Looks like I'm going to Eugene for Thanksgiving to visit my sister M, niece L, and families. It was a fluke, really. I was online to get a ticket to Austin, Texas, where I'm going next weekend to visit a supercomputer--and my friends who live there. But mostly, the supercomputer. It's for work.
Thought of the day: someday kids are going to look at simulations like these and say, "Uh-huh, yeah." You won't even have to tell them what they're about. They'll just get it. They'll be able to explain all sorts of things just by looking at the model. The rest of us poor saps will be staring and staring, brows furrowed, brains spinning, slippery, over content we cannot interrelate. Kindof like we do now with the Atlantic Monthly's infographic, until five minutes go by and we finally see that they've correllated country GNPs with market valuations of overpriced Internet stocks. OK, I'm dating myself, but you get the idea.
I'm practicing by listening to the radio, watching TV, and surfing the web at the same time, but I'm still falling behind. I can feel it.
Two flashbacks:
We're at the table at cafe in the mountains, looking at a newspaper that's two weeks out of date. I decide it's a magic newspaper; you can open it and read any headline you want. I start.
"Kerry has gained 11 points on Bush in the most recent poll and looks sure to win in November. There were no deaths in Irag today."
M takes the paper. "The war in Iraq is over, period. Our troops have come home and there is quiet in Bagdad."
S: "The median house price has fallen to $369,000 in the Bay Area."
P: "Fiberglass boats have been outlawed; wooden boat prices soar to an all-time high." (S and M are selling a beautiful 1940s wooden yacht. Anyone in the market?)
Second flashback: Some yahoo is firing an semiautomatic weapon in the woods late on Saturday night. Highest uninterurpted stream of bullets, by my count: 27. Wonder what he was shooting at. I spy with my little eye...
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