this week i

visited curtis and his sweet digs in lancaster.  what small town america could, should be.  farmer's market, bespoke restaurants, faculty potpourri.

you could say that we descended from apes, but not from monkeys.  a monkey ancestor, but not a monkey.  look it up.

2/21

this week i

categorized medical spending by international classification of disease codes, tripped up by version ten additions like cat scratch fever.

listened to jeri mulrow summarize the statistical apparati inside the department of justice.

drank some strawberry grenades, made myself a picnic.

 worked at david's, wet dry vac still out front.

is it ok if i turn on classical music?

mmmhmm [pause] only the good stuff [pause] none of that looney tunes shit

 learned dc has a sonny bono park.  measly.

read stephen hawking's the grand design.

because the greeks had not invented the scientific method, their theories were not developed with the goal of experimental verification.  so if one scholar claimed an atom moved in a straight line until it collided with a second atom and another scholar claimed it moved in a straight line until it bumped into a cyclops, there was no objective way to settle the argument

while conceding that human behavior is indeed determined by the laws of nature, it also seems reasonable to conclude that the outcome is determined in such a complicated way and with so many variables as to make it impossible in practice to predict.  for that one would need a knowledge of the initial state of each of the thousand trillion trillion molecules in the human body and to solve something like that number of equations.  that would take a few billion years, which would be a bit late to duck when the person opposite aimed a blow

quantum physics recognizes that to make an observation, you must interact with the object you are observing

it's probably no accident that the wavelengths we are able to see with the naked eye are those in which the sun radiates most strongly: it's likely that our eyes evolved with the ability to detect electromagnetic radiation in that range precisely because that is the range of radiation most available to them.  if we ever run into beings from other planets, they will probably have the ability to "see" radiation at whatever wavelengths their own sun emits most strongly, modulated by factors such as the light-blocking characteristics of the dust and gases in their planet's atmosphere.  so aliens who evolved in the presence of x-rays might have a nice career in airport security

there will be different histories for different possible states of the universe at the present time.  this leads to a radically different view of cosmology, and the relation between cause and effect.  the histories that contribute to the feynman sum don't have an independent existence, but depend on what is being measured.  we create history by our observation, rather than history creating us

traditionally, given any star, scientists define the habitable zone as the narrow region around the star in which temperatures are such that liquid water can exist

2/14

this week i

saw karen enter our statistics into the congressional record.

visited artechouse, paid twenty dollars for orange juice, wore their black shoe booties to muze at the mandarin oriental, restaurant to ourselves.

loafed. has anybody ever successfully thrown a boomerang?  a hurdle-model (binary on striking the target), and billiards in three dimensions

i would've guessed suriname was the poorest.  ever been?

i haven't been to those three countries

two.  two countries.

glided down fifteenth past meridian hill park, kicked mcdonalds bag in the bike lane expecting empty, two burgers two fries exploded out.  nasm for free solo imax, rock climbers sans amygdalae.  impressive geologic footage and well-told story, but crash and burn failed the bechdel test.  two silhouettes similar to marcie and david biked past, i followed them to union station, felt like the toddler who mistakenly grasps onto a strange adult's leg.  dolan for dinner, did not know buzkashi uses the body not the head

still depend on the alphabet corporation more than i should.

2/7

this week i

updated our most comprehensive report on the uninsured.

converted much of our truven marketscan code from monetdblite to data.table.

hiked the gathland state park branch of the appalachian trail.

read all quiet on the western front..

once i fall fast asleep.  then wakening suddenly with a start i do not know where i am.  i see the stars, i see the rockets, and for a moment have the impression that i have fallen asleep at a garden fete.  i don't konw whether it is morning or evening.  i lie in the pale cradle of the twilight, and listen for the soft words which will come, soft and near - am i crying?  i put my hand to my eyes, it is so fantastic, am i a child?  smooth skin; - it lasts only a second, then i recognize the silhouette of katczinsky.  the old veteran, he sits quietly and smokes his pipe - a covered pipe of course.  when he sees i am awake, he says: "that gave you a fright.  it was only a nose-cap, it landed in the bushes over there."

i sit up, i feel myself strangely alone.  it's good kat is there.  he gazes thoughtfully at the front and says:

"mighty fine fire-works if they weren't so dangerous"

the cries continued.  it is not men, they could not cry so terribly.

"wounded horses," says kat.

it's unendurable.  it is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning.

we are pale.  detering stands up.  "god! for god's sake!  shoot them."...those are the wounded horses.  but not all of them.  some gallop away in the distance, fall down, and then run on farther.  the belly of one is ripped open, the guts trail out.  he becomes tangled in them and falls, then he stands up again

"how many inhabitants has melbourne?" asks muller.

"how do you expect to succeed in life if you don't know that?"  i ask albert hotly.

which he caps with: "what is meant by cohesion?"

we remember mighty little of all that rubbish.  anyway, it has never been the slightest use to us.  at school nobody ever taught us how to light a cigarette in a storm of rain, nor how a fire could be made with wet wood - nor that it is best to stick a bayonet in the belly because there it doesn't get jammed, as it does in the ribs

a hospital alone shows what war is

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