Category: General

In keeping with my mood today, I’d just like to point out this story about a German teenager who corrected actual rocket scientists at NASA about the odds of Asteroid Apophis impacting the earth during its close approach in April 2029.

Specifically, on Friday the 13th, April 2029.

NASA gave 1 in 45,000 odds. Nico Marquardt said, no, 1 in 450.

Will Bruce Willis or Will Smith be available then? Because we might need ’em.

My entire body, from my brain, to my sinuses, through my back and belly, down to my least little toe, feels out of tune.

My favorite diner, tucked away on a semi-busy street in my neighborhood. I came in for soup but the soup special was beef noodle. Not savory enough. I was hoping for creamy red pepper, or the amazing black bean soup, or even cream of asparagus or something. Not a staple like beef noodle. So I allowed Ayesha to talk me into trying the taco special. She’s persuasive. Seems straight-forward and goofy sometimes, like when she sings a little song as she delivers the bill to my table.

After I ordered, I decided I needed to wash my hands. Up, past the kitchen, and to the doorway between the dining room and the lounge. In the archway separating the two rooms, Ayesha and the bartender, another woman, fairer skinned and multi-colored long straight hair, were both leaning against the wall, eyes focused upward and their hands tucked into their chests and under their chins, almost, but not quite, as if praying. They unconsciously leaned into each other, sharing the experience of watching… something.

I muttered and smiled an “excuse me” so I could slip through the doorway and on the other side I could see that they were watching a TV hung near the door. “What’s on?” I asked. The lounge was much darker, except for the pools of light created by the several TVs and a couple of lights near the pool table.

Ayesha focused back on me. “Food Network.” The scene was some Asian city, ornate and antique looking, with glimpses of plates piled high with some exotic meal. “It’s the dude that travels around and eats…” she looked at her co-worker as she searched for a word… “everything.”

The other girl nodded, and with that curious arms-tucked-in pose, took a sip from her glass of water, through a straw. She did not take her eyes off the screen.

“Anthony Bourdain?” I asked.

“No… the other guy.” Ayesha laughed and kept staring at the glowing box hung above her.

I didn’t know any other guy that travelled around and ate food, so I started to step towards the restroom, but keeping an eye on the screen to catch a glimpse of this other guy.

Ayesha ran a hand over her long, black curls. “The… bald guy.”

I smiled but had no suggestion. I turned away, but as I did I was caught, again, by their rapt attention and tense posture, leaning against the wall and, nearly, each other, for support. Something didn’t jive. It was almost as if they were watching an accident.

“Food porn!” I blurted out. “You’re watching food porn!”

Ayesha nodded and kept watching.

Two seats ahead of me on the bus, sits a large man wearing scrubs. His top is covered in pictures of Snoopy, also wearing scrubs, and the repeated words “smooth operator”. The man is unshaven. He is eating a muffin very nearly the size of his own head.

Blueberry, it seems.

I swear I’ll get back to the stories, and stop posting silly tech-y geek-y stuff.

If this post doesn’t make any sense to you, feel free to ignore it. I apologize in advance.

I’m having a problem using crontab to run shell scripts. As in, they don’t run and I get an error message (via email) as follows:

-bash: 0: command not found

I’m running Mac OS X 10.4.11 and it’s happening on two different computers with nearly-identical installations. One of the computers (the most important one, naturally) is across town so all I have is shell access via ssh.

I can provide more details as requested. Please help, won’t you? I’ll accept your free-as-in-speech solutions and offer you a free-as-in-beer reward!

Last night I dreamed about drowning, and spiders, and Texas.

I know, I know. It’s sunny and almost warm outside. Here comes the sun doot do do-do, here comes the sun.

But I really really want to write this weekend. I want to finish my first draft. I want to hide in a movie theater, pay for one flick and then sneak from theater to theater for the rest of the day. I want to hide in bed, pull the covers over me and sleep, and dream, and dream. I want to curl up in the corner of a quiet coffee shop and surf, and drink coffee and eat cake and donuts. I want to read from my reading pile, lose myself in books and words and ideas.

I don’t know why. I just do. Dammit, Vitamin D comes in a pill these days. I don’t need to be outside.

In the past couple of days, I’ve come across a pair of books that I want to add to my reading pile, both of which offer an interesting and seldom-seen blending of the topics of science and religion.

First up was Vox Day’s “The Irrational Atheist”, a book so new (or perhaps so unpopular) that there isn’t a page for it on Wikipedia as of this post. I found out about the book from a guest posting by Mr. Day on John Scalzi’s Whatever. “Vox Day” is a pseudonym of Christian apologist Theodore Beale.

Mr. Day’s thesis in the book is that atheists pride themselves on logic, rationality, and the scientific method, and then proceed to throw all that out the window in declaring that God does not exist. He’s making the exact opposite argument from folk like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris or many others, and I look forward to reading this counter-argument.

For myself, I’ve long taken the position that when I say “God does not exist”, I’m speaking about the existence of the specific God of the popular world religions. The existence of the God of the Old Testament, for example, using the bare text as the evidence, just doesn’t stand up to any kind of scrutiny at all. If someone can present any kind of evidence that points to the existence of God (after first explaining what they mean by the term “God”), I will be happy to reconsider.

The second book that has come to my attention is Michael Dowd’s “Thank God for Evolution”, which I discovered from the Willamette Week’s interview with the author. This book, too, is unrepresented in Wikipedia as of this post. Rev. Dowd’s book takes as its premise the thought that evolution, far from being a threat to faith, enriches faith. Again, an argument I have rarely seen put forth, and I, for one, am eager to read what he has to say.

Sometimes, when I’m on the bus, I scratch my nose or snort loudly to deter others from sitting next to me.