Mac OS X Professional

It has occurred to me over my several days of using Leopard at work that it looks a lot more professional than the older versions of Mac OS X. Everything is cleaner and sharper (with the exception of that ridiculous dock), less cartoony.

Contrast this with Windows, in which the default theme has become more and more overwrought and cartoony with each release.

Third Time’s the Charm? Re-reading GEB (again)

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. It has been described as, “The book for which there is no appropriate description.” It incorporates symbolic logic, cognitive science, Zen Buddhism, mathematics, consciousness, art, music, and much more. I first heard of it my freshman year of college while browsing E2, where it was (mostly) discussed with reverence and awe. Intrigued, I ventured over to the Tulane book store, and was happy to find that they carried it.

I bought it. The first time.

Continue reading →

My very long day

I find myself this evening at the end of a very long day — one that started yesterday. I had a red-eye flight from Seattle to Baltimore via Detroit, that left at 22:00 PST and arrived at 08:15 EST. Perhaps I should back up a bit.

My day started around 08:00 PST yesterday, as I woke up, saw Amanda off to the first day of her sub-internship, and set to work coding and analyzing data. Between rain and the season, it got dark at around 16:30. In the evening, everyone came home, I packed, dinner came and went, and Amanda drove me to the Seattle airport. You might think that my day would have ended sometime shortly thereafter.

What actually happened was that I caught about two hours of sleep on the three-hour flight, and was booted out of my cozy seat into the sleepy mid-field terminal in Detroit. I had only ever been in that terminal when it was a bustling hub of travelers. Normally, giant (50-foot?) screens show CNN for you to watch ten gates away, with speakers dispersed everywhere, hundreds of people walk by in a few minutes, and restaurants and stores beckon you in. Lately, I pass my time there by watching this fountain.

At 04:15, hardly anyone is there. The screens and speakers are mercifully off, and all of the restaurants and shops except McDonald’s are closed. It is surreal. Slowly, as I wandered through this foreign place, things came to life. Most of the shops and restaurants opened at 05:00. I acquired breakfast. By 05:45, I was sitting at the gate, watching “Jay and Slient Bob Strike Back” on my laptop. A sudden assault on my senses began — a quick look at a clock confirmed my suspicion that it all turned on at precisely 06:00 EST. The drive-in theater sized screens sprang to life. The CNN Crawl snaked(snook?) across the bottoms of the screens in foot-high letters. The endless stream of inane talking-head babble was forced into my ears, past my in-ear headphones.

Shortly thereafter, I boarded the plane and had a cup of coffee. I had given up on creating any lasting separation between the days. They were separated by a mere two hours of intermittent sleep, which were quickly forgotten. Only now, 32 hours after I woke up, do I feel like the true end of yesterday is arriving. Hopefully, tomorrow things will feel a bit more uh, … correct.