Scattershot post today. A little bit of everything.
1) I started paging through “A Brief History of Time” yesterday and before I knew it, I’d read the first two chapters. I’m not a big science guy (mostly due to my allergic reaction to math) but I do enjoy scientific theory. One my favorite college courses was a history of science that focused on Newton, Darwin, and Einstein. Einstein’s special theory of relativity helped me connect some dots philosophically in regards to free will and fate. Determinism has got to be one of the most misunderstood philosophical concepts — mostly because a) people falsely assume that the central argument is that we’re all automatons, and b) our me Me ME! society demands that we believe we are all living special lives that are bubbling over with potential. That second part stems directly from a belief-system that tells you God is an old man with a long white beard who has nothing better to do than sit on a fluffy cloud and watch you flail around in the course of your life, making a Santa-esque checklist of whether you’ve been naughty or nice.
[whew! That was so not where I was going with this post: Wikipedia has a decent run-down of determinism if it at all interests you, including a section that specifically speaks to its relationship to quantam mechanics -- note that many of the arguments against determinism deal with the problems of morality, the human soul, and...erm, a God who has endowed his beloved creations with absolute free will. If you're willing to accept the universe perhaps wasn't "made for me," things start making sense. To me, anyway. When I get more time (maybe when I retire,) I want to explore the relationship between quantum mechanics and Buddhism -- a hot debate, in some circles at least.]
2) I’ve had to put down “Titus Groan” until I have more time for reading. The book demands your attention and lately I’ve been reading in twenty-minute snatches and this is the wrong kind of book for that. Every page is so incredibly rich that you really need to immerse yourself in it for hours at a time rather than come back to it every lunch or bedtime. I have a habit of ripping through books while on airplanes so I hope to put a serious dent in Mr. Peake’s work on the flight to Fresno in a few weeks’ time.
3) Speaking of which, “UHR 2006 - Yosemite” planning is coming along. Giddy with excitement. The trail is long (20+ miles) and steep (about 6K feet elevation gain) but even the topo map is drool-worthy.
4) I will never buy computer components over the Internet again. I bought all the stuff to assemble a new and rockin’ machine but all the money I saved by using a discount place in California is being winnowed away trying to diagnose a single problem. The motherboard won’t POST unless it has the RAM, processor, and video card installed in the case — and right now it’s not POSTing. So that means it could be any one of those components and I have no way of isolating the problem so I have to pay a local computer shop to do the testing. I’ll still come out ahead by a few hundred bucks in the long run, but this has been a massive hassle. The last time I did this, I was living in Seattle and bought them from a place in Bellevue. They helped me out with the one issue I had. The cost benefits of buying the cheapest stuff online is now being defrayed by shipping costs and having the tests performed. Irritated.
5) An MLS All-Star team faces Real Madrid tonight in Madrid. I get a little tired of all the “we’re a respectable league and we’re going to show them” babble that accompanies a game like this. I love MLS and I do believe it’s one of the best second-tier leagues in the world but let’s face it — the European clubs don’t want to release their players for World Cup qualifiers for Christ’s sake, and MLS can’t wait to release it’s best players with the playoffs coming up to play a friendly. Besides, what’s the point of getting respect? It’s like when Wisconsin football plays non-conference games against MAC teams. Is the MAC better than I give it credit for? Probably. But they’re still an inferior conference that plays in tiny stadiums that have no history. Those teams will never make it into the big-dance BCS bowls and are therefore insignificant. This has got to be the average European soccer fan’s opinion of the MLS, too.
6) Great article on Steve McClaren’s boring, boring Middlesbrough. I though Boro would be a serious contender for honors this season and so far I’ve seen their first two games and have been bored to death. 0-0 to Liverpool and a 1-0 loss to Tottenham are strange results for a team full of big names, even if many are has-beens.
7) No word back on any stories I’ve submitted. Hope is a precursor to disappointment.
8) The more I look at UW-Milwaukee’s graduate program in Creative Writing the more excited I get. I’m aiming to get in almost exactly one year from now into the Master’s program and the tentative plan is to carry on to the PhD.
9) We’re making the switch from cable to satellite. I had Dish network back in 1998 when that was the only way you could get soccer but the move to Seattle necessitated the switch back to cable. When we came back to Madison we went with cable because it was the easier choice but, true to form, the cable company jerks you around and their rates keep climbing (just as the satellite television ads say.) The best part is that Dish network comes with DVR, which is almost equivalent to TiVo. No more missing those mid-day soccer matches!
10) I can’t think of a number ten, but you can’t leave a list at nine items, can you?