this is water, this is water, this is water...

cornflakes

(image via Pulling, Pulling via Falling and Laughing*)

*everyone should watch falling and laughing

found fourings flagon

Among the random selection of communal mugs in the ice cream factory’s break room, I found this artifact celebrating everyone’s favorite afternoon meal.  I have to wonder if it has been there all along or if it has actually been planted by some nefarious agents with viral intentions.

…let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts

This week’s thrift store used book scores include:

• The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments by George Johnson.  He is a New York Times science writer, but I think these are original essays for this book. I really enjoyed the Ramachandran article in the New Yorker and its focus on his use of mundane materials and thought experiments in his current work; this looks to be a fun history of this tradition of tabletop experiments.
• Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein. Collected popular writings.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experienc of mystery—even if mixed with fear—that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense and in this alone, I am deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature. -Albert Einstein

• A Brief History of Time by Stephen W. Hawking. I have not read this in a long time. We had a copy at one point but it has been lost to time and the disruptions of interstate moves.
• Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond.
• Tutankhamen by Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, published by New York Graphic Society, 1978. This will be an ninth birthday present for a Tut obsessed neighbor girl.

biological weapons developers and children first

In a nutshell, anyone who received a letter similar to this one was guaranteed a swift exit should a non-fatal nuclear attack occur, followed by relocation to another facility where the BW program could continue. As John Ptak notes, this was essentially a ‘Get Out Of Hell Free’ card.

(via Letters of Note: Do Not Lose This Letter)

the lazarus effect by frank herbert and bill ransom

I found this at the thrift store this week, but I am really looking for the previous book in the Pandora Sequence, The Jesus Incident. Eventually, I will probably break down and order it, but for now, that is against the rules.  As a fan of Dune and someone who loves the Iain M. Banks Culture novels and their sentient citizen Ship Minds, I find the following jacket copy describing The Jesus Incident irresistible:

In The Jesus Incident we met Ship, a mechanical intelligence so complete it believed it was God. Ship denied its man-made origin and set off on an intergalactic journey of centuries’ duration, taking along thousands of human beings.  After a test of their ability to WorShip* to its satisfaction, Ship abandoned many of its subjects on the hostile planet Pandora.

*sic