For the ultimate in haute cuisine, try the Ramen Recipe Database. You won't regret it. There are even desserts.

It turns out that ordinary knots have quantum properties, say several new studies. The quantum number for knot complexity is 4/7.

Damned if I know what this means. Of course, neither do the physicists who discovered it.

Archeologists in India have discovered what may be the world's oldest civilization--several thousand years older than cities in Mesopotamia. Wood from the Indian find was carbon dated at 7500 B.C.E.

I once ran the text of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus through a text-to-speech synthesizer. The effect was eerily brilliant. If I had artistic talent and more computer skills, I would set it to some appropriate electronic music. I'd guess the whole thing would be about an hour long. It's a good project; maybe someone else will do it and I can listen to the finished product.

Would you like to see some hot XXX Naked Women?

D'you know those days where you wake up and you feel like you've never gone to bed?
D'you know those days where the sky disappears into gray, and the world looks like a TV with the contrast turned way down?
D'you know those days where you just can't seem to focus? Where your eyes keep slipping off things, into the distance?

What do you do on those days?

I say, go back to sleep. Try again tomorrow.

Four scholars at Oxford were making their way down the street, and happened to see a group of ladies of the evening. "What's this?" said the first. "A jam of tarts?" "Nay," said the second, "an essay of Trollope's." "Rather, a flourish of strumpets," advanced the third. "No, gentlemen," concluded the last. "Here we have an anthology of pros."

--
Has anyone come up with a collective noun for bloggers? Google only turned up one suggestion: the now defunct Hesitant Firmness proposes "a blog of bloggers", but that's far too drab. And "a community of bloggers" is too technical to be amusing.

A link of bloggers? Nah. *sigh*

More than you ever wanted to know about referring to ... er... that group of islands off the coast of France.

CIBAL, based in Sofia, Bulgaria, is the "International Information Centre on the Sources of Balkan and Mediterranean History". They maintain an archive of print and electronic media about the region, and work with UNESCO to promote the cultural and historical heritage of Balkan countries.

They are currently involved in the collection, preservation and distribution (via CD-ROM) of regional maps.

Via Metafilter, it's STAR TREK for Communists!

What do you do with an old Soviet radio antenna? This, says acoustic.space.lab.

And yet more avant garde sound projects from the Motherland: 386 DX covers your favorite hits through a midi sequencer and an old text-to-speech program. If you buy the CD, you get the program for free--and a copy of Windows 3.1 to run it under.

The Guardian, incidentally, recently ran a series on "difficult art forms", including this story on electronic music. What's the point of all that beeping and squawking? they ask. Or worse, the silence!
"Is there more to music than melody and sound?"

Underground

I have lost my way.

Somewhere in the mind caverns
I took a wrong turn,
ended up in some dark grotto
with no exits, no compass
no air.

This isn't a situation
one trains for--no step by step
instructions are available
(turn right, close your eyes, believe).

Beneath the earth
pressing down with complex insanity
there is no right way to turn.

The cave lizards, having no eyes
must see more clearly.

How long, I wonder,
until my own eyes begin to disappear?
I will become their kin--
cold, white, comfortable.

Literary Bash

Like eggs of hail
from the blue sky,
the buzz of greasy bluebottles
the twitter of eggheads.

Interior sounds
of matter fatigue.

Never stopping.

But even Orpheus
when things got tough
and he was leading Eurydice
out of the underworld
was quiet as a grave,
the only sound
his crunching step
on the bodies of snails
shedding indigo blood.

In our world-under-the-world
there will be no Eurydice,
just the gabble of tipsy
bickering words.

  -Miroslav Holub
  translated by Dana Habova

I never thought it would happen, but it has. I'VE GONE OFF COFFEE.
This morning I made a pot as usual, poured myself a cup... and then poured it down the sink. The smell of it made me nauseous. I brewed strong tea instead.

What the hell is going on?

It's been a while since I've written. Lots of things going on, you know. When life gets complicated it's hard to keep up an online journal; your focus is on the world, not the screen. And I don't have one of those jobs that requires me to stare at a computer all day, so it's an effort.

Things seem to be settling down a bit now. I've become interested in religion; I'm reading Huxley and Henri Bergson, and realizing how little I know about it all. Maybe this is what I should be doing, instead of philosophy. When I come back, that is. I'm getting more and more confident in my decision to leave graduate school, at least for a while. I need to find some things out, develop a perspective, figure out who I am. So I'm going to find some teachers. After all, if D.F. can do it with physics, I can do it with metaphysics. Somebody out there will take me as a student; maybe a number of somebodies. Starting with the Chicago Buddhist Temple.

And, incidentally, I just might be able to afford a class in Reiki this month. I'd like to be certified; I think I'd be pretty good at it if I knew what I was doing. And maybe it'd open up some job possibilities.

The holidays, I should say, were alternatively stressful and restful. Just the usual ordeal. But classes don't start until next Monday, so I have this whole week to *really* rest. And think. I need to think.