debian!

ah yes.. fresh Debian install on my laptop with its new harddisk. now I can compute in total silence. yay!

quantum mechanics for retirees

In 1999, legendary theoretical physicist Hans Bethe delivered three lectures on quantum theory to his neighbors at the Kendal of Ithaca retirement community (near Cornell University). Given by Professor Bethe at age 93, the lectures are presented here as QuickTime videos synchronized with slides of his talking points and archival material.

http://bethe.cornell.edu/

summer's end

The summer's fever is broken now. We no longer lay sprawled, naked and sweating to the drone of box fans. There's cause for sweatshirts and maybe jeans on the morning bicycle trip. Now only a rare, latecomer firefly blinks on the lawn in the now receeding evenings, as our continent turns away from the sun.

It was a sweatlodge of a season, and I do feel purged of the acids of what came before, and sore muscles kneeded. The breeze, though, makes it unavoidably clear that school is coming, that the office futon might again soon become my friend. Cross fingers that it's not quite that hell again.

This is the clunk-clunk-clunk of the rollercoaster, but it's not always fun.