jmsbrdy

"the randomness that emerged from such precisely set-up machinery ... where, in the end, gravity always won"

From "Transition" by Iain Banks - in the voice of Patient 8262:

In Detroit I played pinball, in Yohohama pachinko, in Tashkent bagatelle. I found all three games enthralling, fascinated by the randomness that emerged from such highly structured, precisely set-up machinery knocking shining spheres of steel from place to place within a setting where, in the end, gravity always won. The comparison with our own lives is almost too obvious, yet still it gives us an inkling into our fates and what drives us to them. It is only an inkling, because we are submerged within a vastly more complicated environment than the clicking, bouncing steel balls and the pins and bands and buffers and walls they collide with - our course is more like that of a particle within a smoke chamber, subject to Brownian motion, and we are at least nominally possessed of free will - but by reducing, simplifying, it allows to grasp of something otherwise too great for us to comprehend in the raw.

"Fair enough, people died. But they must have deserved it."

Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us; Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us

In my next life I want to live my life backwards

In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm!

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Villanelle by Dylan Thomas, 1951

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

my favourite part of robert byrd's 50 years in the senate

Goosebumps every time:

At 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon -- nine hours before the 1 a.m. vote that would effectively clinch the legislation's passage -- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) went to the Senate floor to propose a prayer. "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said. "That's what they ought to pray."

It was difficult to escape the conclusion that Coburn was referring to the 92-year-old, wheelchair-bound Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) who has been in and out of hospitals and lay at home ailing. It would not be easy for Byrd to get out of bed in the wee hours with deep snow on the ground and ice on the roads -- but without his vote, Democrats wouldn't have the 60 they needed.

 

[...]

 

Coburn was wearing blue jeans, an argyle sweater and a tweed jacket with elbow patches when he walked back into the chamber a few minutes before 1 a.m. He watched without expression when Byrd was wheeled in, dabbing his eyes and nose with tissues, his complexion pale. When his name was called, Byrd shot his right index finger into the air as he shouted "aye," then pumped his left fist in defiance.

Rich and Su's wedding

Well, it's been forever and a day since my last post. But what better occasion to merit an update than the wedding of my friends Rich and Su?

The wedding was novel for a couple of reasons: firstly, the festivities were near Paphos, in Cyprus; and secondly, I was best man!

An incredible number of people made it out to the island, with most people turning into a mini-holiday and staying for a week. Personally, I was staying in a villa with a bunch of friends from my IBM days, and we had a great time maxing and relaxing in the days before the wedding itself. Lots of barbecues, lots of G&Ts, and lots of lovely food, the highlights of which were definitely the fillet steak at €24/kg and tiger prawns at €11/kg.

On the wedding day itself, I tried to keep Rich's nerves as steady as possible with a fairly calm schedule - a trip down to Su's hotel to drop off a couple of prezzies, a bit of table tennis and then sprucing ourselves up for the main event. Table tennis produced the first slip-up of the day, in that Rich, chasing an errant ball, did actually slip-up into the pool, fully clothed, much to our amusement.

After drying off and getting suited and booted came hitch number two, when the buses ferrying the hundreds of friends and family around left earlier than expected, stranding some people. After some frantic phoning, that was resolved, and everyone made it in plenty of time.

The venue was a little restaurant perched on the side of a hill overlooking the Mediterranean, with the service itself actually happening under a little gazebo just outside. From here on in, everything was plain sailing.

Plain sailing, that is, until Eyjafjallajökull decided to explode the very same day.

We found out the next morning, when I popped round to Rich's Dad's place to do some snorkeling (which would become a fixture over the next few days). At that time, there was very little information: lots of flights were being canceled, but there was no indication as to how long it would continue, whether airlines would cover accommodation, whether alternative routes might be do-able, and so on.

A few people were inconvenienced immediately, as they had to be home for the weekend. Luckily, I wasn't one of them, although I had a flight booked to Toronto in a week's time. Surely, things would be sorted by then, I thought!

However, as the days passed, and the flight restrictions remained resolutely in place, I started to get nervous, and looked at other ways to get back to the UK. If Cyprus hadn't been an island, I would definitely have hired a car and driven it. Google Maps reckoned it was a 2-3 day trip, but with two people, it wouldn't have been too bad, and what an adventure! Unfortunately, the ferry to Greece took two days, and the word was that car hire was very much more in demand than supply anyway...

Luckily, easyJet, Air Canada and HSBC insurance were all great, agreeing to move flights around and pay for alternative accommodation without so much as a grumble (although I'm yet to file my claim...). Initially, my flight was moved back ten days, which took a huge chunk out the time I'd planned to spend in Toronto, and there was no guarantee even that flight would be possible.

In the end, camping at the airport did the trick, as although the online booking systems were showing as completely full, most flights were actually going backwards and forwards half-empty, due to the re-scheduling bonanza that had been happening. I got back to the UK five days late, and headed out to Toronto the very next day.

People opposed to proportional representation due to the voice it would give to the far right are mislead

Despite finishing a distant 3rd (in terms of seats), the Liberal Democrats are currently wielding more power than Labour, as it is up to them whether to form a coalition with the Conservatives, and on what terms that coalition might be formed.

There have been hints at electoral reform from all sides, and a move to proportional representation might be on the cards, as it would undoubtedly benefit Lib Dem in future elections.

There have also been warnings that PR would have given the far-right a lot of clout in Westminster - something like 30 seats (between UKIP and the BNP) versus 6 or 7 for the Green party, for example. Although the plural of anecdote isn't data, tweets like this show people are worried about the disruptive effect those extreme conservatives could have:

Why I don't want PR: today, the BNP would have 20 seats, UKIP 23, we'd have a hung parliament and the Tories would be negotiating with them.

Dr. Seuss proves that the halting problem is undecidable

World's shortest explanation of Gödel's theorem