Thursday, January 31, 2002
my week of c's
Checks, cheese, class, codex.
er, that was quick
One short email about this to Justin, a flurry of back-and-forth correspondence, and we've ordered two copies of the Codex. Cuts down significantly on the shipping, that's for sure.
(Justin says: "It was fun to order in Italian. Exactly like Amazon -- totally intuitive." Justin, btw, went through the Italian distributor rather than the French one to which I'd first linked.)
ohmygod
The Codex Serafinianus is back in print. And just when I thought I was going to start saving my money again.
Wednesday, January 30, 2002
more admissions
At this point I must say that my sets of friends are often terribly separate. It's like that even with this internet thing. Sure, lots of my real-life friends[*] know about this page, but very few actually read it, or are even interested in reading it. They're just not internet people. Not in general. Exceptions, of course, abound.
It's weird, because as I look at other people's web pages, blogs, etc, it seems like that's not always how it is. Some people have more overlap between real-life hanging out and internet hanging out. Sometimes I wish that were the case for me. Though oftentimes, I don't.
But this separation certainly has the effect of making me more insular and introspective, at least here on the web page. I don't have a crazy dialogue running between my page and other web pages, not often. I save my dialogues for personal emails and conversations.
I'm not sure whether this strange distance makes my real-life persona pretty different from my internet persona. I get indications that it does -- that in real life, I seem far more outgoing (except on my cranky moody days) than I present myself on this page (which is, apparently, usually the opposite with most people). But I usually feel about the same.
Anyways.
[*] By this, I mean people I primarily know through face to face contact, and didn't initially meet over the net or some bulletin board or some blog or something.
just after i was complaining
about not doing enough interesting things, I get this sort-of-offer to help teach a class on law journals (the one I drafted the syllabus for) at Georgetown. Wow, yeah, cool. I'm totally psyched. Now I just have to figure out how to run this past my bosses here at Justice.
hey, great!
From AP News: First Hmong Elected in Minnesota.
no
No, I did not see last night's State of the Union address. I have no television, remember? I'll read the text and commentary today.
Tuesday, January 29, 2002
from a discussion at lunch
Somehow, this came up at lunch, the question of why tea kettles make this loud noise before the water actually seems to start boiling. Because I'm the resident physical chemist (there are other resident scientists here, really, but more biologists and geologists and forest scientist-types), I got "assigned" the task of figuring out the answer. Anyway, I've decided I might as well put the results of my "research" on my web page. So here goes, cutting and pasting from my email:
-------------
Two web pages that discuss our tea-kettle phenomenon (including MP3 files, for if you want to listen to them):
http://www.rain.org/~mkummel/stumpers/28sep01.html
http://www.rain.org/~mkummel/stumpers/28sep01a.html
(Apparently, there are "recent NASA studies" on this topic, even.)
The relevant parts indicate that probably what's going on is what Mark described and I agreed with -- that in the beginning, the water that's in contact with the hot surface of the pot boils, but doesn't stay in gaseous form for long, because it then comes into contact with colder water that's further from the surface of the pot, and so condenses back into water itself. This condensation (of the bubble back into water) is called cavitation, and it's what makes that rumbly shakey sound we hear.
See here (from the second web page):
~~~~
The sound of boiling water is made by the bubbles. Water quietly turns to vapor all the time as it evaporates. Over a flame, the hot water at the bottom forms vapor bubbles that rise into cooler water and collapse, making a sound by cavitation. In time the bubbles make it to the surface without all that noisy popping, and that's why boiling has a softer sound.
~~~~
I also found some other web pages talking about how this phenomenon is complicated by the fact that even before the water starts boiling, you get other bubbles because the heat makes a lot of the gases that are usually dissolved in your tap water (like small amounts of carbon dioxide) come out of solution.
Oh, and for more on cavitation, see here:
http://www.chemistry.nmsu.edu/Instrumentation/Ultrasonic.html
-------------
a link to remember
http://www.cafezeitgeist.com/msgboard.mv. I'll get back to this at some point. Everyone on there seems to mention books I like. I must mine this page for recommendations, only I already have a ton of books sitting in my room to read. I am newly done with The Impossibly and almost done with Salt, but Andrea has waylaid me with A Beautiful Mind and some other book I forget the name of but mentioned I'd wanted to read, as well as a book of lesbian short stories which would be great if that were some kind of hint but I'm sure it's not.
belated thingies
Hey -- I helped start a class! The syllabus I drafted, er, in the middle of the Issues in Disarmament seminar I was taking at the time. I was pretty happy with the syllabus, and even happier that last year's and this year's journal people have pushed it through into a class.
Friday, January 25, 2002
slow and steady
At this point, I should mention that I am slow. Or that I feel slow. Or that I like feeling slow. Sometimes. Or something like that.
I like slow things, see. I like walking. And lo-fi. And condensing soup stock.
I like steady things, too. I myself am not so steady, not innately. It takes me great concentration to be steady. It takes me great work. But it is good. Because it allows me to do more in my slowness. More at once, I mean. It makes me productive.
I say this as a prelude to revealing that I've started regularly lifting weights again. And I am enjoying all of its slow and steadiness. I like the rhythms, the plodding boring rhythms, of weights going up and down, back and forth. I like the heaviness. It is pleasing, this feeling that I am moving, not quicker, but more.
quote
"I was told once in a big bed in the countryside by the woman I loved that what made it always so difficult, all of it, was being an interior in a world of exteriors. The skin embraces while the bones, stripped of their flesh and fat, long to click and knock against each other. It is only when the skin is gone and the flesh, a function of decay, releases its water that they finally heap the bones together, she supposed, but this is too late."
-from The Impossibly, by Laird Hunt
The quote reminds me. The quote reminds me of hearing in a big bed in the city that I loved a person of whom I am very fond say, "Mmm, skin..." The exteriors get all the fun.
i don't
I don't hate being a lawyer. I don't even hate how much time it takes being a lawyer. What I hate is how little time I have to not be a lawyer.
Tuesday, January 22, 2002
something to look forward to
Storytelling, directed by Ted Solondz, with music by Belle & Sebastian. Can you believe?
At NYC and LA this Friday, in DC around Feb. 8, probably.
an interesting editorial
at least to those of us who deal with issues of statutory interpretation: a congressman writes about the intent of Congress.
Friday, January 18, 2002
ooh ooh ooh!
An article about J-Pop from Casey. And yes, it explains the genre of J-Pop that I like, and how it's different from the Pizzicato Five- type J-pop that everyone in the US thinks is J-Pop but is really the style of J-Pop I'm not so psyched about.
Thursday, January 17, 2002
brushes with real people
Ed just called to gloat about meeting Frank Wu last night. He got an autographed book from him, too. Now Ed's all fired up about APABA.
I responded that I once got to meet Bill Lann Lee, so there. Yeah, competitive but self-mocking gloatery -- that's just the kind of friendship Ed and I have.
Wednesday, January 16, 2002
boy
do I love Dahlia Lithwick. Ed Kneedler is even mentioned here. Someone should forward him the link. Maybe someone in my office.
Not much to say today, sorry. Busy busy busy.
scarily
This is how I feel, some of the time, about religion.
best reference to another band i've heard lately
In Beulah's Popular Mechanics for Lovers: "I heard he wrote you a love song/ But so what/ Some guy wrote 69."
Tuesday, January 15, 2002
argh
Everyone's new year's resolution is to exercise more. This means that the gym is far more crowded in the morning than it used to be, which makes me cranky. I keep telling myself that if I just wake up earlier (i.e. around 6 am), I could avoid them all, ALL OF THEM, but I am just not a morning person. It is difficult enough waking up at 7:30.
I wish I didn't need to sleep.
exciting
Lockheed Creates Mail Biohazard Detection System. This is so exciting. I might be getting mail again.
Monday, January 14, 2002
hee
Federal appellate judging is a gas, by Richard Posner. (On a scary, all-too-synchronous note, just when I opened up this article, my friend Ed calls and says, "I just wanted to let you know that federal appellate judging is a gas.")
in re september 11 compensation
Anthony Sebok's article on Findlaw about the need for fairness for domestic partners in the September 11 victim compensation rule.
Sunday, January 13, 2002
links, links, links!
A review of Posner's new book, Public Intellectuals.
organizing
So. All my possessions, all the things I'd packed away and stuck in my parents' garage for the last year and a half, they're all now here. I am lamenting how much stuff I have, and how much trouble it'll take to organize it all. My consolation is that I am not alone.
hee
There's a gene that shows who's got milk and who hasn't. Never was crazy about milk anyways.
the power of the internet
My friend Steve, who's now a chemistry professor at University of Houston, says you can actually get pretty cheap lab goodies off Ebay. In setting up his new laser lab, he's been doing a bit of shopping over there.
T--are you listening?
a pretty amusing thing about dc
Is that DC, or its arts council at least, seems to have a sense of humor. You know how various cities have been doing public art with pigs, or cows, or whatever? Well, we're getting party animals.
The woman who designed the generic forms is in my glass class, by the way.
the best thing about vegetarian housemates
Is that you can protect your food from them by putting just a little bit of meat in. Anchovies in the spaghetti sauce, for instance, or bacon in your pasta salad. It's even easier with vegan housemates.
Just kidding, Ilana, Amy, and Katie. Really, the best thing about 'em is that I end up eating less meat.
Friday, January 11, 2002
excerpt
From "Community Life," a short story in Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore (a collection that, while quite enjoyable, is just a little too exquisite, a little too precious, for me to be fully psyched about):
---
She had been to these fund-raisers before. At first she had liked them, glimpsing corners of the city she would never have seen otherwise, Nick leading her out into them, Nick knowing everyone, so that it seemed her life filled with possibility, with homefulness. But finally, she felt, such events were too full of dreary, glad-handing people speaking incessantly of their camping trips out west. They never really spoke to you. They spoke toward you. They spoke at you. They spoke near you, on you. They believed themselves crucial to the welfare of the community. But they seldom went to libraries. They didn't read books.
---
I don't know. I want both. Books and community, community and books. I'd like to hang out with people who care about both as well, and who engage in activities that exhibit this care (rather than merely professing the care). It is difficult. The difficulty makes me sad. Well, a little.
new york dentists can settle the fate of migrants
Egad. Geez, my wisdom teeth were fully in by the age of fifteen.
Thursday, January 10, 2002
meme propagation
So rarely do I pass on memes, but hey, I'll link to the blogger code.
b9 d t k s+ u- f i o++ x e l- c-
Wednesday, January 09, 2002
oh, and
Wow, turns out that there are pictures from New Years Eve. No, I will not put them up here. I've had worse pictures taken of me, but still, wow, hurmm, yeah.
wow
Irradiated mail certainly looks weird. Like it's all tanned and stuff.
Saturday, January 05, 2002
my new best thing
This glass bowl-making class I'm taking is the best best thing I've done here so far. *Man* it's great. I am going to take every one of these glass blowing/sculpting/fusing/casting classes now, it's that great. It balances out work just *perfectly* -- it's almost entirely aesthetic, I work with colorful, physical things, and every now and then I cut myself. Oh, I am loving this.
Friday, January 04, 2002
hey!
I'm looking at this site about upcoming movies, and someone's making a movie based on my favorite zombie game!
a short thought
My favorite Justice is probably Breyer.
good quote
"The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right."---Learned Hand
stuff
Movers came yesterday. God, where did I get all this *stuff*? Oh, I remember. Bookstores and music stores. Sigh. My living room is currently a good argument for the e-book.
Thursday, January 03, 2002
funny
Pick your old age persona! You know, of course, that I'll be a curmudgeon.
movers
Trapped at home! Waiting for movers! Bored!
Wednesday, January 02, 2002
oh wait
Just one more resolution, really. To see more indie bands. Because it gets me out, and because it's fun.
salt and king lear
I'd been trying to remember the details about this for ages, but finally ended up looking it up on the internet. Anyway, it was about how King Lear was based on these fairytales about a daughter who said to her father, "I love you like salt." Here's a page that has a bunch of the variants of this story. I've always liked these stories because of how they seem to urge us to be more aware of the pervasive things in life, the background things we often take for granted.
Oh, and before you say anything, yes, I already know about (and am reading) Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky.
another resolution
Because the lowered-caffeine intake resolution is pretty lame, even for me. So here's another lame one to add for the mix: I resolve to get up, I mean really get up, within three alarms of my alarm clock. No more will I go for six or seven rounds of "just five more minutes," no sirree! I am a wakin' babe!
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