I broke my toe last night.  Tripped very hard on the stairs and went “ow.”

The treatment is basically “elevate it when you can, periodically put ice on it, and take painkillers.”

X-ray follows, for the curious:

You can see the top view looks just about normal, but the side view clearly shows where the bone was chipped.

A month or two ago Blizzard sent me the “Crap, you used to give us lots of money but haven’t in a while; please have a free week of WoW on us so that you’ll start having to pay for it again” email.  I chose not to at the time.  This past weekend I was frustrated and annoyed at having to cancel plans due to having a bad cold and being stuck at home.  Couldn’t even lay down comfortably due to breathing issues.

Hmmm, I thought; sure, Blizz, let me have free entertainment on … [more]

A recent discussion in a friend’s thread has me questioning whether the notion of “libertarianism” is even vaguely useful.  The basic notion is of course to get government out of the way of individual freedom, but “freedom” is always loosely defined by libertarians with the whole “your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose” thing.

I assert that the notion of harming another human being is too vague to be useful for defining a political philosophy.  A classic dilemma is abortion.  While many left-libertarians find laws against abortion offensive, the reality is … [more]

So if you do the math, in 60 ns, light should move about 18 meters. (That’s assuming 2 significant figures in “60″, which is generous; it might only be one. See below* if you don’t know what a “significant figure” is.) Given current technology, assessing distances on earth down to that accuracy is indeed possible — but that doesn’t mean they did it.

The question is then “but can we have two clocks sufficiently well-synchronized to be absolutely sure of the launch and arrival times?” Yes, if you know what you’re doing; you synchronize … [more]

Patrick McGoohan’s amazing TV series “The Prisoner” is full of strange symbolism.  How much of it was intentional versus accidental is probably known only to McGoohan, aside from the bits he’s let slip over the years.  But just like Crowley found qabalistic meaning in nursery rhymes, I give you Thelemic symbolism in “Fall Out”,  the final episode of the series.

It should be unnecessary to say this, but, spoiler alert!

The Supervisor — the agent who congratulates #6 and offers to take him to #1 — is #26, the number of Tetragrammaton.  #26 then joins … [more]

Unlike many of my friends, I oppose the death penalty not on principle, but on the practical matters of burden of proof, concerns about the judicial system’s impartiality, etc. I do not feel these concerns apply to the case of bin Laden. He deserved to die. Good riddance to horribly bad trash.  Unlike some of my friends, I feel this is worthy of satisfaction and a certain level of happiness.

Having said that, I really, really want my country back. You know, the one where … [more]