them, or would have seen them, if he'd gone two hundred miles further north five hundred years later. I burned a nice shade of reddish bronze.
It wasn't a bad day. |
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| The meaning of life |
[Jul. 19th, 2011|09:09 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Austin, Texas | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | mystified | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Jess Best - I Will Follow You Into The Dark | ] |
One day, walking to the Fine Arts Library, I noticed a QR code stuck inconspicuously to a lamp post. No logo, no explanation, no ad for a trendy web service—nothing. By the time I got the the library, curiosity had got the best of me, so I installed a bar code scanner on my phone. When I passed the lamp post on my way home, I scanned the sticker, and was rewarded with a shortened URL:http://goo.gl/yzDHP The address led to a much longer address, a Google Docs form. The form had one required field, 250 words or less.
( What is the meaning of life? ) |
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| Two travelers pass each other in the desert |
[Jul. 19th, 2011|07:37 pm] |
I ride south down Mopac until the sidewalk ends, and then I turn around and ride back. On the right, water-gorged ornamentals grow sleek and waxy around office parks and luxury apartments, which stink of flowers and raw sewage. On the left, cumulus clouds ply the air in a vast armada, sun-wreathed and blazing like the kingdom of G-d.
Flying past manicured beds of mulch, I spot something out of place. It's a sunflower, sprouting tall and strong from the crack between the sidewalk and the curb. Impressed, I jump off my bike and bend down to look it in the face.
"Hey, little guy. I can tell you're a survivor." The sunflower, of course, doesn't say anything; just keeps on photosynthesizing and bobbing in the wind from the cars speeding past on the highway. "Well, good luck to ya. Not that you need it." With a friendly nod, I straighten up, get back on the bike, and ride off. |
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| Bad news button |
[Feb. 27th, 2011|08:14 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Austin, Texas | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | wiser | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Jenny and the Holzers - Abuse of power comes as no surprise | ] |
Every single time I've used the "Replace All" feature in a text editor, it's bitten me on the ass. This morning, for example, I was writing up my algebra homework in LaTeX. I was using the command \langle a lot, and my fingers were getting tired, so I decided to use the abbreviation \la instead. I put the line\newcommand{\la}{\langle} at the beginning of my document to let LaTeX know that when I wrote \la, I really meant \langle.
If I'd left it at that, everything would've been fine. But as I typed, a foolish consistency began knocking at the back of my little mind. You know, it whispered, it seems awfully ugly to be using the command \langle in the first half of your document, and the command \la in the second half. Why not go back and change all the \langles to \las, so you'll have the same command all the way through? Well, it seemed like a good idea, so I did a "Replace All." What could possibly go wrong?
From this episode, I've learned four things.- Never listen to hobgoblins.
- "Replace All" is evil.
- LaTeX can do loops.
- The kill command is really handy...
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| Mistakes |
[Jan. 8th, 2011|07:09 pm] |
Accidentally went on a 12-mile bike ride this morning. (Apparently, I still haven't figured out that "party" always means "p.m.") It was surprisingly relaxing, and I found a nice coffee shop! Their hot chocolate is glorious, or at least it was glorious at 10 a.m. on a Saturday with nothing to do and the cold morning air and cars whooshing up and down 1st street. |
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| Boom |
[Dec. 1st, 2010|02:24 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Austin, Texas | ] |
| [ | music |
| | refrigerator, ceiling fan | ] |
Two Iranian nuclear physicists were attacked while driving to work Monday morning. One of them is dead. A U.S. official said they're bad people, and I guess it's probably true. But when I think about it, all I can see is Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi hugging their kids, tipping their hats, getting into their cars. |
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| I think I'm gonna like it here |
[Aug. 4th, 2010|11:34 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Austin, Texas | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | excited | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Annie - I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here | ] |
On Sunday afternoon, a taxi dropped me on a stranger's doorstep with a backpack, two suitcases, and a guitar. I've moved to Austin, Texas! Now that I have a bed to sleep in, I've devoted myself to collecting the necessities of life in the Lone Star State.*
And oh, what a life it will be! I've only lived in Austin for two days, but I'm already starting to notice something funny about this place...
- Visiting the math building (in May), I saw a girl walk out of an elevator wearing a Cardinals jersey. Then I looked closer, and realized she was wearing an Infinite Cardinals jersey!
- I passed two guys crossing the parking lot next to my house, and heard one of them saying, "...degeneracy pressure is what powers a white dwarf." It turns out that neither of them were physicists—one was studying for an astronomy exam, and the other was a CS grad student interested in networks and "applied topology"!
- On the way to the library, I saw a dude wearing the time-independent Schrödinger equation on a t-shirt, with the state labeled by the UT logo!
I could definitely get used to this.
* Why, yes, I did just walk out of Target with an armful of hair care products. OWN THAT SHIT. |
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| 二微故事 |
[Jun. 26th, 2010|09:35 pm] |
The morning I skimmed through The Chinese Language for Beginners, a 1971 self-study book that's been lying around the house for as long as I can remember. Like many language textbooks, The Chinese Language for Beginners contains elements of literature; in particular, it uses three bilingual microstories to review grammar and vocabulary. The first story, a predictable slapstick comedy, is nothing very special, but the next two stories are quite remarkable, and I'd like to share them with you.
( Two microstories by Lee Cooper ) |
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