73. Aftermath + retirement

Previous - 72. Election night 2016

Aftermath

All the people who wanted change (the Bernie Sanders enthusiasts) and who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Clinton (who was just as bad as the Republicans) are now upset. And all the liberal/progressive organizations are swarming like fund-raising flies.  

Acts of God

The other day I was having lunch with a friend at BrainWash when a crazy person walked up and sat at one of the tables on the sidewalk (we were inside). After sitting there for a while, he got up, picked up his cafe table, and threw it into the near lane of the (busy) street. The table broke into pieces and he walked away down an alley, kicking things and making more noise. 

Several of us retrieved the shards of the table which the bus-boy took inside. They now have one fewer table outside. No one called the cops since that would just be a waste of everyone's time.

Thinking about this today, it occurred to me that this guy was a bit like a dust-devil -- a common phenomena in Arizona where the heat, independent of any other weather event, causes small, tornado like winds that can do minor damage to cars or lawn furniture or the like. It's just something that happens and you can't do anything about it but clean up after.

Cantonese

This morning I was sitting waiting to get my blood drawn for tests and listening to the Cantonese being spoken around me. As I understand it, syllables have a different meaning depending on the pitch. This makes me think that Cantonese could be a great analogue for QED with the syllable being an electron and the pitch representing its energy state. I still have no idea how you would represent QCD with sound, though I'm sure it would sound interesting as quarks (for instance) have so many different qualities.

But what I was noticing this morning is that it must not be the absolute pitch but rather the relative pitch that determines the meaning. There was a woman with a particularly high (and annoying) voice and other people speaking in lower ranges. 

Spacetime is relative, but, I think, in either QED or QCD energy states are absolute. But recalling what Oliver Sacks wrote about people with absolute pitch, it shouldn't be too hard for those people to create a code where words (or phrases) had a different meaning at different pitches. Now that would be a tough code to break, and you could use it over any phone line or even on radio or TV.

My Medium retirement plan

The delight of a steady supply of content. That sentence should be a sub-head but I don't usually do that so, there it is. 

Today, once again, I spent the bulk of my afternoon in the Peet's on Market trying to catch up on my Medium backlog. So, nothing new, except that it occurred to me how great it was to read through so many pieces on so many subjects. I'm still months behind, and therefore out of sync, but couldn't help responding to some of the military articles. With the physics and astrophysics articles I could restrain myself, but I really wanted to chime in from time to time. There was just so much great content to consider. 

At some point I'm going to have to stop doing my greening work. I'm feeling better than I did last year, and keeping in shape all year round will undoubtedly prolong my "career," but I'm already starting to deal with turning 65 next year and I have reason to believe that I won't be getting any younger. 

It's very French (and very optimistic) to use le petite mort to mean orgasm and not sleep. For me the months between October and April are le petite retirement. I'm still doing my HOA work; I'm still keeping in shape for next summer; but I have to acknowledge that at some point in the future this is going to be my life. 

Today I read about QCD, controversies concerning both dark energy and dark matter, plus several other topics, and I had lunch at Bun Mee where I savored my favorite crispy tofu Vietnamese sandwich. I can do this.

Next - 74. Going to the dark side