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