on the wire

portal and half life 2

Here at the enrichment center we believe that if at first you don't succeed, you fail.

Half life2: Portal:


Still alive:


Half life in 60 seconds:


Gordon Freeman at Coast to Coast:

a good day

• lunch in Latci in the middle of doing 230 km on the motorbike
• getting stung by a bee, in the chest (of all places to get stung in)
• a dead bike and waiting in the middle of nowhere for an hour and a half, for the towing car to arrive (I hope your bike gets better :))
• two glasses of wine and an interesting conversation (nice meeting you N, you have some cool music!)

It was a full day yesterday ... a good day!

continuity

This perception is repeated, virtually every time I spent the better part of a night awake: the world is a continuous experience.

I realize the affirmation doesn't make much sense (if it makes sense at all, that is), but I don't see much into it (and if I need an excuse for that, tell yourselves it's five o'clock in the morning - I'll tell myself that's just the way I am).


Usually, I effortlessly split the world into "day" and "night", my existence going between waking up, doing my daily things and going to bed. To my perception, I virtually don't exist at night, at all.

In all this sequence, I try to salvage some time in the evenings, by going to sleep later, and taking some time for myself, or in the mornings, by going later to office.

More or less, my life is, to me, an array of days, one coming after the other.

Every time I stay awake through a significant part of the night though, the continuity of it all strikes me: my perception shifts from the last week-yesterday-today-tomorrow kind of abstraction, to a continuous flow passing through "here" and "now" image, a view of day changing into night and back into day again, with no interruption.

Maybe I should spend more nights awake, just to break my "discreet view" of things. On the other hand, I already know I'll be sort-of paying for it tomorrow, most probably through concentration lapses, while working, or through drinking more coffee (neither of which I'm particularly fond of).

It doesn't matter though ... have a good night ... wherever you find yourselves.

Edit: It seems I'm not the only one describing this sensation:

I also didn’t decide to stop because of the general weirdness of polyphasic sleep. It took me many weeks to psychologically adapt to this pattern of sleeping, but I did eventually adapt. It gave me a whole new perspective on the passage of time. I saw time as passing continuously rather than being chunked into individual days. That was such an interesting experience. (from Polyphasic Sleep: The Return to Monophasic)

mouse of the future ... err ... apparently

(via Things From Life)

The thing's website is futuremouse.com. I'd definitely like one, but at the time they come to market I expect the would be very very expensive :(

plastic fair play

I will probably post fewer pictured for a while as my new camera produces RAW files that open very slowly (14Mb per file). This means that until I manage some hardware opgrades (that is, until I buy a new computer) I will limit my post-processing somewhat.

new office

Well ... we moved. The office is more or less at the same location (three hundred meters down the road) but we have mountains view, sea view, more space, more light, and all kinds of other good things.

As it is now, I feel a cool breeze in my back (large thermo-pane windows are open wide), and everything is right in the world ... or something (this will probably change somewhat when the AC unit on my side will need to be turned on but who cares?)

There are also cardboard boxes and packaging wraps all around, people are still unpacking stuff and part of the network hasn't been set up yet, but this comes with the territory.

In the meantime, I can see the mountains, right in front of me. I'll probably put some pictures up at one point or another, but right now my home laptop is kind-of broken and I need to get something new so ... in the meantime ... no pictures processing :(

singing bowl

the most common-sense filled statement on quantum mechanics

On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. So do not take the lecture too seriously, feeling that you really have to understand in terms of some model what I am going to describe, but just relax and enjoy it. I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possible avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Excerpt from Quantum Mechanics by Richard P. Feynman (The Messenger Lectures, 1964, MIT).

Quite rarely do I find something so filled with common-sense, regarding a subject so far apart from common-sense as quantum mechanics is.

Later edit: Who knew Feynman practiced zen?

smarter image resizing

Happy π Day!

Today is 3.14, a day when some weirdos are celebrating the number π. Happy π day, mathematically inclined people, wherever you are!

after rain

View from my bathroom window, after rain (HDR).

Sunset at Kurion

kite

how many passes a.k.a. watch for cyclists!

R sent me a cool link and it was cool enough to share.

So ... how many passes?

wherever you go, there you are!

I'm back in office again. Yay!. Luckily yesterday was a public holiday, because I needed Saturday and Sunday to recuperate.

I slept a lot through the weekend, and yesterday I got out of my burrow for two hours, and went to Kurion to take some pictures. I was aiming for the kites people are raising on Green Monday, but they were not that interesting to photograph.

In the end I took some pictures of the sunset (that look like all other sunsets methinks :-\) and generally caught my fingers in my new camera.

It was fun though, and I might get a pleasant surprise when I start post-processing.

Meh! I need a coffee.

merci

B, drinking water

This is among the first pictures taken with my new Pentax K20D, this evening (incandescent light, no flash).

D's jewels (2)

D's jewels (1)