The Guardian reports that CERN might be churning out results (or ending the universe, which might be an intersting result for other universes out there) by Christmas. Wheeeeee!
I'll have to see if I start having my 'Switzerland disappears down a black hole and wonders how long it will take for the grass to stop growing' dream again this time.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Party party party
So we have:
1 cricket themed cake that is bright green
2 golden snitches for 'Pin the Snitch on Harry Potter'.
2 pictures of Harry Potter on a broomstick (1 for above, 1 for 'Throw the Bludgers at Harry' - a last minute innovation because I forgot to save cans for the roll or bowl a ball a penny a pitch kind of thing).
2 bottles of lemonade
1 bottle of juice
2 pizza bases
divers pizza toppings
chippies
38 million lollies
6 goodie bags with mixed goodies
Tomorrow we will have:
6 highly excited children
30 degree heat, and
2 tired parents.
added 1 November, 2.31 pm
Learned things.
Even quite sensible 7 and 8 year old children can squeal quite loud when excited.
Children do not actually eat all that much at parties, especially when they hate the pizza you provide.
One negative child can almost spoil the whole thing, even for kids who are having a very good time.
Children are conservative and do not reward innovation.
Perfectly nice parents do not always equal perfectly nice children.
1 cricket themed cake that is bright green
2 golden snitches for 'Pin the Snitch on Harry Potter'.
2 pictures of Harry Potter on a broomstick (1 for above, 1 for 'Throw the Bludgers at Harry' - a last minute innovation because I forgot to save cans for the roll or bowl a ball a penny a pitch kind of thing).
2 bottles of lemonade
1 bottle of juice
2 pizza bases
divers pizza toppings
chippies
38 million lollies
6 goodie bags with mixed goodies
Tomorrow we will have:
6 highly excited children
30 degree heat, and
2 tired parents.
added 1 November, 2.31 pm
Learned things.
Even quite sensible 7 and 8 year old children can squeal quite loud when excited.
Children do not actually eat all that much at parties, especially when they hate the pizza you provide.
One negative child can almost spoil the whole thing, even for kids who are having a very good time.
Children are conservative and do not reward innovation.
Perfectly nice parents do not always equal perfectly nice children.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The way things should look, if it were up to me today
Because I am a bit slow I only found these re-designed to look like classic Penguins Harry Potter covers today. And my brain went boggle and I was consumed with the kind of desire that I haven't had since my fetish for red sneakers earned me a slap on the wrist for false consciousness back in the mid 1990s.
Computer busted again, new-old computer
Funny old neutrinos. Old computer will not play nicely with others. Oh well.
It's been a week with a lot to think about but not so much to write about, so that's all right.
Missed out on getting Rockwiz tickets for the maternal parent in Cairns. You'd think the one time something actually bothers travelling all the way north a person would manage to get hold of tickets. Lament and so on. Waily waily waily. No.
The Noodle had installment one of birthday festivities on Sunday, and all presents were satisfactory to an unexpectedly high degree. This year he finally got the birthday bug and woke us up at 6 am to ask where the presents were. On his grandfather's arrival the first utterance was 'I wonder what you have brought me?'. And horrified embarrassment at the laughter that erupted out of all the adults. We are not used to a mercenary and present-oriented son.
Today at work I made many mistakes. I hope it is not a lasting illness because I feel like a right dill.
It's been a week with a lot to think about but not so much to write about, so that's all right.
Missed out on getting Rockwiz tickets for the maternal parent in Cairns. You'd think the one time something actually bothers travelling all the way north a person would manage to get hold of tickets. Lament and so on. Waily waily waily. No.
The Noodle had installment one of birthday festivities on Sunday, and all presents were satisfactory to an unexpectedly high degree. This year he finally got the birthday bug and woke us up at 6 am to ask where the presents were. On his grandfather's arrival the first utterance was 'I wonder what you have brought me?'. And horrified embarrassment at the laughter that erupted out of all the adults. We are not used to a mercenary and present-oriented son.
Today at work I made many mistakes. I hope it is not a lasting illness because I feel like a right dill.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Computer has un-busted itself
Apparently it just needed a nice little rest. Lovely.
All is go with the birthday extravaganza preparations. We are (temporarily thank goodness) in possession of high levels of sugar and plastic tat. Even with a fairly minimal approach, we still seem to need a lot of stuff.
Reading
The Noodle: he is halfway through Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. He has been halfway through it for days, so I assume he is not enjoying it as much as the others. I didn't enjoy it much either. Apart from Fred and George's joke shop there is precious little fun in it as far as I can remember. However, the Harry Potter monologue has not slowed down, so it is not affecting his pleasure in the Potterverse at all.
Me: Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, by Vincent Lam. As with other Canadian books it is about people having emotional crises and catching the train. These people are doctors, so they eventually earn enough money to start driving their own cars, unlike people in stories by Margaret Atwood or Alice Munro. Although Carol Shields people often have their emotional crises on long-distance drives I suppose. Anyway, in Canada people in stories have emotional problems and also cover long distances. In British stories people seem to go to the beach to have emotional problems. I like Vincent Lam's book generally, but the stories/chapters are either too disconnnected or too connected to really make me feel comfortable reading them. There's no work to do to figure out the connections with events and ideas, but there's no real reason (that I can see) that they need to be disconnected from a kind of narrative line either.
I also just read some Greg Egan short stories, which are thematically linked and kind of form a progression of quantum science and its effect on humans/people. While I very much enjoy Egan's thoughtful speculations, I find that once his characters can start sending themselves as data packets at the speed of light and everyone can live forever that I lose interest. His characters keep questioning whether some meaning is lost for them in these circumstances. I don't have much of an opinion either way on that, but certainly some narrative tension is lost when the (dead) characters can just download themselves again, or when they can erase memories they don't want any more. When they travel to the other side of the galaxy as data on beams of light, they do seem to leave their problems and preoccupations behind. Unlike, say, moving from Melbourne to Brisbane when you find that, horribly, you have brought your prejudices, ignorance and emotional patterns right along with you.
And yesterday our little workpod was sprung eating cheese and fruit instead of working on Friday afternoon, after a really, really busy week. We had a little time spare-ish because we were all waiting for work to come back to us for the next step on the public service merry-go-round. But when the Big Boss looked at us with 'incredulity' we all adopted behaviour that we hadn't manifested since leaving high school with the hanging head, blushing, brazening it out or whichever, So I don't think travelling to the other side of the galaxy would change our collective relationships to authority figures all that much, even if it solved the problem of proximity to them.
All is go with the birthday extravaganza preparations. We are (temporarily thank goodness) in possession of high levels of sugar and plastic tat. Even with a fairly minimal approach, we still seem to need a lot of stuff.
Reading
The Noodle: he is halfway through Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. He has been halfway through it for days, so I assume he is not enjoying it as much as the others. I didn't enjoy it much either. Apart from Fred and George's joke shop there is precious little fun in it as far as I can remember. However, the Harry Potter monologue has not slowed down, so it is not affecting his pleasure in the Potterverse at all.
Me: Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, by Vincent Lam. As with other Canadian books it is about people having emotional crises and catching the train. These people are doctors, so they eventually earn enough money to start driving their own cars, unlike people in stories by Margaret Atwood or Alice Munro. Although Carol Shields people often have their emotional crises on long-distance drives I suppose. Anyway, in Canada people in stories have emotional problems and also cover long distances. In British stories people seem to go to the beach to have emotional problems. I like Vincent Lam's book generally, but the stories/chapters are either too disconnnected or too connected to really make me feel comfortable reading them. There's no work to do to figure out the connections with events and ideas, but there's no real reason (that I can see) that they need to be disconnected from a kind of narrative line either.
I also just read some Greg Egan short stories, which are thematically linked and kind of form a progression of quantum science and its effect on humans/people. While I very much enjoy Egan's thoughtful speculations, I find that once his characters can start sending themselves as data packets at the speed of light and everyone can live forever that I lose interest. His characters keep questioning whether some meaning is lost for them in these circumstances. I don't have much of an opinion either way on that, but certainly some narrative tension is lost when the (dead) characters can just download themselves again, or when they can erase memories they don't want any more. When they travel to the other side of the galaxy as data on beams of light, they do seem to leave their problems and preoccupations behind. Unlike, say, moving from Melbourne to Brisbane when you find that, horribly, you have brought your prejudices, ignorance and emotional patterns right along with you.
And yesterday our little workpod was sprung eating cheese and fruit instead of working on Friday afternoon, after a really, really busy week. We had a little time spare-ish because we were all waiting for work to come back to us for the next step on the public service merry-go-round. But when the Big Boss looked at us with 'incredulity' we all adopted behaviour that we hadn't manifested since leaving high school with the hanging head, blushing, brazening it out or whichever, So I don't think travelling to the other side of the galaxy would change our collective relationships to authority figures all that much, even if it solved the problem of proximity to them.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Broken computer
My computer is kind of busted, so I will be having a mini break from the blogging.
That's all, except that the Geoscience Australian Open Day was a very Good Thing. You should all go next year if you happen to be in the neighbourhood.
That's all, except that the Geoscience Australian Open Day was a very Good Thing. You should all go next year if you happen to be in the neighbourhood.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Three years
So here it is nearly three years since the young son was sick in Spain. It does lend a slightly bitter-sweet feel to the birthday preparations.
Three years ago we had planned to have some kind of cake on the Noodle's birthday and to visit the Picasso museum. We had dragged presents from us and from other relatives half way across the globe. Other presents and cards arrived in the mail - sent from Australia before junior ended up in hospital. It was a too-strange juxtaposition.
The nurses in the intensive care ward made a Happy Birthday sign and stuck it on the shelf next to the Noodle's bed and we brought in birthday cards, but he didn't see them, I think. After we got home his Nana put on a little party for him at her house, but he was still quite fragile and it hurt him that it wasn't really his birthday as well.
The year after he wasn't keen to celebrate too much, and last year he wanted to go to Questacon, so we did and had a wonderful day of science and treats.
So this year we are all quite excited to be hosting a party, even with the associated parental nervousness. And I am feeling very grateful that I don't need to be hyper-vigilant and ready to rush to the hospital any second and glad glad glad not to have to worry every second that he is with someone else that he might get sick and they might not know what to do.
Knock on wood, etc.
Three years ago we had planned to have some kind of cake on the Noodle's birthday and to visit the Picasso museum. We had dragged presents from us and from other relatives half way across the globe. Other presents and cards arrived in the mail - sent from Australia before junior ended up in hospital. It was a too-strange juxtaposition.
The nurses in the intensive care ward made a Happy Birthday sign and stuck it on the shelf next to the Noodle's bed and we brought in birthday cards, but he didn't see them, I think. After we got home his Nana put on a little party for him at her house, but he was still quite fragile and it hurt him that it wasn't really his birthday as well.
The year after he wasn't keen to celebrate too much, and last year he wanted to go to Questacon, so we did and had a wonderful day of science and treats.
So this year we are all quite excited to be hosting a party, even with the associated parental nervousness. And I am feeling very grateful that I don't need to be hyper-vigilant and ready to rush to the hospital any second and glad glad glad not to have to worry every second that he is with someone else that he might get sick and they might not know what to do.
Knock on wood, etc.
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