dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/blog bs=”yeah, lots of it”
I took a look out the west window of our house this evening, and saw an uncommonly astronomical sight for a city where lights in the sky are usually taking off or landing. It was the crescent moon with Venus nearby. Beautiful. This iconic image which has inspired generations of painters and, later, photographers sucked me in for quite a while. It wasn’t quite “guy sees crescent moon and Venus, and converts to Islam” — I’m not a joiner — but the cosmos intruding so nicely on an otherwise normal day was almost a mystical experience.
Aside from the obvious religious significance, it reminded me of “the morning star is the evening star”, and many idle conversations in the philosophy of language with a philosophy major friend from college, and the many trivialities too trivial to be trivia I carry about in my head for some reason.
As an example, I was in Boise last week meeting with “the adversary” (the fellow who decided to outsource my favorite job; the trip was for me helping this thoroughly depressing process along…) and about three drinks in at the local distillery-pub (!), the conversation turned to food and drink. I got a surprised look when I described Everclear using the word “azeotrope” — it turns out he was a chemical engineering major, and never expected to hear that word post-college…
On a lark, I asked if anyone at the table was familiar with transfinite cardinals (or countable vs. uncountable inifinity), and struck out. The first question was “what’s the practical use?” Obviously from a non-math type. The closest that has to a practical use is understanding the premise of the novel White Light 
Frankly, I don’t even remember the full implications; I’ve forgotten more math than I thought I’d ever learn….
Bah, Point? See subject…
