Con-flicted

It burrs my historical loyalties to think it, but PAX sure does look like more fun than Gen Con.

There's definitely more money floating around PAX, but from here it also seems as though it has a sense of mystery and unexpectedness and, dare I say, fun, that GC lacks.

Maybe I'll go some day and compare.

Notes on Traveling

I like waiting in airports. The furniture and topography are designed for waiting. In the hours before a plane leaves, or during a layover, there are no expectations. No one asks anything of me, nothing is due. I read, I wander, I spy on other passenger. Calm. Undemanding.

At the smoothie place, at the bottom of the menu, it says, "Ask about our non-dairy options." I ask.
The woman responds, in a flat Carribean accent, "There is no non-dairy."

Both ways, I sat directly in front of the lavatory, window seat, the whole row occupied. This is the spoils of buying the cheapest possible ticket. In the past, I have disdained paying more for short-term comfort, but I foresee that changing. As I age, I won't pay more for comfort. I'll pay more to avoid discomfort.

Quote Marks

"Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it."
--Salvador Dali

Drop Your Religion

There are only a few messages of wisdom in the world. I'm not careful enough to have categorized or listed them. Maybe I could try.

One of them is, "Stop looking so hard, and you'll find what you seek."

The bulk of our effort is trying to find inventive ways to tell these few, basic things to each other. Sometimes it's like we're in an arms race; people try to stem their openness to truth, while other people create new ways to slip truth by, around, through. Once a teller is successful, the listeners learn to defend against that avenue for next time, even as they offer genuine thanks for this time.

So this is pretty good, and you'd probably be better off having read it. It starts:

There is only one righteous way for you to be saved if you’ve spent too much time in the Church. You must lay your religion down. Lay it down hard. Drop it. Leave it on the trail and walk away from it. And you have to mean it. You can’t fake this. You have to renounce religion and leave it for good. As far as you know, you’ll never pick it up again.

Thanks, rlp.

LiverBEST

Thanks to genetic diddling, senior citizen mice have livers that don't age.

Published in today's online edition of Nature Medicine, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York City also say the older organs function as well as they did when the host animal was younger.

The researchers, led by Associate Professor Ana Maria Cuervo, blocked the ageing process in mice livers by stopping the build-up of harmful proteins inside the organ's cells.

I am getting skeptical about reports of genetic efficacy though. I've been hearing this "only 20 years from now" story for... 20 years. When do I get to stroll through lava? When can I shoot lasers from my eyes? Where's my superpowers, dammit?

"Our findings are particularly relevant for neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's," she said. "Many of these diseases are due to 'misbehaving' or damaged proteins that accumulate in neurons. By preventing this decline in protein clearance, we may be able to keep these people free of symptoms for a longer time."

Oh well. Thanks to the sacrifice of millions of mice, I vote for their replacing dogs as man's best friend. Rover will get my slippers, but Squeaker's great-great-great-great grandpa cured Parkinson's.

Bad dog! Bad!

Laugh It Up, Fuzzball

I was checking out the new Google rival Cuil today, and I entered my name, like you do.

It gave me some of the same stuff Google usually gives, but it also included a link to my bio at wookieepedia.

I didn't even know I had one of those! Haw Haw!

Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, dead at 89

Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn died yesterday.

My first exposure to this great writer was in college, when my speech professor, Mr. Collins (a man for whom teaching "speech" took second place to teaching "clear thinking"), sent us to the library to read a Solzhenitsyn essay.

We had to answer several questions about the reading. The questions required harder, fuller thought than I had ever given to anything, and I'm fairly confident that in my second year of college, I did a genuinely sophomoric job of answering.

A question that stuck with me -- more than the essay itself, even -- was, "How can you tell from reading this that Solzhenitsyn is a Christian?"

I had to infer from the question that Solzhenitsyn was a Christian. There was nothing overt in what he wrote. In my limited experience, there was not the usual whiff of "Christian" about the writing -- by which I mean, "vetted by the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board."

After that class, out of curiosity, I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and a few other essays he wrote, more of which bounced than stuck with me. What did stick from his writing was a dignity, clarity, and foremost truth -- the kind of truth that you do not (cannot) hear from people who have not had close, hard brushes with Truth itself.

I'm sorry you're no longer with us, Mr. Solzhenitsyn, but I'm glad you're home.