The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Jim:

TNH writes: "They’re also saying that the Charles feeds from the Atlantic into the city ...".

While the net flow is into the harbor from the city (and points upriver), the lower reaches of the Charles are tidal. (Or were, before the dams were built.)

At the diurnal high tide -- assuming the dam near North Station still leaks a little (as I know it used to) -- there is flow from the Atlantic into the city.

And so, like a stopped clock, this statement from Reuters may, in fact, be right twice a day.

If anyone is going to make a viable flying car, my money would be on Carl Deitrich and his crew at Terrafugia.

I've been at MIT for over 2 decades (first as a student and then as a staff researcher / instructor), and I can think of one or two students I've seen of his caliber.

This doesn't mean that it will work, but knowing some of the people behind it, I think they have at least a fair chance of making the flying car a viable product.

Debcha (#44) mentions the oft-heard question:

'Have you read all these books?',

to which of friend of mine would respond:

'Of course not! What good is a library full of books you've already read?'

(This may not have been original to her, but it was the first I ever heard it.)

Four years ago today, our son was born. So I said to my wife, "Well, it will be easy to remember his birthday - it's Pearl Harbor Day!" And, being the good linguist she is, she replies, "No, it will be easy to remember because it's Chomsky's birthday."

Happy Birthday to Charlie, Madeline, and Noam!

I had some fun with Dave Leip's Electoral College Calculator.

I started with Prof. Pollkatz's state-by-state projection of 287-251 Kerry over Bush. Pollkatz gives percentages for each state that are averaged over several polls, and includes the correlation between polls in different states.

I then asked "What if all polls are off by 1% in Bush's favor?" and the elction goes to Kerry 291 to 247.

If all polls are off by 2% in Bush's favor? Kerry by 327 to 211!

Now, do I believe that the polls are biased pro-bush by about 2%? Yes - they were at least that bad last time!

Are they be off by more than 2%? I think so, given
* The enormous crowds Kerry has been pulling in, given
* The heavily Democratic edge in new-voter registrations
* The strong incentives for African-American and young voters to turn out (and both are disproportionatly Kerry supporters) and
* The general energy level of the Pro-Kerry and Anti-Bush camps.

I am optimistic - I think Kerry will have 300+ electoral votes, and that his victory will servive the frivolous legal challenges that are Rove's MO, and the attempts of 5/9ths of the Supremes to repeat their performance of 2000.

Yes, let us be of good cheer!

Andy Perrin notes "How many authors would think to themselves that (a) not all molecules are symmetric, so (b) if you flip them in 4d then drop them back into 3d, there might be some peculiar biological side effects?"

I can recall two earlier uses of the idea. The first is Roger Zelazny's "Doorways in the Sand", written in (I believe) the mid-70's. The second is a Spider Robinson story (title of which is eluding me now) set at Callahan's saloon. I'm fairly certain that Robinson's story came after the Zelazny novel.

I'm very fond of the Zelazny work, in part because the hero is a perpetual student (ah, bliss!), and in part because Zelazny chops up the narrative in an interesting way.

Each chapter (after the first few) begins with the protagonist in a cliffhanger. The rest of that chapter is his recollection of how he got out of the cliffhanger at the start of the *previous* chapter and how he then got into the predicament that opened the chapter you are reading. Now that you know how he got into this mess, you turn the page and *viola*, it is the next chapter and he hanging from a new cilff.

Hummm - http://www.isfdb.org gives the Zelazny a publication date of 1975. Does anyone know of an earlier use of this "reversed foods" notion?

Best, Jim

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