Thor’s Day Morning Mathematical Musings

Have you had your caffeine injection yet? Well, then, here are three puzzles (with answers, but the answers are not helpful!): Can you completely mix a mug of coffee, such that, at every point inside the mug, the coffee at that … Continue reading

Quintessence

Because, now and then, for the well being of your soul, you have to evict the empty diversions, addictive distractions, the noisome bile, and ponder, in the brief space exhumed by an image, a note of music, a spiraling leaf, … Continue reading

How to Move the BOINC Data Directory (Linux)

Move your Linux machine’s BOINC data directory like this: 1. sudo service boinc-client stop 2. sudo mv /var/lib/boinc-client/* /path_to_new_dir/boinc-client/ 3. sudo rm -rf /var/lib/boinc-client 4. sudo ln -s /path_to_new_dir/boinc-client /var/lib/boinc-client 5. sudo service boinc-client start Works like a charm.   … Continue reading

Thursday Morning

Windows wide, birds chirping front and back, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony fills the house. Life could be worse.   … Continue reading

Passage

Rest in peace, Suki. Littlest Kitty, Squirt, faithful companion. Shoulder rider, lap sitter, mouse catcher, jumper. Lover of chin scritches and forehead scritches and string cheese and pizza sauce. Head butter, snuggler, blinds cord chewer, prancer. Algebra proofreader, bookbinding assistant. … Continue reading

When I am at my desk, preparing for tonight’s observing. And it is evening.

Notes to self, part 437. When I am at my desk, preparing for tonight’s observing. And it is evening. If an email arrives from the satellite tracking app, you could open it. Be aware that this alert is for tonight. … Continue reading

On Dirt

Star guts. Ground mountains. Seething motion unseen. Organism detritus. Feculence. Bug poop. _____ Knees pop as I bend down and pinch a gram of soil between my fingers. I bring it up to my face: grains, and the filler between the grains. I am looking at … Continue reading

Navigating the Teratism, Or How I Came to Vote for Hillary Clinton

Given the widespread unreason in this mind-numbing political season, how can one cut through the din to make a good decision on who should be our Democratic presidential candidate? It is still not that hard to go about it at least … Continue reading

Protected: The Incident in Which My Middle Finger Meets The Vice President of the United States

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

But where’s the butter?

“Hon, where’s the butter?”—a cartoon on our fridge. A cartoon hung on our fridge for a couple of years. Its caption became a humorous private code, let’s call it The Code, between my wife and me. The Code is about assumptions, although, … Continue reading

Of Small Men: Apparatus and Scaffolding

[Washington, DC, 2005] I turn off the alarm. It is just after 6am on a cold, overcast Thursday. The idea for this expedition surfaced several days ago, while listening to the news on NPR. I have been imagining different scenarios … Continue reading

The Gray Man

The Gray Man is master behind the government-issue desk, in the gray building, in the gray city, under gray skies brooding over a dun land. His eyes are small, sunk in oversized sockets. They stare, implacable, dark steel. The Gray Man’s eyes are a lifetime of empty, … Continue reading

The Windowpane

Chit-chit-chet-chit-chet-chet swish-swish-swish-chit-chit-swish… intense feline scrutiny: a murder of crows squabbles over bugs beneath new snow, under old Ponderosa— stymied.   … Continue reading

The ISS Passes over Flagstaff

Moved to here. … Continue reading

Hornet Whiskey Tableau

We are stretching our legs from our van ride back to the Thai border through seemingly endless, lush jungle and verdant rice paddies. Despite their tiredness, my eyes feel contented in a way they rarely do; even on a cloudy day, there … Continue reading