October 7, 2009
Lobachevsky alone has looked on Beauty bare.
She curves in here, she curves in here.
She curves out there.
Her parallel clefts come together to tease
In un-callipygianous-wise;
With fewer than one hundred eighty degrees
Her glorious triangle lies.
Her double-trumpet symmetry Riemann did not court-
His tastes to simpler-curvedness, the buxom Teuton sort!
An ellipse is fine for as far as it goes,
But modesty, away!
If I’m going to see Beauty without her clothes
Give me hyperbolas any old day.
The world is curves, I’ve heard it said,
And straightway in it nothing lies.
This then my wish, before I’m dead:
To look through Lobachevsky’s eyes.
– Roger Zelazny
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Posted by SBP
September 22, 2009
Asshole bombers.
I’m imagining the likely TSA response to this, and wincing.
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Posted by SBP
September 13, 2009
Norman Borlaug has died.
This man was a personal hero of mine. He did more for the human race than all the “community organizers” who ever lived, or ever will live.
If I belonged to a church that performed canonization, I’d start looking around to make sure I didn’t miss any miracles, ’cause if we have any real saints around nowadays, he was one.
Whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.
– Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, 1726
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Posted by SBP