Category Archives: Friday Notes
After taking May and most of June off from blogging (in fact, from anything involving sitting at my computer), I tried to jump-start myself by putting out five posts at the end of June. The more eagle-eyed readers may have noticed I put out only three.
I intended a Monday post about movies I’ve seen lately followed by a TV Tuesday post about TV shows. But both days passed without posts because reasons — mostly ennui, to be honest.
But I am motivated to put out this early-in-the-month Friday Notes post because it’s the last post of my 14th year blogging here; tomorrow is the 15-year anniversary!
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11 Comments | tags: AI, artificial intelligence, Fermi Paradox, Kylo Ren, the past, weather | posted in Friday Notes
Apparently, I’ve been on my own form of spring break. It has been over a month since my last post here (or anywhere). And there was a three-week stretch between previous posts and the single gap-filling Friday Notes post on May 15th.
Getting from the last paragraph to this one took over an hour due to a number of self-induced distractions. For a variety of reasons, I’m just not feeling it lately. Some of it is blog blahs, but most of it is… I just don’t want to.
Yet there is much to write about…
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22 Comments | tags: Bentley, blogging, cricket, Peter Gabriel, spring, squirrels, Summer Solstice, weather | posted in Friday Notes
It has been a while — three weeks exactly — since the last post here. I haven’t been idle, though; quite the opposite. I reached three-score-and-ten last fall and have taken it as a mile-marker indicating it’s time to get some stuff done.
I hibernated through the winter, but now that spring has arrived, I’m out of my sleepy cave and roaming around organizing things, getting rid of other things, keeping appointments, and (gulp) spending money.
But this Friday Notes edition has a tiny significance that demands my attention.
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24 Comments | tags: email spam, encryption, Eric Clapton, omnivore, quantum computing, squirrels, weather | posted in Friday Notes, Movies, Music
I started the Friday Notes series in March of 2021. (I would have mentioned the five-year anniversary in last month’s edition had I noticed it.) Since then (61 posts), I have managed to whittle down long-standing, and in some cases ancient, piles of notes.
The piles aren’t all vanquished; likely they never will be. New notes spring up like mushrooms, so it seems there will always be fodder for future posts.
Or at least endless editions of Friday Notes.
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2 Comments | tags: gravity, Neal Asher, Project Hail Mary, weather | posted in Friday Notes
It has been a minute or two since the last Science Notes — this subset of Friday Notes where I share bits and pieces of science news that have caught my eye.
In fact, the last of these was back in October, and the reason I didn’t post sooner was that not many articles have caught my eye since. In part because I’ve found myself skipping more and more articles due to lack of interest.
I fear it’s also in part because science has become so broken these days, so lost in fantastical speculation that I’ve begun skipping articles in which the word “might” or “could” plays a prominent role.
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Leave a comment | tags: beer, conservative, education, liberal, Science Notes, sleep | posted in Friday Notes, Science
Pardon me for going momentarily meta, but these three-paragraph opens (hopefully with a pithy cliffhanger punchline for the third) are sometimes a real challenge. The intent is a recognizable style that acts like a watermark.
Some opens are more challenging than others, though. The right half-dozen or so sentences comprising three thoughts (with a hoped-for haiku-like third) can take forever to whip into shape.
Friday Notes are among the hardest because there isn’t much to say other than “here we go again…”
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12 Comments | tags: adaptations, AI, Bentley, Dogma (movie), opinions, seconds are long, Substack, weather | posted in Friday Notes
Today’s Friday Notes post is a small first — I’ve never published one on the sixth of the month (until today). A bit more significantly, this one is early in the month. I’ve discovered a strong bias towards publishing these posts in the latter half of the month: only 14 posts before the 16th of the month; 44 after (very close to exactly a 25/75 split).
As it turns out, I have plenty for a post (including some stuff left over from the previous post). And, of course, there’s always the weather and various other charts.
So, let’s get to it…
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11 Comments | tags: charts, email spam, Grace Hopper, Martin Short, Richard Feynman, snow, Steve Martin, weather | posted in Friday Notes
Winter announced itself a bit earlier than usual this year. In December it settled in with a fair bit of snow, though some warm spells melted a lot of it. We had our annual January Thaw but are in the deep freeze now.
Maybe it’s winter. Maybe it’s the insanity of the last decade catching up with me. I find myself decidedly in the blogging blahs (and fishing ain’t gonna help).
But let’s see if I can whip up another edition of Friday Notes.
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14 Comments | tags: winter, cold, snow, computer generated images, weather, atheists, Schrödinger's Glass, email spam, desktop | posted in Friday Notes
I meant to put out a rare early-in-the-month Friday Notes post this time but with one thing and another didn’t start on this until last week (on the very day I meant to post it). It’s true what they say about time passing faster when you’re older. In part because so much becomes known.
Novelty makes life richer — it’s one reason I love and pursue science and math. Endless new vistas to explore; always a new hill to climb.
And always new notes on the pile…
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15 Comments | tags: atoms, Bentley, Substack, time passing, Watching the Detectives, weather | posted in Friday Notes
This post begins with a bit of what I see as good news. We’re exactly one month away from Winter Solstice — December 21st at 15:03 UTC. That’s 9:03 AM USA Central Time, and I set posts to publish at 9:14 AM, so by the time you read this, it’s just under a month away.
Cue regular Solstice-Equinox reminder that the day-length changes very slowly at the Solstices and very rapidly at the Equinoxes [cue regular link: Solar Derivative].
Until then, here’s another edition of Friday Notes.
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5 Comments | tags: AI, Bentley, eagle, equinox, Python, snow, Solstice, squirrel, weather | posted in Computers, Friday Notes, Math
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