Note: This blog has been deprecated, because the system it's built upon (MovableType) was comment-spammed to the point of destabilization. This URL now exists for archival purposes. Trying to add a comment to an old entry will not work here; however, the entries do exist at my blog's current manifestation, here, and comments do work (and I'm still very happy to read them, if you're so kind to leave them).
Due to a destabilizing deluge of comment spam, this blog has been moved from Movable Type to WordPress.
http://fallenearth.org/blogs/loup-vert/ is now the site of future postings.
C'est tout.
Saturday, the temperature in Seoul and Hanam hit The Other 0 Degrees: Fahrenheit. I spent a good solid day working and reading in the apartment. Well-spent, I say. Yet today is the first day it snowed my whole trip. It's also the day I'm coming home. Flight's at 18:40 Korea time tonight (01:40 Tuesday morning Pacific), coming in at 11:30 Pacific time Tuesday. Odd how the flight from West to East is two hours shorter than the flight from East to West - sure, it's going against the rotation of the Earth, but doesn't that also mean it's going against the wind rotating with the Earth? Ah well. If anybody knows offhand of the Pacific "Gulf Stream" I'm forgetting about, do inform me.
In Repeated News: It snowed! I finally get to use those mammoth skier's gloves. I hope this doesn't affect the flight, though.
In Non News, here's a rough excerpt from my favorite story collection at the moment, Mathematical Apocrypha:
…Due to his need to speak in person with other mathematicians across the violent lake, and his skiddishness of the boats that would ferry him, he had a ritualistic prelude to every voyage. He would write a letter to his fellows, claiming he had solved the Riemann Hypothesis [ed: The most famous unsolved problem in mathematics, about 120 years old at this date; takes a decade of study to begin understanding what the problem is]. Of course, when he arrived at his conferences, he would be harried about Riemann, but always quick, nigh immediate, to move on to other subjects.
One day, a friend and colleague finally confronted him in private about his letters. He responded, "If there is a God, then I know that He can not grant me the infamy of having solved the Riemann Hypothesis and, before telling a soul, taken it to my watery grave."
Happy birthday, Damian! I'd post some thoroughly embarrassing picture, probably taken in your sleep. Uh, I mean, to be taken. I mean, would've been taken. ...Yes, would've...
You're 18 now, and I hope you understand what that means.
Go forth! Buy porn! Something you can tack to the bedroom window with pride!
Love,
Alex, writing while his hosting, Catholic family is attending church services on the outskirts of Seoul.
PS Unicorns.